I am using 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.

Today’s passage contains two separate stories about how David began his progression to kingship.  While there is no good way to reconcile the two stories into one, they do not contradict each other.  In both stories, David starts out as the insignificant youngest son of Jesse.  In the first story, God tells Samuel to go and anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the successor to Saul because God had rejected Saul’s kingship.  Samuel does this secretively because Saul would have killed him, and whoever Samuel anointed, if he found out.   When Samuel sees Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab, he thinks he has the look of a king, but God tells him, “Not this one.”  This tells me that Eliab had the same characteristics which led Samuel to select Saul as Israel’s first king.   But God wanted more from the next king of Israel.

The lesson to be learned from this, which the author tells us was God’s message to Samuel,  people judge by appearances, but there are more important things than appearance.  God does not see things the way we see things, so we need to listen closely to God when making important decisions about people.  We can only see how people look, and what they do, God knows why they made the choices they made.  Which brings us to a question this passage always leaves me with: since God can see beyond appearances, why did He choose Saul as Israel’s first king?  I can see, using 20/20 hindsight, how Saul’s behaviors before he became king led him to make the tragic mistakes he made as king, surely God could see that as well?  I can think of two possible answers to why God selected Saul.  The first one is that the people of Israel needed to see for themselves why a king like Saul was a mistake.  The second is related to the first.  The people of Israel would not have united behind a king like David if they had not first united behind a king like Saul.  I do not know that either of these is correct.  Perhaps God had an entirely different reason for selecting Saul.

I was going to skip over the story of King Saul’s tormenting spirit, but I decided it was worth closer examination.  I am convinced that King Saul suffered from depression and fear because he had chosen to reject God and thus been rejected by God.    This leads me to a conclusion where I want to tread carefully.  Depression results from not putting our full faith and trust in God.  The reason I want to be careful here is because I do not want to say that Christians will not suffer from depression.  We see that King Saul’s depression came about after he repeatedly made “pragmatic” decisions which went against what God had directed him to do.  King Saul continued to trust his own judgment on the correct action to take rather than turning to God for answers.  The story tells us that music eased King Saul’s depression and fear, at least at first.  Here’s the thing, even after suffering this depression, King Saul never turned to God and sought His forgiveness.  He did not seek an answer from God to relieve his distress.  He merely found something which ameliorated his distress and went on doing whatever he thought best.  So, if you suffer depression, go ahead and find the things which will ameliorate your distress, but then cry out to God, confess your sins, and seek His guidance on what actions you should take.  

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 11-13.

Shortly after Samuel anointed Saul as king, the king of Ammon attacked Jabesh-gilead.  This was probably something which happened on a regular basis as Jephthah became judge over Israel by defeating a previous attempt by a king of Ammon to conquer this territory.  In this case, the people of Jabesh-gilead were willing to surrender to the king of Ammon, but the king of Ammon demanded that, as a price for letting them live after surrender, the men of the town would need to have their right eye plucked out.  This demand is almost certainly what infuriated Saul when he heard the news.  When the people of Jabesh-gilead received word that Saul would march to their relief they told the king of Ammon that they would surrender to his demands the following day. 

I always write about the account of Saul offering sacrifices over the command from Samuel not to do so.  This represents one of the transitions from judges to kings.  The judges had less authority than a king, but they functioned as a final arbiter of God’s will to the people.  Kings on the other hand had greater authority to conscript men for the army or labor and to tax, but had to consult a priest regarding God’s will.  When Samuel did not show up on Saul’s schedule, Saul attempted to combine the two roles.  By offering the sacrifice, Saul was asserting that he was not accountable to anyone else.  This unwillingness to be held accountable for his decisions is what led to Saul’s downfall.

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

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

When Samuel got old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel, but they were no better than Eli’s sons had been.  As a result, the people of Israel came to Samuel requesting he appoint someone as king over them.  I am not sure why they thought a king would be better.  Eli had been leader over Israel and his sons turned out to be evil, greedy men.  Samuel led Israel well, and his sons turned out to be evil, greedy men.  I am not sure why they thought that the same would not be true of a king.  Further, Samuel warns them about what a king would demand of them.  It is worth noting what he warns them about.  If you make the government powerful enough to take care of your needs you also make the government powerful enough to take from you whatever it wants.  A warning for those today who want to make the government more powerful.  A king is just a man like every other man.  A government is composed of people just like every other person.  If you want the government to be powerful because you do not trust people to do the right thing what makes you think the people in the government will do the right thing?

In the description of how Samuel first appointed Saul as king we learn some things about selecting a leader, and a few things to avoid when selecting a leader. First of all, Saul was everything we, as humans, tend to look for in a leader.  He was tall, good looking, and had a commanding personality.  In addition, he did not like to be the center of attention.  Unfortunately, in Saul’s case this appears to have been as much a result of insecurity as it was of humility.  However, Saul was open to God’s Spirit as evidenced by his encounter with the prophets.   It is worth noting that despite Saul’s protestation of the insignificance of his family that they were well enough known for people to take note of him joining with the prophets (which in this passage appears to refer to a sect that was like an extreme form of Pentecostals).  Further, Saul was willing to overlook those who refused to acknowledge his kingship.

I am using 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.

Today’s passage begins with the Israelites losing a battle to the Philistines.  Their initial response to the loss was the correct one.  They asked why God had allowed the Philistines to defeat them.  However, rather than actually ask God what they should do, they decided to force His hand.  Eli’s sons joined in the people’s attempt to force God to give them victory by accompanying the Ark of the Covenant to battle.  I would note that in Exodus and in Joshua none of the accounts have the Ark, or even that which represented God before the Ark was made, lead the Israelites into battle.  

The account of Samuel leading Israel to victory which is at the end of today’s passage gives us a counterpoint to the story of how the Ark was lost.  Even after the return of the Ark, the people of Israel suffered oppression.  Finally, they were ready to listen.  Samuel told them that if they wanted God to rescue them they needed to turn away from their idols and worship only God.  Samuel had the people gather, fast, and pray.  When the Philistine army arrived to battle them, they did not ask Samuel to lead them into battle as God’s representative.   No, they asked Samuel to plead with God that He would save them from the Philistines.

The contrast is clear.  When the Israelites went into battle expecting that God would give them victory because they “deserved it”, despite the fact that they were breaking His commands, He allowed them to be defeated.  When the Israelites fasted and confessed their sins, God acted to defeat their enemies.  I am quite confident that the writer intended this contrast to be made because he tells us that the first defeat occurred at “Ebenezer”, then, after the victory, Samuel sets up a rock at the point of victory and names it “Ebenezer”.  The location given for both Ebenezers is the same place.

I am using 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.

Once again we have a story of a man with two wives where that fact led to problems.  Since that is such a minor part of the story I am going to no more than mention it.  The main player in today’s story is Hannah, who desperately wanted to have children.  We could make the mistake of thinking that Hannah wanted to have children because of her society’s pressure on her to have them, but that seems somewhat backward.  Hannah felt the pressure to have children so desperately because she so bad;y wanted to have them.  Peninnah’s taunts would have had little bite if Hannah had not wanted children so badly. 

I do not think we can overestimate what a wonderful mother Hannah was.  Eli raised three boys to manhood.  Two of them turned out to be selfish, evil men.  One of them became a great man of God.  Perhaps Eli learned from his first two sons, but I think we need to look to Hannah, the mother of that great man of God to understand what was different.  The germ of why Samuel was different from Eli’s sons lies in Hannah’s song of praise.  Eli’s sons felt entitled to get what they wanted because they were born into the priesthood.  Hannah taught Samuel something different.

The Lord makes some poor and others rich;
he brings some down and lifts others up.
He lifts the poor from the dust
and the needy from the garbage dump.
He sets them among princes,
placing them in seats of honor.
For all the earth is the Lord’s,
and he has set the world in order.

 

It is worth reading Hannah’s song in its entirety, but this portion gives us a window into what made Samuel different from Eli’s sons.