1 Sam. vi. 20. And the meii of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God. ?
TILL we come to behold some extraordinary in- terposition of the Deity, we have in general a very slight sense of his majesty and greatness : but when we see any remarkable display of his power, we are apt to forget all his other perfections, and to tliink of him with insupportable terror. We have a striking instance of this in the Israelites, when they saw God's decision of their controversy with Aaron on the subject of the priesthood : " They said. Be- hold, we die, we perish, we all perish : whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die : shall we be consumed with dying''?" Thus, in the passage before us, the men of Beth- shemesh, who had just before manifested so little respect for the Lord as to treat his ark w^ith impious irreverence, no sooner felt the tokens of his dis- pleasure than they exclaimed, " Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?"
We propose to consider,
I. The grounds and occasions of this question —
To understand it aright, we must consult the whole of this and of the preceding chapter.
God had prevailed over the idolatrous Philistines —
[God had, for the punishment of his offending people, delivered the ark into the hands of their enemies : and the PhiHstines having triumphed, as they imagined, over the God of Israel, placed the ark, as a trophy, in the temple of Dagon their god. They had before " offered a great sacrifice to Dagon, when, as they supposed, he had delivered Samson into their hand'':" and nov*^ they endeavoured to do him still greater honour, by placing, as they imagined, the God of Israel at his feet. But behold, their God, w^ithout any visible cause, fell prostrate before the ark ; and, vs^hen set up again in his place, again, the very next night, fell down before the ark,
a Numb. xvii. 12, 13. ^ Judg. xvi. 23, 24.