Killing people for looking in the Ark

[Roger_Waldripbbp Admin]

God himself will kill tens of thousands if it pleases him: 1 Samuel 6:19 in the King James Version: “And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men (50,070)”. Kill 50 000 men for looking at something?

• This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Roger_Waldrip.

[Roger_Waldripbbp Admin]

Let’s look at where this story first starts, 1 Samuel 4. The Israelites and the Philistines are fighting. In the first battle, Israel gets whooped. So when they regroup, they ask why they got whipped. The conclusion is that they need the Ark to win.

Frist, there was no indication that Israel had seeked God desire to fight at this time. They went on their own to fight the Philistines. However, there was an earlier mandate that all Philistines were to be destroyed when Israel entered the Promised Land. Since Gad had commanded it, the mandate sticks, but a lesson to us should be that even though we are on a continuing mission from God, we should seek His council on how and when to proceed. So Israel may not have been wrong in waging war at this time.

However, the Ark was to be carried in front of the Israelites whenever they went into battle. So they were wrong to not have it with them when they came to battle. Their purpose to fetching the Ark however wasn’t to align themselves with God’s commands, but to use the Ark as a tool to win a battle.

When the Ark arrived in camp, Israel was renewed and shouted for joy. The Philistines heard the ruckus and were told what the noise was about. They were afraid the Israel’s God had come to fight. They knew of God’s might. They had heard of His power against the Egyptians and others. Let’s remember that they knowledge of God and His power and believed it to be real as they were afraid.

So they fought against Israel again. And won again. Big time. And they had a big bounty. The biggest. They had the Ark in their possession.

Let’s shift focus for just a moment and look at Israel and it’s lose. They apparently had made a big decision to go to battle without seeking the Lord’s approval. They then raced off to do battle and got the hinnies kicked. Then they remembered a tool they could use that could work in their favor. So they went and got the magical device and rushed into battle again, where they really lost.

The lose of 4,000 men in the first battle stung bad as a blunder for not seeking the Lord when starting an action. The second lose cost Israel 30,000 fighting men, 2 future priests, and the Ark. And that cost came because they used the Ark, rather God, inappropriately. They used Him as tool to accomplish their will instead of respecting the Power of God to accomplish His will.

OK, back to the Philistines. 1 Samuel 5

The Philistines had a great prize. The Ark. They were going to flaunt it. Who wouldn’t? But they believed they had in their possession something that they knew had defeated the Egyptians and others. They thought it a god, and didn’t recognize it as God’s. They placed it in one of their god’s temples, beside Dagon, in Ashdod.

Obviously, they we’re not in accordance with the command that God gave concerning the transport of the Ark, but apparently, they didn’t touch the Ark. Or if someone did, the report isn’t mentioned in the Bible. It is very possible that some did, which would have followed by that person’s death, but that the incident just wasn’t reported.

The following day, after the Ark had been placed beside Dagon, they came into the temple to find Dagon face down before the Ark (in essence, had fallen prostrate to the Lord). They stood Dagon back up. The next, Dagon was back down but this time his head and hands were broke off.

Now the Lord was exacting punishment on those in and around Ashdod, because they were not respecting Him. They we’re not following the customs setup by God. The Philistines couldn’t as the physical stuff was in Israel and the people that had to care for the Ark were Levites. Perhaps, if this was the only reason, God may not have exacted punishment on them, but the Philistines knew of God and His power and should have known that He was not a tool to use (as the Israelites should have known).

The Philistines recognized that they were being punished for holding the Ark. Actually, God was them mercy as He only afflicted them with tumors instead of killing them. They could have repented and seeked counsel of how to proceed, but instead, they took their problem and gave it to someone else; Gath to be exact.

I can’t blame them for not wanting to give it back to Israel. They knew that God was powerful and had defeated Israel’s enemies. Giving it back to Israel would just be asking Israel to use the Ark against them later.

At Gath, God inflicted the local Philistines even heavier than at Ashdod. I would surmise, that God did this because the Philistines knew it was wrong ‘to keep Him’ at Ashdod, and knew that it was wrong ‘to keep Him’ at Gath as well. So god increased the punishment.

So the Philistines decided to move the Ark again. Pawn the problem onto someone else; those at Ekron. But before the Ark arrived at Ekron, the Ekronites(?) cried foul and prevent the Ark from entering their town as they had heard what it had done to the others.

After the Ark had been in Philistine land for seven months, they decided to finally get rid of it. It was agreed that if the Ark is sent back to Israel, to send a gift with it. By all means. Another words, do something to try to appease this god.

So the Ark was returned to Israel. 70 Israelite men were put to death by God for looking into the ark at Beth Shemesh. Notice how no Philistine was killed for looking ion the Ark. The Philistines had more respect than the Israelites did for the Ark.

We’ve shown so far that God has shown mercy on the Philistines. Yes, they did wrong, but they didn’t violate any commands that would warrant being put to death. The outbreak of tumors was a lesson and a warning. It could have been much more severe.

Now if we look at the accusation that the individual is making, that God will kill tens of thousands if it pleases Him, we see that God did not in fact kill 50,000 people, but killed 70 people. And those 70 people were Israelites that knew better than to do what they did. They received the punishment for which they were guilty.

So what we have a here is a person who purposefully greatly exaggerated the deaths to a number of such extremes that it would should alarm and appall any sane person. This individual is playing on rationales of people who don’t know the facts, not twisting the numbers, but lying about the numbers to deceive people into automatically labeling God an unjust murder.

Wow, that was just number one. 13 more to go.

This one is an odd one. As a man, and not looking at any of the Biblical knowledge of reasoning behind the command, I kinda agree with the individual on his accusation.

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