1 Samuel 6
1 After seven months the Philistines take counsel how to send back the ark.
10 They bring it on a new cart with an offering unto Beth-shemesh.
19 The people are smitten for looking into the ark.
21 They send to them of Kirjath-jearim to fetch it.
ark <0727> [A.M. 2864. B.C. 1140. An. Ex. Is. 351. the ark.]
called <07121> [called.]
send <07971> [wherewith.]
empty <07387> [empty.]
guilt offering <0817> [a trespass.]
understand <03045> [known.]
five ..... gold .... five gold <02568 02091> [Five golden.]
leaders .......................... leaders <05633> [you all. Heb. them.]
mice <05909> [mice.]
Bochart has collected many curious accounts relative to the terrible devastations made by these mischievous animals. William, Archbishop of Tyre, records, that in the beginning of the twelfth century, a penitential council was held at Naplouse, where five and twenty canons were framed for the correction of the manners of the inhabitants of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, who they apprehended had provoked to bring upon them the calamities of earthquakes, war, and famine. This last he ascribes to locusts and devouring mice, which had for four years together so destroyed the fruits of the earth as to cause an almost total failure of their crops. It was customary for the ancient heathen to offer to their gods such monuments of their deliverance as represented the evils from which they had been rescued; and Tavernier informs us, that among the Indians, when a pilgrim goes to one of the pagodas for a cure, he brings the figure of the member affected, made of gold, silver, or copper, according to his circumstances, which he offers to his god.
honor <03519 05414> [give glory.]
grip <07043> [lighten.]
land ...... God ............. gods .... land <0430 0776> [off your.]
harden ............ treated <03513> [harden.]
<04714> [the Egyptians.]
harshly <05953> [wonderfully. or, reproachfully. did they not.]
send <07971> [the people. Heb. them.]
new cart ....................... cart <02319 05699> [new cart.]
placed <05927> [on which.]
objects <03627> [jewels.]
Beth Shemesh <01053> [Beth-shemesh.]
then <06213> [he. or, it.]
know <03045> [we shall.]
hand <03027> [not his hand.]
accident <04745> [a chance.]
put <07760> [they laid.]
offered <05927> [offered.]
five <02568> [the five.]
returned <07725> [they returned.]
gold <02091> [these.]
Ashdod <0795> [Ashdod.]
Gaza <05804> [Gaza.]
Ashkelon <0831> [Askelon.]
Gath <01661> [Gath.]
Ekron <06138> [Ekron.]
five leaders <05633 02568> [the five lords.]
greater Abel <01419 059> [great stone of. or, great stone.]
struck down .................... struck down ............. struck <05221> [he smote.]
50,070 <02572 0505> [fifty thousand.]
As it is very improbable that the village of Beth-shemesh should contain, or be capable of employing, 50,070 men in the fields at wheat harvest, much less that they could all peep into the ark, and from the uncommon manner in which it is expressed in the original, it is generally allowed that there is some corruption in the text, or that some explanatory word is omitted. The Hebrew is {shivim ish, chamishim aileph ish,} literally, "seventy men, fifty thousand men:" so LXX. [ .] Vulgate, {septuaginta viros, et quinquaginta millia plebis,} "70 (chief) men, and 50,000 common people." Targum, {besabey ƒmma,} "of the elders of the people 70 men, {ovekahala,} and in the congregation 50,000 men." But the Syriac, {chamsho alphin weshivin gavrin,} "5,000 and 70 men;" with which the Arabic agrees; while Josephus has only [ ,] seventy men; and three reputable MSS. of Dr. Kennicott's also omit "50,000 men." Some learned men, however, would render, by supplying [Mˆm,] {mem,} "70 men; fifty out of a thousand;" which supposes about 1,400 present, and that a twentieth part were slain.
Kiriath Jearim <07157> [Kirjath-jearim.]
