THEOSISTheodoret of Cyrus
Question 10: Why did God permit the capture of the tabernacle? This occurrence served a dual purpose. It illustrated to the Jewish people that those who uphold the law must place their faith in God's Providence, while those who disregard His commandments cannot rely on either God or the sacred tabernacle. For what reason did the lawbreakers seek assistance from the tabernacle that housed the law itself? Thus, the Israelites gained wisdom from this event. The foreign nations, who trembled at the sight of the returned tabernacle and later treated it with disdain, even offering it to their idols as war spoils, learned through experience about God's might. Initially, they witnessed their own deity fall before the ark, as if to acknowledge it.
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Then, the following morning, after reestablishing their idol, they discovered it shattered and stripped of its ornaments. As a result of their refusal to recognize the greatness of God and adequately honor the tabernacle, they fell prey to various afflictions. According to the seventy interpreters, they suffered physically (1 Sam. 5:9), and as Aquila noted, they experienced gangrene. Josephus further indicates they were stricken with diarrhea. There is no contradiction in these descriptions; diarrhea can lead to sciatica and subsequent ailments, which over time could culminate in gangrene. The affliction of sciatica fell upon the foreign nations due to their blasphemy in dedicating the sacred tabernacle to a false god. The people of Ashdod were the first to experience this punishment. The inhabitants of Gath, mistakenly believing the affliction arose from some contagious wind rather than divine wrath, transported the sacred item there, only to face the same fate. Other translations report "and their seats became hot" (1 Sam. 5:9). When the Gathites attempted to move the tabernacle to Ashkelon, the people of Ashkelon resisted, fearing divine retribution. Consequently, no city wished to receive the tabernacle, and it was left on the outskirts, exposed to the elements. The writer indicates this, stating "And there the ark of God was in the field of the Philistines for seven months" (1 Sam. 6:1). Believing that moving the tabernacle outside their towns would relieve them from God's plagues, they found that God also struck their inanimate possessions. He sent swarms of mice to devastate their crops, demonstrating His capacity to unleash various plagues similar to those upon the Egyptians. The freshness of this memory is evident in the foreign nations’ lamentations during battle, where they exclaimed, "Woe unto us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of this mighty God? This is the God who smote Egypt with all the plagues" (1 Sam. 4:8). Following their suffering, their priests and advisors advised them to offer gifts, saying, "Let the ark of the God of Israel go, that He may lighten His hand from you, and from your gods, and from your land. And why do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?" (1 Sam. 6:5, 6). However, the wicked, having proposed this counsel and acknowledged the impotence of their gods—who God had first shattered, then punished those who worshipped them, and finally sent mice to plague their land—sought to determine whether the calamity was divine or merely coincidental. They prepared a new cart, harnessing two cows that had recently calved, placing the tabernacle on it, and offering five golden mice as a tribute to God. They arranged the gifts in a chest, which the seventy translators referred to as a vessel and Josephus as a box. They set the cart at a crossroads without a driver, waiting to see if the cows would return to their calves or take another direction, particularly avoiding the route leading to the Israelites. In either case, they hoped to demonstrate that the tabernacle was powerless. Yet, should the cows, defying all other routes and neglecting their own calves, head toward the land of Israel, it would affirm that the calamities they suffered truly originated from God. Therefore, from a distance, they followed the oxen. Unbeknownst to them, the Israelites in the vicinity, witnessing this extraordinary event—how the cart moved without human guidance, with the oxen simultaneously bearing the load and leading the way—emerged joyfully to meet it, marveling at God's triumph.