THE ARK IN PHILISTIA (Sam.5-6)
After conquering Yisharal on the Ebenezer battlefield and confiscating Yahusha’s Ark, the Philistines took it to the town of Ashdod, to the temple of their Deity Dagon (the fish-god), placing it right next to his statue, which they worshiped. But when the people got up early the next morning, they found the statue lying facedown on the floor in front of the Ark. And thinking nothing of it, they stood the statue back up where it belonged. But early the next morning, they found it fallen over again, lying facedown on the floor in the doorway, in front of the Ark (this time with its head and both hands smashed off). And this is the reason the priests and everyone else step over the doorway (THRESHOLD) when they enter Dagon's Temple in Ashdod.
PLACING THE ARK BEFORE DAGON WAS SYMBOLIC OF DOMINANCE. THE ARK WAS NOW DAGON’S FOOTSTOOL (HIS BITCH). HOWEVER WHAT NO ONE COUNTED ON WAS THAT YAHUSHA IS THE ALAHIM OVER ALL HISTORY, NOT JUST YISHARAL’S HISTORY.
YAHUSHA HAS NO TERRITORIAL BOUNDARIES AND NO OTHER PEER OR EQUAL, AS THE PHILISTINES WERE ABOUT TO DISCOVER.
THE PHILISTINES PLACED THE ARK IN FRONT OF DAGON IN A POSITION OF SUBMISSION, BUT WHEN THEY ENTERED THE NEXT DAY, IT WAS THE IDOL OF DAGON THAT WAS LYING PROSTRATE BEFORE THE ARK.
Then Yahusha caused a lot of trouble for the people of Ashdod and their neighbours, making a plague of tumours break out all over their bodies, and everyone was in a panic. Even rats emerged from all the ships and people were dying left and right. Finally they said, “THE ALAHIM OF YISHARAL DID THIS! He's the one who caused all this trouble for us and our mighty Dagon. WE’VE GOTTA GET RID OF THIS BLASTED CHEST.”
THESE PLAGUES WERE EERILY REMINISCENT OF WHAT HAPPENED IN EGYPT AND MOST AGREE THE TUMOURS (HEBREW: `OPHALIM' FROM THE ROOT `OPHEL' MEANING MOUND OR HILL) … WERE A VERY EXTREME FORM OF BUTT-SWELLING (LIKE ATOMIC HAEMORRHOIDS)!!
So the people of Ashdod had all the Philistine Princes and Rulers come to Ashdod, and they asked them, “What can we do with this sacred chest that belongs to the deities of Yisharal?”
THIS WAS YAHUSHA’S SNEAKY TROJAN HORSE, A TACTIC LATER USED BY THE GREEKS IN TROY, USING THE PHILISTINE’S ARROGANCE AS A MEANS TO WREAK HAVOC UPON THEM.
“SEND IT TO GATH,” the rulers answered. But after they took it there, Yahusha sent a lethal viral outbreak of tumors on everyone in that town too. So the people of Gath were frightened and sent the Ark off to Ekron. But before they could take it through the town gates, the people of Ekron saw it coming and started screaming, “Ahhhhhhh they’ve fobbed that cursed Yisharalite Ark onto us! WE’RE DOOMED! WE’RE DOOMED! Surely it will kill us and all our families too!”
So the people of Ekron called for another meeting of the Philistine Princes and Rulers and told them, “TAKE THIS BLOODY CHEST BACK WHERE IT BELONGS, SO IT WON’T KILL US! YOU DIDN’T WANT IT ANYWHERE NEAR YOU AND NEITHER DO WE . . . SEND THE HOT POTATO BACK!!”
And everyone was in a massive panic, because Yahusha’s hand of judgment was on them, causing widespread death, and those who did survive were suffering from the sores. And the cries of that city ascended high into the sky. NO DOUBT THE PHILISTINES HAD CONFISCATED MANY AN IDOLS OR SACRED ARTIFACTS FROM DEFEATED ENEMIES AND BROUGHT THEM HOME TO SET IN SUBMISSION TO THEIR OWN DEITY WHOM THEY WERE SURE WERE NOT ONLY SUPERIOR BUT ALSO PROVIDED THEM WITH THEIR VICTORY; BUT THIS TIME SOMETHING WAS GOING TERRIBLY WRONG.
QUESTION … “HOW IS IT THAT THE PHILISTINES WERE ABLE TO HANDLE THE ARK OF THE BLOOD-COVENANT WITNESS AND NOT BE INSTANTLY KILLED BY YAHUSHA”?
IN LEVITICUS YISHARAL IS INSTRUCTED THAT ONLY A CERTAIN CLAN OF LEVITES IS AUTHORISED TO CARRY THE ARK AND ONLY CERTAIN PRIESTS AUTHORISED TO PACK AND UNPACK THE ARK CAN ATTEND TO IT.
OTHERWISE THE VIOLATOR WILL BE INSTANTLY STRUCK DOWN DEAD AND OF COURSE IN A LATER STORY CONCERNING THE ARK AND KING DAVID, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. SO HOW WERE THE PHILISTINES ABLE TO HANDLE IT AND LIVE?
THIS IS A NATURAL QUESTION AND DEMONSTRATES A KEY YAHUSHA-PATTERN THAT WE SHOULD ALL UNDERSTAND: ONLY THOSE WHO ARE JOINED TO YISHARAL’S BLOOD-COVENANT ARE SUBJECT TO THE TERMS OF THAT COVENANT. THAT'S NOT TO SAY THAT THE DEFINITION OF RIGHT AND WRONG VARIES FROM NATION TO NATION OR THAT THEY GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING. NOT AT ALL, FOR THEY LIVE UNDER A GENERAL UMBRELLA CALLED `WRATH & JUDGMENT' (WHETHER IMMEDIATE OR AFTER DEATH) ... IT'S JUST THAT THE SPECIFIC CURSES AND THE BLESSINGS THAT COME WITH OUR MEMBERSHIP IN THE KINGDOM OF YAHUSHA ARE ONLY FOR US MEMBERS AND NOT FOR OUTSIDERS. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YAHUSHA AND HIS PEOPLE IS ESTABLISHED THROUGH HIS BLOOD-COVENANT, AND THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN GRAFTED INTO THAT BLOOD-COVENANT THROUGH REPENTANCE AND IMMERSION HAVE NO RELATIONSHIP WITH YAHUSHA AND SO THE TERMS AND CONSEQUENCES (BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE) DO NOT APPLY TO THEM. THEY SIMPLY EXIST DAY TO DAY AWAITING DESTRUCTION ALONG WITH THE REST OF THIS WORLD.
THERE'S OBVIOUSLY A GENERAL UNIVERSAL `CURSE' PLACED ON ALL MANKIND THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YAHUSHA: THE CURSE OF ETERNAL DEATH DUE TO MANKIND’S FALLEN, EVIL NATURE. THAT IS SOMETHING ALL MANKIND SHARES WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
YAHUSHA’S INSTRUCTIONS ARE ONLY FOR HIS CHOSEN. THERE'S NO REQUIREMENT (BLESSING OR CURSING) FOR A PAGAN OUTSIDER TO FOLLOW AND BEHAVE YAHUSHA'S DIVINE INSTRUCTIONS, BECAUSE THEY'RE ONLY FOR THOSE WHO HE'S COVENANTED WITH AND THE ONLY PEOPLE HE HAS EVER CREATED A BLOOD-COVENANT WITH IS YISHARAL (OF COURSE HE DID MAKE PROVISION FOR OUTSIDERS/GENTILES WHO WISHED TO JOIN THEMSELVES TO YISHARAL’S BLOOD-COVENANT AND BE ACCEPTED INTO THE KINGDOM OF YAHUSHA IF THEY DENOUNCED THEIR FORMER WAYS AND IDOLS AND CLUNG TO HIM).
I MEAN WHY ELSE WOULD THE ARK NOT BE RADIOACTIVE TO THE PHILISTINES?
THE PHILISTINES WERE PAGANS AND NOT PARTY TO YAHUSHA’S COVENANTS WITH YISHARAL, SO THEY WERE NOT AMONG THOSE WHO WERE PROHIBITED (UPON PAIN OF DEATH) FROM TOUCHING OR LOOKING UPON THE ARK - BUT THE YISHARALITES WERE! THE PHILISTINES WEREN’T SUBJECT TO THE CURSES AND PENALTIES YAHUSHA ESTABLISHED FOR VIOLATORS OF HIS LAW, BECAUSE THEY HAD NEVER AGREED TO ABIDE BY HIS TURAH.
IN FACT, WHAT THE PHILISTINES WERE ABOUT TO DO IN RETURNING THE ARK WAS NOT A REQUIREMENT OF YAHUSHA EITHER, IT WAS MERELY A DESPERATE CHOICE TO END YAHUSHA’S PUNISHMENT ON THEM.
Yahusha's Bride today has very serious obligations to Him and none of us have kept them, hence why we've gone through so much agony and turmoil within and such harsh consequences. If we are disobedient, it causes harm to ourself and our relationship with Yahusha, so we will be divinely flogged, chastised, rebuked and disciplined (to get us back on track) BECAUSE WE ARE VIOLATING THE BLOOD-COVENANT WE SIGNED ON TO!! We will suffer consequences for violating His Instructions, because that lawless behaviour is evil, however through His ultimate blood-sacrifice never promises to never leave us and will work alongside us to bring about the transformation and fruit that must mature in His Chosen Bride !
OF COURSE ON THIS OCCASION (IN SAMUEL’S ERA) YAHUSHA DECIDED TO SHOW THE PHILISTINES HIS UNMATCHABLE SET-APARTNESS AND POWER. HE IS (AFTERALL) THE MASTER OF ALL NATIONS, NOT ONLY THE HEBREWS. HE DISPLAYED HIS AUTHORITY NOT BY KILLING ALL THAT LOOKED UPON OR TOUCHED HIS ARK (BECAUSE AS PAGANS THEY WEREN’T FORBIDDEN FROM TOUCHING IT) BUT INSTEAD BY INFLICTING EGYPTIAN-STYLE PLAGUES UPON ALL THOSE WHO THOUGHT THEY HAD CAPTURED AND COULD SUBDUE THE ALAHIM OF YISHARAL. HE DOESN'T NEED A GOLD BOX TO REIGN DOWN TERROR. THE ARK WAS MERELY A TANGIBLE WAY TO TEACH HIS PEOPLE OF HIS DESIRE TO BE AMONG THEM.
6
After the Ark of Yahusha’s Blood-Covenant had been in Philistia for seven months and plagues of rats had wiped out all the crops, the Philistines called in their Priests and Diviners and asked, “What should we do with this Yisharalite Chest? Tell us how to send it back where it belongs!” THE EVERYDAY COMMON PHILISTINES WOULD HAVE BLAMED THESE 5 KINGS FOR THEIR MISERY. THE NUMBER 7 MEANS COMPLETION; MEANING ALL THAT YAHUSHA HAD INTENDED TO DO TO THE PHILISTINES HAD BEEN ACCOMPLISHED, AND LARGELY BY THEIR REFUSAL TO TAKE THE NEEDED ACTION THAT COULD RID THEIR NATION OF THESE PLAGUES DURING THAT 7 MONTH PERIOD.
“Oh I wouldn't send it back without an offering,” the Priests and Diviners answered. “Send along something to Yisharal’s deity to make up for taking the Sacred Chest in the first place. Then you'll be healed and you’ll find out why He was causing you so much trouble.”
“But what should we send?” the Philistines asked.
The Priests and Diviners answered, “There are five Philistine Princes, and they've all got pains in their arses like you do. So make five gold models of the tumours and five gold models of the rats that are wiping out your crops. And if you honour the Deity of Yisharal with this gift, maybe He'll stop causing trouble for you and your deities and your crops. JUST DON’T BE LIKE THE EGYPTIANS AND THEIR KING, SOOO STUBBORN, AND WHEN YISHARAL’S DEITY WAS FINISHED WITH THEM, THEY WERE FORCED TO LET YISHARAL GO ANYWAY. Get a new cart, two cows that have young calves that have never pulled a cart, hitch the cows to the cart, but take the calves back to their barn, then put the Chest on the cart, put the gold tumours and rats into a bag and put it on the cart next to the Chest, then send it on its merry way. And watch to see if the Chest goes on up the road to the Yisharalite town of Beth-Shemesh and if it does, you'll know that it was Yisharal’s Deity who made us suffer so badly. But if the Chest doesn’t go back to its own country, then their Deity had nothing to do with the disease that hit us, and it was all simply bad luck”.
So the Philistines followed their advice, hitched up the two cows to the cart, put the Ark on it, along with the bag of gold tumours and rats, and the cows went straight up the road toward Beth-Shemesh, mooing as they went. And the Philistine rulers followed them until they got close to Beth-Shemesh, where the people were harvesting their wheat in the valley.
And when the people looked up and saw the Ark they were so happy that they stopped working and started celebrating right there on the spot!
The cows left the road and pulled the cart into a field that belonged to Joshua from Beth-Shemesh, and they stopped beside a huge rock. Some men from the Tribe of Levi were there and they took the Ark off the cart and placed it on the rock, and then they did the same thing with the bag of gold tumours and rats. A few other people chopped up the cart and made a fire. Then they killed the cows and burned them as sacrifices to Yahusha. And after that, they offered more sacrifices again. And when the five Princes of the Philistines saw what had happened, they went back to Ekron that same day.
And that's how the Philistines sent gifts to Yahusha to make up for taking the Ark of the Blood-Covenant Witness. They sent five gold tumours, one each for their major cities, as well as one gold rat for each walled town and for every village that the five Philistine Princes controlled. And the huge stone that the Levites put the Ark on is still there in Joshua’s field as a reminder of what happened.
BEIT-SHEMESH IS LISTED IN JOSHUA AS ONE OF THE 48 LEVITICAL CITIES. SO MANY OF THE RESIDENTS WERE LEVITES AND THEIR FIRST THOUGHT WAS RITUAL, SO THEY CHOPPED UP THE CART FOR FIREWOOD AND OFFERED THE TWO MILK COWS AS A SACRIFICE OF THANKS.
Then some of the men of Beth-Shemesh opened the Ark to have a sticky-beak inside, and YAHUSHA KILLED ALL SEVENTY OF THEM which devastated the people of Beth-Shemesh and they started crying out, “No other Alahim is like Yahuah! Who can serve Him and look after His Ark and not die in the process? We gotta get rid of it guys, but where can we send it?” And they sent messengers to tell the people of Kiriath-Jearim, “The Philistines have brought back the Ark of the Blood-Covenant Witness. Come and get it . . . it’s yours!”
THE LEVITES (OR EVEN THE REGULAR SECULAR YISHARALITES) WERE HELD TO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STANDARD THAN THE PHILISTINES BY YAHUSHA. THESE LEVITES HAD NO RIGHT TO EVEN LOOK UPON THE ARK UNLESS IT WAS FULLY COVERED IN A PROTECTIVE CLOTH.
IN FACT THERE’S NOT EVEN ANY MENTION OF PRIESTS BEING PRESENT, AND PRIESTS WOULD HAVE BEEN NECESSARY TO COVER (OR UNCOVER) THE ARK AS WELL AS TO OFFER PROPER ASCENDING-NEAR OFFERINGS. FURTHER, THERE WAS ONLY ONE CLAN OF LEVITES PERMITTED TO CARRY THE ARK, THE CLAN OF KOHATH. SO THESE ENTHUSIASTIC LEVITES BEGAN DEALING WITH YAHUSHA’S ARK IN THOROUGHLY UNAUTHORISED WAYS AND INSTANT DEATH FOR 70 OF THEM WAS THE RESULT. SO AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, THEY WERE MORE THAN WILLING TO PASS THE ARK ON FOR SOMEBODY ELSE TO DEAL WITH, JUST AS THE PHILISTINES HAD DONE.
SO IN LIGHT OF THE SUDDEN SLAUGHTER OF THESE JOYOUS BUT CARELESS PEOPLE, ONE HAS TO SERIOUSLY WONDER IF SO MUCH TIME HAD PASSED SINCE A PROPER PRIESTHOOD HAD EXISTED IN YISHARAL THAT EVEN THE SET-APART LEVITES DIDN’T KNOW (OR CARE TO EXAMINE THE TURAH TO FIND OUT) WHAT PRIESTLY OFFICE COULD PROPERLY ATTEND TO THE ARK OF THE BLOOD-COVENANT !!
SEE HOW THE STANDARD WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FOR YISHARAL BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT IGNORANT OF HIS INSTRUCTIONS (FALLEN AWAY AND LAZY, YES, BUT THEY STILL KNEW WHAT THE INSTRUCTIONS WERE AND ALL THE STORIES REGARDING YAHUSHA'S SET-APART ARK). THEY HAD NO EXCUSE .... AND NEITHER DO WE!!
ONCE WE AGREE TO ENTER BLOOD-COVENANT WITH YAHUSHA AND KNOW HIS INSTRUCTIONS, WE ARE HELD TO A HIGHER STANDARD THAN THE AVERAGE WALKING DEAD HUMAN, FOR WE HAVE A HIGHER CALLING OF ROYALTY, REQUIRING DIFFERENT BEHAVIOUR.
Touch - HEBREW UNDERSTANDING: striking with the fingers, to touch the strings or parts of a musical instrument, to play upon it, to make music, accompanied by the voice, to celebrate in song and music, give praise, feel, to stroke or rub, to smooth (as if with oil), i.e. grease or make fat; also to touch, to handle or erase, abolish, blot out, destroy, full of marrow, put out, reach unto, wipe (away, out), to reach (arrive, acquire); violently, to strike (punish, defeat, destroy), beat, bring down, cast, draw near, get up, plague, reach, smite, strike, touch, to kiss, to equip with weapons, to blow, breathe, smell or perceive (to anticipate or enjoy), to make of quick understanding.
Touch SCRIPTURE UNDERSTANDING:
"Yahusha wouldn't allow anyone to oppress His people Yisharal, and He came down hard on sovereigns for their sake, saying "DON'T TOUCH MY ANOINTED ONES OR DO ANYTHING EVIL TO PROPHETS." PSALM 105 BRS.
Please read the whole of chapter 105 in Psalms. This will give us a greater understanding of how Yahusha wants us to behave on His earth. Consequences of disobedience to Yahuah's will (which we can all hear) are the calamitous situations believers find themselves in, for touching/saying/or doing the wrong thing to His anointed.
Read again the Hebrew word "TOUCH" and see the many different understandings, and the negative sides of "TOUCH," which we can avoid in our behaviour before Yahusha, so as not to encounter a calamitous situation for ourself. We are living with Everlasting Rules, which we undertook obedience too, in our commitment to Yahusha. Yahusha hates a haughty look!
