Reverence or Disregard of God?

1 Samuel 6:1-21 

    1 Now the ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven months. 2 And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us how we should send it to its place.” 3 So they said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty; but by all means return it to Him with a trespass offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.
    4 Then they said, “What is the trespass offering which we shall return to Him?”  They answered, “Five golden tumors and five golden rats, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For the same plague was on all of you and on your lords. 5 Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats that ravage the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will lighten His hand from you, from your gods, and from your land. 6 Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He did mighty things among them, did they not let the people go, that they might depart? 7 Now therefore, make a new cart, take two milk cows which have never been yoked, and hitch the cows to the cart; and take their calves home, away from them. 8 Then take the ark of the LORD and set it on the cart; and put the articles of gold which you are returning to Him as a trespass offering in a chest by its side. Then send it away, and let it go. 9 And watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to Beth Shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that struck us—it happened to us by chance.”
    10 Then the men did so; they took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. 11 And they set the ark of the LORD on the cart, and the chest with the gold rats and the images of their tumors. 12 Then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh.
    13 Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. 14 Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and stood there; a large stone was there. So they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. 15 The Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the chest that was with it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on the large stone. Then the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices the same day to the LORD. 16 So when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.
    17 These are the golden tumors which the Philistines returned as a trespass offering to the LORD: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron; 18 and the golden rats, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and country villages, even as far as the large stone of Abel on which they set the ark of the LORD, which stone remains to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh.
    19 Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.  20 And the men of Beth Shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God? And to whom shall it go up from us?” 21 So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have brought back the ark of the LORD; come down and take it up with you.”

The Philistines who suffered tumors from having stolen the Ark and keeping it from Israel then wanted to return it to stop the likely cancerous tumor growths and boils they experienced as a result from the LORD.  They therefore planned to send it back with a trespass offering for their sin of taking it in battle, and made golden images of their judgement to acknowledge this in the form of those growths they suffered and the rodents infesting their land.  They were led to do this to give God glory and seek forgiveness, or lack of punishment at least.  Their own priests compared this to the story of God’s people being let go after the heart of Pharaoh was hardened against Israel as a warning not to do the same and suffer a similar fate.  They put the Ark on a cart and watched to see if it was from the LORD by going back to Israel, or another way to demonstrate that this was only a coincidence.  It of course was set loose and immediately headed swiftly back to the LORD’s people.  The cows were directed by God as they mooed all the way home, purposefully and without hesitation or side trips.  When it arrived in Beth Shemesh, the people of God sacrificed the cows on a nearby rock as a makeshift altar in joy for the return of the Ark of the Testimony of God’s covenant with them.  However, the LORD had given instructions that nobody was to gaze into the Ark (Numbers 4:15, 20) because it demonstrated a lack of reverence for the holy things of God in violation of the law.  They did not repent after over fifty thousand died, but instead lamented that they could not stand in His presence and asked others to come get the Ark and remove it from their presence.  They did not seem to understand that they were responsible and accountable for their disobedience and the consequences.  Instead they were sad that so many died; they failed to see first of all that they did not show reverence and obedience to the word of the LORD.  We also should learn from these and others such as Ananias and Saphira who do not count the holiness and reverence of the Lord above our own desires to do as we think best (Leviticus 10:3). God’s word is our irrefutable guide for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).  Do we show reverence or disregard for God?