Week 10

5/18/2025

Spring 2025

  • Central Passage: 1 Samuel 4-7, the Ark's capture and return.

  • Check out the Middle School Sunday School Resources page for other books of the Bible resources. Note: the 1 Samuel-2 Kings handout will be available eventually.

 

The Ark’s Capture (1 Samuel 4)

Familiarity greets the reader in 1 Samuel 4.[1] First, the Philistines are Israel’s rivals again. Second, this story begins, once again, in the hill country of Ephraim. The Israelites travel through the hill country to encamp at Ebenezer while the Philistines encamped at Aphek. These cities belong to a pass between the hill country and the coastal plain. The question as to why they encamp against one another is somewhat unanswered. Perhaps Israel is being opportunistic and foolhardy, just like the Danites in Judges 18. They do not seem to consult with God through his prophet or priests on the matter. Or the Philistines could have been the oppressors, as 1 Samuel 7:13 possibly indicates. Or reality could be a mixture of both. Regardless, Israel went into battle without God.

As you read this passage, keep Joshua 5:14 in mind. As Joshua asked the “man” (whom the reader knows to be the pre-incarnate Son of God appearing before Him) whether he fought for or against them, He responded with, “No.”[2] Just as C. S. Lewis depicted Aslan with the often-repeated phrase that he is not a tame lion, God is not under command or coercion from anything in creation. That remains true in this battle with the Philistines.

This series of Philistine battles begins with Israel’s defeat. 4,000[3] Israelite soldiers die at their hands. This is a significant enough number to give the Philistines the decisive victory. In fact, it’s 1,000 more than Samson killed during the final minutes of his life. (Judges 16:27-30). To the elders’ credit, they recognize that Yahweh defeated them in this battle, for He fights neither for nor against them but for His glory and kingdom. However, their response indicates that they do not fully understand this. They bring the Ark into battle without consulting the God who rules from it, treating the footstool to His throne like a pagan worship relic or talisman that would guarantee their victory. Other nations commonly did this in battle, but Israel fails to realize that God needed to graciously go before them in battle—this cannot be coerced from Him. The Israelite army places their faith in the relic, not the King, whose footstool is all of creation.

As their battle plan with the Ark begins to unfold, the narrator forecasts its futility when he mentions that Eli’s doomed sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are with the Ark (1 Sam 3:11-14). Nevertheless, the Israelites adopt the strategy of Jericho in Joshua 6. The Philistines rightly associate this act with the God of the Exodus.[4] Yahweh continues to melt the hearts of Israel’s enemies (Josh 2:9, 24). However, the Philistines defeat them with a great slaughter, giving the Israelites the understanding that God cannot be coerced into fighting their battles.

The fallout for bringing the Ark into battle is 30,000 dead soldiers (in addition to the 4,000 from earlier) and Eli’s dead sons. A Benjamite,[5] visibly showing signs of mourning with torn clothes and dirt on his head,[6] informs Eli of the news. Eli, consigned to the prophetic fate of his wicked sons, shows much more anxious care for the Ark. In his old age, Eli had become blind and obese. The obesity could have been due to his partaking in his sons’ priestly schemes of hoarding the fattest portions of the sacrifices for themselves. Nonetheless, Eli hears of the Ark’s capture, falls in exasperation, and fatally breaks his neck. Eli had judged Israel for forty years—an entire generation receiving the corruption of his priesthood.

As the narrative closes with his daughter-in-law giving birth to Ichabod (which means no glory because the glory of the LORD had departed), we see the same mentality of the Israelites who brought the Ark into battle, treating it like a talisman. Yes, the glory of the LORD consecrated the Tabernacle with His presence (Ex 40:34), but God’s presence was never limited to the Tabernacle, for the God of creation cannot be contained in structures and relics (cf. Act 17:24). Instead, during the wilderness wanderings, God went before Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:21-22). To the Jews later exiled to Babylon, God sends a vision through Ezekiel of His real Ark/footstool, showing that it is mobile and moving all over creation, even to the Jews in Babylon (Ezek 1). They are right to mourn that God has turned His armies against Israel, and their consecrated sacred space relics have been captured, but they are wrong for believing that His glory is fixed to physical things. However, in chapter five’s events, God uses the Philistines’ similar beliefs about relics to strike fear into their hearts.

The Ark’s Return (1 Samuel 5-7)

            God can sovereignly dispense justice against the Philistines with or without the presence of the Ark. However, He uses the Ark as a polemic against the Philistine gods. The last time Yahweh vindicated Himself against the Philistine god, Dagon, was Samson’s sacrificial demise in Judges 16. Now, Yahweh will vindicate Himself against Dagon once again in 1 Samuel 5. After the Ark’s first night in the temple of Dagon, the Philistines discovered their idol to be lying face down, prostrated and bowing before Yahweh’s footstool. After placing the idol in its position once again, the next day they find the statue lying prostrate again. But this time, his head and hands are also removed, a sign of battle defeat similar to when David cuts off Goliath’s head to declare his decisive victory over Goliath. Furthermore, though Dagon’s useless hands have been severed, Yahweh’s hand is strong against the Philistines, a recurring theme mentioned eight times in 1 Samuel 4-6.

            Thus, the Philistines recall their initial fear of the God of the Exodus, fearing the plagues inflicted upon Egypt for her stubbornness. So God gives them deadly tumors, the same boils that plagued Egypt and with which God promised to punish Israel for covenant infidelity (Deut 28:27).[7] As the Philistines relocate the Ark, its path has taken it from Shiloh, down the Philistine coastline, and back inland through different Philistine cities. It now finally approaches Jerusalem, the city where God will choose to dwell (though it would not arrive in Jerusalem until 2 Samuel 6). With the Ark fearfully returned to Israel, the Israelites respond similarly to the Philistines: with fear and dread for not revering God’s footstool (1 Sam 6:19-20). Despite this, God has vindicated Himself, both in the presence of the Philistines and His own people.

            Next, Samuel cries out to Yahweh at Israel’s humble, penitent request for a final decisive battle against the encroaching Philistines. In response, Yahweh thundered against the Philistines, just as Hannah’s prayer affirmed (1 Sam 2:10; cf. 1 Sam 1:6[8]). Samuel judges faithfully over Israel. However, His judgeship is limited and regional, just like the other Judges. Israel still needed a king to lead the twelve tribes in obedience to Yahweh. Israel would come to feel this need for a king, but they demand the wrong king.

Conclusion

            This narrative is a reminder that God commands His army for His sovereign purposes: to dispense justice/vindicate His holy name and to glorify His holy name in all creation by blessing His covenantally obedient people. This story affirms the answer of the commander of heaven’s armies in Joshua 5:14: He fights neither for nor against Israel. God fights for His glory to redeem and fill creation with life and peace. His name will not be profaned among the nations even when His people bear it vainly. Rather than sovereignly placing another unwilling champion of deliverance (like Samson) in a vindicative situation before the Philistines, God vindicates Himself through His footstool. In His graciousness, He may use fallen people in His Mission to glorify Himself. But Jesus Christ, God who put on flesh, is God’s final vindication before the eyes of a doubtful, cynical, and idolatrous creation. He ultimately vindicates Himself.

 

Sources

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible. Volume 2. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company. Access provided by Blue Letter Bible.

 

Walton, John H., Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2000.

 

Youngblood, Ronald F. and Richard D. Patterson. 1 Samuel ~ 2 Kings. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. General Editors: Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

 

[1] The story more accurately begins at 1 Samuel 4:1b, for the first sentence in verse 4 is the conclusion to the previous passage concerning Samuel’s call and the beginning of his prophetic ministry.

 

[2] This simple negation is very infrequent in biblical Hebrew. Normally, yes or no questions are answered by restating the question in the form of a positive or negative answer. For instance, if someone were to ask, “Are you going to the store today?” the answer would be, “I am (not) going to the store today.” But Joshua 5:14 uses a simple negative particle to answer before explaining who He is.

 

[3] Numbers in the Old Testament are often difficult for us to interpret. For one thing, they are often rounded rather than precise. Sometimes, they are rounded to a specific number to make a point. For instance, forty years has a common span of time throughout Israel’s history up until now. The Israelites wandered for forty years; The Philistines oppressed Israel for forty years; and Eli judged Israel for forty years (1 Sam 4:18). Second, as demonstrated in the two Numbers’ census reports, the Hebrew word for thousand could refer to tribes or troops. Thus, for 1 Samuel 4, four thousand Israelites could refer to four troops. However, contemporary scholarship still wrestles with Hebrew numbering systems. See the For Funzies section on the youth handout for Numbers for more.

 

[4] The Philistines have a long history with Egypt. Rameses III defeated the sea-fairing Philistines and displaced them to the southwest regions of Canaan. Many of them became Egyptian mercenaries as well.

 

[5] The last mentions of the tribe of Benjamin is from the end of Judges when the other tribes of Israel battled against them and gave them Canaanite women to repopulate. However, they seem to have rejoined the rest of the tribes of Israel by Samuel’s time.

 

[6] Dirt on the head was a sign of mourning and woe, symbolizing that the mourner is identifying with the dead.

 

[7] These tumors seem to be associated with rats (1 Sam 6:4 and the LXX of 1 Sam 5:6), similar to the Bubonic plague.

 

[8] The Hebrew of 1 Sam 1:6 uses the same word for “thundered,” translated as “irritate” in the ESV.