1 Samuel 7 - The People turn to the Lord

The ark was taken to Kiriath Jearim. So for twenty years the ark remained in obscurity. There are times when the church seems to go into decline in a nation, but even in those times the presence of God is not gone completely. In some corner, in some place, there will be some who still worship the Lord, and a time will come when the church will rise again.

So, eventually the people as a whole did turn back to the Lord. Samuel was the prophet to the nation and instructed the people on what they needed to do. This included ridding themselves of idols and devoting themselves to God. When they did this they would experience deliverance from their enemies. The same applies to all of us. The first steps to take to gain freedom is to repent and turn to God. Then we will find that  our problems start to get sorted out. And the people obeyed God.

The people fasted, prayed and repented, and Samuel prayed to the Lord for them. The Philistines so the gathering of the people as an opportunity to attack them. The people were afraid, but they implored Samuel to keep crying out to God for them. This he did, along with offering sacrifices.

The Philistines came to attack, but the Lord intervened directly to save His people.

So the people were protected from the Philistines, and Samuel continued his role as leader of the people.

See how differently things turned out here from the defeat a couple of chapters ago. What was the difference? Obedience to the Lord. The most important decision we make in life is the decision to serve the Lord.

1 Samuel 6 - The Ark returns

The Philistines realised that they needed to return the Ark to its rightful place. They inquired of their own "wise men" (diviners) about how to do this. They advised them to send gifts, a five gold tumours and rats (rats would have spread the disease), were made. 

They got a new cart together, and two unyoked cattle. 

Now we might be surprised that the Bible is presenting diviners in something of a positive light, as divination is strictly forbidden in the Law. However, God will often use the "wisdom" of the people to reveal Himself to them, and to bring glory to His name. Remember the wise men from the East who were astrologers, another forbidden practice.

The Ark duly returned to Israel, and the Levites took charge of it. Some of the people of Beth Shemesh looked into the ark, and they were struck down. The judgement of the Lord comes against all men, there is no favouritism. So they too had no better idea how to handle the ark of the Lord than did the Philistines.

1 Samuel 5 - Judgement

The Ark was taken to the temple of Dagon. The Philistines may have thought they were getting a great victory, but no ones gets hold of God for their own purposes. So the next day the idol of Dagon was found fallen on his face. Now one might wonder why God bothered doing this when Dagon was just an idol of stone. The reason is that the Philistines believed in Dagon, so God demonstrated to them that the thing they were worshipping was nothing at all. God speaks to all people, and in a languages that they will understand.

The people around where the Ark was kept suffered tumours. The judgement of God was coming upon the people, so they begged their leaders to take the Ark away.

No matter where the Ark was taken tumours broke out upon that city. There was no escaping the judgement of God.

We may look at these events with astonishment. However, when a society rejects God they assume the position of God, making their own judgements. And when they do this that society will find itself reaping all sorts of consequences it did not expect and did not want. Just look at your own society today!

1 Samuel 4 - The Ark is captured

The Philistines came to fight against Israel and the Philistines won.

The Israelites wondered why the Lord had not given them victory. They decided the ark of the covenant was the answer. So they brought the ark from Shiloh, and Eli's two sons were with the ark.

All the people raised a mighty shout. The Philistines heard this and were filled with terror. They thought a god had come into the Israelite camp, and they expected to be defeated. They also remembered all that they had heard had happened in Egypt.

Now at this stage one might expect that an Israelite victory was about to occur, but instead they got defeated and the ark was captured. Eli's two sons were among the dead. 

This is a warning against pseudo-faith, or putting trust in religious rituals (ranging from high church to low charismatic). There was disobedience in the nation of Israel, and when sin is alive religious rituals are of no value whatsoever. 

A messenger ran back to Shiloh and Eli asked him what had happened. When he heard what had happened, Eli fell over and died. It seemed to be the loss of the ark that troubled him most. He knew his sons were going to die, but he did not expect the ark to be lost. 

The wife of Phinehas gave birth to a son and named him Ichabod, meaning the glory has departed.

1 Samuel 3 - God speaks to Samuel

Having rejected Eli's household, Samuel is called. It seems that ministering before the Lord was possibly rather dry in those days, with little direct communication from God. However, things were about to change.

The Lord called Samuel. Note that it is Samuel who takes the initiative. Samuel heard an audible voice, this was not just an "inner witness". Samuel wasn't expecting to literally hear God, so he thought it was Eli who had called him. Eli, of course, had not called him.

This happened three times, Eli then realised what was happening. In verse 7 it tells us that we need the word of the Lord to be revealed to us in order for us to know the Lord. The same is true today. Many people read the Bible without really knowing God, we need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the truth.

Eli tells Samuel what to do. So even though Eli's family had been rejected by God, he still acted faithfully. 

God tells Samuel why He has rejected Eli. Samuel was afraid to tell Eli what God had said, but Eli encouraged him to do so. Eli accepted what the Lord had said. 

God continued to reveal Himself more and more to Samuel. This first encounter was very important. Samuel needed to learn to listen to God. He also needed to learn to speak the word of God, even when it is unpleasant. Moreover, he would later have to learn to accept that Saul had been rejected because of his unfaithfulness.

1 Samuel 2:27-36 - Judgement on Eli's family

Eli's house now comes under judgement. A "man of God" was a prophet or seer. His rebuke goes back to when Israel came out of Egypt.  God had revealed Himself to Israel, so the whole nation had a responsibility.  Moreover, the Levites were specifically chosen to be priests for the nation. They were given special instructions in the Law on how this was all to be carried out. This included provision for the priests themselves. When we serve God He makes provision for us. But Eli's sons had gone beyond this and had taken other stuff for themselves as well. Sadly we also see examples of this today as well when people exploit the congregations for money, often exploiting the poorest people. Just as righteousness brings God's blessing, unrighteousness brings God's judgement.

Note that Eli is being held responsible for his sons actions. Jesus said we must love Him more than our families. We see this principle here. Eli should have given greater weight to the honour of God's offerings than  to his sons.

The judgement on Eli's family would be severe, with none of them seeing old age. Even though Israel would be blessed, Eli's family would be cut off from the blessing. When we become servants of God we take on a solemn and serious responsibility and will be held accountable.

God would appoint a faithful priest. The immediate fulfilment of this would be Zadok, but in time it would be Jesus who is the great High Priest.

1 Samuel 2:11-26 - Contrasting sons

Whereas Hannah is an example of a godly woman, Eli's sons were definitely not godly. In particular, they interfered with the proper offering of sacrifices. The details are given in the text, but the key thing is that Eli's sons had no regard for God's instructions, nor any regard for the people. When people neglect God, they often neglect people as well.

Eli comes in for a bad press for his failure to properly discipline his sons, but he wasn't all bad. He saw Hannah's devotion and pronounced a blessing on her. Moreover, the Lord answered his prayer and Hannah had more sons and daughters. When we give our first fruits to God He will bless us.

As well as interfering with the sacrifices, Eli's sons were sexually immoral as well. Eli was troubled and saddened by all this. Eli did rebuke the sons, but they refused to listen. It says here that this happened because it was the Lord's will to punish them. I don't think we should read this in a fatalistic manner, ie as though the sons could not have repented, even if they had wanted to. Rather, God still works out His plans, despite our disobedience.

Samuel, in contrast, obeyed the Lord, and so grew in favour with God and the people.