Joel M Bradshaw

1The ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months. 2And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us with what we shall send it to its place.” 3They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand does not turn away from you.” 

4And they said, “What is the guilt offering that we shall return to him?” They answered, “Five golden tumors and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for the same plague was on all of you and on your lords.5So you must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you and your gods and your land.6Why 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? 

7Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them. 8And take the ark of the LORD and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold, which you are returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off and let it go its way 9and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”–1 Samuel 6

The Philistines just wanted to figure out why they had experienced an outbreak of tumors and mice in their land. So they devised an elaborate either/or scenario that would determine if Israel’s God had done this to them or not.

We the readers are not surprised. Ancient cultures used the bones or even the intestines of animals to divine answers to their questions. It would be like reading tea leaves or using tarot cards today. The random used to explain the definite. This would also be like basing big decisions by using one of those magic 8-ball toys that make an yes or no answer appear in the window.

But do you do this with God? Idolatry was all about control and manipulation. You scratched the gods’ backs and expect them to come through for you. God obviously wanted the relationship with his people to be based on trust and obedience and NOT on manipulation or control. We know this because in the second of the 10 Commandments he outlawed any statues of him.

A manipulative Christian might consider their tithe a quid pro quo. A controlling Christian might put God into an either/or situation. “I’ll be doing this thing God, and if you want me to stop you’ll do something drastic to stop me.” That’s a big difference between knowing what God expects and following in obedience.

The pagan world operated on manipulated knowledge of the divine. The biblical world operates on revealed knowledge. I don’t need God to speak to me for God has already spoken. In Samuel’s day, God used prophets and priests. In our day the Bible is complete and needs no further information.

We might laugh at the Philistines and their golden tumors, but do we in our hearts treat God like they did? Do we live with attitudes of practical idolatry? You will see this in how you pray and how you make decisions.–JMB