40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 5:1-6:12 (Episode 229)

Episode Date: August 16, 2020

God is in the temple of Dagon and things get interesting. Echoes of Egypt are ringing through the land of the Philistines. No one wants to be in the presence of the God of Israel. A solution involving strange golden images and milk cows and their calves is proposed and done. It's Holy Saturday in the Old Testament. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Livestream Signup 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go over to 1517.org slash podcast, check out all the other podcasts that are living over there while you're over there make sure you click on that here we still stand banner because that is the banner you need to click on to get all the information about the live stream the whole conference is a live stream uh this year due to the covid19 pandemic we were unable to pull off an in-person event uh california wasn't going to have any of that uh but what they are going to do is have us broadcasting all over the world on the internet so all you got to do it's free you don't have to pay anything all you got to do

is sign up you'll get an email at the appropriate time with the links so that you can tune in to the two-day stream it's going to be the 16th and 17th of October we got all kinds of stuff planned for the live stream lots of talks conversations extra content so we're going to try to make it great for you so just get over there and uh and sign up get your friends to sign up so you can enjoy it together chad what's going on man oh not a lot just uh writing writing writing i decided i'd since i can't travel very much and said i'd take advantage of the opportunity so i think i mentioned this last podcast i've started working on uh a uh a book that's related to my 1517 academy course christ in the old testament no title yet but that will be the subject so i'm uh where am i at

third chapter so okay and a half chapter's done so far and uh yeah it's a it's been fun i mean of course i draw on a lot of the material that we've covered in the podcast some some other material as well so working on that getting ready it won't be long before uh unveiling mercy that's right 365 day hebrew devotional will be ready for pre-order so yeah the publishing folks tell me that we are very near when we'll be able to click on that button and get it pre-ordered so we'll be sure and let everybody know when uh when that time comes absolutely you know one of these days i got this great idea i'll just pitch it right here on the podcast so that way that people can get excited about it and then if it doesn't happen i'll say chad said no but uh one of these

days we're gonna get chad to write something on the new testament and uh i think i think what we have to do we'll have to collaborate and we'll have to write that volume uh on the book of revelation and how to read revelation in the key of old testament how to listen to that song in uh in that key i think that'd be great i think that's the one that needs to happen yeah that'd be that would be a lot of fun i mean it really is key you know it's it's a little bit of a stretch but not much of a stretch to say that john basically is just every verse there's at least an allusion to something in the old testament yeah all right it's it's it's you well i mean i can say definitively 100 you cannot understand revelation if you don't know the old testament no doubt you

cannot know that absolutely i always describe the book if you don't know the old test yep i always describe it as uh so as a musician i describe it as if somebody if you're hanging out with a bunch of guys and they say uh hey we're gonna play a blues riff in a well you know how to do that it's a key and it's a genre and you kind of know what you're working with revelation is uh i'm going to tell john saying i'm going to tell you the story of everything in the key of the old testament and if you don't know what that that genre is then you don't know how to follow along yeah that is that is precisely it you know the strange thing is about that is he works with the assumption that you know that because the old testament is not quoted oh that's a strange thing

You know, he doesn't say like, as the prophet Ezekiel says, or as the prophet Zephaniah says, or whatever it might be, he just assumes that, you know, this, so that makes the whole composition of the work even more fascinating. No, it's cool. It's almost like you're smuggling out a letter out of Roman exile in Morse code. Because if people read it, they'd be like, this seems like a bunch of nonsense right here. But it's not nonsense if you know the Old Testament. If you're a Hebrew, then you know. yeah yeah yeah if the copy would have fallen into like the wrong hands like you know some authority roman authority wanting to uh you know get some uh get something against the christians they wouldn't have any idea what they're talking about no we'd totally lost so hey i'm open to the idea there you go yeah that'd be fun all right well now now you've heard me pitch something to chad live on the podcast so that's good yeah if in the next five years it doesn't exist then you can you can remind us that we mentioned it one time all right chad well we're we are at uh

holy saturday in the old testament uh today so the the ark is is going in to exile god himself going into exile with the philistines yeah this is a fascinating chapter this is part of a three chapter narrative that we uh we started last time chapters four five and six are all part of the same story and often called the ark narrative so last time we had uh the ark taken into battle with the philistines and well we had a battle between the israelites and the philistines the israelites lost they figured hey what we need is the ark you know our good luck charm so they go get the ark well things did not go well for them in that battle either in multiple ways one of which was the ark was taken and not only that but hoffney and phineas the sons of eli they died

when the news reached Shiloh. Eli, their father, the old heavy priest, fell backward. He died. And then one of the priests who died, his wife, so Phineas' wife, she is, you know, full term, presumably. She goes into labor. She dies bearing this child, but not before naming him E-Kavod, which is uh the there is no glory or where is the glory can be translated either way because the glory has departed from israel so that's kind of where we're left off with verse 22 of chapter four where she says the glory has departed from israel yeah you know what you know that this old thing i was thinking about it and what it reminds me of is uh one that there's a pretty big difference between faith and presumption uh so presuming upon god uh when he has not said is a bad idea

and is not necessarily an act of faith this is sort of akin to the the the sons of skiva who were like oh sweet like apparently you can invoke this name and go around doing magic tricks and then they try to pull that stuff with uh with some demons and the demons are like yeah i don't know who you are and then just beat those dudes naked it's kind of like that like if you go back and you say oh i know what we'll do we'll just force the lord out here yeah that's not faith that's not good like did the lord did the lord tell you to bring him out here he didn't well i wouldn't do that then yeah yeah as we discussed last time they the big mistake they made one of the big mistakes was not consulting the man that we've heard all about the first three chapters right

they did not consult samuel who was obviously the prophet of the lord so this whole this this whole narrative is without samuel and on purpose this is this is a implicit message of this particular part of first samuel that this is what happens when you don't heed the word of the lord but as you say you presume to know exactly what you should do well is there yeah you might you You might even be able to say that this is one of the ways in which we take the name of the Lord in vain, right? We're like, we'll just bring the Lord out into this, and he will be on our side. You are at this point forcing God into—you're trying to make God do something that he has not said that he would do, right? But you're saying, well, but we brought you out, and we're invoking your ark and your name.

And they're not saying, well, there are certain promises and we're just going to lean on those. They're trying to force God's hand in this way. And so there is a sort of, you know, they're doing this great shout and all this stuff. This is all misplaced because they haven't asked Samuel, which is the prophet that God has placed, for them to go and speak to and for him to speak through. and instead have said, we're just going to do this thing. And this confidence obviously backfires badly. Yeah, it's a great example, too, that we should not presume to follow the example of prior generations

unless we have explicit consent that that's what God wants us to do. And now this often comes up where people will try and imitate something that some forefather did in the faith. And like, well, you know, David did it so I can do it or Sammy did it so I can do it or Moses did it so I can do it. Well, no, just because just because one individual at one particular time in history did something does not mean that that establishes a rule whereby you can repeat it and get the same effects. god might not want you to do that everything that is described in the the biblical narrative is not prescriptive for you like i don't recommend that when you have a big decision to you know make that you put out fleece uh and figure and find out if it's wet or not like this is not this is not something that god has prescribed for christians everywhere to do to

figure out what the right decision is yeah yeah so they were i think they were basically trying to imitate what happened with Jericho, right? Oh, it worked well at Jericho. Well, that's because that's what God told them to do. Very explicitly tell Joshua, here's what you are to do with the Ark of the Covenant. How many times, how many days, all of this. Well, that was fine. And it worked, of course, because that's what God wanted them to do. But he didn't tell the Israelites to do it when they went out to battle the Philistines. So they were basically resorting to magic. Magic being the magic is basically the the manipulation of a deity to get him to if you follow certain rules you know if you do a then the deity is basically bound to do b well that does not work

uh god cannot be manipulated by any kind of any kind of magic which obviously the israelites realized after this terrible terrible day uh of defeat and death for them this is why this is why chat if a giant ever shows up at my house i'm going out with a shotgun not a slingshot because i know yeah that is not prescriptive yeah wise yeah 12 gauge 12 gauge i'm not going out with five stones i'm going out with 12 gauges exactly exactly all right so yeah you mentioned this is holy saturday and that is because uh as we discussed last time the taking of the ark into exile is a kind of good friday so good friday according to all outward appearances was a was not was a bad friday uh everything everything

that you were able to all your decisions based upon your senses that day said it was bad there was there was death there was defeat there was humiliation and yet on the other side of that you realize, oh, this actually was good Friday, because we see what God is up to. It's kind of like that with the taking your ark. This is the beginning of an exile, and we're going to find out in chapter 5 what happens when you take God into exile, when you take him into the grave, as it were. We're going to see what happens when God is taken via his ark into the very temple of the false god, the god of the Philistines. And it's a pretty humorous story, as we shall see. So let me read the first five verses. So we're 1 Samuel chapter 5, verses 1 through 5.

Now the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it to the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. When the Ashdodites, so the people of Ashdod, when they arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him in his place again. And when they arose early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands

were cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priest of Dagon nor all who enter Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. This is good. Yeah, this is very rich, rich comedy here.

I was thinking like, help, I've fallen and I can't get up. You know, anytime that a deity is unable to help himself, it's pretty humorous to me. So the Philistines take the Ark to this particular temple. So they're going to Ashdod. I mentioned a couple of times that there's a pentapolis. There's five cities that belong to the Philistines. And three or four of them are going to come up in this chapter because, as we'll see as the story progresses,

they keep moving the ark around it's like you know we're going to shift this to somebody else let them take care of it for a while but for now anyway it's in their temple of their god Dagon they're in in Ashdod and the first morning when they get up Ash Dagon has fallen has fallen on his face now this can mean a couple different things I mean we're not not a lot is explained to us as far as like the symbolism goes maybe it just means that he it shows that he's been defeated right like you you you fell and you fall you make an enemy fall in battle or it could simply be that this is almost a pejorative worship stance right yeah like this god is falling down prostrating himself as it were before before the ark and i should mention too that it says that

they set it they set the ark by dagon so i think what's been communicated here is they're they're they're basically trying to add Yahweh to their pantheon. It's kind of a subordinate deity to Dagon. So they're like, you know, they want to put them at the right hand as it were of Dagon. So it's not like they're rejecting Yahweh. They're wanting to like to bring him in, to make him an ally of Dagon because they were, you know,

as we've talked about before, they're perfectly fine with this in the ancient world. You know, it's, there was no, there was no monotheism was, was rare was strange to everybody except the israelites and even they of course were always flirting with polytheism but the philistines would have had no trouble whatsoever with simply adding one more deity to their to the pantheon so they that was this was a war trophy but it was also an additional deity that they could that they could call upon but of course everything backfires because first of all he falls down before the ark they set him back up and the next morning it's

even worse, because not only has he fallen on his face to the ground again, but now his head's chopped off, and both of his hands are chopped off. So in other words, he's lost his head. He can't think. He's lost his hands. He can't act. He's been completely subjected, completely defeated, and completely humiliated. He's basically like you would treat, and we have examples of this in Samuel, where an enemy is captured, killed, and decapitated, and the hands of the enemy are cut off this was an ancient way of making sure that this person was was completely of showing this person was completely incapable of doing anything good or anything bad they were they were uh thoroughly thoroughly defeated and what it does too is it um if you take this all the way to the

new testament and you ask the question and what is going on with christ in exile the way that the devil is referred to you know you have this uh you have people referred to as sons of the devil actually we're like kind of all referred to that uh as in our in our natural state where the pharisees you know are told that they're they're their father the devil and this kind of thing the the only sort of other power in creation is satan every deity i mean paul will say this is that it's not that all deities are nothing it's just that they're not god right so they're they're demons and so paul will say that to worship idols is to worship demons that's what he'll that's what he'll say now a demon is not a god uh it's a they're this is created beings um but they also

aren't powerless either uh unless of course their creator is in their midst and then they are rendered powerless and what happens and in as christ descends to hell is that he goes and exercises his power over death, over the grave, over hell, and over all creation, including Satan and the demons. You know, Luther will say that the devil is God's devil. In other words, he created him. There's not a power struggle going on there. And so we see sort of a picture of that with the Ark. It's not that Dagon is nothing. He's just a representation of a demon who is in absolute of course subjection to his creator which is god he's just a rebel creature that's what a that's what a demon is yeah yeah yeah that's a that's a great way to great way to explain it

and we have that in the old testament too i think it's deuteronomy that talks about how the the false gods are basically masks of demons i mean that's a that's a pretty thoroughly entrenched old testament a new testament idea but yeah i mean so the approach to idolatry varies uh from from book to book ezekiel will often refer to uh to idols using scatological language i mean like uses the uh the uh the hebrew uh the hebrew word for dung uh to describe the idols so i mean it's not very not very common for them to to use majority of language referred to the idols or they're referred to as just emptiness vanity is another another name for for idols as well but join with that is it is an understanding that yes they are powerless they are just nothing

more than dung creatures but at the same time there's a power behind them and that power is that of that of the devil so all idolatry is traced back to to the work of the work of satan yeah no it's amazing god well god himself doesn't refer doesn't talk about idolatry or idols as neutral he certainly he certainly talks about them as being evil or wicked right um it's not not just sort of this like well you worship in this thing which is completely amoral when you should be worshiping this thing which is the right thing to do that's not how he talks about it where it's like man i really wish you wouldn't worship that completely neutral object uh no it's it is wicked and evil and and he will describe it as such yeah and in this particular case

he i mean it's a perfect parallel to the descendant to hell because where does he go he goes into the very house of this false deity right he doesn't like this is not on the battlefield this is in daggan's own temple so this is christ descending into the very house of very house of the devil yeah i wish don't you see the result don't you wish in the creed like in the apostle you were like uh he and he descended into hell where he was chopping off heads and breaking off hands yeah that would have been a nice addition i mean would have made the creed much more colorful that's what's going that's what's going on in hell man heads are rolling hands hands are being removed it's good yeah that's it and not only is uh as we'll see in the in the next few verses

Not only is his false god being humiliated and defeated, but the hand was also heavy, it says. The hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod. So this is supposed to be something we catch as a contrast between what we just read and what's about to happen. So the hands of Dagon were chopped off, but the hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod. so this is the way that the author is contrasting what what just happened and there's also an an echo of the exodus here because if you look in exodus chapter nine it talks about how the hand of the lord was heavy against the egyptians i should have mentioned that too that and i think we did talk about this last time but that if you if you really want to understand

first samuel four five and six you have to read it as a retelling of the exodus story so i mean And we did mention the exile, but I just want to reiterate that, that there are multiple Exodus themes that arise here, so that this whole three-chapter story is nothing more than kind of a riff off of what happened with the Israelites in Egypt. So the hand of the Lord is heavy on the people of Ashdod. Well, how so? It says that he ravaged them and smote them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territories. Now, this is where things get, at least in my dark sense of humor, kind of funny, because I mentioned this to you last time, Dan, after the podcast, that the Hebrew there for tumors is probably better translated as hemorrhoids. Yeah.

So a specific kind of tumor, let's say. The Hebrew there is a little bit strange, but it is used in some contexts that refer to trouble down there. and this evidently was God's way of making sure that the people of Ashdod knew that he was not happy with them not only was their God's head chopped off and hands chopped off but now they had some very painful bodily afflictions to deal with and this is of course another exodus theme because God was also plaguing the Egyptians multiple times of course 10 times in all and So now this is a plague that befalls the Philistines. And it happened not only right there in Ashdod where the Ark was, but also in the territories around there.

So what's going to be the result of all this? Well, verse 7 says that the people of Ashdod saw that it was so, so they realized what was happening. and they said the ark of god of the ark of the god of israel must not remain with us for his hand is severe on us and on dagon our god so they realized that the status quo cannot remain the same they have to do something about this ark of the covenant so what are they going to do well they gather all the lords of the philistines and pose the question what shall we do with the ark of the god of israel and they said basically we're going to punt right let the ark of god the god of israel be brought around to gath so they brought the ark of the god of israel around so

this is going to shift it around for for a little while so it's in ashdod causes all kinds of problems there i guess the thinking is maybe in gath things will be better anyway maybe or maybe this uh maybe this insult of having him you know share a temple with this other god maybe maybe this will be alleviated if we put him somewhere else right yeah yeah maybe maybe always just mad because he doesn't want to like be that yeah he's not he doesn't want to power share yeah he's not into roommates he's not that kind of guy into roommates yeah so they uh verse nine they they brought the ark around but it says the hand of the lord was against the city with with very great confusion. He smote the men of the city, both young and old, so that hemorrhoids broke out on

them as well. Tumors broke out on them as well. So it did not go any better in the city of Gath. So what did the people of Gath do? Well, they decided that they would punt as well. So they sent the ark of God to another one of the cities of the Philistine pentapolis known as Ekron. and verse 10 it happened as the ark of god came to ekron i love this the people of ekron cried out they've brought the ark of god of israel to kill us to kill us and our people so word had gotten around by this time but you do not want the ark of god in your city so the people of ekron they're like you're gonna kill us this is this is not good so verse 11 wraps up the chapter they need to make a decision so they gather all the

lords of the philistines and they said send the art send away the ark of the god of israel and let it return to its own place that may not kill us and our people for there was a deadly confusion throughout the city and the hand of the lord was very heavy there and the men who did not die were smitten with tumors and the cry of the city went up to heaven. So there again are multiple Exodus allusions here because in particular that last phrase, the cry of the city went up to heaven is duplicated in Exodus chapter 12 verse 30. That's after the 10th plague when God kills the firstborn. So you can see that as a result of the plagues, as a result of the defeat of their gods, as a result of these deaths that had occurred.

All of this placed the Philistines in a position very similar to the Egyptians where they have to make a decision. Are we going to keep God in exile, or are we going to let him go? Well, they pretty much reached a decision that they have to let him go. So you can, to go back to our Holy Saturday imagery, it's kind of like Christ moving around to various parts of hell, right? Yeah. It doesn't matter where he's at.

Everywhere he goes, his enemies are humiliated and defeated before him. Yeah, and all on his own, too. And this is the thing that you see here is that it turns out that a god is not in need of the Israelites to defeat the enemies of Israel. He can do this all on his own. but also that he does this when he says that he is going to, not when you say he's going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything is determined by him.

And I love the fact that there's no divine speech ever that happens, right? It's just silence. It's just like God is exhibiting his strength simply by his presence. That's all that's required. and to uh just to speak a little bit more positively of what's happening here too now he this is god going into exile for the sake of his people yeah of course the philistines are the are the main threat and will continue to be so through uh at least part of the reign of david so this is god saying you know what i'll take care of the philistines for you

i will i will be exiled i'll go into the very temple of their god and the philistines will figure out pretty quick they don't want to mess with the god of israel because when they do this is this is what happens so this is god basically fighting for his people simply by being there and everywhere that he is his enemies fall down before him are stricken with plagues stricken with fear and want nothing more to do with with the god of israel so anyway that's a that's chapter five yeah it kind of makes you think that god just being present somewhere unmediated without a mouthpiece if you don't have if you don't have a word from god is fairly terrifying that you don't want to just like have the presence of the lord among you apart from him speaking a word to you

because then it's just his holiness and your sinfulness and that and that's all that's all this present and this this ends badly yeah yeah yeah it was kind of like uh all of the the various manifestations that elijah saw on mount on mount sinai right you have the fire you have the earthquake you have the wind what elijah needed to be listening for was that uh that thin small whisper so there was at least a voice right it was the voice that was there in order to in order to give him encouragement and and hope for uh for the future yeah no you need you need a word from god otherwise it's just it's just holiness and power which is no source of comfort to a sinner yeah which is destructive yeah okay well let's see what happens next so that was the

end of chapter five the uh the ark we now have a time frame before before now we didn't really have a time frame, but we're told now that the Ark had been there for seven months. So seven months of destruction have taken place. And the Philistines called for, they've decided they have to get rid of it, but they don't know exactly how to get rid of it. So they turned to their sacred advisors. They call for their priests, they call for their diviners, and they say, what shall we do with the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how we shall send it to its place. so here's the advice that these priests and these diviners gave said if you send away the ark of the god of israel don't send it empty but you shall surely return to him that is to yahweh a guilt

offering that could also be translated as reparation offering i'll come back to that in a second then you shall be healed then it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you And so let me pause right there. So you probably remember, if you were with us in Leviticus, all the various different kinds of offerings. You had the whole burnt offering. You had the sin offering. You had the peace offerings. But you also had a very special category of offerings that were called guilt offerings, which also translated as reparation offerings.

These are similar to sin offerings, except these were offered if you had done something which infringed upon a holy thing. So you've committed some act in which you accidentally desecrated some holy object. And so then, not only were you required to offer whatever the sacrifice might be, whatever the animal might be, but you also had to add to that 20% of whatever you had damaged or stolen or caused sacrilege toward. So that's why it's often called a reparation offering, because you're also repairing the damage that you have done. So according to the theology of the priest and the diviners of the Philistines, they understood this to be a guilt offering, to require a guilt offering, which would be exactly right. So they're going to offer a reparation for what they've done.

So they say in verse 4, okay, so what's this guilt offering supposed to be comprised of? What's it supposed to be? And they said, well, I don't know how they did this, but five golden tumors, five golden hemorrhoids i have no idea what that would look like but you could use you could use your imagination i'm sure there's some sunday school material out there that has a picture five five golden tumors and five golden mice we haven't heard about mice before according to the number of the lords of the philistines for one plague was on all of you and on your lords so you shall make likenesses of your tumors and the likenesses of your mice that ravage the land and

you shall give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will ease his hand from you, your gods and your lands. Let me stop there for just a second. So five golden tumors, five golden mice, because there were five different cities over which there was one Lord each. So the five of each. I'm guessing that we're not told about the mice until now, but I'm assuming this was part of one of the plagues that befell them so you had this rodent uh rampage uh through going through going through the land so the these were to be the guilt offerings and these were to be offered to give glory to the god of israel which is just an amazingly striking phrase coming from the lips of the philistines i mean this is i guess this is sort of the uh the philippian is that philippians

too every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory the glory of god the father including the philistines uh so it doesn't mean that everybody believes at the end but everybody knows at the end to whom the glory is to go so uh picking up with verse six they say why then this is this is amazing too why then do you harden your hearts as the egyptians and pharaoh hardened their hearts. When he had dealt severely with them, did they not allow the people to go, and they departed? Now, that particular verse, I think, helps us to basically interpret the whole story. At the very beginning, in chapter 4, verse 8, when the ark of God had come into the camp of the Israelites, the Philistines, and they heard this great shout from the camp, the Philistines

said, these are the gods who smote the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness. And now in chapter 6, verse 6, we hear another reference to the Egyptians and now to Pharaoh as well. So those two bookends that both refer to the Exodus help us to interpret this within the context of the rest of the bible so this is a retelling of the exodus story set into something which was different in kind and different in history but parallel what happened earlier yeah you have to think that they must be at this point thinking we should have really just took that win but not taken this arc i mean like so we we won and we should have just been like content with that but but capturing this arc was a real bad idea yeah and that was what led to all of the

problems yeah yeah and and and the fact that they know that we could be just at the beginning uh of what's gonna go down if we don't get rid of this thing i mean don't don't be like pharaoh uh and we're gonna end up with like all the firstborn dead or something you know you gotta you got to fix this now yeah if this is if this is the only beginning the beginning of the plagues and all this has happened over a course of seven months, then who knows what might be befalling us next. So what's the plan? Well, we'll wrap up here.

It's a pretty ingenious plan. So the priests say, here's what you should do. Get a new cart, so get you a wagon, and get two milk cows that have never had a yoke on them and hitch the cows to the cart and then take their calves away from them and take the calves home so they are to take the ark and put it on the cart and then put the articles of gold as a guilt offering by the side of the box by the side of the ark and then send

it away and the priest conclude by saying and watch if it goes up by the way of its own territory to bait Shemesh, then he, that is Yahweh, has done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know that it was not his hand that struck us, but that it just happened to us by chance. Well, how does all of this answer that question, whether it was actually Yahweh or whether it was by chance? Well, it's pretty easy. If you've ever been around a mama cow and her calf if you separate those two the mama cow is going to go crazy and the calf's going to go crazy and they're going to try everything they can to get back get back with each other they'll be mooing and just causing all kinds of problems trying to get back to get back together because

they're not supposed to be separated well imagine so that's the situation with a typical cow and calf well imagine what's going to happen when you take two cows you take the calves away you you hook them to a cart you yoke them to a cart and then you just let them go well of course they're just going to turn right around they're going to go back to the calves right but here as we'll see uh they they they don't do that they do that which is unnatural they do that which is not predictable they actually turn around and they head toward Beit Shemesh they head toward this Israelite village which is the way this wraps up so the men did so they they took the two milk cows. They hitched them to the cart, shut their calves up at home. They put the ark on there with

the golden mice and the golden tumors, and the cows took the straight way in the direction of Beit Shemesh. And they went along the highway, mooing as they went, and didn't turn aside to the right or to the left, and the lords of the Philistines followed behind them. So this was this was basically the way that the philistines were assured that everything that happened to them was actually god's god's doing because they knew that if this was just by chance the cows would turn around and come right back right back home it's kind of an ingenious method for uh for determining what they basically already already knew anyway that uh that wraps up at least that part of that part of the story we'll find out next time what exactly what happens

when the ark of god gets back to the israelites as it turns out uh even when the ark is returned home uh the israelites aren't quite sure how they are to how they are to deal with it but yeah we'll have to wait for that for next time yeah all right well guys that is that is that part of the story we'll see how how the israelites respond don't forget to go over and uh sign up for the for the live stream for here we still stand uh just go to 1517 and you can click on the banner and get that done take it just a minute and uh we will be back next week with the the final uh part of this story chad i'll see you then all right see you then Bye.