The Capture of the Ark of the Covenant

1 Samuel chapter 4 records that when the Philistines were about to attack the hill country of Ephraim in Israel, the Israelites reluctantly encamped at Ebenezer to meet them in battle. After an initial defeat, the Israelite elders decided to bring the Ark of God from Shiloh to the battlefield, hoping that the Ark would help them defeat the Philistines.

The Ark was a holy object to the Israelites, symbolizing God’s presence and reminding the people to uphold the covenant they had made with God. However, the Ark itself had no magical power and could not summon God. In the past, Joshua had led the people across the Jordan River and against Jericho, carrying the Ark. Now, the Israelites, though outwardly mimicking spiritual practice, lacked spiritual reality within. They thought they could manipulate God using the Ark, making God do what they wanted. Although they brought out the Ark, it was still essentially a human-against-human, carnal battle. This only fueled the Philistines’ resolve, and Israel suffered an even more crushing defeat. In the battle, Eli’s two sons were killed, fulfilling the prophet’s prophecy that they would both die on the same day. The Ark of God was captured by the Philistines. High priest Eli, upon hearing this tragic news, fell backward from his seat, broke his neck, and died.

In the ancient Middle East, people believed that wars between nations were also battles between their respective patron gods. The Philistines’ victory, therefore, symbolized the triumph of their patron god. Consequently, the Philistines carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon in Ashdod and placed it beside Dagon, intending to prove that the God of Israel had been conquered by Dagon. However, on two successive mornings, Dagon’s statue was found fallen face down before the Ark of the LORD. On the second occasion, Dagon’s head and both hands were broken off on the threshold, leaving only Dagon’s torso. The hand of the LORD weighed heavily on the local people, afflicting them with illness. The Philistine leaders likely believed that the God of Israel was angered because of Dagon, so they moved the Ark to Gath, where there was no temple of Dagon, to test it. Later, it was moved to Ekron. This city worshipped Baal-zebub, and the Philistine leaders might have thought Baal-zebub would be more powerful than Dagon, so they moved the Ark there to test it again. However, wherever the Ark went, the people there suffered illness and death, and each subsequent outbreak was more severe than the last. The Philistines realized that the God of Israel was unlike their idols, whose power was limited to a specific place. The God of Israel was the God of all the earth, and He could not be treated lightly anywhere.

Later, the Philistine leaders, laden with guilt offerings, used cows that had never been yoked and were nursing calves to pull the Ark back into Israelite territory. The fact that the cows pulled the cart straight to Beth Shemesh in Israel without anyone guiding them proved that this was the work of the God of Israel. Decades after the Ark left Shiloh (1 Samuel 7:2; Acts 13:21), David transported it to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:2).

The Ark of the Covenant is now missing. The Bible does not state its final whereabouts, and it was likely destroyed when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem. However, Josephus, a Jewish historian from the 1st century AD, believed that the Ark, along with the Temple, was destroyed when the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem.