Let us hear God's word from 1 Samuel 5 beginning in verse 6. But the hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod, and he ravaged them and struck them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory. And when the men of Ashdod saw how it was, they said, The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is harsh toward us and Dagon our God. Therefore they sent and gathered to themselves all the lords of the Philistines and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? They answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried away to Gath. So they carried the ark of the God of Israel away. So it was, after they had carried it away, that the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction, and He struck the men of the city, both small and great, and tumors broke out on them. Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. So it was, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, to kill us and our people. So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, send away the ark of the God of Israel and let it go back to its own place so that it does not kill us and our people. For there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city, and the hand of God was very heavy there. And the men who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. Well, last time we saw Yahweh in battle with Dagon. And, of course, Yahweh won rather easily. The God of the Philistines, first of all, bowed in worship and then bowed in total submission. The Philistines had taken the Ark prior to that, of course, and placed it under Dagon, showing his superiority over Yahweh, Israel's god. And yet, this likely ten foot or so tall idol had fallen down. before Yahweh in worship, after they set their God back in place, Yahweh then knocked him over again and cut off his head and his hands, this time defeating the God of the Philistines, showing that Yahweh is the true God. The Philistines missed the point, and superstitiously they stepped over the threshold from that point forward. But remember, Samuel is writing this to Israelites, and so they need to remember who Yahweh is, and of course, so do we. Whenever we sin, whenever we fall into some kind of problems or whatever due to our sin, a large part of it is just simply we're not thinking straight about who God is. And so God restores us by reminding us who He is. We shift then from Yahweh defeating the Philistine God, Dagon, to Yahweh defeating the Philistines themselves. And so we come here then to verse 6, and again it says, "...for the hand of the Lord is heavy on the people of Ashdod, and He ravaged them and struck them with tumors in both Ashdod and its territory." Well, Dagon's hands were cut off, but Yahweh's hand certainly was not impotent. It had not been cut off. In fact, it's filled with great power, and so it was heavy against those in Ashdod. Here is that kavod theme again. The word heavy is the Hebrew word kavod. And, as I've mentioned, it's used several times here in chapters 4 through 6. We saw it in chapter 4, verse 18, with Eli being heavy. And then in chapter 4, verses 21 and 22, where it says about the glory of Yahweh departed from Israel. That's the same word. Glory means the weightiness, the heaviness of someone. Here, of course, it's referring to the heaviness in judgment. It's oppressive. And so the glory of Yahweh had left Israel but was now in Philistia and is heavy upon those in Ashdod. Will they in turn give glory to Yahweh? We will see. Now once again, this is a term that is very significant in a number of settings and most notably in the Exodus. We see in several places here in God attacking the Philistines, that our attention is drawn back to Exodus and to Egypt. We saw that last time where Yahweh defeated the God of the Philistines, so he had defeated the gods of Egypt. This time here with this language of heaviness, that term kavod is used 18 times in Exodus, just chapters 4 to 14. and so it's no surprise that we see this connection here. Let's turn just a moment to Exodus and let's look at two occasions. Chapter 9, and we could again look at more, but in chapter 9 and verse 3, here with the fifth plague, it says in chapter 9 verse 3, Behold, the hand of the Lord will be on your cattle and your field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the oxen, and on the sheep, a very severe or heavy pestilence." So, virtually the same language here. Then if you look at chapter 14 here in Exodus, and if you look at verse 18, chapter 14 verse 18, It says, "...and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gained honor, kavod, for myself over Pharaoh, the chariots, and his horsemen." This is the whole point of the Exodus, isn't it? To show who Yahweh is. He does that by defeating the Egyptians. He does that by rescuing his people. Well now, Yahweh's in Philistia doing the same thing. He is showing who he is, reminding Israel who he is, and teaching the Philistines who he is. We'll see if they acknowledge him as Yahweh as we go along. And so here then is our main point. As Yahweh did to Egypt, so now he's doing to the Philistines in Ashdod. And God will do that against all of his and our enemies. And so it says here then that he struck the Philistines with tumors, this plague of tumors, and it devastated them, it ravaged them. We are never told here how many people died in Philistia, how many people were afflicted by these tumors, but as you read through this it sounds like we're talking about thousands for sure, maybe even tens of thousands of people. We don't know, we're guessing, but it does seem to fit the idea. The question for us, then, is what are we talking about when it comes to the tumors? What were they? There are many questions here, and I'm not sure we can answer all of them definitively. So let me try to break this down briefly. In the Hebrew text itself, the term that is used there is tumor. That's in what we call the written text. Yet, even this word can refer to boils or abscesses on the backside, for example. But in the margin of the Hebrew text, there is another word that is translated as hemorrhoids. So, it's written as these tumors, but when the rabbis would speak about it, they would talk about it as hemorrhoids. Okay. So that's our first thought. The second thought is the Septuagint. When they translated the Hebrew into Greek, they actually added a little bit to this verse and they talk about rats infesting the land. And if you look at chapter six and verse five, they made gold tumors and gold rats. So it seems like the Septuagint is on to something here by speaking of these rats and so therefore this would be a reference to the bubonic plague. And the bubonic plague, the sickness that would come is that it would swell their lymph nodes and in particular the lymph nodes in the groin or the armpit. So, of course, we've got all kinds of lymph nodes all over our bodies, and so these are the ones that would swell up and become tumor-like. Now, in light of chapter 6, verse 5, of this reference to the rats and the fact that they could make the tumors out of gold representing them, it sounds like it's something relatively large in size and has something to do with rats. And so I would side with those who would say that this is probably the bubonic plague. Now, another monkey wrench, if you will, is Josephus. Sometimes he says some incredibly helpful things. Other times, not so much, and it seems to be the latter in this case. He says, and Nalene's going to quibble with me here, he says that it was dysentery, or as I think I've heard people say, dysentery, however you pronounce it. It's referring to abdominal pain and bloody stool. I'm not quite sure how you could make that out of gold. So I'm not sure that fits so much. So I don't think Josephus is on the right track here. Most likely, these were tumors with swollen glands due to the plague that came from rats, as we call it the bubonic plague. Now we see here that it afflicted those in Ashdod and the surrounding territory. And so we see here then our main point is that Yahweh is not impotent. Just because he's outside Israel doesn't really mean anything. Just because the box is sitting under Dagon doesn't really mean anything. Yahweh has defeated Dagon and now he's defeating the Philistines. His power is not limited. As Seuss Lewis used to say, Yahweh is not tame. He cannot be controlled by Israel, chapter 4, verses 3 and following. He cannot be controlled by the Philistines. Yahweh defeated Israel's religious leaders, Hophni, Phinehas, and Eli. Yahweh defeated the Philistines' God, and Yahweh is now oppressing the Philistines, defeating them because they are enemies of His rather pathetic and sinful yet chosen people. And so they wanted Yahweh to defeat the Philistines. Israel did. They went about it in all the wrong ways, but now Yahweh is defeating the Philistines in His way, according to His character. So, verse 7. And when the men of Ashdod saw how it was, they said, the ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is harsh toward us, and Dagon our God." Alright, now in verse 3 and in verse 5, the Philistines were acting like they missed the whole point. Dagon fell over, which I'm sure probably never happened before, and they just set him back up again. Dagon falls over again and falls apart, and they put Humpty Dumpty back together again and they don't step on the threshold. Well now they're beginning to understand. It's finally dawning on them that the issue here is this box, but of course more than just a box, Israel's God. Notice here they don't just call it the Ark of God. We saw that back in chapter 4 verse 11 and chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. Now they call it the Ark of the God of Israel. They don't say the Ark of Yahweh, but they at least are maybe getting a little bit closer, you could say. And they speak of the hand of Yahweh being harsh on them. Okay. Now, This word harsh is not the Hebrew word for heavy. This is not kavod, it's a different word, but it very much has a similar idea here. Notice that they actually don't say Yahweh's name here, they just say His hand, referring to the God of Israel. Now again, this reminds us of what we saw in the Exodus. Remember how Pharaoh would refuse to say that he knew who Yahweh was. Even at the end, he grudgingly says, yeah, go worship your God, and so forth. He doesn't want to acknowledge that Yahweh is greater than he was. So, in a similar way, the Philistines are not calling the God of Israel by his name yet. We'll see if they end up doing so by chapter 6. But they're learning who he is. Not just God, this generic powerful God, but the God of Israel. At least they're getting closer. You'll notice that it is Samuel who uses the name Yahweh in this chapter. In verses 3 and 4 it's the Ark of Yahweh. In verse 6 it's the Hand of Yahweh. We'll see it again in verse 9. So Samuel uses God's covenant name, his personal name. The Philistines aren't. And so our point here in verse 7 is simply those in Ashdod are saying, okay, enough, get rid of this ark. It's going to kill all of us. So then in verse 8, here's what they do. Therefore they sent and gathered to themselves all the lords of the Philistines and said, what shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, let the ark of the God of Israel be carried away to Gath. So they carry the ark of the God of Israel away. Note, obviously, the repetition here with the name of the Ark three times. So they send for these five key lords of the Philistines. Let's look at our map here again, and the land of the twelve tribes is where we see all five of these cities. Again, all the way down in the southwest we see Gaza, and then work your way up, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and then we see Ekron and Gath to the east. So they started in Ashdod, now they're going to send it to Gath, about 12 miles south and east from Ashdod. These are the five key cities in Philistia. These five lords are basically kings of these city-states, but they often work together and here we see that that's what's happening. And so they call for them and ask what should be done and the Lords then respond with their recommendation. Note again, the name of God that they're using. It's very important in pagan viewpoints of things that they use the right name when they're speaking of the gods. So by calling him the Ark of the God of Israel here, they're more specific, but again they're not trying to use his covenant name yet. They're learning that. Well, after discussing the matter, they command the Ark to be sent to Gath. The way it's worded here, by being carried, the Hebrew actually gives you the suggestion that they put it on a cart. Certainly they're going to do that in chapter 6, and so you get the idea that that's what they did here, too. But, presumably, their thinking is something like this. If we move the ark away from Dagon, then maybe the God of Israel won't be so mad. Now, of course, we think, well, that's preposterous, but that's the way they would think. They believed that the gods would govern certain locations. And so if the God of Israel is in Ashdod, and he's upset with Dagon, maybe if we get him away from Dagon, then things will get better. Well, verse 9, So it was, after they had carried it away, that the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction, and he struck the men of the city, both small and great, and tumors broke out on them. Well, basically, nope, that didn't work. Their thinking was all wrong. You might call this Yahweh's victory tour, going from Ashdod now to Gath. The hand of Yahweh, again note Samuel's using the name of God's covenant Lord here, is now against Gath. Now the New King James translates this with a very great destruction. Your translation may have that or something different. The Hebrew word actually refers to confusion or panic. Basically, those in Gath are freaking out. That's the point. And so they are greatly confused, because Yahweh has come, and now He is bringing judgment. He is striking the men of the city, small and great, with tumors, and so on. Now here's another key word, strike. is a common word in Hebrew and it's frequently used in the context of judgment. In fact, the word strike is used 19 times in Exodus in chapters 2 to 12. And of course that, for the most part, covers your plagues. We've seen it here in the last two chapters. If you go back to chapter 4, verse 2, It says about the Philistines coming in battle array and such. They joined battle. Israel was defeated, or struck, by the Philistines. Because the Philistines struck God's people, now, chapter 5, verse 6, Yahweh strikes them. He strikes them with tumors, verse 6, and again here in verse 9, and then again in verse 12. You see what's going on here. Yahweh's people were attacked and Yahweh is retaliating. That's the point. He's executing judgment, fighting for His people, His very sinful and rather stupid, you might say, people, and yet He is fighting for His people. This is what our God does. And He struck here, notice, basically everybody, small and great. Maybe this means children and adults. Maybe it means the poor as well as the wealthy. Maybe it means the common person and the leader. Maybe a little bit of all of those things. And assuming it's the latter, or at least part of that, then the Lord of Gath was struck too. So you think of the plagues affecting Pharaoh's household. He got tired of the frogs and so on and so forth. And of course, then culminating with the death of Pharaoh's son, even the lords are not immune from Yahweh's striking. Now, one more thing here in this way, notice it says the men of the city were attacked. Now, how should we understand this? Does this refer to humanity or mankind? Is it referring to men and women, boys and girls? Possibly. But maybe we should understand this to refer to the men specifically, because the men were the ones who went to war. This is clearly a retaliation by Yahweh against the Philistines. So for him to attack the men who would go to battle, it would make sense. Yahweh is waging war against the armies of the Philistines. Whichever way you go with it, you get to the same conclusion, but I'm inclined to think that men here is intended to refer to the men who went to battle. And so, basically, Their decision in verse 8 was rather pointless. It didn't do anything. It didn't matter. Moving the Ark to Gath resulted in more tumors. Galilee's victory is spreading even at the hands of the Philistines. So, verse 10. Therefore they sent the Ark of God to Ekron. So it was, as the Ark of God came to Ekron, that the Echranites cried out, saying, They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us to kill us and our people." All right, well, that happens all over again. They try the next city. And again, if you look on your map, you'll see Echran is roughly 10 miles north of Gath. And you also see it's right there on the border of Israel. Now, yes, Dan has moved. But still, it's right near the border of the Israelites. Because of this, Ekron was known for being rather impenetrable. It had a 10 foot thick wall. Not 10 foot high, 10 foot thick wall. It had a temple for Beelzebub that was 50 by 50. And so it was known for being a place that basically you could never defeat. impenetrable, and that was known for other things and so forth, like olive oil and so on, but the point here seems to be emphasizing that they thought, okay, if Yahweh is upset because of Dagon and Dashgod, and then he's upset in Gath, well maybe if we put the Ark within this impenetrable wall in Ekron, then nothing will happen. Obviously, that doesn't work, does it? And so they try the next city, but the same thing happens again. Now notice the language here, and I'm not quite sure how to take this, but notice in verse 10, it says the Ark of God twice. That's at the hand of Samuel, presumably making reference to what the Philistines were thinking and saying. But then notice when he quotes the Achronites, they call it the Ark of the God of Israel. So, you have this less personal name, Ark of God. Again, maybe they're still thinking that the problem is not from Yahweh being greater than them. I don't know, maybe they're thinking they can control this god by the name that they are using, which again, is how the pagans would think. Maybe we should think that the leaders were saying this, but the people were saying the other. The leaders, if you will, the liberal Marxists, are saying the Ark of God, and yet the people knew better and they used the better name, the Ark of the God of Israel. I don't know. I'm not quite sure how to take that. But basically their point is, no way, don't send the Ark here. You're bringing death to us. So, verse 11, So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of God of Israel, and let it go back to its own place, so that it does not kill us and our people. For there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city, and the hand of God was very heavy there. Basically, we see that they call for another meeting of these five lords, and they basically say, this is not going to work. Location seems to make no difference to this God of Israel, and so send it back to Israel. We do not want any more death. Now notice the word destruction again that the New King James uses. That's the same word as verse 9, so again, the idea here is that they were running around and and panic and confusion. Death has come to them, now in Ekron. And then notice how Samuel says it here. He says the hand of God this time, not Yahweh. Again, not quite sure how to do that. Maybe it's just because he wants to get to a nice round number that I'll mention here in a moment. But the Philistines are learning who the God of Israel is. They are learning that He is sovereign and they are understanding gradually that their gods have no power over the God of Israel. Now one more thing to call your attention here in verse 11. is the New King James translates the quotation here at the end, so that it does not kill us and our people. They use first person plural, but the Hebrew actually is first person singular about killing me and my people. So that sounds like the Lord of Ekron is the one leading the way and saying, send it somewhere else. So it's kind of hard to know how to put some of these pieces together, but our overall point is very clear. So then verse 12, "...and the men who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven." Clearly there's this indication that many people are dying, many people are suffering with these tumors, and the outcry is so great that it reaches up to heaven. but there does not seem to be any indication that they're crying out in faith to the God of heaven, especially in light of what we see in chapter 6. They're just crying out for relief. They just want to get rid of the ark. They don't want to bow the knee to the God of Israel, to Yahweh. Let's turn back again to Exodus, chapter 12 here now a moment, and this is the attitude of the Egyptians. Here with the 10th plague we see in Exodus 12 in verse 30, it says, So Pharaoh rose in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house, for there was not one dead. And then they call for Moses and so forth, and basically say, get out of here. And notice he finally does use the name Yahweh there in verse 31. And then in verse 33, the Egyptians urged the people of Israel that they might send them out of the land in haste, for they said, we shall all be dead. No bowing the knee to Yahweh, just grudgingly giving in and telling them to get lost. We don't want you here. And so in a similar way, the Philistines are doing this. They are not turning in faith to Yahweh, but just crying out for relief. It's kind of like when somebody gets caught in their sin and they're upset because they got caught, not because they're upset with their sin. It's the same kind of idea. So, look at chapter 6 verse 1 a moment. Note the end of the verse that says that this happened for seven months. Now as you read through Chapter 5, it almost sounds like these things happened maybe, you know, in a week or two, a few weeks, something like that. This took place over seven months. Maybe we should see that, you know, I don't know, five months of it took place in Ashdod, because at first they didn't realize what was going on, right? Then once they started realizing it had something to do with the Ark and they sent it to Gath and then to Ekron, it probably didn't take them as long to figure it out and so forth. But the whole process was seven months of Yahweh judging the Philistines, striking them, conquering them. All right, now let's do a few statistics. And I didn't like business statistics, so I'm not a big fan of statistics. But they can teach you a lot of things if you know how to do it. Much more simple than BizStats. Dagan, his name is used 10 times in verses 1 to 5, and only once in verses 6 to 12, and that's in verse 7. Conversely, Elohim, God, is only used twice in verses 1 to 5, but 10 times in verses 6 to 12. who becomes the focal point here. Dagan is shut down, and Elohim rises to the forefront. As I mentioned earlier, Yahweh is mentioned four times, but all at the hand of Samuel, our author. The Ark of Yahweh, verses 3 and 4, the hand of Yahweh, verses 6 and 9. And then, as I've mentioned, the Ark of God is used four times, verses 1, 2, and 10, And then you have the ark of the God of Israel used six times, verses 7, 8, 10, and 11, and three times in verse 8. And then you have the ark of Yahweh, verses 3 and 4. And so you see the different names, and the word ark itself is used then 12 times in this chapter alone. Remember, 37 times in chapters 4.1 through 7.2. The word hand is used five times. The word heavy is used twice, plus the one we have in verse 7, which is a different word, but a similar meaning. Now, this isn't just, you know, for some interested scholar. We're not geeking out, as people might say. This is emphasizing the main point. We're talking about the God of Israel here, who is the one who is the true God. His presence had left Israel but he is just as potent. He is conquering the Philistines with his heavy hand. Yahweh with his symbol of his presence is going around Philistia saying, I am the true God, not Dagon, not anybody else. I am sovereign and since you afflicted my people, Philistines, I am going to afflict you. I'm going to strike you down. And so remember, as I said before, about the importance of the word strike. And so Yahweh here is judging the Philistines just like he did the Egyptians. Three of their five cities are specifically afflicted. As I said before, I think we have to easily say that hundreds have died, probably thousands, maybe even tens of thousands by now, and many more with tumors. Do you see the point here? Yahweh is our warrior. Yahweh is the one who fights for his people, even when his people mistreat him, even when his people are becoming like the world. How many times did we see in the book of Judges that God sent a Savior, a Deliverer, a Judge to Israel just because they cried out for relief, not because they cried out in repentance for their sin. If God waited for us to call out to him with great sincerity, then he'd never come to our help. But Yahweh comes to Israel's need here, in spite of them, and that hasn't changed. He does the same thing today. Isn't that exactly what Jesus did? He came even while we were enemies. Christ died for us. Christ conquered sin and death and Satan. Christ conquered our enemies, not because we asked for it, but because of His grace, because God had chosen to do this by way of covenant. As we see the Philistines as the enemies of Israel, or the Egyptians, this then anticipates the enemies that Christ conquers, and the enemies that we face today. Some of them physical, some of them internal, some of them spiritual, but it's the same idea. Yahweh will fight for his people, and that gives us confidence. and Yahweh will fight for his people, even when we're not all that interested in Yahweh fighting for us. And that gives us great confidence, doesn't it? But notice, it's three of the five cities. The ark doesn't go around to all five. Yahweh does not completely wipe out the Philistines. Why not? Let's turn back to Judges and chapter 3. Do you remember these words? In Judges 3, beginning in verse 1, it says this, Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that he might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan. This was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it, namely, five lords of the Philistines and so forth. Yahweh left Canaanites, Philistines, other people in the Promised Land so that the next generation would learn to sanctify the land. And so here too, Yahweh didn't wipe out all the Philistines, but as we'll see in chapter seven, they were severely defeated for a period of time. But he didn't wipe out all of them because Israel needed to learn to fight. In the same way, God does that for us. He has defeated Satan, and we have nothing to do with that. He has defeated sin, he has defeated death, and we have nothing to do with that. However, we still fight against the world and the flesh and the devil. God keeps these enemies in place so that we will learn to be sanctified. So we won't just sit around and let God do everything, right? Let go and let God or something, but that we will learn to fight. Why do we have opposition in our families or at work or other places? Well, in part, it's because God wants us to learn how to fight. Not with fists, not with swords or guns or anything like that, but with acts of righteousness and godliness. God wants us to put on the things of Christ and to take off the things of Adam. He wants us to learn how to fight. Now, that's the message of Judges. The message of our section right here is Yahweh's fighting for us. But again, notice he doesn't defeat all the Philistines. And so Yahweh, then, again, is showing himself to be the true God. As I said last week, so I say again, that when we sin, a big part of it is because we are not thinking right about who our God is. That's clearly the case here for Israel, and when we fall into sin, it's the same for us, too. We have justified this, that, or the other, and think God is something other than He really is. And so God, then, is reminding Israel and reminding us of his true character. Notice there aren't many versions of God depending on your denomination or something. There are not many versions of Jesus depending on whether you are a social gospel Jesus or a reformed gospel Jesus or whatever. No, there's one God, there's one Jesus and we need to understand who he is. And when we do Maybe he will heal our land. Maybe he will drive out the evil among us. But thankfully he will do those kind of things even before we get our heads on straight in terms of who he is. Yahweh is God. He is not defeated and he doesn't wait for us to get our act together to show these things. Dagon is defeated. and he cannot protect his people. The five lords of the Philistines can't outsmart Yahweh. The Philistines are learning about Yahweh, but more importantly the people of God are learning and relearning about Yahweh. We live in a day today where we're not that much different than Israel was in this time in history. In some ways we might even say we're worse, but at least we're not that much different. We need to remember who God is. He is our warrior, not the next politician. And so let's turn to our God and view Him properly. Well, next time we will look at the exodus of Yahweh in chapter six. Let's pray together. Our Father, our God, we thank you again for your word and this rather basic point that we need to be reminded of who you are. Lord, we do confess that like Israel, we so frequently make you in our image and that we shove you off the throne and we sit there and then we wonder why we have problems. that we make you like the world would make their gods, and so therefore we have problems. Lord, we are so thankful that you do not wait for us to get it all right before you bless us. We are thankful, Lord, that you have come to us, yes, in Christ, but even today you come to us by your Spirit. You bless us in spite of ourselves. You fight for us. You protect us many times in ways we don't even realize. And we are thankful for these things, Lord. And so we ask, Lord, that you would then help us to get our heads out of the sand, to quit being so focused on ourselves and look to you and be reminded of your character, especially in our times of hardship, but at all times. Again, Lord, we are most grateful that you come to us, and that you provide us with so many blessings. May we remember this for your honor and for your glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.