The Ark of the LORD made its rounds in the land of the Philistines. The mice or rats are eating up their harvests. Josephus describes the symptoms of the disease. And if it’s true, no wonder the Philistines were terrified. 😬
“…for they died of the dysentery or flux, a sore distemper, that brought death upon them very suddenly; for before the soul could, as usual, in easy deaths, be well loosed from the body, they brought up their entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten, and what was entirely corrupted by the disease.” – The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 6, 1:3
And I would say that compared to the description above, most deaths would be “easy deaths.”
🤔 If it was causing so many problems, why didn’t the Philistines send the Ark back to Israel immediately?
🤓 Well, you gotta use Philistine logic.
- If the Philistines (Dagon) defeated Israel (Yahweh) in battle, it would stand to reason that Dagon is more powerful. If Yahweh was more powerful, why didn’t He win the battle? How could Yahweh be inflicting a plague on Dagon’s people in Dagon’s own back yard?
- It could just be coincidence. Plagues happen all the time.
- But… the timing is definitely sus.
So the lords of the Philistines devise a plan to figure out if Yahweh has caused the plague or if it’s all just a coincidence.
In case you don’t know about the behavior of cows with new calves, let me tell you.
🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄
I have lived near a herd of cows that were separated from their calves. They stood at the fence aaaaaalllllllll night and moooo’d back and forth in an antiphonal cow chorus that made me want to fire up the grill. 🥩🔥When the Philistines shut up the calves in the stall, those two cows would’ve been standing right outside the stall bawling to their babies. And no amount of luring them with grain or hay would’ve made them leave. 🐮🐮
The fact that those cows walked away from their calves “lowing as they went” is a miracle. It might not be as impressive as others, but I’m telling you, it was supernatural.
Oh – and these aren’t oxen trained to pull a cart with someone goading them on. They’re young cows. Instead of bucking and kicking or running off in a panic, they voluntarily pull a new cart loaded with the most powerful box on earth straight down the road to the nearest Israelite town. The Philistines have their answer. It was Yahweh that unleashed the devastation on them.
(Remember how the Levites were given wagons and carts to move the curtains and boards of the Tabernacle? Remember how the Kohathites didn’t get any carts because the “furniture” had to be carried? Interesting that the LORD is going along for this ride – and even directing the cows.
Huh… The Lord is driving a wagon….🤠
If the Lord had put bumper stickers on back:
If the Philistines lived today and got the Ark on Amazon:
“😡 Recently got this God in battle. Worked great for a day then everything fell apart. Not as advertised!! He does not bless (unless you consider misery a blessing). He does do miracles, but they’re not the kind anyone would want. Returning the item. If you’re considering getting this ark, DO NOT BUY! Total waste of money. Zero stars.”
The residents of Beth-Shemesh were overjoyed to see the ark roll into the middle of town. They held an impromptu festival that ended badly. There is some disagreement on whether it was 70 men or 50,070 men who were killed for looking into the ark. But whichever it was, the people of Beth-Shemesh passed it on to Kirjath-Jearim to a respected Levite named Abinadab.
Have you ever put something somewhere “temporarily” that turned out to be not so temporary? Years later, it’s still sitting where you put it “temporarily?” That’s what happened to the ark. It’s going to sit in the home of Abinadab for several decades. ( I honestly can’t tell how many years. I’ve seen as few as 30 and as many as 92!)
This map traces the route of the Ark and the Tabernacle:
After the deaths of Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas, there was great instability in the priesthood. Upon hearing of the capture of the ark and the deaths of the priests, the Levites must have hastily packed up the Tabernacle (probably at the direction of Samuel) and moved it to the next place we read of it being: Nob, just outside Jerusalem.
While the Ark sits in Kijath-Jearim, Samuel begins a new ministry. Samuel is the last judge of Israel. After Samson was Eli, then Samuel. And he is the first “circuit-riding preacher.” He travelled in a circuit and solved disputes. (Huh… I wonder if that’s where we get the idea of “circuit courts.”) 🤔Samuel also constantly called Israel to repentance and righteous living. One of Samuel’s “Tent Revivals” 🎪 was at Mizpah. Remember Mizpah?
Israel is gathered there fasting and seeking the Lord and suddenly… 🏮 “The Philistines are coming! The Philistines are coming!”. This narrative is very similar to the Red Sea where you have a helpless, unarmed Israel all gathered and an army advancing on them in a surprise attack. 😧
Samuel offered a young lamb 🐑 as a burnt offering and cried out for God’s help. Yahweh responds with some kind of loud sound. The Hebrew basically says that He “thundered with a loud voice.” Josephus records a great earthquake that ripped open chasms that swallowed up some of the Philistines, great bolts of lightening ⚡️, and the very weapons being shaken out of their hands as they ran away in terror. 🗡️ 🫨Whatever the Lord did, it threw the Philistines into a panic and Israel defeated them.
THE STONE OF EBEN-EZER.
Samuel sets up a memorial stone. 🪨 No idea how big it was. It was kind of like a mile marker. Or the measurement of a long-jump. From Mizpah, aaaaaallllll the way to HERE, this stone, God helped us. And it was a quite a distance.
Ebenezer is pronounced Eh-ben-ay-zer. It’s made of 2 words: Eben (stone) and Ezer (help). Ebenezer is the Stone of Help. 🪨
Ezer is the word often used for the mighty, rescuing help of God in verses like “my HELP comes from the LORD,” Ps. 121.
Notice the bottom of the screenshot. “An help meet.” That’s from Genesis 2 where God makes woman to be the man’s “help.” That’s the word ezer.
This is not help like “hired hand” or “cute little (non-essential) helper” or “ya just can’t get good help these days.” Both men and women need to understand and respect that God made woman to be the powerful aid, the mighty helper of man. This is not a lesser role. If it is, then when God “helps” you He is somehow “less” than you. Not man’s boss, but not a mere sidekick either whose sole purpose is to stand around, look cute, and say, “Gee Willikers, Batman!” 🦸🏻♀️
I’m goin to leave it at that. Because I want us to think about the big picture of Eben-ezer.
Samuel sets up a memorial stone because he wants Israel to remember. It’s like the Marine Corps Memorial showing the Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.
Ebenezer is a monument that will outlive Samuel to remind future generations what happened there.
We tend to forget things. It’s easy to fixate on the negative and what we don’t have and the battles we’re still fighting, than all the victories the Lord has already won for us.
Think about the times in your life that the Lord has helped you. I’m not saying you have to carve something in granite – but hey, if you want to, go for it. What if we had some tangible objects around our homes to remind ourselves and perhaps future generations what the LORD has done for us?
I pick up rocks to help me remember pleasant or important experiences. I have a LOT of rocks. 🤭 Maybe we could plant a few trees 🌳 🌳🌳 or haul a bolder 🚜🪨 in with a tractor. Maybe we could make some hand or foot prints 👣 in concrete. Maybe it could simply be a journal entry. 📝📓
“Aallllll the way to here, the Lord has helped me.”
So now you know what the 2nd verse in the hymn Come Thou Fount means:
Here I raise my Ebenezer
hither by thy help I’m come
and I hope, by thy good pleasure
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger
wandering from the fold of God
he, to rescue me from danger
interposed his precious blood.
This is the Ebenezer of the Christian:
Aaaallllll the way to death and back, the LORD has helped me.
To The Reader 