1 Samuel 6: What Golden Mice and Unyoked Cows Can Teach Us

[Note: Sorry for the lack of devotionals lately. I have been busy, but I've also been experiencing technical difficulties with the websight.]

1 Samuel 6:20 "Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, 'Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?'”

Ever read a super wacky story in the Bible and have no clue how to apply it to your life or why it is even within the text of scripture? Well, we reach that kind of story this morning. However, through the wacky narrative of 1 Samuel 6, I hope that we can see (through golden mice and unyoked cows) the great and superior holiness of God.

1 Samuel 6 picks up where 1 Samuel 5 left off, with the Phillistines dying and getting diseases because they have stolen the ark of the Lord. The Phillistines figure that there is nothing better to do than to give the Israelites back their ark so that no more of their people die and get tumors. Thus, the Phillistine priests call for some of their people to get two unyoked cows for them to place the ark on, as well as to make 10 golden images (5 of mice and the other 5 of tumors [yes, tumors*]) to offer to the Israelites and their God as a guilt offering for stealing their ark. The Phillistines do so, and send the ark away on these two now-yoked cows along with their 10 golden images, and the ark soon reaches Israelite territory thanks to the two wandering, non-shepherded cows.* However, the ark is still not in the temple, and thus it is causing death to even the Israelites that look upon it. Thus, the Israelites in that land call upon their other Israelite buddies to take up the ark to where it should be. And that is the end of the wacky narrative of 1 Samuel 6.

So, how do we apply this to our lives? Surely all scripture is living and active, sharper than a two edged-sword, even this scripture (see Hebrews 4). Thus, we must seek how to apply it to our lives. In my opinion, the main way to apply this text to our lives is to observe the holiness of God, even in his ark. The ark of the covenant symbolized and even contained God's presence to the Israelite people so much that it caused the Phillistines and the Israelites to die if they were in the presence of it. Because this ark was the ark of the Lord Yahweh, it caused all of those around it to perish if they did not treat it in the correct way. In the end, the ark left the people wondering, as noted in the verse quoted above, "Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?" And in this very statement we find our deepest application this morning: that because of the holiness of the Lord, no one should be able to stand before him. The Lord is perfect in all of his ways, the only sinless one. Thus, no one should be able to ever stand in his presence, yet by the blood of Christ, we do that very thing every day. Not only do we live in his presence, his presence is in us and we are in him. Thus, we must realize this morning that the same presence of God that caused the Phillistines and Israelites to die even looking at it is the same presence that now lives within us only by the blood of Christ. Thus, we must thank Jesus for his mighty sacrifice, for by it we are invited into God's presence rather than casted out.. Amen.

*Apparently it was an old practice to make golden images of the things that were causing you problems (such as tumors and mice, as mice would carry the diseases to the Phillistines [see 1 Samuel 6:5]) so that your respective god would see these images and realize that you realized that he was angry with you and sending these horrible things upon you. In other words, these images/sacrifices of gold mice and tumors were a weird way of asking the Isrealite's God to take their tumors and death away from them now that they have returned the ark.

*We also find in this story that God is sovereign over the paths of wandering cows who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant.