Slices
Prepare
Have you had any recent conversations or read anything where there is the assumption that all religions are the same? How do you feel about that?
Bible passage
The ark in Ashdod and Ekron
5 After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. 3 When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4 But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained. 5 That is why to this day neither the priests of Dagon nor any others who enter Dagon’s temple at Ashdod step on the threshold.
6 The Lord’s hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation on them and afflicted them with tumours. 7 When the people of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, ‘The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy on us and on Dagon our god.’ 8 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, ‘What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?’
They answered, ‘Let the ark of the god of Israel be moved to Gath.’ So they moved the ark of the God of Israel.
9 But after they had moved it, the Lord’s hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumours. 10 So they sent the ark of God to Ekron.
As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, ‘They have brought the ark of the god of Israel round to us to kill us and our people.’ 11 So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, ‘Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people.’ For death had filled the city with panic; God’s hand was very heavy on it. 12 Those who did not die were afflicted with tumours, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.
Explore
The armies of Israel might treat the Ark of the Covenant as a good luck charm, but the Philistines treat it with great respect, setting it in the temple of Dagon, the chief Philistine deity, half-man, half-fish. They had heard about Israel’s God (4:8; 6:6). This story is visibly dramatic, even amusing for an onlooker (vs 3,4). The second time the stump of Dagon falls to the ground before the Ark, its hands and head snapped off to land in the doorway. Whose God is now the more powerful? How humiliating for the Philistines.
Significantly, the writer three times refers to God’s hand (vs 6,9,11) in speaking of punishment inflicted on the three cities, in what may have been a bubonic-type plague. The Philistine triumphalism over the capture of the Ark of the covenant has disappeared. They can’t get rid of it quick enough.
In our multi-faith world, where we seek to be tolerant, it is all too easy to loosen our belief in the unique claims of Christ for all humankind. This story is like a bucket of cold water that shocks us to reaffirm graciously but insistently our confidence in the one true God.
Respond
Pray for those engaged in sympathetic dialogue with those of other faiths or none, that the truth of Christ will be held firm and strong.
Deeper Bible study
Father, help me to see underneath the humour of this chapter to what is going on.
It was, of course, the height of insolence and insult to bring the Ark into Dagon’s house, but the Philistines were superstitious too. What actually happened, why Dagon fell, we don’t know, but maybe God was using their superstition against them. After all, he will not allow his name to be dragged in the mud; the Philistines needed to know that the God of Israel had not, in fact, lost control. We might find the story humorous, but what other nations thought about God really mattered. Israel’s responsibility under the covenant was to show the world what God was like. Since they had rather missed the mark by thinking that they could manipulate him by moving the Ark, something needed to change.
Then we have this story about the tumours and the fear generated by them, especially when it seemed that wherever the Ark was sent the disease went too. Not much is said about what these tumours were, but the mention of rats gives a clue.1 In his book, Jungle Doctor on the Hop, Paul White turns to 1 Samuel 5 and 6 when he faces exactly this problem of rats and tumours in the plains of Tanganyika (as it was then) and recognises bubonic plague – in time to save five thousand lives.2 It’s not surprising that there was so much panic in the Philistine cities. The coronavirus pandemic, another frightening and unknown disease, has caused much fear, worldwide.
Fear is a normal emotion. Whether it comes from weird experiences or dangers from outside, most of us know how it can easily turn to panic. What do we do at such times? Perhaps it may be helpful to remember that God has not lost control, even when we don’t understand.
Is there something that is causing fear in your life, or in that of someone you know? Pray about it, trusting God’s faithfulness.
1 1 Sam 6:4,5 2 Paul White, Jungle Doctor on the Hop, Paternoster Press, 1957
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Song Of Songs 5,6; 1 Timothy 5
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