(10) And Israel was smitten.--The result was strictly in accordance with those immutable laws which have ever guided the connection of Israel and their God-Friend. As long as they clave to the invisible Preserver, and served Him with their whole heart and soul, and kept themselves pure from the pollution of the idol nations around them, so long was He in their midst, so long would they be invincible; but if, as now, they chose to revel in the impure joys, and to delight themselves in the selfish, shameless lives of the idolatrous world around them, and only carried the Ark on their shoulders, with no memory of Him whom the mercy-seat and the overshadowing cherubim of that Ark symbolised, in their hearts, then--to use the solemn words of the hymn of Asaph--"Then God was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel, and forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, and delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hand." (See Psalm 78:59-61, where the crushing defeat of Aphek and the signal victory of the Philistines is recounted in detail.)

Verse 10. - Israel fled every man into - better to - his tent. Their camp stood them this time in no stead. It was stormed by the Philistines, and the whole army fled in confusion. In those days the Israelites dwelt in tents, and to flee "every man to his tent" means that they fled away in every direction, each to his own home. It is in this indiscriminate flight that an army suffers most. As long as men keep together the loss is comparatively slight. But now, thus utterly broken, there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen - a terrible slaughter. They are called footmen because the Israelites had neither cavalry nor chariots.

4:10,11 The taking of the ark was a great judgment upon Israel, and a certain token of God's displeasure. Let none think to shelter themselves from the wrath of God, under the cloak of outward profession.And the Philistines fought,.... With great ardour and spirit, quitted themselves like men of valour and courage, their case being desperate as they imagined, since God was in the camp of Israel:

and Israel was smitten: were routed and beaten:

and they fled every man into his tent; such of them as escaped the sword of the Philistines fled to their own houses in the several cities from whence they came; so the Targum,"every man to his city''so that their army was quite broken up:

and there was a very great slaughter far greater than in the first battle:

For there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen; their army chiefly, if not altogether, consisting of footmen, there being few horses in Israel; and if any cavalry now, these may be supposed to flee; before they lost only 4000, now 30,000; so that the ark was no security to them, which was suffered, to show their vain trust and confidence in it.