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1Sa_6:9 And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, [then] he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that [it is] not his hand [that] smote us: it [was] a chance [that] happened to us.
Ver. 9. By the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh.] That is, The house of the sun, which, haply, had sometime been there worshipped, as at Heliopolis in Egypt, {Jer_43:13} called now Dameta. This Bethshemesh was in the tribe of Judah, and in the way to Shiloh, where the ark had formerly stood; but now and henceforward it was, "Go ye up to my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel." {Jer_7:12} God suffered the Philistines to lay it waste, as he did the Chaldees, Romans, and now the Turks to deal by that whole country; Ut ostenderet se non propter locum gentem, sod propter gentem locum elegisse, saith Theodoret. {a}
It was a chance that happened to us.] This was a string that the heathens much harped upon, denying, or at least doubting of, the divine providence, and ascribing events to fate and blind fortune. The Jews tell us, that when Jeroboam’s hand was dried up, the false prophets told him that this was but by chance: and so kept him from thinking of God that had smitten him. Still the devil is suggesting the same thing to the sons of men - viz., that their crosses are but common events, such as had a time to come in, and must have a time to go in, &c.; whereas nothing in the world cometh to pass without God’s providence and decree, as is excellently set forth in Eze_1:4. {See Trapp on "Eze_1:4"}
{a} Quest. 1, in Daniel.