BIBLE RECORDS | 124 MIRACLES (41)

1. What are "Miracles"?

a) Miracles are those acts that only God can perform; usually superseding natural laws. Baker’s Dictionary of the Bible defines a miracle as “an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God.” It goes on to add that a miracle occurs to show that the power behind it is not limited to the laws of matter or mind as it interrupts fixed natural laws. So the term supernatural applies quite accurately.

b) Miracles are also known as Signs and Wonders.

c) Here we have one of the 124 miracles recorded in the Bible.

2. Miracle 41: SUPERNATURAL DEATH—men of Beth-shemesh smitten for looking into the ark of the covenant (1 Samuel 6:19). 

a) Supernatural Death - Men of Beth-shemesh.

1 Samuel 6:19 New King James Version (NKJV)
¹⁹ Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter. 

a) Beth-shemesh - meaning: house of the sun.

i) The name of four biblical places…

@1. A sacerdotal city in the tribe of Dan (Joshua 21:16; 1 Samuel 6:15), on the north border of Judah (Joshua 15:10). It was the scene of an encounter between Jehoash, king of Israel, and Amaziah, king of Judah, in which the latter was made prisoner (2 Kings 14:11,13).

@2. It was afterwards taken by the Philistines (2 Chronicles 28:18). It is the modern ruined Arabic village 'Ain-shems, on the northwest slopes of the mountains of Judah, 14 miles west of Jerusalem.

@3. See the Christian archaeological video which describes this ancient city: On the Promised Land: Crossroads of the World (part of the Faith Lessons video series). “Unlike Samson, who succumbed to the evils of the Philistine culture, our lives must be distinctive, virtuous, and godly if we are to effectively influence modern society.”

@4. A city between Dothan and the Jordan, near the southern border of Issachar (Joshua 19:22), 7 1/2 miles south of Beth-shean. It is the modern Ain-esh-Shemsiyeh.

@5. One of the fenced cities of Naphtali (Joshua 19:38), between Mount Tabor and the Jordan. Now Khurbet Shema, 3 miles west of Safed. But perhaps the same as No. 2.

@6. An idol sanctuary in Egypt (Jeremiah 43:13); called by the Greeks Heliopolis, and by the Egyptians On (q.v.), Genesis 41:45.