When the Holy Box Went to War

All Israel knew by now that Samuel was God's prophet. Then Israel's army marched out to fight the Philistines.

The Philistines won, and about four thousand Israelite soldiers were killed.

"Why did the LORD let them beat us?" the leaders asked. Then somebody had an idea. "Fetch the ark from Shiloh! If it goes with us, it will save us!"

The ark was a gold-covered chest with two gold angels on its lid. God had told Moses, "There, above the lid, I will meet with you." But the leaders did not want to meet God. They wanted a lucky charm.

Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, brought it into camp, and the soldiers cheered so loudly the ground shook. Over in the Philistine camp, everyone jumped. "A god has come into their camp! These are the gods who struck the Egyptians! Be brave, Philistines, and fight!"

They fought, and Israel ran. Thirty thousand soldiers were killed. Hophni and Phinehas were killed. And the Philistines carried the ark away.

Eli was ninety-eight and blind. He sat on a chair beside the road, trembling for the ark, until a runner came with torn clothes and dust on his head.

"Israel ran. Your two sons are dead. And the ark of God has been captured."

At the word "ark," Eli fell backward off his chair. He was old and heavy, and his neck broke, and he died. At the news, Phinehas's wife went into labor. She named her baby boy Ichabod, which means "Where is the glory?" "The glory has gone from Israel," she said, and then she died.

The Philistines set the ark beside the statue of their god Dagon. Next morning, Dagon lay flat on his face in front of the ark. They stood him back up. The morning after, Dagon was on his face again, and his head and hands had broken off and lay on the doorstep. (After that, Dagon's priests would not step on that doorstep. They stepped over it.)

In every town the ark visited, painful lumps broke out and many people died. "Get it out of here!" they screamed.

After seven months their priests had a plan. "Put it on a new cart, pulled by two mother cows, and shut their calves up at home. If the cows walk toward Israel, Israel's God did this to us."

(Any farmer knows a mother cow wants to go home to her calf.) These two walked straight to Israel, mooing all the way.

The farmers of Beth Shemesh, out cutting wheat, saw the ark coming and shouted for joy. But some men opened it to look inside, and God struck them down. Seventy men died. "Who can stand before the LORD, this holy God?" the town asked. So they sent the ark to Kiriath Jearim, where it stayed twenty years.

The glory had come home, and all Israel mourned and longed for the LORD. But nobody had an answer to that question.

In the end, God answered that question himself. His glory came near again, inside a person instead of a box. Like the ark, he was handed over to enemies, and he let it happen. They nailed him to wood, and he died. On the third day, death fell on its face before him, the way Dagon fell before the ark. One of his friends wrote, "We have seen his glory." Because of him, people who could never stand before the holy God get to come close. The glory had hands now, hands that welcomed people in. It had a name, too. His name was Jesus.