What happens when your unholiness is exposed?
Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the LORD (1 Sam. 6:19a). The Israelites’ joy over the return of the ark of the covenant is replaced by grief and fear when some of the people of Beth Shemesh take an improper liberty. The text indicates they “look into” the ark, perhaps out of a desire to see the tablets of the testimony, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the jar of manna that is kept within the ark (Heb. 9:4). However, the Hebrew grammar indicates that the people simply gaze at the ark. As strange as it may sound, doing so is improper. The ark usually sits concealed within the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, where it is seen only once a year by the high priest. Even during Israel’s wilderness wandering, the tabernacle furnishings were covered by the priests before the people began a march so that the Kohathites, the Levitical family assigned to carry the furnishings, would not see them (Num. 4:1–20). When the ark arrived in the f