The presence of God has the effect of causing great plagues in the Philistine towns. Is this because God is malicious and is punishing them? I don't believe so, I think what we see is the simple cause-and-effect of taking something that is holy into somewhere that is not. The fear is not so much that God punishes unholy people (otherwise most of us are screwed) but that if we, as unholy people, approach God, why would we expect anything else?
Even the Israelites are subjected to death when some of them look into the Ark, something they were clearly forbidden to do.
Although this can make us think of God as a bully, we need to remember that God actually gave instructions on how to deal with the ark to enable it to be used correctly. His presence is like carrying some radioactive material which is massively powerful and useful but also dangerous when mishandled.
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