Study Desk

Then the Lord again appeared in Shiloh, for it was in Shiloh that the Lord had revealed himself to Samuel through the word of the Lord .

The Philistines were scared because they thought that gods had come to the camp. They said, "Too bad for us! We've never seen anything like this!

Too bad for us! Who can deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all sorts of plagues in the desert!

When he arrived in Shiloh, Eli was sitting in his chair watching by the side of the road, for he was very worried about the ark of God. As the man entered the city to give his report, the whole city cried out.

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward from his chair beside the gate. He broke his neck and died, for he was old and heavy. He had judged Israel for forty years.

His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phineas, was pregnant and close to giving birth. When she heard that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she doubled over and gave birth. But her labor pains were too much for her.

(For this reason, to this very day, neither Dagon's priests nor anyone else who enters Dagon's temple step on Dagon's threshold in Ashdod.)

When the people of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, "The ark of the God of Israel should not remain with us, for he has attacked both us and our god Dagon!"

The people who did not die were struck with sores; the city's cry for help went all the way up to heaven.

When the ark of the Lord had been in the land of the Philistines for seven months,

They inquired, "What is the guilt offering that we should send to him?" They replied, "The Philistine leaders number five. So send five gold sores and five gold mice, for it is the same plague that has afflicted both you and your leaders.

These are the gold sores that the Philistines brought as a guilt offering to the Lord —one for each of the following cities: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.

It was quite a long time—some twenty years in all—that the ark stayed at Kiriath Jearim. All the people of Israel longed for the Lord .

But this request displeased Samuel, for they said, "Give us a king to lead us." So Samuel prayed to the Lord .

The Lord said to Samuel, "Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is me that they have rejected as their king.

So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king.

He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment.

He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best cattle and your donkeys, and assign them for his own use.

In that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord won't answer you in that day."

The donkeys of Saul's father Kish wandered off, so Kish said to his son Saul, "Take one of the servants with you and go look for the donkeys."