The advice of the priests and diviners was then asked, and they suggested that the sacred Coffer should be placed in a new cart drawn by two milch kine, which had never been yoked, and with a trespass-offering of five golden mice and five golden emerods be sent back to the Israelites. If the kine of their own accord took the road to Beth-shemesh, (_house of the Sun_[229]), under the hills of Dan, and close to the Philistine lowlands, then it would be certain that their misfortunes were due to the hostility of the Gods of the Israelites, otherwise it might be concluded that some chance had smitten them. The plan was adopted. The Ark was placed in the new cart, together with the coffer containing the trespass-offerings, and the kine took the high-road from Ekron to Beth-shemesh, without turning to the right hand or the left. It was the time of wheat-harvest, and the people of the town were busy gathering in their corn, when lifting up their eyes they with joy beheld the Ark, which they had not seen for seven months (1 Sam. vi. 1). The kine, meanwhile, stopped not till they had reached the field of Joshua, an inhabitant of the place, where there was a great stone. Beth-shemesh being a suburb-city, and allotted to the priests (Josh. xxi. 16; 1 Chr. vi. 59), the Levites residing there took down the Ark and the coffer, placed them on the great stone, then clave the wood of the cart, and offered up the kine as a burnt-offering to Jehovah, at the close of which ceremony, the five lords of the Philistines, who had joined the procession, returned to their own country (1 Sam. vi. 10–16). But even this joyous day was not to pass by without a great calamity. Not content with offering sacrifices, the people of Beth-shemesh approached the Ark, and though even the priests were not allowed to touch it, removed the lid, to do which some force must have been used, and looked into it, for which profanity a considerable number were stricken with instant death. Messengers were, therefore, dispatched to Kirjath-jearim (_the fields of the wood_, see Ps. cxxxii. 6), and thither through the hills the Ark was sent, and placed in the house of the Levite Abinadab, whose son Eleazar was consecrated to keep it, and there it remained until the time of David (1 Sam. vii. 1).