(3) And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.
What an awful character is man, void of the teachings of divine grace! Had Israel been humbled under the mighty hand of God, and had the elders of Israel, with prayer and supplication, consulted the ark of God, instead of presumptuously bringing the ark out of the sacred spot where God had appointed it to be placed, all might have been well. But by this daring act, unauthorized of God, and as it should almost seem, in defiance, (from the expression, wherefore hath the Lord smitten us?) they evidently manifested that punishment, instead of humbling, had hardened their minds. Reader! if under divine visitations, instead of flying to Jesus, we take up with the mere profession of the religion of Jesus, and trust in the form of Godliness, void of the power of it; wherein do we differ from them?