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1 Samuel 6:1-21 open_in_new
The Philistines return the Ark to Israel
2. The diviners] The Philistines appear to have been notorious for their attachment to divination: see on Isaiah 2:6.
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1 Samuel 6:3 open_in_new
The trespass offering was always brought to atone for some wrong done to, or some right withheld from, God or man.
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1 Samuel 6:5 open_in_new
Aristotle relates that in harvest entire crops were sometimes destroyed in a single night by the ravages of field-mice.
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1 Samuel 6:7 open_in_new
The new cart and the kine who had worn no yoke were signs of respect.
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1 Samuel 6:9 open_in_new
Under ordinary circumstances the cows would not have left their calves. Beth-shemesh] the modern Ain-Shems, on the N. border of Judah.
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1 Samuel 6:18 open_in_new
Even unto the great stone] Read with LXX, 'And the great stone, whereon they set down the ark of the Lord, is a witness unto this day.
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1 Samuel 6:19 open_in_new
It is very probable that in this v. LXX has preserved the original text: 'But the sons of Jechoniah rejoiced not with the men of Beth-shemesh, when they gazed (with gladness) at the ark of the Lord, and he smote among them 70 men.' All editors are agreed that the 'fifty thousand' is a gloss which has crept into the text. The Hebrew phrase here used is not the correct method of expressing 50,070.
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1 Samuel 6:21 open_in_new
Kirjath-jearim] see on Judges 18:12. For the further account of the ark cp. 2 Samuel 6.
C.
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1 Samuel 6:71 open_in_new
This v. is the conclusion of the narrative, and should really form part of 1 Samuel 6.
We should have expected the ark to be taken back to Shiloh; perhaps Shiloh had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, who now overran Israel (cp. 1 Samuel 14:6; 1 Samuel 14:19). At any rate, we hear no more of Shiloh as a national meeting-place; for the time, whatever national unity exists centres round Samuel.