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argument therefore of the priests and diviners could therefore be stated thus: `You will
remember the well-known story of the obduracy of the powerful Egyptians in connection
with these Israelites, yet even they in the end had to let them go. You Philistines have
had experience of two plagues, will you now, like those foolish Egyptians harden your
hearts, till you like them have been smitten by ten'.
These `diviners' in the counsels of this nation of antiquity occupied a distinguished
place. We read of them under different names: magicians, sorcerers, soothsayers,
oracles, etc. They plied their trade with the aid of arrows, the entrails of animals,
observance of the stars, the flight of birds and dabbled in occult sciences. They could
well have been aided by evil spirits, for Satan wields great power above the earth in the
realms of darkness. To the question "What shall we do with the Ark of God?", their
advice was to propitiate with gifts the powerful Hebrew Deity, and send it back before
greater calamity followed.
"Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come
no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: and take the
Ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return Him
for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.
And see, if it goeth up by the way of its own coast to Bethshemesh, then He hath done us
this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that smote us; it was
a chance that happened to us" (I Sam. 6: 7-9).
Honour must be given. A new cart must be used. No ordinary oxen, the customary
beasts of burden, nor is it to have a driver. Milch cows, entirely untrained for the yoke
must draw it. Their calves are to be kept at home, and the cows themselves left to their
own devices.
Everything was done that would make it almost impossible for the cart to leave
Philistia and ascend the heights to the land of Israel. The cows were bound to the calves
they nourished, and to the crib where both were fed. They would be unacquainted with
the road, and moreover it meant a long steady climb from the Philistine plain. It would
be reasonable to expect them to turn home again. This was a test for the God of Israel.
These diviners were not sure whether the plagues had been sent by Him, or whether they
had fallen upon their land in the ordinary course of nature. This strange experiment
would satisfy the minds of the Philistine people. If the cows, contrary to all expectation,
kept on the road upwards to Bethshemesh, then this would be a sign that they were driven
by a Divine power. It would be clear that this Ark was a very dangerous possession, and
that they would be well rid of it. So the Ark with the golden images of both the plagues
were loaded on to the cart and the kine hitched up:
"And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up
their calves at home, and they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with
the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way to
the way of Bethshemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned
not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them
unto the border of Bethshemesh. And they of Bethshemesh were reaping their wheat
harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.
And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite, and stood there, where there