1 Samuel 6:11

And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:10-18 These two kine knew their owner, their great Owner, whom Hophin and Phinehas knew not. God's providence takes notice even of brute creatures, and serves its own purposes by them. When the reapers saw the ark, they rejoiced; their joy for that was greater than the joy of harvest. The return of the ark, and the revival of holy ordinances, after days of restraint and trouble, are matters of great joy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bethshemesh was the first Israelite town they would come to, being on the border of Judah. (See the marginal reference.)

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9-12. Beth-shemesh—that is, "house of the sun," now Ain Shems [Robinson], a city of priests in Judah, in the southeast border of Dan, lying in a beautiful and extensive valley. Josephus says they were set a-going near a place where the road divided into two—the one leading back to Ekron, where were their calves, and the other to Beth-shemesh. Their frequent lowings attested their ardent longing for their young, and at the same time the supernatural influence that controlled their movements in a contrary direction.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart,.... Perhaps the same men that made the cart; however they were the Philistines, yet were not punished for touching it, as Uzzah was, though an Israelite, 2 Samuel 6:6.

and the coffer with the mice of gold, and the images of their emerods; which coffer was placed in a purse or bag hung at the side of the ark, with the golden mice and emerods in it.

Geneva Study Bible

And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

1 Samuel 6:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The God of Israel actually did what the idolatrous priests hardly considered possible. When the Philistines, in accordance with the advice given them by their priests, had placed the ark of the covenant and the expiatory gifts upon the cart to which the two cows were harnessed, "the cows went straight forward on the way to Bethshemesh; they went along a road going and lowing (i.e., lowing the whole time), and turned not to the right or to the left; and the princes of the Philistines went behind them to the territory of Bethshemesh." בּדּרך ישּׁרנה, lit., "they were straight in the way," i.e., they went straight along the road. The form ישּׁרנה for יישׁרנה is the imperf. Kal, third pers. plur. fem., with the preformative י instead of ת, as in Genesis 30:38 (see Ges. 47, Anm. 3; Ewald, 191, b.). Bethshemesh, the present Ain-shems, was a priests' city on the border of Judah and Dan (see at Joshua 15:10).