1 Samuel 6:5

_WHEREFORE YE SHALL MAKE IMAGES OF YOUR EMERODS, AND IMAGES OF YOUR MICE THAT MAR THE LAND; AND YE SHALL GIVE GLORY UNTO THE GOD OF ISRAEL: PERADVENTURE HE WILL LIGHTEN HIS HAND FROM OFF YOU, AND FROM OFF YOUR_ _ GODS, AND FROM OFF YOUR LAND._ Give glory unto the God of Israel. By these propitiatory presents the Philistines would acknowledge His power, and make reparation for the injury done to His ark. LIGHTEN HIS HAND ... FROM OFF YOUR GODS - Elohim for god....

1-9 Seven months the Philistines were punished with the presence of the ark; so long it was a plague to them, because they would not send it home sooner. Sinners lengthen out their own miseries by refusing to part with their sins. The Israelites made no effort to recover the ark. Alas! where shall we find concern for religion prevail above all other matters? In times of public calamity we fear for ourselves, for our families, and for our country; but who cares for the ark of God? We are favoured with the gospel, but it is treated with neglect or contempt. We need not wonder if it should be taken from us; to many persons this, though the heavies of calamities, would occasion no grief. There are multitudes whom any profession would please as well as that of Christianity. But there are those who value the house, the word, and the ministry of God above their richest possessions, who dread t...

Verse 1 Samuel 6:5. _HE WILL LIGHTEN HIS HAND FROM OFF YOU_] The whole land was afflicted; the ground was marred by the _mice_; the common people and the lords afflicted by the _haemorrhoids_, and their gods broken in pieces....

EXPOSITION RESTORATION OF THE ARK TO THE ISRAELITES (1 Samuel 6:1). 1 SAMUEL 6:1, 1 SAMUEL 6:2 THE ARK OF JEHOVAH WAS IN THE COUNTRY—literally, the field, _i.e._ the territory—OF THE PHILISTINES SEVEN MONTHS, during which long time the people wherever the ark was deposited were afflicted in their persons with a most painful malady. The princes determined, therefore, to restore it to Israel, and convened THE PRIESTS AND THE DIVINERS, that they might advise them as to the manner i

WHEREFORE YE SHALL MAKE IMAGES OF YOUR EMERODS,.... Which some take to be images of the five cities; others of a man at large with the disease in his back parts; others of that part of the body of a man only, in a circular form, in which the disease was, and expressing that; but the text is plain for the disease only, as high large tumours: though Maimonides f says of these images, that the word is attributed to them, not because of their external form, but because of their spiritual virtue and influence; whereby the damage or disease of the emerods in the hinder parts were removed: he seems to take them to be a sort of talismans, which were images of a disease or noxious creature a country was infected with, made under some celestial influence to remove it; and Tavernier g relates, as Bishop Patrick observes, that it is a practice with the Indians to this day, that when any pilgrim goes...

CHAPTER S 6:1-7:2 _ 1. The counsel of the Philistines (1 Samuel 6:1)_ 2. The ark at Beth-shemesh (1 Samuel 6:10) 3. The ark at Kirjath-jearim (1 Samuel 6:21; 1 Samuel 7:1) The ark had remained among the Philistines seven months. For them they were months of suffering and deadly destruction. Now they plot to get rid of the ark and of Him whose hand rested so heavily in judgment upon them. The advice of the heathen priests and diviners is that the ark should be sent away with votive offerings of gold, representing that which had plagued them. This was a heathen custom, which has also been adopted and is pract

1 SAMUEL 6:1 TO 1 SAMUEL 7:1. ARK BROUGHT BACK TO BETH-SHEMESH; PLAGUE BREAKS OUT THERE; ARK HOUSED AT KIRIATH-JEARIM. 1 Samuel 6:1 may not belong to the main story; 2 would be a better continuation of 1 Samuel 5:12. At the end of the verse LXX adds And their land swarmed with mice. This would prepare for the mice in 1 Samuel 6:4 f., 1 Samuel 6:11; 1 Samuel 6:18. Possibly these references t

HAND. See note on 1 Samuel 5:6....

_images of your mice that mar the land_ The Heb. text now first definitely speaks of the plague of mice, which was alluded to in ch. 1 Samuel 5:6. The Sept. as we have seen mentions it in 1 Samuel 5:6 and 1 Samuel 6:1. The extraordinary voracity of field-mice, and the incredible rate at which they multiply, are noticed by many ancient writers on Natural History. Aristotle, in his _History of Animals_(VI. 37) says, "In many places mice are wont to appear in the fields in such unspeakable numbers, that scarce anything is left of the whole crop. So rapidly do they consume the corn, that in some cases small farmers have observed their crops ripe and ready for the sickle on one day, and coming the next with the reapers, have found th

YE SHALL MAKE IMAGES OF YOUR EMERODS, AND IMAGES OF YOUR MICE THAT MAR THE LAND— "It was an ancient rite," says Mr. Locke, "that in case a city or country was infected with any plague of diseases or noxious creatures, the talismans were consulted, and desired to erect an image of the plague, under a certain influence of celestial configuration; and this was the cause why the Philistine astrologers gave counsel that golden images should be made of _the hemoroides, and the mice that marred the land, to give glory to the God of Israel._ These astrologers, who knew the history of the Israelites, see 1 Samuel 6:6 had perceived that this God had been pleased with the brazen serpent which _Moses_ the _talisman_ [so they would account him] set upon a pole in the wilderness; Numbers 21:8.; and I need not h