Study Desk

“What was the message he gave you?” Eli asked. “Don’t hide it from me. May God punish you and do so severely if you hide anything from me that he told you.”

So the people sent men to Shiloh to bring back the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Armies, who is enthroned between the cherubim. Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

they panicked. “A god has entered their camp!” they said. “Woe to us, nothing like this has happened before.

The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

When he arrived, there was Eli sitting on his chair beside the road watching, because he was anxious about the ark of God. When the man entered the city to give a report, the entire city cried out.

The messenger answered, “Israel has fled from the Philistines, and also there was a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are both dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off the chair by the city gate, and since he was old and heavy, his neck broke and he died. Eli had judged Israel forty years.

She named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” referring to the capture of the ark of God and to the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband.

“The glory has departed from Israel,” she said, “because the ark of God has been captured.”

After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod,

When the people of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, “The ark of Israel’s God must not stay here with us, because his hand is strongly against us and our god Dagon.”

So they called all the Philistine rulers together and asked, “What should we do with the ark of Israel’s God?”

The people of Gath then sent the ark of God to Ekron, but when it got there, the Ekronites cried out, “They’ve moved the ark of Israel’s God to us to kill us and our people!”

The Ekronites called all the Philistine rulers together. They said, “Send the ark of Israel’s God away. Let it return to its place so it won’t kill us and our people!” For the fear of death pervaded the city; God’s hand was oppressing them.

They replied, “If you send the ark of Israel’s God away, do not send it without an offering. Send back a guilt offering to him, and you will be healed. Then the reason his hand hasn’t been removed from you will be revealed.”

Make images of your tumors and of your mice that are destroying the land. Give glory to Israel’s God, and perhaps he will stop oppressing you, your gods, and your land.

God struck down the people of Beth-shemesh because they looked inside the ark of the Lord. He struck down seventy persons. The people mourned because the Lord struck them with a great slaughter.

The people of Beth-shemesh asked, “Who is able to stand in the presence of the Lord this holy God? To whom should the ark go from here?”

The Israelites said to Samuel, “Don’t stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, so that he will save us from the Philistines.”

“Look,” the servant said, “there’s a man of God in this city who is highly respected; everything he says is sure to come true. Let’s go there now. Maybe he’ll tell us which way we should go.”