Answers

1. God afflicted the Philistines with a plague of tumours (1 Sa 5:6) after they stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites. After enduring seven months of tumours, the people sought the advice of the priests and diviners. The advice given was to return the Ark with a gift or guilt offering (1 Sa 6:3, see Lv 5:14 – 6:7). They gave five gold tumours and five gold rats according to the number of Philistine rulers. The golden models were an acknowledgement that the disease and the rats that accompanied it (which were probably also the vectors) were a judgement from the hand of the God of Israel (1 Sa 6:5).
2. The true sign of belonging to God is not an outward mark on the physical body, but the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit within. This is what Paul meant by ‘circumcision of the heart’ (Rom 2:29). Circumcision of the heart was known in Old Testament times (Je 4:4). It was the process of consecrating one’s heart to the Lord. God commanded the people to turn back to him from the evil that they had done. In Jeremiah 9:25 that God declares ‘I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh’.
3. It was Solomon who said that there is ‘nothing new under the sun’. (Ec 1:9). Here he was lamenting that all of life is meaningless! Indeed it is hollow, futile and vain if it is not rightly related to God.