1 Samuel Chapter 6 Discussion

I don't believe that this Stone of Abel (v18) has anything to do with its namesake. After a little research, which is of course inconclusive, this is the same stone referred to in verses 14 & 15. And in these verses, this stone is 'Eben Gedolah' but was changed to 'Abel Gedolah', which is a play on the words so as to signify the great mourning of verses 19-21.

Remembering the great tragedy at the killing of Abel by his brother Cain, it was likened to the great lamentation over the loss of so many at Bethshemesh because of their sin of taking the Ark of the Covenant & peering into it. So this stone may have been the base of the Ark of the Covenant when it was returned to Israel but it had nothing to do with Abel, just a change of wording from a 'great stone' to a 'great Abel' in their deep sorrow.

Since mice were involved, maybe it was bubonic plague.

The Philistines are like so many gentiles today. They know that The Lord God of Israel is distintly different than the pagan gods they worship. They bare witness that our God is a God of great mighty works as He is very much the only One True and Living God but they much rather blidnly follow the vain superstition's of their pagan idols which neither hear see nor speak.

@April you are correct. God does help whenever you are in need of something without you even asking! you are correct.

Verse 19: The Israelites were not to look upon the ark because this carried the death penalty. They suffered because they disobeyed this command.

I believe that these situations where things go good and they forgot the LORD as Moses and Jacob spoke of, these people did they forgot the LORD when all was going well,thanking GOD is even for 5$ that comes free into thy hands or maybe you needed gas and you got enough money and a snack,bc you are hungry,or a person who is there when you need help with something,we get blessings in many diff ways

Irene123 your so correct about the emerods being defined as hemmeroids. They didn't have preperation H back then.

God gave the Philistine's hemmeroids, not boils.

Hello, Avenger of Blood, Go el Haddam, 1 Samuel 6 2 Thank you.

I wish and pray that God can also Bless me financially ,,I m struggling Lord.

this chapter may symbolize the condition where we pray "god please make this unpleasant cir***stance go away" - like the philistines we acknowledge god when a calamity occurs - but when things go well - then we forget about god

it is interesting that they knew if was from Israel's GOD and that HE could do things like give them emerods (boils) but not turn to GOD HIMSELF.