GoKawiilThe Philistines were a people living on the coast of Canaan - thought to have settled there around the late Bronze Age. Their history intertwines with the Israelites’, and as such is extensively documented in the Old Testament. One interesting episode is the story of a battle with the Israelites detailed in 1 Samuel 4.
The Israelites, while encamped under Mount Sinai, were given elaborate instructions on constructing the Ark of the Covenant. God on building the base of it:
And they will make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits its length and a cubit and a half its width and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And you will overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside you will overlay it, and you will make on it a gold molding all around. 12 And you will cast for it four gold rings, and you will put them on its four feet, with two rings on its one side and two rings on its second side..
The instructions continue with more detail, on putting cherubim on either end and the construction of an atonement cover to go on top. The stated purpose for the Ark was to represent God’s physical throne on Earth and to house the Ten Commandments, a contradiction it seems to the Second Commandment itself, forbidding the construction of any “graven image”.
Carried for 40 years as the Israelites wandered through the desert and placed inside their Tabernacle every time they encamped, the Ark was passed and cared for from generation to generation. The Ark made several apperances throughout their history:
During the Battle of Jericho, it was carried around the city of as trumpeteers followed it, and after the 7th day the wall of Jericho fell.
At the Battle of Gibeah (an episode during the Benjaminite War), the Ark was given burnt offerings by the Israelites after a day of heavy losses. The Israelites succeeded on the next day.
When the Israelites reached the bank of the River Jordan, the river grew dry as the priests at the head of the formation carrying the Ark stepped in it, allowing the people to cross.
By the time of the battle between the Philistines and Israelites, the Ark had taken on a secondary purpose, here carried as a banner. The Israelites lost, and the Philistines captured the Ark to parade around their city. At each place they paraded it, misfortune befell them. At Ashdod, it was placed in the temple of Dagon, an early Syrian diety. The next morning, the statue was found prostrate in front of it. When restored, the statue was found the next day broken. The people of Ashdod were visited by a plague, until the Ark was returned to the Israelites. It continued on its journey throughout Biblical history, in the hands of King David then Solomon and so on, getting lost in history.
The Ark deviated from its original image - its primary purpose overshadowed and abstracted away by the observed phenomena. The creators themselves were affected by the runaway nature of its purpose. The Ark, an image, was used as a weapon but misunderstood by both the Israelites and Philistines.
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