I recently started rereading the book of I Samuel. It’s been fantastic. There are some stories in there I haven’t read for years; really fantastic stories.
In chapters 4, 5 and 6, there is this really interesting story about the Ark of the Covenant. In the beginning of chapter 4, the Philistines have just attacked the Israelites, and the Israelites lost. In response to this, they send for the Ark of Covenant, thinking that they can wield it give them victory. The Philistines hear about this, get themselves hyped up, and really lay into the Israelites. In fact, not only do they kill 30,000 Israelites, but they also capture the Ark of the Covenant.
Chapter 5 continues the story. The Philistines take the Ark back to one of their cities and place it in the temple of their god, Dagon. In the morning they come back, and the statue of Dagon is lying face down in front of the Ark. This happens again the next night, and the arms of the statue are even broken off. Then the people start getting developing tumors. This freaks them out, so they send the Ark to another town. Those people also start developing tumors.
No no one will take the Ark. “Send it back to the Israelites!” they say.
So, in Chapter 6 we see them consult their wise men, and finally they decide the best thing to do is fill the Ark with some gifts to bribe God off of them, and then put it on a cart on its way back to Israel. This is what they do.
This isn’t the God of “love” and “feel-goodery” of the New Testament (not that I’m down on that guy at all). This is the righteous, powerful, “I’m-not-messing-around” God we know and love from the Old Testament.
And on the outset, some really weird stuff happens here. Some people might look at chapter 4 and be confused why Israel, and seemingly God, lost to the Philistines. I mean, everywhere the Ark went before, the Israelites kicked some tail. But here they are getting whooped, and hard. But I think the reason for that is connected to all the events that take place in these chapters. God is not a weapon that is wielded. And the Israelites and Philistines shared this misconception.
In Chapter 4, the Israelites go and get the Ark, because it’s their powerful God that is going to smite those bad guys. However, God didn’t command them to do this. They were thinking of it as though it were their own personal ultimate weapon, like an atom bomb, or say, sharks with lasers attached to their heads. But that isn’t how God works.
And they paid for that.
So the Ark doesn’t mow people down, a-la Indiana Jones, and they get themselves defeated, and they get their Ark taken.
And like many people of the ancient world, Philistine had thought they captured the God of the Israelites when they took their Ark. And sure, God manifested himself in a special way with the Ark, but he wasn’t limited to it. And they were going to find that out.
As a brief side note, Chapter 5′s incident with the idol of Dagon is one of the funniest stories ever in the Bible. This is how I know God has a sense of humor. Every morning these guys keep coming back to the temple to see their God bowing down to Israel’s God. Classy.
And then the tumors started. Anywhere this thing went, people start breaking out in tumors (I can’t imagine that was pleasant). Finally they realize that their only option is to get rid of this thing. They thought they had captured God, but in fact they were being held captive by him.
I can’t help but think this story serves as an important reminder to us about the way we interact with God. Don’t think you can wield God as your magic “whatever” to get some kind of result you want. He doesn’t work that way (you hear that Word-of-Faith-ers?). And also, God cannot be pinned down and held captive by us. In fact, some of the people who have tried that got very bad results.
