CHAPTER 4

  1. The sons of Eli went with the ark to the battle against the Philistines, and there they were killed.
  2. When Eli heard his sons were dead and more particularly that the ark was captured, he fell off his chair backward and being old and heavy he broke his neck.

CHAPTER 5

  1. The false god, Dagon, fell down on its face before the ark of God. It’s head and hands were broken off at another time.
  2. The Philistines died, were stricken with tumors, and had rats plague their land (ch. 6) wherever the ark was sent.

CHAPTER 6

  1. The Philistines removed the ark from their presence with a test to see if the God of Israel had been the one against them.
  2. They would send the ark on a cart with a trespass offering pulled by two cows that had never been yoked. If the cart was pulled by the cows toward Beth Shemesh, they would know God was the One against them. If it went any other way, they would say it had been by chance that all these things had happened to them.
  3. The cows went straight to the road to Beth Shemesh.
  4. The people had looked into the ark of the Lord.
  5. They moved the ark to Kirjath Jearim.