1-3 The ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines for seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it to its place.” They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand does not turn away from you.”

4-5 And they said, “What is the guilt offering that we shall return to him?” They answered, “Five golden tumours and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for the same plague was on all of you and on your lords. So you must make images of your tumours and images of your mice that ravage the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you and your gods and your land. 6 Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed?

7-9 Now then, take and prepare a new cart and two milk cows on which there has never come a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them. And take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart and put in a box at its side the figures of gold, which you are returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off and let it go its way and watch. If it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm, but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by coincidence.”

10-12 The men did so, and took two milk cows and yoked them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. And they put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the box with the golden mice and the images of their tumours. 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. 1 Samuel 6:1-12 English Standard Version

What a strange procession that must have been on the road to Beth-shemesh! Two cows pulling a cart with 'a box' on it, but being followed by all the royalty of the Philistines. The story is very straight forward and one can understand the logic of the plan the priests and diviners put forward. It would be completely out of character for the milk cows to set off in the direction of Israel (where the Ark of the Covenant belonged) and abandon their calves. But that's exactly what they did. The point that struck me however was what we read in vs 6. What does that suggest to you?

The incident that took place here happened some hundreds of years after the Israelites had been rescued by God out of Egypt and brought to the land they were now living in. And yet we see that the account of how God had used plagues against the Egyptians who had hardened their hearts against Him, was well known to the Philistines. It's like those of us who live today being familiar with major events that took place long ago, events such as how the Allies got the victory in World War Two. Verse 6 is a strong point in favour of the things told in the book in the Bible called Exodus being true historical events.

Perhaps the other point we can note is that we get some insight into how the nations thought in those days. Each region had it's own gods – and sometimes they thought it wise to respect the god of another country if it seemed that their god could do them harm. The Philistines must’ve realized that the God whom Israel served had shown Himself stronger than the ‘gods’ of Egypt. In the New Testament, when the apostle Paul came to the ancient city of Athens, he saw that the city was full of idols. So he started to tell them of the one and only God who made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. He said that God had determined allotted periods and boundaries of these nations, and that they should seek Him. This is still the message we must make known in the world today. There is no such thing as 'your truth' and 'my truth.' There is only one true God, and it is His truth which we must not harden our hearts against!