Israel's defeat by the Philistines; the ark captured

Israel goes out to fight the Philistines at Aphek and loses about four thousand men. The elders then ask the right question and reach a disastrous answer: why did the LORD bring defeat on us today? Let us bring the ark of the covenant from Shiloh, so that it may go with us and save us.

The ark had gone ahead of them across the Jordan and around Jericho, and the reasoning is that the object works. It is fetched, along with Eli's two sons, and when it arrives in the camp Israel raises a shout so loud the ground shakes. The Philistines hear it, find out what has happened, and are terrified, saying a god has come into the camp and recalling what happened to Egypt. Their response is to tell each other to be men and fight.

Israel is routed. Thirty thousand foot soldiers fall, both of Eli's sons are killed, and the ark is captured.

Aphek sits at the head of the coastal plain where the route inland narrows, which is why armies met there repeatedly over the following centuries. The Philistines are pushing east out of the plain into the hill country, and the hill country is where Israel could normally hold them. Losing at Aphek means losing the gateway.

A man from the tribe of Benjamin runs from the battle line to Shiloh with his clothes torn and dust on his head. Eli is sitting by the side of the road watching, because his heart feared for the ark of God. He is ninety-eight and blind. The messenger gives him four pieces of news in one sentence, and they are ordered from least to worst: Israel fled, there has been a great slaughter, your two sons are dead, and the ark of God has been captured. At the mention of the ark Eli falls backwards off his seat by the gate, breaks his neck and dies.

His daughter-in-law, pregnant and near the birth, goes into labour when she hears. As she is dying the women attending her tell her she has a son, and she does not respond to them. She names him Ichabod, saying the glory has departed from Israel, and the reason she gives is the capture of the ark, mentioned before her husband and her father-in-law.

Shiloh is destroyed at about this point. It is never mentioned again as a sanctuary, and Jeremiah later tells a complacent crowd in Jerusalem to go and see what was done to Shiloh. Excavation of the site has found a substantial destruction layer in the mid eleventh century BC, which matches.

What is being demonstrated is that the ark is not a weapon and cannot be deployed. A community that had stopped listening to God fetched the box he was associated with and carried it into battle as equipment, and lost the box, the battle, the priesthood and the sanctuary in a single afternoon.