What in the world?!

1st Samuel 4-6 (NIV)

It's often hard to read a chunk and really pull meaning out of it. It's also pretty difficult to say what I got out of the passage without just doing a synopsis of the events. I guess I can start there, though. ...
Basically, Israel (land of Samuel, Eli, etc) fights Philistine, Philistine kicks their butts and now has the ark of God's covenant. Eli's sons both died in battle, on the same day, just as God said they would. Upon hearing the news, Eli, now blind, falls, breaks his neck and dies. Phineas(one of Eli's sons)'s wife goes into early labor, dies, named her kid Ichabod, which means "no glory."
Philistines have the ark, plagues start happening, people are dying, they pass it on to some other country. These people get tumors, other plagues, start dying, ark gets tied to two cows who bring it back to Israel. Oh, I can't forget that while Phil had the ark, they put it in their god's temple who later lost his hands and head while apparently involuntarily worshipping the ark.

This passage mentions an awful lot this idea of the Lord's "heavy hand" being on the people while they had the ark. I'm not entirely sure what this means, I just get this mental image of God spanking all of the Philistines. Whenever I think about God's heaviness, it's really when I feel a definite heavy presence. That's why this "heavy hand" is bad business kind of confuses me. I mean, isn't the ark the ultimate God presence anyways? What are the Philistines being punished anyways? They were attacked by Israel, land of the screw-up sons. In fact, the Phils were the ones who helped carry out the prophecy of Eli and his sons dying. They basically earned the ark. Maybe I just don't realize the history of the Philistines. Are they bad people?

God, ... I know I don't get it very often. I am very often left wondering what in the world this has to do with my life. ... Please God, reveal to me the message. The relevancy.


I realize this was a complete ramble. My goal isn't to articulate or to teach, just express my thoughts to get them out of my own head. Sorry. Well, not really.