The lucky thirteenth episode of the seventh season of the Retelling the Bible Podcast is posted today (June 21, 2023). It tells the amazing story of the time the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant on a victory tour of their cities, but things didn’t quite turn out like they might have wanted.
You can listen to the episode right now and subscribe to the podcast by following one of these links or by searching for the podcast on your favourite platform:
Show Notes about the Episode
This episode is based on 1 Samuel 5:1-7:1. Direct biblical quotations in the episode are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.
The Story of the Ark
The saga of the journey of the ark begins in 1 Samuel 4 when the two priests, Hophni and Phinehas, bring the Ark to support the Israelites in a battle against the Philistines. This is a foolish decision. The battle is lost and the ark is captured. I dealt with that story in my episode 4.2, Icky, Icky Icky, Ichabod.
That episode, as you might guess, focussed more on Ichabod, the son of Phineas, than on the ark’s narrative.
The story in this episode ends with the ark resting in the home of Abinadab who has consecrated his son (perhaps a young man named Uzzah?) to care for it. There it will remain while the book tells the story of the establishment of the monarchy and the rise of David. It will only be picked up again in 2 Samuel 6 when King David decides to move the ark to Jerusalem.
As I say in the episode, I will have to pick the story up too!
The fact that this story is a continuous narrative that does not include Samuel, the main character of the early part of the story, in it has led many to suggest that it was initially an independent narrative that was later incorporated into the book.
The Philistines
The Philistines were a group of outsiders who came to settle in the coastal plains of Canaan sometime around 1175 BCE.
While they certainly brought their own culture and religion with them, they seem to have also adapted many of the cultural practices of the Canaanite people.
They are generally thought to have originated somewhere in the Greek territories of the Aegean Sea, perhaps from the Island of Crete. As such they would have had a Hellenistic culture.
I tried to reflect this in my story by referring to the Greek reverence for the maiden as a goddess figure (which appears to be something that the Philistines maintained). I also followed the suggestion of Robert Alter (“The David Story”) that the word used for the Philistine rulers in this story, the Philistine loanword seranim, might be cognate with the ancient Greek word for the ruler of a city, tyrant.
Is this a Story about the Bubonic Plague?
Obviously, there is no way of knowing exactly what sort of epidemic is being described in this story, but there are many things that give us interesting hints.
The tumours, which are described as forming “in the secret parts” (1 Samuel 5:7 — see KJV and Robert Alter’s translation), are indeed reminiscent of the initial symptoms of the bubonic plague. As is the association with rodents.
Here is a fascinating summary of the debates held in the medical community over whether this passage might be describing an incident of the bubonic plague: Bubonic plague in the Book of Samuel by Frank R Freemon
Media in this Episode
The following music was used for this media project:
Music: AhDah by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3345-ahdah
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://incompetech.com
Music: River of Io by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/4296-river-of-io
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
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