Verses 1-21

The Philistines return the Ark to Israel

2. The diviners] The Philistines appear to have been notorious for their attachment to divination: see on Isaiah 2:6.

3. The trespass offering was always brought to atone for some wrong done to, or some right withheld from, God or man.

5. Aristotle relates that in harvest entire crops were sometimes destroyed in a single night by the ravages of field-mice.

7. The new cart and the kine who had worn no yoke were signs of respect.

9. Under ordinary circumstances the cows would not have left their calves. Beth-shemesh] the modern Ain-Shems, on the N. border of Judah.

18. Even unto the great stone] Read with LXX, 'And the great stone, whereon they set down the ark of the Lord, is a witness unto this day.

19. It is very probable that in this v. LXX has preserved the original text: 'But the sons of Jechoniah rejoiced not with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they gazed (with gladness) at the ark of the Lord, and he smote among them 70 men.' All editors are agreed that the 'fifty thousand' is a gloss which has crept into the text. The Hebrew phrase here used is not the correct method of expressing 50,070.

21. Kirjath-jearim] see on Judges 18:12. For the further account of the ark cp. 2 Samuel 6.

C.

71. This v. is the conclusion of the narrative, and should really form part of 1 Samuel 6.

We should have expected the ark to be taken back to Shiloh; perhaps Shiloh had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, who now overran Israel (cp. 1 Samuel 14:6, 1 Samuel 14:19). At any rate, we hear no more of Shiloh as a national meeting-place; for the time, whatever national unity exists centres round Samuel.