The Philistines Took the Ark of God
I Samuel 5-6
The Philistines and Their God chap 5
The Philistines took the captured Ark to the Philistine town of Ashdod and placed into the temple of Dagon. The next morning, the people of the town opened the temple and found the huge stage of Dagon push over. The put the statue back. The next morning the statue was knocked down again, this time the head and hands were cut off. In addition, the people were smitten with emerods or hemorrhoids. The moved the ark from Ashdod to Ekron. The same thing happened in that town.
The Philistines and Their Plan vs. 1-12
The Philistines realized they needed to get rid of the ark. They decided to send it back to Israel. The problem is they couldn’t hand deliver it to the warring side. They came up with a plan to take a cart led by two young mother cows, and separate them from their calves. They put treasure around the cart and let it loose. If the cows delivered the cart to Israel, they knew it God behind it all, if not, it was a terrible coincidence.
The Philistines and Their Delivery vs. 13-21
The cows did go on a straight path to Bethshemesh. The people of the small little down watched as the cows came bringing their load. The people then took the cows and offered them as a burnt offering.
The Philistines watched and went home. Meanwhile, the men of Bethshemesh got curious about what was within the Ark. They peeked, and 70 were killed.
That brings the grand total of 50,000 Philistines and 70 Israelites killed over the Ark of the Covenant.
They wanted the Ark out of the village, to the Ark was placed in Kirjathjarim