The Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant but now they were desperate to get rid of it. The statue of their god, Dagon, had fallen and broken, and they had suffered plagues. Seven months after they had taken the Ark, they asked the priests and diviners of the Philistines what to do. The priests and diviners said they should return the Ark, as well as a “trespass offering,” to the Lord “Jehovah” in Israel’s territory. The trespass offering was to be five gold tumors, and five gold mice, to represent the two plagues that had struck the five cities of the Philistines.

So, the Philistines built a special cart to carry the Ark and the trespass offering, and two young milk cows pulled it. The cows were set free to find their own route, and they headed straight for Israelite territory.

In Divine Providence 326[11-13], we get an explanation of the meaning of the symbols in this. The hemorrhoids that plagued the Philistines in 1 Samuel 5 represent earthly loves separated from spiritual ones. The golden hemorrhoids of the trespass offering represent earthly loves that have been purified, and made good.

The mice represent distortions of the truth which destroy the church. The golden mice represent the repair of this destruction by good loves and actions.

The cart that carried the ark and the trespass offerings symbolizes a new teaching, and the cows that pulled it symbolize “good earthly feelings.”

The cows lowed as they drew the cart away from the Philistines back to Israel. This represents how difficult it is to turn away from our obsessions with evil, and turn towards good.

The end of the chapter tells that the Israelite people in the border town of Beth Shemesh saw the cart coming, and rejoiced. They used a large stone as an altar, split up the wood of the cart and offered the two cows as a sacrifice. The golden objects were then distributed through the land.

These symbols reveal something about our relationship with God, and the importance of uniting faith and charity, good and truth, within ourselves. The Philistines represent a spiritual state with faith that is separate from charity. This chapter tells us that in order to reunite our faith with charity we must turn our loves of evil into the desire to do good with our knowledge.

But the people of Beth Shemesh, who received the Ark of the Covenant, made a fatal mistake: some of them looked into the Ark. As a consequence, 50,070 of their people died. So they sent a message to the people of Kirjath Jearim, asking them to come down and take the Ark from them.

The primary message here is the power of the Lord’s Ten Commandments. In the book "True Christian Religion", we are taught that there was tremendous holiness and power in the law written on the stone tablets, because it was a “summary of the whole of religion.” (See True Christian Religion 285, 286.) The two engraved tablets represent the link between us and God. One of them contains a synopsis of all things related to God, and the other, a synopsis of all things related to us.

If we ever disobey the commandments or treat them as less than holy, harm will surely come. Therefore, we must work with the Lord in order to learn to love His commandments. This needs to go together with an active and sincere effort to obey them to the best of our frail and limited human ability.

285. Since this law is the means of linking the Lord with man and man with the Lord, it is called a covenant and a testimony. It is called a covenant because it serves as a link, and a testimony because it establishes the terms of the covenant. For covenant in the Word means linking, testimony the establishment and witnessing of its terms. That is why there were two tablets, one for God and the other for man. The link is provided by the Lord, but only when man does what is written in his tablet. For the Lord is continually present, and wishes to enter; but man must open the door by the free will which the Lord gives him. For He says:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me, Revelation 3:20.

The stone tablets on which the law was written are called the tablets of the covenant, and the Ark is called from them the Ark of the covenant; the law itself is called the covenant: see Numbers 10:33; Deuteronomy 4:13, 23; 5:2-3; 9:9; Joshua 3:11; 1 Kings 8:21; Revelation 11:19; and elsewhere.

Since a covenant means being joined, it is said of the Lord that He will be a covenant for the people (Isaiah 42:6; 49:8); He is called the messenger of the covenant (Malachi 3:1); and His blood is called the blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:28; Zechariah 9:11; Exodus 24:4-10). That is why the Word is called the Old and the New Covenants ¹ , for covenants are made on account of love, friendship, association and linking.

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