(3) And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you. (4) Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. (5) Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. (6) Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? (7) 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: (8) 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. (9) And see, if it goeth up by the way of his 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.
There is somewhat very remarkable in this account. It is plain from what is here said, that the Philistines were well acquainted with Israel's history, in the Egyptian bondage and overthrow of Pharaoh. And it is as plain also that they had ideas, (and which they must have gathered from the law of Moses) of the doctrine of trespass-offerings. Alas! how many are there in the present hour, that possess an head knowledge of the glorious truths of the gospel, but who, like both the Egyptians and Philistines, remain forever strangers to the heartfelt influence of them. The experiment they made, by way of ascertaining the certainty that their affliction was from God, for taking and detaining the ark, was suited to the genius of the day, and hears an apt correspondence to carnal minds in all ages. But we must not confine such things to the mere carnal world of unbelievers only; God's people have been found to seek signs, by way of gaining conviction. Such for instance, as Abraham's servant, and Gideon the son of Joash. Genesis 24:12, etc. Judges 6:36, etc.