<P> The Philistines took the Ark to several places in their country, and at each place misfortune befell them . At Ashdod it was placed in the temple of Dagon . The next morning Dagon was found prostrate, bowed down, before it; and on being restored to his place, he was on the following morning again found prostrate and broken . The people of Ashdod were smitten with tumors; a plague of mice was sent over the land . The affliction of boils was also visited upon the people of Gath and of Ekron, whither the Ark was successively removed . </P> <P> After the Ark had been among them for seven months, the Philistines, on the advice of their diviners, returned it to the Israelites, accompanying its return with an offering consisting of golden images of the tumors and mice wherewith they had been afflicted . The Ark was set up in the field of Joshua the Beth - shemite, and the Beth - shemites offered sacrifices and burnt offerings . Out of curiosity the men of Beth - shemesh gazed at the Ark; and as a punishment, seventy of them (fifty thousand and seventy in some translations) were smitten by the Lord . The Bethshemites sent to Kirjath - jearim, or Baal - Judah, to have the Ark removed; and it was taken to the house of Abinadab, whose son Eleazar was sanctified to keep it . Kirjath - jearim remained the abode of the Ark for twenty years . Under Saul, the Ark was with the army before he first met the Philistines, but the king was too impatient to consult it before engaging in battle . In 1 Chronicles 13: 3 it is stated that the people were not accustomed to consulting the Ark in the days of Saul . </P> <P> At the beginning of his reign over the United Monarchy, King David removed the Ark from Kirjath - jearim amid great rejoicing . On the way to Zion, Uzzah, one of the drivers of the cart that carried the Ark, put out his hand to steady the Ark, and was struck dead by God for touching it . The place was subsequently named "Perez - Uzzah", literally "Outburst Against Uzzah", as a result . David, in fear, carried the Ark aside into the house of Obed - edom the Gittite, instead of carrying it on to Zion, and there it stayed three months . </P> <P> On hearing that God had blessed Obed - edom because of the presence of the Ark in his house, David had the Ark brought to Zion by the Levites, while he himself, "girded with a linen ephod...danced before the Lord with all his might" and in the sight of all the public gathered in Jerusalem - a performance that caused him to be scornfully rebuked by his first wife, Saul's daughter Michal . In Zion, David put the Ark in the tabernacle he had prepared for it, offered sacrifices, distributed food, and blessed the people and his own household . </P>

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