#9 The Ark Moved to Kiriath-Jearim

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The ark moved to kiriath-jearim

Now the people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley. When they looked up and saw the Ark approaching, they were filled with joy.

The cart came to a field belonging to Joshua, a Beth-shemite. The cart stopped in this field near a large rock. The people of Beth-shemesh chopped up the wood of the cart, and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.

The Levites took down the Ark of the LORD, and the box containing the jewels of gold that was beside it, and placed them both on the large rock. That day the people of Beth-shemesh offered whole burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord.  And when the five lords of the Philistines saw it, they returned to Ekron that very day.

But some of the men of Beth-shemesh looked into the Ark of the LORD, and God slew them. The people of Beth-shemesh mourned because the LORD had punished them so terribly with a great slaughter. They said, “Who can stand before this holy LORD God? And to whom shall he go from here?”

So they sent messengers to the people of Kirjath-jearim, and said, “The Philistines have brought back the Ark of the LORD. Come down and take it to your city.”

And the men of Kirjath-jearim came and took the Ark of the LORD, and brought it to the house of Abinadab in the hills, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the Ark of the LORD.

And it came to pass that the Ark abode in Kirjath-jearim for a very long time. It stayed there for twenty years and the house of Israel mourned after the LORD.


Under King Saul the Ark was with the army, but it appears Saul was too impatient to consult it before engaging into battle (1 Samuel 14:18-19). Later when Saul wanted to go after the Philistines, Ahiah, the priest, suggested to ask counsel of God. So Saul asked God, and God did not answer him (verses 36-37). It is stated that the people were not accustomed to consult the Ark in the days of Saul (1 Chronicles 13:3).

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