1 Samuel 6
Open in the reader1When the Chest of He-Who-Is had been in the land of the Philistines seven months,
2the Philistines summoned the priests and diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the Chest of He-Who-Is? Tell us how to send it back to its place.”
3They replied, “If you return the Chest of the God of Strives-with-God, do not send it away empty, but by all means return it to Him with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and you will understand why His hand has not been lifted from you.”
4“What guilt offering should we send back to Him?” asked the Philistines. “Five gold tumors and five gold rats,” they said, “according to the number of rulers of the Philistines, since the same plague has struck both you and your rulers.
5Make images of your tumors and of the rats that are ravaging the land. Give glory to the God of Strives-with-God, and perhaps He will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land.
6Why harden your hearts as the Two-Straitsians and Pharaoh hardened theirs? When He afflicted them, did they not send the people out so they could go on their way?
7Now, therefore, prepare one new cart with two milk cows that have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.
8Take the Chest of He-Who-Is, set it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to Him as a guilt offering. Then send the Chest on its way,
9but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward House-of-Sun, it is He-Who-Is who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
10So the men did as instructed. They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and penned up their calves.
11Then they put the Chest of He-Who-Is on the cart, along with the chest containing the gold rats and the images of the tumors.
12And the cows headed straight up the road toward House-of-Sun, staying on that one highway and lowing as they went, never straying to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed behind them to the border of House-of-Sun.
13Now the people of House-of-Sun were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the Chest, they were overjoyed at the sight.
14The cart came to the field of He-Who-Is-Saves of Beth-shemesh and stopped there near a large rock. The people chopped up the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to He-Who-Is.
15And the Joined-Ones took down the Chest of He-Who-Is and the chest containing the gold objects, and they placed them on the large rock. That day the men of House-of-Sun offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to He-Who-Is.
16And when the five rulers of the Philistines saw this, they returned to Uprooting that same day.
17As a guilt offering to He-Who-Is, the Philistines had sent back one gold tumor for each city: Ravager, Stronghold, Market-Place, Wine-Press, and Uprooting.
18The number of gold rats also corresponded to the number of Philistine cities belonging to the five rulers—the fortified cities and their outlying villages. And the large rock on which they placed the Chest of He-Who-Is stands to this day in the field of He-Who-Is-Saves of House-shemesh.
19But God struck down some House-of-Sun the people of House-of-Sun because they looked inside the Chest of He-Who-Is. He struck down seventy men, and the people mourned because He-Who-Is had struck them with a great slaughter.
20The men of House-of-Sun asked, “Who can stand in the presence of He-Who-Is, this devoted God? To whom should the ark go up from here?”
21So they sent messengers to the people of City-of-Forests, saying, “The Philistines have returned the Chest of He-Who-Is. Come down and take it up with you.”