A Truly Amazing Story

The Bible can have remarkable stories with twists in the plot and mysterious characters, just like other books. So, of course, you'll need your Bible (if you don't have one, i would strongly suggest looking into purchasing one)

Turn to 1 Samuel and read chapter 5-6:7. This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. Now how on earth did the Philistines get hold of the Ark of the Covenant in the first place? Well, the Israelites had been defeated in a battle with the Philistines, and because they didn't want to lose the second battle, they brought the Ark into battle with them, apparently against the will of God.

Now if you'll notice in chapter 6 that a mystery unfolds when the Philistines' god Dagon falls on the floor face first during the night. The priests, not suspecting much, set Dagon back up. But the next morning, Dagon has not only fallen over, but its hands and head have been removed from its body. God wanted to show the Philistines that He was the true god, the only one with power.

After the Philistines had had enough of the plagues, they decided to send the Ark back to the Jews. And they didn't just throw it across the border and run back home, but instead they placed with it 5 golden tumors and 5 golden mice. The mice here is what is truly amazing and intriguing. The people of that day apparently knew that certain diseases where caused by mice. Yet this information was lost during the Dark/Middle Ages, when all knowledge (what little of it there was) was reserved for a strict lineage of high ranking people.

Now read verses 7-18. The Philistines knew that the mystery of Dagon on the ground had something to do with the Ark, so they wanted to make a test for it to see if God was truly a god. And the Lord fulfilled their test by sending an angel to guide the cart. But the Philistines never accepted this chance to become followers of the Way.

One last thing to say. In the final verses of chapter 6, we see that many Israelites where killed because they look upon the uncovered Ark. Here we see that the Philistines, let me repeat that for emphasis, that the Philistines had more reverence for the Ark the Jews did here in the end of this story. The Philistines carefully placed the Ark on a cart and put ten hunks of gold with it, and the Jews completely uncovered it and began looking at it, something the High Priest could only do once a year, and that was after being cleansed of his sins.

This story is a truly remarkable one, and I hope it strengthened your personal relationship with God.