1 Samuel 6:19

And the people lamented, for the Lord had struck them, etc. Because the Church laments with tears over its infirm or faltering members to restore them to their former state; and enkindled with zeal for the well-being of its flourishing members, who it sees have desired and failed in the court of the Lord, it pours forth sweet tears of salutary compunction and says, wounded by love: I am love-sick, and my soul has melted, as he has spoken (Songs 5); and other such things, with which countless places of Scripture and the entire text of the forty-first psalm are filled.

"And he struck down from the people seventy men, and fifty thousand of the common people." [1 Samuel 6:19] This was said of those who dared to see the Ark of the Lord returned from the land of the Philistines, although they were not of the Levitical lineage: "And he struck down from the people seventy men, and fifty thousand of the common people." The terms "people" and "common people" are used interchangeably to signify the same thing. For both are commonly translated from the Greek term "laos." However, there seems to be a distinction here, as the word "men" is added in the first phrase of the verse. For what your Codex reads, "seventy-two," is entirely erroneous; for "men" refers to elders, implying that seventy of the dignitaries of the people were struck down, while fifty thousand were from the general crowd of common men; thus, to prevent this in Exodus, the people stood far off, and prayed, with only Moses ascending to the Lord (Exod. 20).

30. Who are the struck-down Beth-shemites, if not heretics deceived by false contemplation? For the Beth-shemites existed not in truth, but in presumption. Therefore, while they presumed to look upon the ark on the stone, they were struck down: because when they, being unworthy, scrutinized the sacraments of our Lord and Redeemer, they were cast down into the snares of eternal damnation through the deceit of their own error. But what does it mean that seventy men of the people, and fifty thousand of the common folk, were struck down? But since under the designation of "people" even the nobles of cities are included, while "the common folk" is the remaining populace without nobles, this can be gathered: that some among the heretics stood out among others as if noble, who perished by error alone while maintaining purity of works; but the rest, as if following the rusticity of the common folk, were darkened with the filth of depraved conduct along with the error of faith. Hence some are expressed by the number fifty, and others by the number seventy: because the latter carried out their conceived crimes through the five senses of the body; while the former, by falsely ascribing to themselves the gifts of the sevenfold Spirit, were buried under the eternal darkness of blindness.