Theological Commentary: Click Here
This chapter
is the capstone chapter for the Hebrew people’s folly that we saw a few
chapters back. Remember when the ark was
stolen by the Philistines? It was
brought forth because it was believed that God would need to protect His ark
and would therefore make the Hebrew people victorious. Today we see that God can protect the ark in
more than one way.
Yesterday we
saw the way that the ark plagued the Philistines. Today we see the plan to return it. They decide to stick it in a cart and send
the cows on their way. Note the absence
on human involvement once they point the cows in the right direction. There is a bit of a discussion about how the
lack of human involvement will be used to assure that the plagues are from God
and not coincidence. However, I
personally believe that after all that the ark has done, nobody really wants to
climb into the wagon and be closer to the ark than is absolutely
necessary. God can protect His ark so
well that His opponents don’t really want to even be in its vicinity.
Also notice
that the Philistines give a sacrifice of gold as they send the ark back. They don’t just send the ark away, they make
gold figures of mice and tumors and send the gold back along with the ark. These Philistines are more than happy to pay
for their atonement.
Here’s the ultimately
amazing point in all of this. The
Philistines didn’t have to hear some Hebrew person come and tell them about the
power of the ark. They saw. They knew.
They felt it. God was able to get
His message across just fine without needing any help from us.
God is just
fine on His own. He doesn’t need
us. The fact that He wants to include us
in His plan most of the time is really quite an honor. We are invited by God. He is powerful enough
to get His message across on His own as this passage portrays. He wants us to be a part of His life.
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