Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 8-10.

When the Israelites asked Samuel to give them a king, they were asking him to give them a government.  They did not need a government to give them laws, God had already given them laws.  They did not need a government to judge between them when they had disputes, God had provided them with judges.  They wanted a government to enforce the laws , to force people to abide by the decisions of the judges, and to be responsible for providing for the common defense.  Those were all things which God had either promised to provide for them, asked them to do for themselves, or a combination of those two things.  The desire for a king, the need for a government, stems from our unwillingness to fully depend on God, or to follow His commands.  Samuel tried to warn them that the government for which they were asking would be composed of the same sorts of people who were why they were asking for a government.  Our society needs a government for the same reason that the Israelites wanted a king, but we must always remember that the more power we give to the government, the more likely that those who make the government work will reject God.  Asking the government to protect us means that we do not trust God to do so.  And yet, even so, God has ordained a government to rule over us, just as He gave the Israelites a king.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 4-7.

I had written an entire paragraph about the timeline of events here before I realized it would not take me anywhere interesting.  So, I deleted that and started over.  I am going to contrast the way the Israelites under the “leadership” of Eli’s sons appealed to God for aid in battle to the way the did so under Samuel’s leadership.  First, I want to point out that Eli’s sons did not actually lead the Israelites.  Instead, they  accompanied the ark of the covenant when the Israelites came and took it to battle.  Second, when the war went badly for the Israelites, they did not seek God’s guidance to learn what they had done wrong, as they had under Joshua when they suffered defeat at Ai.  No, they brought God, so they thought, to the frontlines,  believing that would force Him to give them victory.  Or to put it another way, they considered God to be just another item in their array of battle:

General looking at the battle map, “We will put that infantry unit there, this other infantry over there, and put our archers..there. Finally, put the ark of the covenant, with God inside it, in our center just behind our elite units.”

On the other hand, when Samuel led the Israelites he had them put aside all of their idols and destroy their objects for worshiping other gods.  Then he called them to assemble to worship God.  Yes, Samuel was also calling them to assemble for war, but he did not marshal them into position with a plan to take the battle to the Philistines.  Samuel called them together before God, and waited for God to act.  Under Samuel, the Israelites did not impose their will on their neighbors, but none of their neighbors were able to impose their will upon the Israelites.

Of course, part of Samuel’s success resulted from what happened after the Israelites brought the ark of covenant to war, and thought that thus they had brought God to their war.  The Philistines thought the same thing had happened, that a god had been brought to the battle, and they were frightened.  But, when they were victorious, the Philistines thought that it meant that their gods were more powerful than the Israelites’ god.  God decisively, and in “language” they thoroughly understood, showed them that He had chosen to allow them to seize the ark of the covenant.  When the Philistines won the battle, they thought that their god, Dagon, had defeated the god of the Israelites, despite being distant from Dagon’s temple and in the presence of the Israelites’ god’s presence in the ark.  But when they put the ark of the covenant inside the center of Dagon’s presence and power, Dagon “bowed” down to the god of Israel, because the god of Israel was not “god” with a lower case “g”, rather Israel’s God was the Creator of all that is and all that will be.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 1-3.

I often have trouble deciding what to write about in this passage because there are so many things worthy of a blog entry.  However, today I was struck by the Messianic prophecy by the man of God who condemned Eli for his failure to control his sons.  In Chapter 2 verse 35, the man of God tells Eli that God will raise up a faithful priest who will walk before His anointed always.  Reading the NIV it is easy to miss how much this refers to Jesus because the NIV translates the reference to who will walk before God’s anointed in the plural, implying that God will give that faithful priest descendants who will walk before Him.  That is not a bad translation, as many of those who read the original Hebrew would have interpreted it that way because of the context. However, most other translations translate that in the singular, as in “he will walk before my anointed always.”  Now, there are some interesting aspects of this.  If that “faithful priest” is Jesus (as I believe it does), who is the anointed before whom He will walk?  My answer to that question is that the anointed is also Jesus.  I want to say that I suspect that this prophecy was also partially fulfilled by another priest as well, but I am unsure about that.  I am not completely satisfied with my interpretation of this prophecy, in part because I have never really thought about it before.  Since I am convinced that the “anointed” referenced here is Jesus (although I suspect at the time this prophecy was recorded those who recorded it thought it referred to King David and his descendants who sat on the throne after him), it may be that the “faithful priest” refers to someone else (or some group).  The other question which I have, at this point, no understanding is in what way do Eli’s descendants ask of that priest for priestly duties to perform?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 28-31.

After the second time David had a close encounter with King Saul when Saul was pursuing him, David decided to take his men over and enter into the service of the Philistine king of Gath, Achish.  This was second time David went to the king of Gath to join his service.  The first time David was alone and pretended to be crazy to avoid being killed.  This time David had a force of 600 loyal men following him, giving him protection.  We read in yesterday’s passage that David went to a lot of effort to convince Achish that he was raiding Israelite towns and villages, when he was not actually doing so.  As a result, when the Philistines went to war against King Saul, Achish asked David to accompany him and planned to give him a position of great importance in his order of battle.  However, the other Philistine rulers feared that David would do what the Israelite mercenaries in their army had done in their first battle against King Saul many years earlier and insisted that Achish not include David in his order of battle.

We do not know what David intended to do had Achish included him in his order of battle, but we see how God worked to keep David from going into battle against his own people.  God also worked to send David and his men back to their village in time to rescue their families, who had been taken captive by a raiding party while they were with the Philistine army.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 25-27.

Usually when I read today’s passage I focus on David’s encounter with Nabal and Abigail.  Today I want to focus on David’s refusal a second time to take King Saul’s life.  On both occasions when David refused to take King Saul’s life he did so for the same reason, Saul was God’s anointed king over Israel.  He did this despite the fact that Samuel had anointed him to take Saul’s place as king over Israel.  However, despite Saul’s promise that he would not harm David, David knew that it was just a matter of time until King Saul set forth once more with his army to kill David and his men.   We can take a lesson here on respect for those whom God has put into positions of political authority.  David refused to take any action against King Saul because God had made Saul king.  David did this despite having been chosen by God to replace Saul as king.  David honored Saul as king until God removed him from the throne.  We should have a similar respect for those whom God has placed in positions of authority over us, even those who fail to honor God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 21-24.

One thing which always strikes me about this passage is that Ahimelek the priest was afraid of David when David came to him alone.  We know from the rest of the passage that Ahimelek did not yet know that David was running from King Saul.  It seems that Ahimelek feared that David had been sent by Saul to kill him.  We see from King Saul’s actions later when he ordered Ahimelek, his family, and  all of the people of the town of Nob killed (note that Nob was a town of priests) that Ahimelek’s fear was not without basis.  However, I want to focus on what the incident at Keilah tells us about David’s decision making.  When David heard that the Philistines were raiding Keilah, he asked God for guidance as to whether he should defend the town.  Then, when his men were afraid to go, he asked God again.  Once he was in Keilah and heard that King Saul was mustering the army to attack Keilah, David sought God’s guidance once more.  We see here that David regularly sought God’s guidance in making decisions.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 16-17.

We normally think of David’s father as being a man of no particular note.  However, reading between the lines a little bit in this passage, combined with some of the things we learn in later passages about David’s nephews, suggests that Jesse was a man of great prominence in the tribe of Judah.  In this passage we see that Samuel knew who Jesse was, and was worried that King Saul would quickly learn that he had gone to see him and anoint one of his sons.  Additionally, Jesse was an important enough person that the idea that Samuel would go to him to conduct a sacrifice was believable.

Then we have two stories which seem to describe different ways in which David entered into King Saul’s service.  While the two stories conflict with each other, they do not contradict each other.  If one realizes that the book we are reading is a compilation of oral traditions you realize that each story came from different oral traditions and each needed to end with David in King Saul’s service.  The first story explains how David came to play the lyre for King Saul, the second story explains how David came to be a war chief for King Saul.  I believe that David began playing the lyre to soothe King Saul before the Goliath incident, but did not fully enter into King Saul’s service until after the incident.  But since the oral tradition did not contain the account of David vs Goliath, it needed to explain David entering into long term service with King Saul and thus talks about David becoming Saul’s armor-bearer and then remaining in King Saul’s service.    For those who wonder about how an armor-bearer became a war chief, remember the account about Jonathan going up against the Philistine camp accompanied by just his armor-bearer.  Jonathan’s armor-bearer fought alongside him there.   As such, I am convinced that both stories took place, but that the part where King Saul made David one of his armor-bearers and took him permanently into his service took place after David defeated Goliath.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 4-7.

This passage contains a lot about the power of God and the honor He demands.  The Israelites attempted to use the ark of the covenant to manipulate God.  Their reasoning appears to have been that if they brought the ark to the battlefield, God would be forced to bring them victory.    God does not work that way.  We cannot tell God what to do.  In a way, the Israelites were attempting to use the ark as their god.  Then after the Philistines captured the ark they thought their gods were more powerful than God.  The symbolism was quite clear.  They set the ark of the covenant beside their god, Dagon, as if it was tribute to him.  The following morning they found their image of Dagon prostrate before the ark of the Lord.  After they set the image back up, they found it prostrate the following morning with its hands and head broken off…almost as if they had been cut off for not honoring God.  In addition, a plague broke out among the Philistines.  All of this led the Philistines to conclude that they must return the ark, but they realized that they had no way of determining where to return it.  They also wanted to be sure that the plague was not just a coincidence.  So, they placed the ark on a cart and yoked two cows which had recently given birth to it.  The normal expectation would be for the cows to head for where their calves were.  These cows instead headed for Israelite territory.  The Israelites rejoiced at the return of the ark.  Some of them could not resist their curiosity and looked inside the ark, despite not being properly consecrated to approach the ark.  Those who treated the ark of the Lord like a carnival attraction died.  All of these events led the people of Israel to return to worshiping the Lord. When they did so, Samuel told them that it was not enough to start worshiping God again.  They needed to give up their various idols as well and worship only God.  Samuel had they gather to rededicate themselves to God.  When the Philistines attacked this gathering, the Israelites continued to worship and only responded to the threat after God had acted on their behalf.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 1-3.

I noticed something in the passage today that never registered to me before.  After Samuel’s birth, Elkanah, his father, went up to offer his annual sacrifice and fulfill his vow.  Now, the fact that Elkanah went up to offer an annual sacrifice was mentioned in the introduction to the book, but nowhere does it mention that he took a vow.  So, is this vow which he was fulfilling related to Samuel’s birth?  Had Elkanah taken a vow similar to the one which Hannah had taken regarding the birth of Samuel?  I do not know the answers to those questions and am not sure that it is important, but I thought it was interesting that Elkanah had taken a vow which he fulfilled shortly after Samuel’s birth.

Of greater interest to me is, how and why did Eli fail so miserably to raise his sons to be God-fearing, yet succeed so outstandingly when it came to Samuel?  Obviously, the first piece of that puzzle is to be found in Samuel’s mother, Hannah.  Every year, she made Samuel a robe and brought it to him when she came to offer sacrifices with her husband.  I am sure that at the same time she reminded Samuel of how God had honored her by giving her him as her son.  It is worth noting that Samuel would have witnessed the sins of Eli’s sons, and would have had the example of his father, Elkanah, faithfully offering his sacrifices despite their blasphemy.  And yet, we cannot discount the influence which Eli had on young Samuel.  After all, it was Eli who told Samuel how to respond when God called out to him in the night.  Eli had failed to raise his sons to fear God.  To what degree that was Eli’s fault is open to question, although the passage does indicate that God placed at least some of the blame on Eli.  However, we can also see that Eli sought to correct whatever mistakes he had made with his own sons in the raising of Samuel.  And this is a point we should take to heart: whatever mistakes we have made in the past, we do not need to continue to make those some mistakes today and going forward.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.