Now the Philistines had taken the ark of God, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.
In the ancient view, a nation's power and its victory in war depended more upon their gods than upon themselves; and the ordinary viewpoint ascribed victory to the stronger god; thus Israel's defeat at Ebenezer was interpreted by the Philistines as a triumph over the God of Israel.  It is this theological aspect of what happened that is the chief concern of our sacred author in this section of Samuel.  That is why everything else is ignored and the Biblical narrative follows the ark of God into Philistia.