Mercy to the Philistines through Plagues and Boils
1 “The ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months.
2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us with what we shall send it to its place.”
3 They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand does not turn away from you.”
7Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them.
9 …and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.””
1 Samuel 6:1–3,7,9 Read More
Ok, come on. You have to give the Philistines some credit here. They didn’t give up until seven months of tumors, boils, hemorrhoids (depending on which translation you read) and a ton of other plagues. One of their idols in a temple was even broken to bits over and over when placed next to the Ark of God’s Covenant. And it took them seven months to finally say “We need to get rid of this thing!”
Notice also that they didn’t have any interest in obeying the Lord, but that they fully believed in Him. They did like teenagers do when they say they are sorry, sorry, ok Dad, sorry. They aren’t asking for forgiveness, they are politely asking you to shut-up. The Philistines didn’t want to make the God of Israel happy, they wanted Him to get off their case!
For years the Christian message has been about belief. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” That is totally true, but there are plenty of people that don’t want to be saved. It’s not that they don’t believe it, it’s that they don’t want it. People have the same difficulties today that the Philistines had back then: they don’t know what God is like.
The Philistines ask all the wrong people about what to do, but they do it in hopes of stopping their troubles. They give golden offerings, they get some cows that could only pull a cart if a miracle happened, and they release the Ark to see what happens.
God shows His mercy around here in a lot of ways. He could have held the Philistines to the same standard as Israel and killed everyone that touched the Ark.
But He didn’t.
He could have brought the Ark back by any number of ways, but He submitted to the if-then statement of the Philistines. “If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beat-shemesh, then it is He who has done us great harm.” God heard that and said, “Alright, if that’s what it takes, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
God is continuously trying to win the hearts of all people, Philistine or not. He is trying to win the hearts of Israel that don’t know Him because of their own sin and rebellion, and He is trying to win the Philistines who are just uninformed. We are all in both of those camps at one time or another.
God is reaching out to us just the same. He will share is glory with us when we’re clueless, and He will come to us when we are in our sin. How we react to Him and what we do with His company is what makes all of the difference.
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