David’s John the Baptist, the prophet Samuel, drops out of view for 1 Samuel 4:1b-7:2. The book so far has been preparing us for Samuel to lead Israel, but for now Samuel is off stage. Thus we will see how well Israel is without Samuel there to be their judge.
The passage begins with Israel in battle against the Philistines with Israel encamped at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek. The Philistines won and killed about 4,000 Israelites. But the elders of Israel said, “Why has YHWH defeated us today before the Philistines?” (1 Sam 4:3). The elders of Israel do not seem to understand that they are being defeated because of their sinful leadership and because of their sinful people. But instead they view their ‘god’ like one of the pagan gods and treat his ark as if it were like a pagan idol. Thus Eli’s sons took the ark from Shiloh into battle.
When the ark arrived at the Israelite encampment the people of Israel shouted and the Philistines were afraid. They interpreted the arrival of the ark in the same way that Israel was trying to use it: “a god has come into the camp” (1 Sam 4:6). Israel was trying to manipulate ‘God’ to do their bidding (which is what idolatry is all about) and the Philistines understood the coming of the ark in the same way. But the Philistines won, the ark was captured and Eli’s sons both died on the same day (this fulfilling the earlier prophecy of the unnamed man of God). 30,000 soldiers of Israel fell in the battle. This was a massive defeat.
The battle that opened sounding like Jericho ended like it had been the battle at Ai. The plagues that the Philistines were afraid of fell on Israel. That a foreign nation would be used to destroy the temple of God as the Philistines had done to Shiloh again is a theme that would be repeated. At the time of the exile, the wicked Babylonians destroyed and plundered the Temple at Jerusalem. The destruction of the Temple that was Jesus’ body and the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem were both done by the evil Romans.
In the next scene, a survivor of the battle from the tribe of Benjamin ran to Shiloh and relayed the news. Eli heard the uproar and the man came to him. At this point Eli is now 98 and totally blind. And the man told him that Israel was utterly defeated, that Eli’s two sons had died and the ark captured. And when the man mentioned the ark, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the gate and his neck was broken and he died. So Eli died the same day as his two sons. He had judged Israel for the typical judges generation: 40 years. And Eli’s daughter-in-law went into labor that same day and she named the son Ichabod.
Ichabod is interpreted for us, “The glory has departed (gone into exile) from Israel!” Here is a picture of the exile. The true nature of the exile is not so much that the people of God are driven out of the land but that God’s glory left from being among the people. The prophet Ezekiel would later develop this point.
The fact that Eli fell over and broke his neck because he was fat is also an important detail. He had gotten fat on the sacrifices of the people but now Hannah’s poetic prayer about God humiliating and exalting is in mind.
The Philistines assumed that capturing the ark of YHWH would mean that YHWH would now do their bidding. The thought was that Dagon, the god of the Philistines, must be more powerful than YHWH because the Philistines had won the battle. And so YHWH could be added to their pantheon under the Lordship of Dagon. And so they took the ark and brought it into Dagon’s temple and set it up next to Dagon. But YHWH showed their idol was powerless before Him, and made their god bow before Him, just as He had done with Egypt in Exodus. He even caused a plague of tumors for the people wherever the ark lodged.
So the pattern of exile, exodus in the book of Exodus will now be repeated here in Samuel. Exile to Exodus is a pattern of death and resurrection pointing to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The ark was among the Philistines for 7 months and they decided to return it to Israel. They did not want YHWH living among them for all the plagues He was giving them. And they offered a guilt offering to YHWH of five golden tumors and five golden mice. Thus as in the first Exodus, the foreign nation sends Him away with treasure.
The rest of chapter 7 then brings us back to Samuel. The prophet gives us a typical prophetic sermon, which sounds like Joshua: “If you are returning to YHWH with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and he Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to YHWH and serve Him only, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines” (1 Sam 7:3). The people responded in repentance and put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth (all the male and female gods and goddesses of the Canaanites as we saw them worshiping in Judges) “and they served YHWH only” (1 Sam 7:4).
Samuel then does another thing prophets are supposed to do – he offers a prayer of intercession for the people. Priests would do prayers of intercession too, but it is the prophet that would do so when God was angry with the people (like Moses had done). And the people gathered at Mizpah where Samuel judged them. And once again the Philistines come against Israel for battle.
A key observation in understanding this section of Samuel is to see that this battle will have a number of similarities with the one Israel fought against the Philistines but lost under Eli’s sons and the elders of Israel. This is to underscore the point that being without Samuel is to go down in defeat but having Samuel as your judge is to find victory. In other words, to underscore the point that YHWH was with Samuel and He had not been with Eli’s sons and the elders of Israel. Samuel really is a John the Baptist character.
Before this battle, like the last one, the Philistines were afraid. In the last one they were afraid because of the mighty shout of the people when the ark came into the camp. This time they are afraid because of the mighty sound that YHWH thundered. And after Israel’s victory because of YHWH, Samuel took a stone and set it up as a memorial stone and named it Ebenezer, meaning stone of help, which he interpreted, “Till now YHWH has helped us” (1 Sam 7:12). And the Philistines would not be a problem for Israel as long as Samuel was their judge. Samuel was a circuit-riding judge for the rest of his life.
Thus in these chapters we have seen the exile and exodus of the ark. Instead of the people of God going into exile, the ark did and therefore in a sense God took the covenant curse of exile from the land upon Himself. Why the text even mentions a new Joshua and a new Eleazar when the ark returned.
We have seen the transition from Eli to Samuel. Samuel did not even play a role in the end of Eli’s house, he was out of the picture and YHWH was acting without a prophet. They needed a prophet to intercede for them. And they needed to handle the ark properly, which is why it caused problems even after returning to Israel. And thus what was a defeat for Israel became a victory. Just as the death of Christ came before His resurrection.
And Hannah’s poetic prayer, “The adversaries of YHWH shall be broken to pieces; against them He will thunder in heaven” (1 Sam 2:10) is beginning to be fulfilled.
As with all of my posts on Samuel, I consulted Leithart’s commentary.
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