READ: 1 Samuel 6-7 / Proverb 8
Verse
chosen for meditation: 1 Samuel 6:10-12
10 The men did so, and
took two milk cows and yoked them to the cart and shut up their calves at home.
11 And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the box
with the golden mice and the images of their tumors. 12 And
the cows went straight in the direction of Beth-shemesh along one highway,
lowing as they went. They turned neither to the right nor to the left, and the
lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
REFLECT
In
Chapter 4, the Israelites lost the ark of God to the Philistines in battle. In
chapter 5, the Philistines displayed the ark as a war trophy beside their own
god, Dagon. Yahweh then made it clear who is the true God, making the Dagon
statue prostrate before the ark and sent plagues to cities the ark was located
in.
Here
in chapter 6, finally terrified, the Philistines in consultation with their
priests, devised a way to send the ark back to Israel. They sensibly discerned
that a guilt offering must be provided. However, as if not enough evidence of
God’s power, they set up a test, for a final proof that their predicament was
not by chance, but by the hand of Israel’s God.
In
this impossible test, they took two cows which had never been yoked to a cart before.
Not being trained to carry cargo over distances, this would have led to chaos.
Furthermore, they locked up the cows’ calves at home. Few things are stronger
than a cow’s maternal instinct towards their young. It was simply impossible
for the cows to transport the ark, as their instincts would drive them home to
their calves. Yet they did it without deviating left or right, “lowing as they
went”, meaning they were agonising over their calves, but couldn’t resist the
power of God in control of their bodies.
RELATE
This
is one of the rare accounts I read that no humans were used by God. The
retrieval of the ark was all God alone. No effort was made by the Israelites in
recovering the ark for seven months!
This
proves that God’s power can be at full display, with or without us. In
accomplishing His own will, He could go solo! Why then does He involve us
humans in accomplishing His will? This gives us great insight into the kind of
God we have. Though we disappoint endlessly, He still very much wants to share
the joys of victory together with us, helping us grow by involving us, letting
us enjoy the fruits of labour. Often in doing so, He honours the lowly and
brings down the proud, liberating many people. God doesn’t need us, but we need
Him! Being involved in doing His will is to our benefit. In not doing so, we can
destroy ourselves.
Here,
the Israelites resisted God, continuing this cycle: brief period of
faithfulness, then drifting into unfaithfulness before crying to God in
desperation. The history of the church showed the same cycle. I too, go through
this cycle. This makes us realise that Christian growth is never an
uninterrupted path, and how easy it is to take control of our own lives, living
without God’s guidance. Prayerfully, with each failure and then coming back to
God, we gain new insight about God and ourselves, leading to growth.
The
Philistines resisted God too. Even after admitting the power of Yahweh that is
superior to their own gods (1 Samuel 6:5), they still went back to their gods. The
folly of the Philistines seems obvious, but we may be similar. Even with
knowledge of our God, we tend to resist him, worshipping other idols of our
lives because of the alluring earthly pleasures they may offer. With all sides
resisting Him, He instead used cows to do His will!
It
must be said that though the Philistines honoured Israel’s God to get
His pardon, they did not handle the ark appropriately. Still, God excused them,
a stark contrast from 1 Samuel 6:19, when God struck the Israelites for
disobeying laws in handling the ark. Our God is a fair one. Though the
Philistines were enemies, they were sincere in honouring our God. God was merciful, partly due to the Philistines' ignorance to the
law. It is sad that in showing honour to God’s holiness, the Philistines fared
better than the Israelites, who knew God’s laws very well, but were complacent
and took God’s holiness lightly. Do we show similar complacency in our view
of God? We sometimes demand of God as if He owes us things. Graciously, He
still gives us these things though how we ask of them may not be God-honouring.
We should fear God, not because He is a dictator (He’s nothing like that), but
because we should show Him the reverence His authority, as the Lord of our
lives, deserves.
REST
When faced with God’s holiness, let’s not be like
the Israelites in 1 Samuel 6:20 and distance ourselves from God, blaming God’s
harshness rather than our own disobedience. Rather, be attracted by His
holiness and seek to draw closer to Him, as we meditate on this song: When I
Look into Your Holiness (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfIT3rooJWQ).
Chris Chong
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