About 1 Samuel 6
1 Samuel 6
After God inflicted the Philistines with some sort of swelling and assaulted their god, the Philistines decided to send the Ark back to Israel along with a guilt offering to Yahweh.
“The Ark of the Lord remained in Philistine territory seven months in all. Then the Philistines called in their priests and diviners and asked them, “What should we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how to return it to its own country.””
The Philistines were going through much difficulty due to the Ark of the Lord. As we explored in 1 Samuel 5, each city the Ark was taken to suffered illness and deaths. In this chapter, we find the Philistines trying to figure out how to return the Ark of the Lord to the Israelites.
Their priest give them instructions on how to return the Ark: “Send the Ark of the God of Israel back with a gift,” they were told. “Send a guilt offering so the plague will stop. Then, if you are healed, you will know it was his hand that caused the plague.” (1 Samuel 6:3)
“What sort of guilt offering should we send?” they asked.
And they were told, “Since the plague has struck both you and your five rulers, make five gold tumors and five gold rats, just like those that have ravaged your land. Make these things to show honor to the God of Israel. Perhaps then he will stop afflicting you, your gods, and your land. Don’t be stubborn and rebellious as Pharaoh and the Egyptians were. By the time God was finished with them, they were eager to let Israel go.
“Now build a new cart, and find two cows that have just given birth to calves. Make sure the cows have never been yoked to a cart. Hitch the cows to the cart, but shut their calves away from them in a pen. Put the Ark of the Lord on the cart, and beside it place a chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors you are sending as a guilt offering. Then let the cows go wherever they want. If they cross the border of our land and go to Beth-shemesh, we will know it was the Lord who brought this great disaster upon us. If they don’t, we will know it was not his hand that caused the plague. It came simply by chance.”
So these instructions were carried out. Two cows were hitched to the cart, and their newborn calves were shut up in a pen. Then the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors were placed on the cart. And sure enough, without veering off in other directions, the cows went straight along the road toward Beth-shemesh, mowing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they saw the Ark, they were overjoyed! The cart came into the field of a man named Joshua and stopped beside a large rock. So the people broke up the wood of the cart for a fire and killed the cows and sacrificed them to the Lord as a burnt offering. Several men of the tribe of Levi lifted the Ark of the Lord and the chest containing the gold rats and gold tumors from the cart and placed them on the large rock. Many sacrifices and burnt offerings were offered to the Lord that day by the people of Beth-shemesh. The five Philistine rulers watched all this and then returned to Ekron that same day.
The five gold tumors sent by the Philistines as a guilt offering to the Lord were gifts from the rulers of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The five gold rats represented the five Philistine towns and their surrounding villages, which were controlled by the five rulers. The large rock at Beth-shemesh, where they set the Ark of the Lord, still stands in the field of Joshua as a witness to what happened there.
But the Lord killed seventy men from Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark of the Lord. And the people mourned greatly because of what the Lord had done. “Who is able to stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God?” they cried out. “Where can we send the Ark from here?”
So they sent messengers to the people at Kiriath-jearim and told them, “The Philistines have returned the Ark of the Lord. Come here and get it!”
- 1 Samuel 6: 4-21, NLT
There was a lot in this chapter, let’s break it down:
Where are we geographically? The cows enter the Israelite territory of Beth-Shemesh which is a city of Levites. Now if you recall from chapter 1, the Levites are the appointed people of God. They are the only ones allowed to make sacrifices to the Lord. However, though the Levites are the ones tasked with taking care of the Ark, the actions of these Levites in Beth-Shemesh show that they did not know how to care for it.
The Burnt offering. Here’s what went wrong: “If the animal you present as a burnt offering is from the herd, it must be a male with no defects.” (Leviticus 1:3). In case you don’t know this, cows are females. So even though the Levites got the concept of the burnt offering correct, the fact that they sacrificed the wrong gender animal goes to show how little they know about their responsibility as the Lord’s chosen priests.
They looked into the Ark. This is a major no-no. You don’t look into the Ark of the Lord, the Ark must be shielded from view at all times, Numbers 4:5 gives us a glimpse at this instruction: When the camp moves, Aaron and his sons must enter the Tabernacle first to take down the inner curtain and cover the Ark of the Covenant with it. This act of disobedience tied together with their lack of knowledge of their roles, caused the death of 70 men, leading to the people wanting to get rid of the Ark.
Did you notice a trend in these three areas?
These Levites who are a part of the tribe of Israel that God specifically chose to be the ones to serve Him, lacked the knowledge of how to do their job and because of that 70 men died.
Let that sink in.
Their lack of knowledge led to the death of 70 men.
How is our lack of knowledge over our assigned job affecting the people around us?
What I’m asking is: do you know what your purpose is? Do you know what it is you’re supposed to be doing in this world? What is your assigned job? Are you seeking to understand what you’re meant to know?
Here are two definitions of knowledge:
facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education;
the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
You see, these Levites never had any experience serving the Ark of the Lord. They were Levites, but they lacked information, they lacked the facts and the skills that they needed in order to properly care for the Ark. They acted like they knew, they were confident in themselves, but they knew nothing.
I think this is something we’re all guilty off, I know that I am. We want to act like we know what we’re doing, when in fact we have no clue where to even begin. The key is acknowledging that. These Levites could’ve acknowledge that they really didn’t know how to truly proceed with this matter. They could’ve taken their time to do proper research to ensure that they were doing this right. But in their overexcitement and in their overconfidence they dove in - and they suffered the consequences.
We too suffer the consequences of acting rashly. It might not always lead to physical death of someone, but it can have consequences that replay in our minds and that in one way or another, affects the people around us.
If we don’t know what we’re doing, how can we do a proper job?
It all comes back to what you’re called to do.
You have a special gift inside of you because you were created on purpose for a purpose. What is that purpose? There’s only one way for you to find that out and that is by asking the One who created you: God.
But you can’t just take that purpose and run with it. You have to learn the facts, intake information, harness the skills in order to have a practical understanding of your purpose so that you can put it into action and be effective, leading people to life and not death.
If you’ve ever worked a job, you know that there’s one thing that goes down: Training - you gotta be shown how to do the job that you are assigned to do. Even if it’s a job that you’ve done before, this company still takes you to training because you gotta know how to do the job according to their rules and regulations. In the same way, when we ask God what our purpose is, we have to go through a training period of learning the why, the when and the how.
The why you’ve have been called to do this job. What skill sets did God gift you that qualify you for this role even if you feel that you don’t. This is a time of confidence building; it’s also a time of hiding. As you harness the skills and grow in confidence in what you’ve been called to do, God keeps you hidden. This leads us to point number 2.
The when. Just because you know what you’re meant to do, doesn’t mean you’re going to get started tomorrow. It takes time. Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us: for everything their is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. You might have to go through multiple seasons of waiting, but in each season you’re growing and healing because God wants to mold you, why? because the more like Him that you are, the more effective you will be. This molding time can look like anything: it can be a season of learning to forgive others. A season of finding out what triggers you and learning how to set boundaries. Or a season that’s meant to teach you how to trust God or how to be patient in the waiting. Waiting is hard, and it’s even harder when you see opportunities pass you by; it really sucks when you think it’s time and you apply yourself only to be rejected. Even in those times, there’s a reason. Will you continue to trust God even when the thing you expected doesn’t work out how you thought it would? The when training period is all about the wait, because ultimately, it is in the waiting that you learn about the how.
The how. As you grow and as you heal and mature in your walk, you will be able to see the how of your effectives: how effective are you going to be? how do you see this? each training period, each season, will bear fruit in the area that you’re called to. You see, you don’t have to be walking in the full effect of your purpose to have impact. As you aligned yourself with God and as you walk in His will, He will place people in your life that will show you how effective your call is. Every position you hold is meant to impact someone. As a small group leader, I had the opportunity to impact many lives, through which many friendships were built - some of the ladies that were part of my small group still hangout and keep in touch and that makes me very happy because it was the vision I had for my small group, that genuine friendships would come out of it. That’s just one of the many things I’ve been able to witness in my life as I walk in my training period. I’m not where I’m meant to be; I’m not at the place where my purpose will be the most effective, but on my way there God is pruning the skills that I will need when I get there, and as that happens He’s showing me just how effective it will all be when it all comes together.
Trust, patience and humility are required as you train.
“You need to “trust the Lord your God with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of you ways, acknowledge Him, and He will show you which path to take.””
Have patience, resting in the knowledge that God knows what He has for you. That these plans are for your good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. All He asks is for you to seek Him wholeheartedly, because when you seek Him, you will find Him (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
Overall, have humility, because things will not always workout how you want them to and your expectations will be unmet at times. At this point you have two choices, succumb to your disappointment and grow resentment, or acknowledge the pain and disappointment, give them to God, ask Him what the heck just happened, listen to His response and then keep on walking. Because at the end of the day, what God has for you is for you and no one can take it away from you unless you give it away, and listen here: as long as you’re walking with the Lord, there’s no way in any part of this earth or in heaven that you would give it away. So don’t hold any grudge against anyone because they are walking in the same skill set as you, for they have something unique that benefits that position they’re in, and you too have something distinctive that will benefit the position you will be in. 1 Corinthians 12 has many advices on this matter:
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.
A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
1 Corinthians 12: 5-11, NLT
Further down, Paul goes on to write:
the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?
But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”
In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.
All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12: 14-27, NLT
This is what I am closing with.
Thank you for reading!
Let me know in the comments below how you feel about your purpose and where you are in your training period.
