He struck of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Yahweh, he struck of the people fifty thousand seventy men; and the people mourned, because Yahweh had struck the people with a great slaughter.
"Because they looked into the ark ... he (God) slew seventy of them"  (1 Samuel 6:19).  B. G. Caird criticized the rendition here, writing that, "`They looked into the ark' is not a possible translation.  The Hebrew can mean only that, `they looked at the ark.'"[22]  In this criticism, the writer overlooked the idiomatic use of language.  If a man comes into his home and tells his wife that he has just `looked at' a new automobile, neither she nor anyone else who heard it would think for a moment that he had merely glanced at it.  What had he done?  He had thoroughly studied it, sat in it, possibly even have driven it; and of course, he had carefully looked inside of it also!  All of this is included in the idiomatic use of "looked at."