1 Samuel 6:7

5 Make images of your tumors and of the rats that are ravaging the land. Give glory to the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land.

6 Why harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened theirs? When He afflicted them, did they not send the people on their way as they departed?

Now, therefore, prepare one new cart with two milk cows that have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.

8 Take the ark of the LORD, set it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending Him as a guilt offering. Then send the ark on its way,

9 but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”

Here the Bible tells a story about someone else. Ask yourself what it can say to us today. Do read the surrounding verses too, because the context often says more than a single verse.

Compare

BSB
Now, therefore, prepare one new cart with two milk cows that have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.
KJV
Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them:
WEB
“Now therefore take and prepare yourselves a new cart and two milk cows on which there has come no yoke; and tie the cows to the cart, and bring their calves home from them;
ASV
Now therefore take and prepare you a new cart, and two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke; and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them;
DARBY
And now make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there has come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them;
BLB
And now, take and make one new cart, and two suckling cows on which a yoke has not gone up, and hitch the cows to the cart, and return their calves from them to the house.
ÅB
Ta nå og gjør en ny vogn, og ta så to nybære kyr som det ikke er kommet åk på, og spenn kyrne for vognen, men ta kalvene fra dem og før dem hjem!
OTB
Lag nå en ny vogn og ta to kyr som nylig har kalvet og aldri har vært spent for. Spenn kyrne for vognen, men ta kalvene deres bort og steng dem inne.
B1930
Ta nu og gjør en ny vogn, og ta så to nybære kyr som det ikke er kommet åk på, og spenn kyrne for vognen, men ta kalvene fra dem og før dem hjem!

Study notes (Tyndale)

Original text and word study

Cross references

  • Numbers 19:2

    “This is the statute of the law that the LORD has commanded: Instruct the Israelites to bring you an unblemished red heifer that has no defect and has never been placed under a yoke.

    Read in context
  • 2 Samuel 6:3

    They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart,

    Read in context
  • 1 Chronicles 13:7

    So they carried the ark of God from the house of Abinadab on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding the cart.

    Read in context