1 Samuel 5:10, commentary and pictures

As the ark of God came to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out in terror, believing its arrival would slay them and their people and their families. Their dread came amid the afflictions and deaths that had attended the ark in the Philistine cities where it had been kept, with the plague following it from Ashdod through Gath to Ekron and distress growing in each place. The experience showed that the ark could not be treated as an ordinary object or kept safely from city to city, and at Ekron its presence was recognized as a source of divine judgment.

After its arrival at Ekron, affliction with many deaths, widespread destruction, and painful disease followed, so that the city's cry went up to heaven. A plague of mice also damaged the land's crops, threatening the nation with famine as well as disease. The people sought protection from their gods but received no relief, so they humbled themselves and cried to the God of Israel, coming to recognize that His hand was against them because they had taken what belonged to Israel. Accompanied by God's invisible presence, the ark became an instrument of terror and punishment against the Philistines as transgressors of God's law.

The verse shows that God had not wholly cast aside Israel and would not long suffer the exultation of the Philistines: He had used the Philistines to punish unfaithful Israel and then employed the ark to punish the Philistines. The same invisible divine presence that had once attended the ark to be the strength and glory of obedient Israel still attended it to bring terror and destruction to transgressors of His holy law. God often employs His bitterest enemies to chastise His professed people, the wicked may triumph for a time while Israel suffers chastisement, but they too must meet the sentence of a holy, sin-hating God, and wherever iniquity is cherished swift and unerring judgments follow.