The Pulpit Commentary
Mice that mar the land. The idea of a plague of field mice is, as we have seen, due to one of those many unauthorised insertions of the Septuagint by which they supposed that they removed difficulties from the way of their readers. As the ancients use the names of animals in a very generic way, any rodent may be meant from the jerboa downwards; but probably it was the common field mouse, arvicola arvensis, still common in Syria, which multiplies with great rapidity, and is very destructive to the crops, and so became the symbol of devastation and pestilence (see on 1Sa_5:6). When, as Herodotus relates (Book 2:141), the Assyrian army of Sennacherib had been defeated, because a vast multitude of field mice had overrun his camp and gnawed asunder the bow strings of his troops, the Egyptians raised a statue to Hephaestus, holding in his hand a mouse. But very probably this is but the literal explanation by Herodotus of what he saw, while to a well instructed Egyptian it represented their god of healing, holding in his hand the mouse, as the symbol either of the devastation which he had averted, or of the pestilence with which he had smitten the Assyrian army (see on 1Sa_5:6).

The Pulpit Commentary
Wherefore do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh? On this reference to Egypt see on 1Sa_4:8. It is remarkable that they so correctly point out that it was the obduracy of the Egyptians which made their punishment so severe. Yet finally even they, in spite of their determined opposition were compelled to let Israel go. So now the question is whether the Philistines will restore the ark on the warning of one plague, or whether they will hold out till they have been smitten with ten.

The Pulpit Commentary
Make a new cart, and take, etc. The Hebrew is, "Now take and make you a new cart, and two milch kine." The transposition of the A.V. throws undue stress upon the verb make, whereas the Hebrew simply means that both the cart was to be new, and the heifers untrained and unbroken to the yoke. Both these were marks of reverence. Nothing was to be employed in God's service which had been previously used for baser purposes. No animal was deemed fit for sacrifice which had laboured in the field. The separation of the kine from their calves was for the purpose of demonstrating whether the plague after all was supernatural, and it is remarkable what great care the Philistine priests take against confounding the extraordinary with the Divine. If, however, the kine act in a manner contrary to nature, their last doubt will be removed.

The Pulpit Commentary
Put the jewels of gold … in a coffer. Instead of jewels the Hebrew word signifies any article of workmanship, and so figures, images wrought in gold. They were to be placed reverentially at the side of the ark, for it had wrought them so great evil that they had learned to look upon it with awe.

The Pulpit Commentary
His own coast, or "border." The ark throughout this verse is spoken of as if it were itself a deity. Beth-shemesh—i.e. "the house of the sun," also called Irshemesh, "city of the sun" (Jos_19:41)—had evidently been in the time of the Canaanites the seat of this popular idolatry. It was now a city of the priests, situated in the tribe of Judah, on its northeastern border, next the tribe of Dan, and was the nearest Israelite town to Ekron. If, then, the kine, albeit unused to the yoke, left their calves behind, and drew the cart by the most direct route unto the land of Judah, they would give the required proof that the Philistines were smitten by the hand of Jehovah, and that it was no chance that had happened unto them.

The Pulpit Commentary
The kine took the straight way. The Hebrew brings out the directness with which the heifers took the route to Beth-shemesh very forcibly. It says, "And the kine went straight in the way upon the way to Beth-shemesh; they went along one highway, lowing as they went," i.e. they went in one direct course, without deviating from it. Nevertheless, their continual lowing showed the great stress that was laid upon their nature in being thus compelled to separate themselves from their calves. And the lords of the Philistines went after them. I.e. behind them, leaving the kine free to go where they chose. The usual position of the driver of an ox cart in the East is in front. Conder ('Tent Work,' 1:274) describes the view up the great corn valley of Sorek to the high and rugged hills above as extremely picturesque, and this it is, he adds, which was spread before the eyes of the five lords of the Philistines as they followed the lowing oxen which bore the ark on the "straight way" from Ekron to Beth-shemesh. The ruins of the latter place, he says, lie on a knoll surrounded by olive trees, near the junction of the valley of Sorek with the great gorge which bounded Judah on the north.

THE ARK AT BETH-SHEMESH (1Sa_6:15-20).

The Pulpit Commentary
And they of Beth-shemesh. More exactly, "And Beth-shemesh was reaping its wheat harvest," the whole population being in the fields. Though a priestly city, we find in 1Sa_6:15 the Levites distinguished from the ordinary inhabitants, as though they and the priests formed only the ruling class. In the valley. Now called the Wady Surar, branching off into another valley on the south. Robinson speaks of the site of Beth-shemesh as a very noble one, being "a low plateau at the junction of two fine plains." The wheat harvest takes place in Palestine in May, and consequently the disastrous battle of Eben-ezer must have been fought in the previous October.

The Pulpit Commentary
Stood there, where there was a great stone. Probably a mass of natural rock rising through the soil. This they used as an altar, breaking up the cart for wood, and sacrificing the kine. In this joyful work all the people seem to have joined, though the sacrifice would be offered only by the priests.

The Pulpit Commentary
The Levites took down the ark. Naturally, in a city of which priests formed the ruling caste, the people would be acquainted with the general nature of the regulations of the law. Apparently it was only after the sacrificial feast that they forgot the reverence due to the symbol of Jehovah's presence among them.

The Pulpit Commentary
They returned to Ekron the same day. The lords of the Philistines would of course take no part in this rejoicing, but, having seen the ark restored, and the people busied in making preparations for the sacrifice, returned immediately home.

1Sa_6:17, 1Sa_6:18

The golden emerods. We have here and in 1Sa_6:18 an enumeration of the gifts differing from, without being at variance with, that in 1Sa_6:4. They are still five golden emerods, for which the name here is not ophalim, but tehorim, the word always read in the synagogue (see 1Sa_5:6). From its use in the cognate languages it is pretty certain that it is rightly translated in our version. But besides these there were golden mice, according to the number of all the cities, etc. The priests had named only five mice, one for each of the lords of the Philistines; but the eagerness of the people outran their suggestion, and not only the fenced towns, but even the unwalled villages sent their offering, lest they should still be chastised. Country villages. Literally, "the village" or "hamlet of the Perazi." The Septuagint, a trustworthy authority in such matters, makes the Perazi the same as the Perizzite. Both words really signify "the inhabitant of the lowland," i.e. of the plain country of Phoenicia; but from Zec_2:4, where Perazoth is translated "towns without walls," and from Eze_38:11, where it is rendered "unwalled villages," we may conclude that it had come popularly to mean an open village, though literally, in both these places, it means "the hamlets of the lowland." Even unto the great stone of Abel, etc. All this part of the verse is exceedingly corrupt, and requires large interpolations to obtain from it any meaning. Both the Vulgate and the Syriac retain the unmeaning word Abel; but the Septuagint gives us what is probably the true reading: "and the great stone whereon they set the ark of Jehovah, which is in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemeshite, is a witness unto this day" (comp. Gen_31:52; Isa_30:8).

The Pulpit Commentary
He emote the men of Beth-shemesh, etc. In this verse also the text is undoubtedly corrupt. The Septuagint ascribes the sin not to all the people, but to "the sons of Jeconiah, who were not glad when they saw the ark, and he smote them." But as this reading is not supported by the other versions we may pass it by. The numbers, however, are evidently wrong. Fifty thousand men would imply a population of 250,000 people, whereas Jerusalem itself in its palmiest days never had a population of even 70,000. There were no large cities among the Israelites, but a scattered population living upon their fields, and with a few small walled towns here and there to protect them and their cattle in any sudden emergency. Kennicott, however, has satisfactorily explained the mistake. In the old way of denoting numbers by the letters of the alphabet an 'ain = 70 had been mistaken for a nun with two dots = 50,000. The Syriac has 5000, that is, a nun with one dot. We must add that the Hebrew is not fifty thousand and threescore and ten men, but "seventy men, fifty thousand men," without any article between, and with the smaller number first, contrary to Hebrew rule. The occasion of the calamity was probably as follows:—As the news of the return of the ark spread from mouth to mouth, the people flocked together to take part in the sacrifice. which would of course be followed by a feast. Heated thereat by wine, perhaps, and merriment, they lost all sense of reverence, and encouraged one another to look into the ark and examine its contents, though the words need not absolutely mean more than that "they looked at the ark." Even so the men of Beth-shemesh, as a city of priests, must have known that death was the penalty of unhallowed gazing at holy things (Num_4:20), and it is more than probable that those who were smitten were priests, because in them it would be a heinous sin; for it was a repetition of that contempt for religion and its symbols which had been condemned so sternly in Eli's sons. The mere seeing of the ark was no sin, and had given the people only joy (1Sa_6:13), but as soon as they had received it the priests ought to have covered it with a vail (Num_4:5). To leave it without a vail was neglectful, to pry into it was sacrilege. Because Jehovah had smitten many of the people, etc. This clause should be translated, "because Jehovah had smitten the people with a great smiting." The sudden death even of seventy men in an agricultural district, especially if they were the heads of the priestly families there, would be a great and terrible calamity, enough to fill the whole place with grief.

1Sa_6:20, 1Sa_6:21

Who is able, etc. Literally, "Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God?" A punishment so severe following upon their unhallowed temerity made the inhabitants of this city of priests eager to pass the ark on to others. They therefore sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim to request them to fetc.h it away. Kiryath-yarim—for so it ought to be pronounced—means the city of forests—Woodtown, softened among us into Wooton. It was chosen apparently simply because it was the nearest town of any importance, and was therefore identified in early Christian times with the modern Kuriet-el-'anab, grapetown, the woods having given way to vines, and which is about ten miles off, on the road to Mizpah. Conder, however, doubts the correctness of this view, and places Kirjath-jearim at Soba (see 'Tent Work,' 1Sa_1:18 22).