Chapter 6

The captured ark is in the land of the Philistines for seven months.  Wherever it goes, the people there panic.  This panic is not described in detail, but I imagine a general dread and foreboding as you would fear the appearance of the black plague.  People are just panicked about what is coming.  The Philistines get their diviners to tell them how to get rid of the ark.  This verse:

6 Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed? [1Sa 6:6 ESV]

They all knew the story of the departure of Israel from Egypt.  Surely they also wondered how they occasionally were able to defeat Israel in battle.  They must have speculated, maybe decided that their gods were more powerful than Israel's?  Or that at least their own gods had the upper hand temporarily now and then?

These diviners say to send it home in a new cart with two milk cows deprived of their calves, that have never pulled a cart, in the harness.  They are to send guilt offerings too - five golden tumors and five golden mice.

The ark gets to Israel, and they use the cart wood to burn the cows as a sacrifice.  But God strikes 70 men dead for looking at the ark when they shouldn't.  So the men of Beth-Shemesh tell the men of Kiriath-jearim to come and get the ark.  Here is Kiriath-jearim again.  This town just keeps showing up.  The history of this town would make a good study...

2025 - The ESV says 70 men are struck down.  The NASB95 says 50,070.  The MacArthur note says the bigger number is consistent with the phrase "a great slaughter" but he also says that a scribal error could have turned 70 into 50,070.  So what ESV is doing here is "judging" that a scribal error did indeed take place, and they have taken it upon themselves to correct it.  They do this instead of translating what is actually there and letting the reader consider the true meaning.  I do not like it when Bibles do this.  It is not right to preempt what the Bible says in place of what you think the Bible MEANT to say.  In BLB, when you look at the actual Hebrew, the running translation says 50,070.  In BLB, if you trace it on out, you find that this word is ridiculously more complicated than you would think.  We really just cannot know.  I would think this is one of those places whee the traditional teaching of what it meant should carry a lot of weight - moreso than a strict translation.