What does 1 Samuel 6:19 mean?
Rejoicing over the return of the ark in the Israelite border town of Beth-shemesh (1 Samuel 6:13–16) turns suddenly to mourning. The Lord kills seventy men of the town because looked inappropriately at the ark of the Lord. Some commentators understand the phrase translated "looked upon" to mean they "looked into" the ark. To carelessly open and peer into the ark would have been a shocking violation of God's commands about the ark of the covenant.The ark was the place on earth where God's presence symbolically rested. It was from the mercy seat on top of the ark that He met with His people once a year when the priest of Israel entered the inner part of the tabernacle, behind the veil, to make atonement for his sins and the sins of the people (Exodus 25:10–16; Leviticus 16).
Numbers 4 spells out in specific detail how the ark of the Lord was to be handled and transported. It was to be covered when being moved in the open (Numbers 4:5–6). It was never to be touched directly (Numbers 4:15), and those who were not priests were not allowed to even look at the "holy things" of the inner temple for even a moment or else they would die (Numbers 4:20).
The people of Beth-shemesh could not have avoided seeing the ark when it arrived on a cart from the Philistines. However, they immediately placed it on a large stone out in the open and offered sacrifices in front of it. If, in fact, they opened the lid and looked inside of it, even to check and make sure nothing was missing, they were directly disobeying the Lord and violating His holy presence among them. The Law was clear: The penalty for this was death.
Commentators and scholars differ on the translation of the number of those killed by the Lord. Some Hebrew manuscripts simply give the number as seventy. Many more seem to report the number as "seventy men, fifty thousand men," which could be read as "50,070 men." This would be unusual for two reasons. First, the Bible often seems to round off high numbers to hundreds or thousands, such as in 1 Samuel 4:10. Second, it's unlikely that so many people lived in the town of Beth-shemesh at this time. A possible solution is that the construction of the phrase means that seventy men were killed, or "five out of every thousand men," which would put the population of Beth-shemesh at about fourteen thousand.
In any case, the people of Beth-shemesh received these deaths as a "great blow" or "great slaughter" from the Lord and entered a time of mourning. Their rejoicing and worship of the Lord had been sincere, but they had disobeyed the Lord's commands and dishonored His presence among them in their enthusiasm. The Lord will not allow His holiness to be violated, even among His own people.
Given prior narratives, it seems the Israelites misunderstood who God is and thus also misunderstood the ark. Seven months earlier, they had treated the ark as a sort of good luck charm that would defeat their enemies (1 Samuel 4:2–5). Jesus spoke about worshipping the Lord in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24). We need to know who God is to worship Him rightly. God provides a way for us to do that: Jesus Christ (John 3:16–18; 14:6). All who put their faith in Him become children of God (John 1:12) and receive the indwelling Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:3–14). God helps us to know Him and He helps us to worship Him appropriately (Philippians 2:12–13).
