1 Samuel 4:4

The mercy-seat, with the ark upon which it rests, is the throne of Him who has taken His place in the midst of His people. He is the God who dwells between the cherubim, and appears in the cloud upon the mercy-seat.

The elders knew well how morally corrupt these young men were. Yet they were blind to one thing: the living God could never approve of these men publicly identifying with the ark. We are reminded here that it was "the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim." That very expression insists on the absolute holiness of God.

The Israelites put their confidence in the ark. They had misunderstood, or wrongly applied, what Moses said when Israel set out on their wilderness journeys: "And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, 'Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.' And when it rested, he said, 'Return, O LORD, to the ten thousand thousands of Israel'" (Num. 10:35-36). Man's sinful heart easily appeals to Scripture examples to justify practices God never authorised. It lifts those Scriptures out of their setting and so misapplies them. Once Israel had settled in the land, no authority whatever allowed them to move the ark from its resting-place. God had in fact forbidden it (see Deut. 12:5, 11). God's presence, pictured by the ark, was not to come to them. They were to go to it!

It never crosses their mind to come before God and learn from Him why He had abandoned His people. They pull God to themselves, so to speak. You can see the same thing today. Two Christianized nations fight against one another and each side says: God must be with us.

What a fearful condition of things! The ark of God, in the company of ungodly men! Their wickedness was about to bring down on the whole nation the just judgement of a holy and righteous God. Nothing is more dreadful, nothing more offensive to God, than the daring attempt to tie His name and His truth to wickedness. Moral evil is bad enough in any circumstances. But to mix moral evil with the name and service of Him who is holy and true is the very highest and darkest form of wickedness. It can only bring down the heavy judgement of God… That one sentence, "Hophni and Phinehas were there with the ark of the covenant of God," sums up in a few words the terrible picture of Israel's moral condition.

They brought the ark of the covenant into the camp. They looked not to God, but to a symbol, to save them. They looked to outward orthodoxy and ignored moral condition.

They received it with wild shouts of triumph… The same superstitious fear, the opposite of faith, worked in both camps. It produced panic in the Philistines and short-lived confidence in the Israelites. In both it was total ignorance and unbelief.

The God who sits between the cherubim lets Israel lead Him, but He comes as Judge rather than Deliverer. He judges everything: first the priests, then the people, and last their enemies, after His glory has left Israel.