This wasn’t simply a driverless cart; it was moving exactly the opposite way the cows longed to go!
An offering had been prepared by the Philistines, but how could the ark be transported back to Israel? The priests advised: “Make a new cart, take two milk cows which have never been yoked, and hitch the cows to the cart; and take their calves home, away from them” (1 Sam 6:7). This would not just be a transporter; it would also be a test. If these cows, who were still nursing their young, would travel straight down the road to Beth Shemesh, not turning back to their calves, as would be normal for them to do, this would be proof that the Philistines had been engaged in a supernatural struggle with the God of Israel. If not, “it happened to us by chance” (v 9). Sure enough, “the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left” (v 12). How many of God’s people, Hannah-like, have gone straight ahead in obedience to the Lord, even though everything within them would call them to turn aside and follow their natural desires? It is this that Jesus meant when He said, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Mt 10:37). Of course we are to love our family members, but the Lord Jesus has a higher and prior claim on our loyalty. There the cows were offered to the Lord, sacrificed on the wood taken from the cart. But notice: the Philistines took the Lord seriously, and no calamity befell them when they ignorantly put the gold objects in the ark. The people of Beth Shemesh didn’t take the Lord seriously, and He struck down those who looked in the ark (1 Sam 6:19). Another reminder that the Lord holds us responsible for all the light we have.