“Something strange in the neighbourhood”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, June 26, 2023
1 Samuel 5:1-12 (Forward, p. 59) CEV p. 281
No wonder Steven Spielberg had the Ark of the Covenant take centre stage in his 1981 blockbuster movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The Ark has long had a certain mystique about it, especially with the rumours swirling around it that it has some type of mystic and supernatural powers. It was quite appropriate and natural, therefore, that in the movie you would have Indiana Jones battling Nazi agent Arnold Toht and his archaeologist lackey Rene Bellog for possession of the Ark. After all, the Nazis were hoping to harness its powers for their own evil designs.
This mysterious and other-worldly aspect of the Ark comes front and centre in today’s Scripture passage and the chapters that follow. The Israelites had met the Philistines in battle near Ebenezer and had brought the Ark into their camp, hoping that its presence would help them gain the upper hand in the fighting. But it did not, and the Ark was captured by the Philistine army and taken to Ashdod, where it was placed in the temple of their god, Dagon.
But then, the troubles only began: the idol of their god Dagon suffered indignity after indignity, firstly being toppled and then, secondly, suffering the loss of his head and hands. Ha, such was the power of their god. It was no match for Yahweh, the God of Israel.
But their troubles, they would discover, had only just began. Everyone was afflicted with terrible boils all over their bodies—probably bubonic plague, from the raft of rats that came from their ships and suddenly infesting the land. The people were sure that the God of Israel was behind all this, behind both the insult done to their god and the illness brought upon their people.
Filled with fear, they decided to send the Ark back to Israel, along with some very odd and rather superstitious gifts (replicas in gold of the sores and the rats)—as a kind of guilt offering, to express their sorrow and regret. But then they hit upon another somewhat superstitious measure: they decided to send the Ark back, using a brand-new cart, one that had never been used before, and two dairy cows that had never before been used for drawing a cart. Furthermore, seeing as no one wanted to be responsible for leading the cart—and possibly incurring God’s disfavour or wrath, they decided to let the cows take the Ark where they willed. If the cows did indeed take it back to Israel they decided, they would know for sure that it was God that was behind all these calamities.
Interestingly—this is probably attributable to the Philistines being steeped in idolatry, where a particular deity is seen as being intimately ‘connected’ to his or her idol, the Philistines miss the point—as did the hapless Nazis in the Steven Spielberg film. The power comes not from the object itself, the Ark of the Covenant, but from the God who stands behind it. This, then, is a good warning and object lesson for us today. We may revere certain places, such as churches, and have a special regard for books and ceremonies and such like, but it is really the God who is represented in all this that we should be acknowledging, worshipping and obeying.
Forward notes: “Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off upon the threshold” (verse 4b).
“I’ve been thinking about the confrontations with false gods in the Old Testament: this story of Dagon falling on its face twice before the ark of the covenant; Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal before calling down fire from heaven; Moses smashing the golden calf, grinding it up into powder, and making the Israelites drink it out of the river.
“In this nation, we bring the first fruits of our labour, and often the lion’s share of it, and pour it into the gaping mouth of Death. And while its priests grow rich and powerful, we’re told that in order to be blessed, we need to sacrifice more—more trust and power to the system, more children’s lives to gun culture.
“I want to see the people of God knock false gods down. If we keep tipping them over—if we keep undermining and resisting them—maybe eventually we can cut off their hands and head on the threshold, so that every time their priests want to enter their temples, they are reminded of their impotency before the one true God.”
Moving Forward: “What false gods are you prepared to topple?”
Some concluding notes: our author barely ‘touches’ upon the gods of our society, such things, for instance, as power, possessions, position, privilege, and pleasure. But then there are also such things as ideological and political beliefs and opinions, or senses of victimhood or entitlement, or theories of ‘alien’ and dastardly powers and conspiracies, or fears or resentments or hurts from the past. All of these can likewise become ‘our gods’ and replace the one true God, the one we have pledged ourselves to trust and obey in all things.