Our main text this morning is a sequel—and not the blockbuster kind, but the kind that comes out a decade or two later because the first one wasn’t all that popular. In this case, we’re going back to 1 Samuel 4-6 to complete what some scholars refer to as the Ark Narrative. If you were here at the beginning of June, you remember that in 1 Samuel 3 God gave Samuel a word of bleak judgment for his mentor Eli. In chapter 4, that judgment hits like a sledgehammer—and it happens because Eli and his sons have not discipled the elders of Israel well.
Israel is going into battle against the Philistines, because of course they are, and the leaders of the nation decide to bring the ark of God (which is referred to elsewhere in scripture as the ark of the covenant) from the sanctuary at Shiloh to the battlefield. This is classic magical thinking, which is to say it’s pagan thinking: the ark is a divine object which has powers which they can use to help them win. It’s terrible theology, and it shows a lack of respect for—or even awareness of—God’s holiness. They are treating God as someone they can use to accomplish their own purposes. The result is utter disaster: the army of Israel is routed, the sons of Eli are killed . . . and the ark is taken by the Philistines. When Eli hears, he falls backward, breaks his neck, and dies. His pregnant daughter-in-law hears the news, goes into labor early, and dies in childbirth; she lives just long enough to name her son Ichabod—i-kavod, which means “no glory”—saying, “The glory has departed from Israel.”
Now, the capture of the ark is a loss for Israel, but no win for the Philistines, for a similar reason. Where the Israelites’ pagan thinking led to a lack of respect for God’s holiness, that of the Philistines produces a lack of respect for his power. They have captured the sacred thing of Israel’s god; by their understanding, that must mean their victory on earth was the result of a victory in heaven by their gods over Israel’s god. The thing to do with the ark, then, is to represent and honor that victory in heaven by taking it into one of their temples and setting it before the image of the god. So they do, taking the ark to Ashdod (one of their five main cities) and placing it in the temple of Dagon.
Again, the result of pagan thinking is disaster. The next morning, the Philistines find the statue of Dagon flat on its face before the ark. They set the statue back on its feet—and then the next morning, they find the statue has fallen on its face again before the ark, except this time the head and hands have broken off and are lying in the doorway. What’s more, the Philistines are hit by bubonic plague and overrun by rats, first in Ashdod and then everywhere else they try moving the ark, until the people beg their rulers to send the ark back to Israel before they all die.