Does God Show Us His Sense of Humor

This is an unusual title because I don't think we think in terms of God having a sense of humor. God is normally viewed from a much more reverent and spiritual perspective, but I just wanted to share with you a story which may be the only story in the bible that I found somewhat humorous because of the way God dealt with the Philistines when they captured the ark of the covenant.

Do not forget, however, that God is and always will be SERIOUS about sin, any sin because He hates it and will punish it. The story I am going to share is found in Chapters 4-6 of 1 Samuel and if you haven't read it, I highly suggest you read it. One of the greatest things you can do for yourself is to read the bible through in a year because it helps you know and be exposed to events such as I am about to describe and you will also actually be able to find those little books of the minor prophets with all the iah's on the end.

The Israelites were midst a battle where they were being severely beaten and the outcome was inevitable that they would lose.  The army of Israel now begins to wonder why they are being defeated and they decide they need to "fetch" the ark.(1 Sam 4:3). This is the word in the King James Edition and it jumped out at me because it made me think of playing fetch with your dog...at your command the fetching takes place or at your initiation of the game.  This is how the Israelites where using the ark; a good luck charm to be summoned whenever needed. This was not a good time for Israel because if you look closely you will see that the ark was brought to the battlefront by Hophni and Phineas, Eli's ungodly sons who were already destined for death (1 Sam.2:12-17), we can see a little of the picture of how little reverence was really being shown to God.

When the ark arrives there is a great shout and rejoicing and I am sure that the army thought victory was a surety because they now had brought their God into the battle. However, God does not take second place to Israel or anyone else. The shouting and rejoicing by the Israelites was heard by the Phillistines and they were greatly afraid because they had heard about this God who brought Egypt to its knees and they were sure they would be next.

God allowed the Israelite army to be defeated and the ark of the covenant to be captured.
Really? Yes, really! Chapter 5 tells us that the ark of God was taken to Ashdod and placed in the house of Dagon which was one of their gods. It was a common practice at that time to capture a defeated armies gods and take them to the victor's house for their gods. This was a way of them saying to their gods thank you for allowing us to defeat the gods of the other armies gods and it may have been a way to sneer and ridicule the god who had just been defeated. Now comes the fun part.

The ark of God has been placed in the house of Dagon and early the next morning Dagon is lying face down in the earth. What might you have thought? Did we have an earth quake last night or did somebody accidentally knock over our God? Well, whatever; we will just stand Dagon up and he can look down on this puny god that lives in an ark.? I guess he must have gotten old because this really can't be the god that defeated Egypt and the ones we have heard all the stories about. Ok, there you go Dagon. You are upright and powerful as ever and I am sure this puny god must be quivering.  The plot thickens.

The very next morning Dagon was found face down on the earth laying across the threshold, but this time his head and both hands were cut off and all that remained was a stump.  So much for the puny god theory.  This shook the priests of Dagon so badly that they, nor anyone else entering the house of Dagon, would step on the threshold unto this day (1 Sam. 5:5).  Just from this reaction alone, I think we can see that it really shook them up, however, they did not remove the ark from Ashdod, the city of Dagon. Big Mistake!

God's hand was heavy upon the people living in Ashdod ...and he smote them with emerods.(1 Sam.5:6)  Do you know what emerods are? I looked it up and discovered they are our word for hemorrhoids. I found this humorous because God could have killed them and been done with it, but instead He inflicts them with these pain in the butt sores, no pun intended, and they are miserable. I am pretty sure they didn't have Preparation H back then and having been troubled by this problem myself, I can only imagine the unbearable scratching and uncomfortableness of these people.  Can you imagine standing in line at  your favorite restaurant and everyone is scratching their bottoms incessantly?
Well, if you follow the rest of the story in chapters 5-6, the Philistines in Ashdod can't get rid of the ark quick enough and they begin passing this "hot potato" to the other of the 5 major cities. I am sure that the reputation of what was happening in these cities  spread faster than the breakout of emerods and mice(ch. 6:4) and if you were the town leader how would you like to announce to your people that the ark of the god of Israel is coming to our fair city.  I think the people would stone you.

The story ends by the Philistines consulting their leaders and spiritual advisers and they decide to send the ark back to the Israelites as a trespass offering. It looks like the Phillistines had more fear and reverance for the ark and its' God than the Israelites did. Oh, the trespass offering was gold replicas of 5 mice and 5 golden emerods.  Don't you just love that...I believe they truly Got the message, don't you?