This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[16]
But now it was that the wrath of God overtook them, and struck seventy
persons 1
of the village of Bethshemesh dead, who, not being priests, and so not
worthy to touch the ark, had approached to it. Those of that village wept
for these that had thus suffered, and made such a lamentation as was naturally
to be expected on so great a misfortune that was sent from God; and every
one mourned for his own relation. And since they acknowledged themselves
unworthy of the ark's abode with them, they sent to the public senate of
the Israelites, and informed them that the ark was restored by the Philistines;
which when they knew, they brought it away to Kirjathjearim, a city in
the neighborhood of Bethshemesh. In this city lived one Abinadab, by birth
a Levite, and who was greatly commended for his righteous and religious
course of life; so they brought the ark to his house, as to a place fit
for God himself to abide in, since therein did inhabit a righteous man.
His sons also ministered to the Divine service at the ark, and were the
principal curators of it for twenty years; for so many years it continued
in Kirjathjearim, having been but four months with the Philistines.
2
1 These seventy men, being not so much as Levites, touched the ark in a rash or profane manner, and were slain by the hand of God for such their rashness and profaneness, according to the Divine threatenings, Numbers 4:15, 20; but how other copies come to add such an incredible number as fifty thousand in this one town, or small city, I know not. See Dr. Wall's Critical Notes on 1 Samuel 6:19.
2 THE EXPEDITION OF THE PHILISTINES AGAINST THE HEBREWS AND THE HEBREWS' VICTORY UNDER THE CONDUCT OF SAMUEL THE PROPHET, WHO WAS THEIR GENERAL.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.