I Samuel
Lesson 8 - Chapter 4 and 5
Last week in 1st Samuel chapter 3 we witnessed the chosen moment that the Lord moved
upon young Samuel and commenced his preparation as a Prophet for God. As Samuel
matured and began prophesying soon all Israel from north to south, all 12 tribes, became
aware of Samuel’s accuracy and enlightenment and so he gained a reputation as being
God’s prophet for all Israel. This was a new phenomenon; not since the time of Moses had
one man been recognized as a central authority for the Word of God. Rather during the era of
Judges (that is coming to a close with the books of Samuel) a prophet was usually only for a
single tribe and there was no central national authority except for the Priesthood.
Let’s read 1st Samuel chapter 4 from beginning to end.
READ 1ST SAMUEL 4: 1 – end
Let me sum up what we just read here before we get into the details. First, we witnessed the
Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant from Israel. Second is that we see the end of Eli
and his two sons running the priesthood at Shiloh. And the bottom line is that the two events
are intertwined and related and indicate the same thing: God has pulled His glory away from
Israel and has pulled His authority from the dysfunctional Levite priesthood that had been
presiding over Israel for quite some time. Put another way: the Lord has drawn away from both
the 12 secular tribes and the single Priestly tribe that together represent every element of
Israel.
The story begins with this statement that connects chapter 4 back to chapter 3, that the word of
Samuel came to all Israel. A transition is underway; just as Yehoveh raised up Joshua well
before Moses died so that Joshua would become familiar and trusted and prepared for what
was coming once Moses was gone, so is Samuel being introduced to the people thus giving
the people time to learn to trust Samuel and for Samuel to gain spiritual maturity and
experience for what lay ahead.
But in the same verse we are also told that Israel went out to fight the Philistines. Now it is all
but universally taught that it must be that Israel had been prompted to go to battle against the
Philistines at Samuel’s urging; that Samuel prophesied to Israel that the tribes of Israel should
once again take up the Holy War for Canaan and oust the dreaded Philistines from the
Promised Land. However not only is that not actually implied, it also doesn’t fit the theme,
purpose, or context of this story of Israel losing its precious Ark of the Covenant to their arch
enemy. This decidedly was NOT Samuel’s doing that Israel went to fight the Philistines.
Although the general area of the battle is known no one is certain about the exact modern day
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location of Even-Ezer; however there is fairly substantial evidence for the location of Afek.
These 2 places were about 20 miles west of Shiloh in the coastal plains (called the Shefelah);
it was the lowlands region that lay at the foot of the hill country of Ephraim and Judah. What is
important to understand from a geo-political point of view is that this area was inside Israeli
territory; it was NOT part of Philistia. So the fact that the Philistines had a substantial military
presence there makes it clear that they also had gained much control over the southern and
central tribal lands of Israel and had full intent to lord over, if not outright conquer and
assimilate, the people there.
As a reminder, the Philistines were a seafaring people who originated from the area of the
Aegean Sea. They were well known in Egypt and caused them much trouble and their
designation as the “Sea Peoples” was written into Egyptian records at the temple of Ramses
III in Thebes (modern day Luxor) around 1200 B.C. They settled all up and down the
Mediterranean Coast from Egypt to Canaan and represented a very serious threat to all the
indigenous tribes and nations of the coastal regions. It is obvious from their location in Israeli
territory that they intended to expand their power east and north, although they were never
very successful at it.
The Philistines were a nation of warriors as opposed to Israel that was a nation of farmers and
herdsmen. Sometimes what I just said is taken to mean that the Philistines were warlike in
character and the Israelites were peace loving; but that isn’t the point. It’s that the Philistines
(like many other nations in that time) had a fully formed government and so also had a
standing army; they had a paid, uniformed military that employed fulltime professional soldiers
armed and funded by the leadership just as most nations do in our time. Israel on the other
hand did not have a national government and so did not have a national army. They did when
they first entered Canaan over 300 years earlier (under Joshua’s leadership), but it disbanded
in only a few years after the initial victories were won and sufficient control over much of
Canaan was achieved such that the 12 tribes of Israel moved in and settled. Now Israel was
but a militia of civilians that armed themselves and came together as needed and when called.
So it was Israel’s militia of civilians who went against Philistia’s well-trained, experienced and
professional soldiers in a battlefield between Even-ezer and Afek. And the result was that
Israel was routed and lost 4000 men.
After a day of fighting and defeat the zikne yisrael (the old men, or elders, of Israel) gathered
together and wondered why Yehoveh defeated Israel on the battlefield. These zikne yisrael
were not military leaders but rather the people’s representatives of the various tribes who were
entrusted with important decisions for the community at large. And it was these elders who
decided it would be a good idea to go and get the Ark of the Covenant from its resting place at
Shiloh and bring it to the battleground.
It is quite interesting that the mindset of the elders was that Yehoveh Himself defeated Israel,
not so much the Philistines. It was neither chance nor the Philistines’ might, but rather that the
Lord was displeased for some reason and was thus directly responsible for Israel’s great loss
that day. Apparently they had not sought the Lord’s council before going to battle, and so now
(after the fact) they thought it good to consult and involve Him. Wow. Does that ever sound
familiar, huh? How often we strike out on our own, certain our ideas are well conceived,
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rational and MUST be in harmony with God’s will, only to run into a block wall; and only
afterward do we then take the time to commune with the Father and seek His guidance and
decision and actually follow it.
So they sent for the Ark and it was delivered to the battlefield, along with the priests Hophni
and Pinchas. Under normal circumstances Eli would have accompanied the Ark, but he was
aged, feeble and blind so his sons went in his stead. Naturally, as it says in verse 6, when the
Ark arrived there was a tumultuous shout as the Israelite fighters were overjoyed for its
presence with them, as they were certain this now meant victory. Actually what the passage
says in Hebrew is that the Israelites gave a teruah when they saw the Ark. Teruah is a certain
kind of blast that comes from a Shofar. So we can envision the blowing of scores of shofars
accompanying the cheers of the men in celebration at the sight of the Ark of God.
But what was it that they expected from the arrival of the Ark to the battlefield? The concept
was that the presence of the Ark assumed the presence of YHWH. In fact the Ark (to their
minds) was a visible sign of His presence. I have taught on numerous occasions that what the
Israelites pictured in their minds about how Yehoveh operated was much like the other
societies of that age also pictured how their gods behaved. It was usual for a nation to bring
some of their gods to the battle location and turn the whole bloody affair into a battle of the
gods as much as a battle of soldiers. Thus the victor would assume that their gods were
greater than the gods of the losers.
The Israelites felt that the presence of the Ark of the Covenant would without doubt grant them
victory; and at first blush the Philistines felt the same way. Because when they heard the
shouts of the Hebrews and the din of their Shofars rising into the heavens the Philistines grew
worried. They knew that the cries of joy from the Israelites could mean but one thing: the God
of Israel had shown up!
Now as we read of the recorded thoughts of the Philistine soldiers we notice something
interesting; they kept referring to the “gods” (plural) of Israel. The same gods who had
wrecked Egypt on behalf of these Hebrews. Here’s a little tip for those who like to study a bit
of Hebrew when looking at these Old Testament passages. The word that is being translated
as “gods” is elohim. Now most of the time this is NOT translated as plural, but singular WHEN
it is referring to the God of Israel. So how do we know to translate this as “gods” and not
“god” (one god) in this case? Context. When a common foreigner is speaking about the
Hebrew deity and the term elohim is used, it is to be thought of in the common way of
speaking among pagans and therefore indicates “multiple gods”. On the other hand when a
Hebrew is speaking about the God of the Hebrews and utters the word “elohim”, then it is in
the grammatical form called the plural of majesty and it simply means “God”.
As I was reading this passage a question jumped to the forefront of my mind: why would the
Philistines refer to the Israelite’s deity as “gods”? Why would the Philistines assume that
Israel had more than one god? The obvious answer is that they thought everybody had
multiple gods and so naturally Israel also had a number of gods they could call upon. But the
Philistines had been rubbing shoulders with the Hebrews for decades, probably at least a
century, by the time of Samuel. Why, after all this contact between Israel and the Philistines,
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wasn’t it common knowledge for the Philistines that (unlike any other existing society or
nation) Israel only acknowledged ONE God, even if the Philistines didn’t know the particulars
or found such a thing to be rather laughable? They were certainly aware of what happened
down in Egypt. And there had been intermarriage between Philistines and Hebrews even
though Israel’s leadership discouraged it, so there was ample opportunity for the Philistines to
hear about YHWH.
The sad answer is that Israel was so dysfunctional and casual in their worship of Yehoveh that
it made no impression on their neighbors. Instead of Israel influencing the Canaanites and the
Philistines, Israel began to look a lot like the Canaanites and the Philistines. Instead of the
Philistines fully understanding that the Israelites recognized but one unique and all-powerful
God, they saw nothing special or terribly different about how Israel went about their religion;
they looked pretty much like everybody else. We have been constantly reading in the Torah
and now the books following it of the people of Israel erecting shrines to various gods and
goddesses, building Ashteroth on high places, and adopting pagan worship practices and
mixing it all with the worship of Yehoveh. Idolatry was running rampant not just throughout the
common folk of the 12 tribes but also their leadership and even the Levite Priesthood. And
even if the Levite Priesthood wasn’t necessarily directly worshipping other known deities, they
were abandoning Gods laws and commands in favor of rituals and practices that they invented
and preferred (and most of these were borrowed from their Canaanite neighbors).
Here’s another of those Old Testament happenings where we modern Believers tend to be a
little arrogant and shake our heads in disgust at these awful Hebrews, while being utterly blind
to the similarity between that and many of our own practices within the modern Church.
Naturally I’m generalizing and in no way am I issuing some all-encompassing indictment. But
as you surf the Internet or drive down the streets of our communities we’ll find Gay churches,
churches that do not acknowledge the deity of Christ, churches that scoff at a virgin birth or
even the possibility of resurrection, churches that preach that the be-all end-all of our existence
is for God to make us wealthy, and denominations who say that any kind of faith in any kind of
god is a good, respectable, and valid faith. If a non-Believer didn’t see us pull up into the
parking lot of a church building often times they’d have no idea we were any different than
they are; and that’s because they have influenced us far more than we have influenced them.
We sure don’t read of any Philistines worshipping Yehoveh, or converting to become
Hebrews, or even knowing much about the Hebrew religion. But we see plenty of Hebrews
adopting the Philistine religious system, marrying into the Philistines, and at the least being
quite familiar and intrigued with the Philistine gods. Not much new under the sun, is there?
But the Philistines were not ones to let fear overtake them, so they encouraged one to fight like
men even if the gods of the Hebrews seemed invincible, and result was a slaughter even
worse than the first; 30,000 Israelite men died on the battlefield. Verse 10 (speaking of the
Hebrews) says “every man fled to his tent”. That phrase is repeated a number of times in
Scripture because it was a somewhat common saying. The idea was that not only did the
fighters retreat, run for their lives, and return home, but also that they laid down their weapons
and gave up being soldiers. “Every man fled to his tent” is the epitome of complete
demoralizing defeat whereby the soldier actually quits the military. But verse 11 tells us the real
focal point of this chapter: “Moreover, the Ark of God was captured and the two sons of
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Eli, Hophni and Pinchas, died”. The death of Hophni and Pinchas on the same day was the
sign that the Lord, through his unnamed prophet, had told Eli to watch for. It was the
unmistakable sign that the demise of the house and priestly line of Eli that was to be expected
at some unknown time had arrived.
But at the same moment the irreplaceable Ark of God was also captured and together with the
deaths of the two high-ranking priests who had accompanied the Ark to the battle sight, it
became de facto proof to all of those present that Yehoveh had finally had enough of this
degenerate people and unfaithful priesthood. God had withdrawn from Israel, lock, stock and
barrel. The leadership of Israel were so apostate that they actually thought they could
COMPEL God to fight a fight that THEY wanted fought; a fight in the manner, place and time of
their choosing, simply because they transported that gold overlaid wooden chest to their camp.
Many a wonderful theologian has noticed this attitude and commented on this particular
passage of Scripture, but few as wonderfully and eloquently put as from an anonymous
contributor to the Berleburger Bible (a German translation) from the early 1700’s:
“It is just the same now, when we take MERELY a historical Christ outside of us for our
Redeemer. He must prove His help chiefly internally by His Holy Spirit, to redeem us out
of the hand of the Philistines; though externally he must not be thrown into the shade,
as accomplishing our justification. If we had not Christ, we could never stand. For there
is no help in heaven and on earth besides Him. But if we have Him in no other way than
merely without (outside) of us and under us, if we only preach about Him, teach, hear,
read, talk, discuss, and dispute about Him, take His name into our mouth, but will NOT
let Him work and show His power in us, He will be of no more help to us than the Ark
helped the Israelites”.
You see, Torah Class: if one takes the Holy Spirit out of the Messiah, then he is no more than
a mere human. If one takes the Holy Spirit out of the Ark of the Covenant, then it is no more
than a fancy and expensive box. A cross is not Christ, and the Ark is not God, and until God’s
people can apprehend this then we shall be without the power He seeks to lend us to do His
will on earth.
Verse 12 explains that a soldier who escaped the slaughter ran to Shiloh to tell the High Priest
what has happened. It is now obvious that it was from Shiloh that the order came to proceed in
battle against the Philistines in the first place. Breathless, after fleeing for 20 miles, the man
arrives at the site of the Sanctuary with his garment intentionally rent and dirt thrown over his
head in a customary sign of calamity and death. As the people of Shiloh (presumably Levites)
saw him coming their hearts sank along with their stomachs and as he gave them the terrible
news they wailed in anguish and fear. Eli was sitting in a chair outside the entrance into the
Tabernacle area; he was blind but not deaf and he heard the ruckus and shrieks of horror and
began to tremble knowing that his worst fears were realized.
The 98-year-old Eli was told of the slaughter of thousands of Israelites, and the death of his
two sons; but it was not until the man told him of the capture of the Ark of God by the
Philistines that Eli fell over backwards from his chair and broke his neck and died. Eli had
judged Israel for 40 years.
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But the reaction doesn’t end there; when Pinchas’s wife heard that her husband was killed at
Even-ezer, her father-in-law had just collapsed and died, and the Ark of God was no longer in
Israelite hands, she immediately went into labor and gave birth. But the labor was abnormal
and as she lay dying the women who were attending her informed her that she shouldn’t die in
anxiety. The child she bore was alive and well and a cherished son. Her last words were the
naming of the child she’d never get to nurse, or hold, or see grow into manhood. And as was
customary of that era, a child was often named for some momentous happening on the day of
his birth. Unfortunately for this child and mother, that momentous happening couldn’t have
been more negative and so the child would wear that terrible day like a mourning garment all of
his life, because she named him Ichavod. Ichavod literally means, “Where is the Glory?” The
Glory, or kavod in Hebrew, is referring to Yehoveh. It was His Glory that would appear above
the winged Cherubim of the Ark. It was His Glory in the Tent Sanctuary that gave that place its
value and meaning and holiness. With the loss of the Ark, the resting place for the Glory, the
Glory was gone.
I think we can skip over this event too fast and not realize the enormity of what losing the
presence of the Ark meant to the people of Israel; and why Eli and his daughter-in-law both
died virtually from the overwhelming shock of learning of it. For the people of Israel it meant
that God was gone. And if God was gone, then the guarantor of the Covenants was gone. And
if the guarantor of the Covenants was gone then the Covenants were no longer valid. And if
the Covenants were no longer valid then all rights to their land inheritance of Canaan ceased.
Calamity is simply not a big enough word; the closest thing I can use as a parallel is to be
thrown into the Lake of Fire. In fact, in Jewish history, this event of the loss of the Ark of God to
the Philistines is thought of as on par with the destruction of Jerusalem and exile into Babylon.
Every element of Hebrew society was either affected or abolished.
But let’s also notice what I alluded to at the start: God has taken drastic action to change the
course of redemptive history in Israel. All in the same day the people of Israel were punished
for centuries of ever-increasing lawlessness and apostasy by losing 30,000 of their men in
battle. The Priesthood was emptied out and those in charge, from the High Priest to the next
two most senior priests (Hophni and Pinchas) were also dead. The power behind the
priesthood (the Glory of God) and the Ark (the sign of God’s Glory) were entirely removed
from Israel’s possession. The Tabernacle no longer had purpose or meaning because the one
who used to dwell there and gave it purpose and meaning has abandoned it. And the PLACE
of the empty Tabernacle (Shiloh) was now just another cult site, not much different than any
other religious site as used by pagans. Thus Shiloh ceased to have any religious meaning for
the Hebrews.
Let’s continue this story in chapter 5.
READ 1ST SAMUEL CHAPTER 5 all
The Philistines logically transported the Ark of God to the place of their chief deity, the Temple
of Dagon in Ashdod. The modern city of Ashdod is near this ancient place but it is not built
upon the old city’s ruins.
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Scholars speak of a pentapolis when it comes to the arrangement of Philistia; that is, there
were 5 major Philistine cities each lorded over by a Philistine king. The cities were Ashdod,
Ashkelon, Gat, Ekron, and Gaza.
It certainly appeared to the Philistines and Israelites alike that a sudden geo-political power
shift had just occurred as a result of the battle of Even-ezer. The evidence of it was that the
Philistines had captured the Ark of the God of Israel, and therefore the Israelite God, and
therefore the Israelites were now under the control of Philistia in every sense. They did what
most any Middle Eastern society would have done; they brought the Ark of the Covenant as a
gift for their own victorious god. Placing the Ark before the statue of Dagon was symbolic of
dominance; the Ark would be Dagon’s footstool.
However what neither Israel nor Philistia counted on was that Yehoveh is the God over history.
Not just Israel’s history but all history. Yehoveh has no territorial boundaries and He has no
peer, as the Philistines were about to discover. The Philistines placed the Ark in front of Dagon
in a position of submission, but when the priests of Dagon entered the temple the next day, it
was the idol of Dagon that was lying prostrate before the Ark. Figuring this was merely some
kind of strange coincidence they propped the idol back upright only to return and find that this
time it was not only face down before the Ark of God but also the head and hands had broken
off the body as it fell across the temple threshold.
Then we’re informed as a side note that this was the reason that (at the time of the writing of
this section of 1st Samuel) the Philistine priests had developed this strange custom of stepping
(or even perhaps jumping) over the doorway’s threshold into the temple. Understand: the
threshold into the temple of a god was the place where the common ended and the holy
began. When a worshipper stepped over the threshold upon entering a god’s temple, one
sphere of reality was left for another. The world of men was outside, while the world of the
gods was inside. This was serious business.
But humiliating the Dagon idol was just the beginning. What we are about to see is a series of
plagues upon the chief cities of the Philistines wrought by Yehoveh and these plagues are
eerily reminiscent of what happened in Egypt. What we also see is that it was the Lord God of
Israel who first used a tactic that would later be made infamous by the Greeks at a place called
Troy. Yehoveh employed the Ark as a sort of Trojan Horse. The Philistines thought they had
defeated Israel and humiliated the God of Israel, and so cheerfully brought the Ark inside their
territory and even into the temple of Dagon; but the God of Israel merely used their arrogance
as a means to wreak havoc upon them.
The people of Ashdod suddenly broke out in tumors and quickly came to the conclusion that it
was the Ark of God that was the source of the problem. They called a meeting of the Philistine
leaders where they decided that the best course of action was to take it elsewhere. But they
weren’t about to send it back to Israel so they transported it to another city of their pentapolis,
Gat. No sooner had the Ark arrived than a panic set in at Gat because the people there broke
out in tumors as well.
What were these “tumors”? Well, if you compare various bible translations you’ll find various
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solutions. In Hebrew the word is ophalim, which can be translated as “swellings”. Ophalim is
from the root ophel that can mean mound or hill. In fact, in the Old City of Jerusalem, the City
of David was built up a steep hillside starting from the bottom of a deep ravine. At the highest
point of the hill was Mt. Moriah and there the Temple was built. The area in between the City of
David and the Temple Mount was called the Ophel, the mound.
So these were some kind of swellings or mounds on the body. However over time the use of
the word began to change, and in time it referred to a part of the body that was considered a
kind of swollen mound: the buttocks. They didn’t want to use the formal word for the buttocks
(they found it a bit crude) so instead they began to refer to it as a person’s ophel. From this
inference some scholars have decided that the swelling, the tumor, was essentially a painful
swelling of a swelling: hemorrhoids. And you’ll perhaps find that exact translation in your own
bible. I don’t think it’s correct, but it is kind of comical.
The people of Gat then sent the Ark on to the unsuspecting folks at Ekron, but when the
citizens of Ekron saw it coming they went ballistic and told their Philistine leaders that they
certainly didn’t want to house it there and suffer the oppression of tumors that the other
Philistine city dwellers had endured. The Philistines were running out of places to send it and
so the game of hot potato had to come to an end. The Philistines relented and decided it was
better to return the Ark to Israel than to tempt the God of Israel any further.
We’ll begin chapter 6 next week and watch the Philistines gladly send the Ark back to its
original owners.
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