1 Samuel 7:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we must follow the ark to Kirjath-jearim, and then leave it there. We hear very little more about it, except once (1 Samuel 14:18), until David brought it from there about forty years later (1 Chronicles 13:6).

We are glad to go with it there, because the men of Beth-shemesh, by their own foolishness, had turned what could have been a blessing into a burden. We would gladly see the ark among those to whom it will be a scent of life leading to life, for everywhere it had recently been was a scent of death leading to death.

The men of Kirjath-jearim welcomed it gladly (1 Samuel 7:1). At the first word, they came and brought up the ark of the Lord. Their neighbors in Beth-shemesh were no more glad to be rid of it than they were to receive it. They knew well that the slaughter at Beth-shemesh was not a display of random power, but of needed justice. Those who suffered there had only themselves to blame, not the ark. We can trust the word God has spoken: "Do not provoke me, and I will do you no harm" (Jeremiah 25:6). When God judges people for profaning his worship, we should not grow afraid of his ordinances. We should fear profaning them and using them badly.

They also made careful provision for its proper care, as one would for a welcome guest, with real affection, and as an honored guest, with respect and reverence.

They first made a fitting place for it. They had no public building to decorate with it, so they placed it in the house of Abinadab, which stood on the highest ground and was probably the best house in the city. Or perhaps Abinadab was the most godly man among them, and best disposed toward the ark. The men of Beth-shemesh left it exposed on a stone in the open field. Even though Beth-shemesh was a city of priests, none of them took it into his house. But the men of Kirjath-jearim, though ordinary Israelites, gave it shelter, and no doubt the best room in the house where it was brought.

God will find a resting place for his ark. If some push it away, the hearts of others will be moved to receive it. It is nothing new for God's ark to be kept in a private house. Christ and his apostles preached from house to house when they had no public place available. Sometimes priests are put to shame and outdone in religion by ordinary Israelites.

They also provided a proper person to care for it. They set apart Eleazar, Abinadab's son, to keep it. Not the father, perhaps because he was old and weak, or because he had family duties that should not be set aside. The son, likely a very godly young man with real zeal for better things, was given the task. His work was to guard the ark, not only from hostile Philistines, but also from curious Israelites who might touch it or look into it. He was to keep the room clean and respectful, so that even though the ark was in a hidden place, it would not seem neglected.

It does not appear that this Eleazar was from the tribe of Levi, much less from Aaron's family, and that was not necessary here, since there was no altar for sacrifice or incense. We may suppose that devout Israelites would come and pray before the ark, and he would be there to help and serve them. They set him apart for this task, with his own consent, binding him to make it his regular work and giving him this duty on behalf of the whole city. This was irregular, but it could be excused because of their present trouble. When the ark had just come out of captivity, we cannot expect everything to be restored at once to its full solemn order. We must work with things as they are and make the best of them.

Still, it is hard to leave the ark there. We wish it well at Shiloh again, though that place had become desolate (Jeremiah 7:14). At the least, we wish it at Nob, or Gibeon, or wherever the tabernacle and altars were. But it seems it had to remain by the roadside because no one with enough public spirit brought it to its proper place.

The time it stayed there was very long, more than forty years, in those fields and woods, a remote, hidden, private place, hardly visited or noticed (1 Samuel 7:2). The ark stayed in Kirjath-jearim until David fetched it away. It is strange that all the time Samuel governed, the ark was never returned to the holy of holies. This shows how much true zeal for holy things had declined. God allowed it to remain there partly to punish them for neglecting the ark when it was where it belonged, and partly to show that the main point of the ark's institution was only a shadow of Christ and the good things to come, things that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 9:23; Hebrews 12:27). It was also a fair rebuke to the priests that a man outside their order was set apart to keep the ark.

For twenty years of that time, the whole house of Israel did not even feel the loss of the ark. The Septuagint reads this more clearly than our text, saying that it was twenty years, and then the whole house of Israel looked up again to the Lord. So long the ark stayed hidden, and the Israelites did not notice the lack. They never even asked what had become of it. Yet while it was absent from the tabernacle, the sign of God's special presence was missing, and they could not keep the day of atonement as they should. They were content with altars without the ark. Formal worshipers can easily settle for outward religion alone, without any sign of God's presence or acceptance.

At last they began to think about it and started to mourn after the Lord. It is likely Samuel's preaching stirred them, and the Spirit of God worked powerfully among them. A general desire for repentance and reform now appeared throughout Israel. They began to look to the one they had slighted, and to mourn for him (Zechariah 12:10). Dr. Lightfoot thought this was one of the most remarkable moments in Scripture, and that the great conversion in Acts 2 and 3 was the only event like it.

Those who know how to value God's ordinances must count it a sad thing to be without them. True repentance and conversion begin with mourning after the Lord. We must feel that by sin we have driven him away, and that we are ruined if we stay far from him. We must not rest until we recover his favor and enjoy his gracious return. It was better for Israel to be longing for the ark than to have it and pry into it, or boast in it. It is better to see people thirsting in a time when the means of grace are scarce than loathing them when they are plentiful.