Outline of Chapter 4:

       vv.    1b–3       Israel is Defeated Before the Philistines

       vv.    4–11      Israel is Defeated a Second Time Before the Philistines

       vv.   12–18      A Benjamite Brings News of These Battles to Shiloh

       vv.   19–22      The Death of the Wife of Phinehas; the Birth of the Son of Phinehas

Charts and Maps:

       Introduction    The Time Frame of 1Sam. 4

       Introduction    Text Altering in the Scriptures

       v.     4:1b        Ancient Renderings of 1Samuel 4:1b

       v.      4           The Ark of the Covenant

       v.     11           Parallel Passage Psalm 78:56–61

       v.     17           Speculation About the Messenger and Eli

       v.     18           The Failures of Eli

       v.     18           The Successes of Eli

I ntroduction: Most exegetes group 1Sam. 4:1b–7:1 (or v. 2) as a teaching unit. This is because these three chapters follow the movement of the Ark of God, which is afterwards, until the time of David, rarely mentioned (actually, it is not mentioned again—but that requires some explanation, which will occur later). As you will recall, I placed 1Sam. 4:1a with the previous chapter, and I will add 7:1–2 to the end of 1Sam. 6—when I exegeted the chapters, apart from ever looking at another exegetes work, these seemed to be the most natural bookends.

Before we launch further into the introduction, I should stop and mentioned a few things. As you may or may not realize, there are those who view the Old Testament as primarily the compilation of 4 or 5 individuals and/or groups of people; pretty much, their approach is anyone but the stated author written at any time frame other than what is generally assigned to the book. However, even though there are some false theories out there, this does not mean that this book in particular does not have several difference sources (as the book of Genesis, for instance). However, these theorists suggest that there are multiple authors in this section is because the Ark of God is given several different names (the Ark of God, the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, the Ark of Jehovah, the Ark of the God of Israel). Now, it may seem silly to you to base doctrines with such great theological significance upon the occasional change of terms, and that is simply because it is silly. I personally use all of those designations for the Ark of God, primarily to vary my vocabulary. That an author of the ancient world chose to do the same is no big deal. However, and this is significant, there is a strong likelihood that all of 1Sam. 5 and much of 6 was written by a Philistine believer. We will discuss this in chapter 5; and the reasons are more substantial than a different title for the Ark of God (although, interestingly enough, it is referred to as the Ark of the God of Israel exclusively in 1Sam. 5). The various names applied to the Ark very likely have more significance than a simple variance of vocabulary; but such things do not require several authors.

We are still at the end of the time of the judges. Israel is still in a state of great degeneracy. Eli, who is an okay judge and priest, has raised two worthless sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who assumed the duties of the priesthood, but who are both unbelievers, despite the fact that they function as priests. In the cycles of the book of Judges, you will recall that we would have a cycle of deliverance, a period of degeneracy, followed by a calling to God, followed by a deliverance. Where is this cycle?, you may ask. 1Sam. 4 restores that cycle. Certainly, we have the marvelous woman, Hannah, and her husband, Elkanah, and they dedicated their first son to God, and this first son was Samuel, who would be a great man. However, he is in a state of growth. Israel, as a whole, is still in a state of degeneracy. The practices of the Tent of God are still not in keeping with those found in Scripture. So, what we have in this chapter, is Israel on the discipline cycle. Their deliverer is among them, but they have nothing to be delivered from. God puts them in the position of needing Him, and simultaneously destroys the scum of Israel in battle.

We are reintroduced to the Philistines in this chapter. Recall that Joshua conquered most of the Land of Promise, but there remained several pockets of resistance, the Philistines making up the largest and most powerful group of heathen living within Israel along what today is the Gaza Strip. In Joshua 13:2–3, God ominously warns Joshua of the unconquered Philistines: “This is the land that remains: all the regions of the Philistines and all the land of the Geshurites; from Shihor, which is east of Egypt, even as far as the border of Ekron to the north (it is counted as Canaanite); the five lords of the Philistines: the Gadite, the Ashdodite, the Ashkelonite, the Gittite, the Ekronite; and the Avvite.” And, of all the tribes, Judah and Simeon were the most circumspect when it came to securing their land, being the only tribes to continue with their campaign against the resident heathen. They in fact took portions of the Philistine territory in Judges 1:18, capturing Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron (this would have been circa 1400–1350 b.c.). However, the Philistines maintained a strong foothold in the valley, along with one city near the sea (Ashdod), and eventually took their territory back. In fact, by 1100 b.c., the Philistines were in control of various portions of Israel and Israel was under Philistine control. All of this would make perfect sense, as Israel, upon entering and conquering the land, was vigorous and strong, and spiritually stable. However, after the passing of two centuries, they had become weak, indolent and spiritually fickle. We would therefore expect a people as tenacious as the Philistines to eventually come back as a serious force, which began in Judges 13 and continues until this time.

Israel will go to war against the Philistines and they will be soundly defeated. They return with the Ark of God as a good luck charm. In all of this, they do not consult God, Eli or Samuel. They just grab the Ark and return to battle, and (1) they lose; (2) the unbelieving, degenerate sons of Eli are killed; and, (3) the Ark is taken by the Philistines in battle, something which shocks and surprises both sides at battle.

We also have, with this chapter, a series of judgements upon the house of Eli. Keil and Delitzsch: Israel...suffered a still greater defeat, in which Eli’s sons fell and the ark was taken by the Philistines (vv. 3–11). The aged Eli, terrified at such a loss, fell from his seat and broke his neck (vv. 12–18); and his daughter-in-law was taken in labour, and died after giving birth to a son (vv. 19–22). With these occurrences the judgment began to burst upon the house of Eli.

You may recall that the sentence structure and vocabulary in the previous chapter, as well as in chapter 1, has been fairly simple. It is kind of like reading the writings of John in the Greek; chapters 1 and 3 would be good Hebrew primers. Although the sentence structure in this chapter is not complex, it is more complex than that of those other two chapters. The vocabulary has become less repetitive, and there is an introduction of vocabulary not found in previous chapters (the latter of which may be explained because of the subject matter change). However, what would appear to be the case is that there is a new author.

This verse belongs with the previous chapter and was exegeted in great detail there. However, there is an alternate explanation, which is that Samuel incites Israel to go to war with the Philistines, which would place v. 1a with 1b. Keil and Delitzsch suggest that the sense of v. 1 is, At the word or instigation of Samuel, Israel went out against the Philistines to battle. As you may recall, Barnes rejects this, saying that such an interpretation does not reflect the natural understanding of these words. A primary reason that I would go along with Barnes is that, Samuel seems to be completely immersed in the plan of God in 1Sam. 3:21 (And Jehovah appeared again at Shiloh, because Jehovah revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of Jehovah). V. 4:1a seems to naturally follow this. However, in the war against the Philistines, Israel will lose, lose badly, and then make a critical error of misjudging their next step. In other words, there is nothing in this war with the Philistines which smacks of the Lord except for judgment against Israel. This is incongruous with 1Sam. 3:21. The best we can expect is that Samuel was growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but Israel did not correspondingly advance as a nation.

Now, it is unclear as to how long Samuel ruled over Israel up until this point in time. 1Sam. 3:21–4:1a simply summarizes Samuel’s ministry before God. Where we are in this ministry come the next half of the verse is unclear. However, some explanation is necessary in order to understand Israel’s behavior. Edersheim provides that for us: Samuel’s ministry restored and strengthened belief in the reality of God’s presence in His temple, and in His help and power. In short, it would tend to keep alive and increase historical, although not spiritual belief in Israel. Such feelings, when uncombined with repentance, would lead to a revival of religiousness rather than of religion; to confidence in the possession of what, dissociated from their higher bearing, were merely externals; to a confusion of symbols with reality; and to such a reliance on their calling and privileges, as would have converted the wonder-working Presence of Jehovah in the midst of His believing people into a magic power attaching to certain symbols, the religion of Israel into mere externalism, essentially heathen in hits character, and the calling of God’s people into a warrant for carnal pride of nationality. In truth, however different in manifestation, the sin of Israel was essentially the same as that of Eli’s sons. Accordingly it had to be shown in reference to both, that neither high office nor yet the possession of high privileges entitles to the promises attached to them, irrespective of a deeper relationship between God and His servants. Now, unless you are fairly familiar with the next couple chapters, this quote may not have meant much to you. I will repeat it once we complete this study.

Israel is Defeated Before the Philistines

First, what others have done:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight: and Israel went out to war against the Philistines, and camped by the Stone of help. And the Philistines came to Aphec...

Masoretic Text                       And so went out Israel to meet Philistines to the war and so they camped beside the Ebenezer and so Philistines camped in Aphek.

Peshitta                                 Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and encamped by the Rock of Help; and the Philistines encamped at Aphek.

Septuagint                             And it came to pass in those days that the Philistines gathered themselves together against Israel to war; and Israel went out to meet them and encamped at Aben-ezer, and the Philistines encamped in Aphek.

Significant differences:          The biggest difference is that which is most obvious: the first sentence of chapter 4 in the LXX and the Vulgate is not found in the MT. The addition of this sentence makes more sense than its absence (which is the reason it is excluded from many translations).

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

NLT                                At that time Israel was at war with the Philistines. The Israelite army was camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines were at Aphek.

REB                                       The time came when the Philistines mustered for battle against Israel, and the Israelites, marching out to meet them, encamped near Eben-ezer.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

JPS (Tanakh)                        Israel marched out to engage the Philistines in battle; they encamped near Eben-ezer, while the Philistines encamped at Aphek.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

NASB                                     Now Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle and camped beside Ebenezer while the Philistines camped in Aphek.

NRSV                                    In those days the Philistines mustered for war against Israel, and Israel went out to battle against them; they encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek.

Young's Updated LT              ...and Israel went out to meet the Philistines for battle, and they encamp by Ebenezer, and the Philistines have encamped in Aphek,...

What is the gist of this verse? The troubles between the Jews and the Philistines continue; the Philistines gather their troops in Aphek to fight against Israel and the Israelites camp in Ebenezer.

You will note that the Septuagint and the NRSV begins v. 1b differently. They insert: And it came to pass in those days that the Philistines mustered themselves for battle against Israel... This is what we find in the Greek and several translations go with the Greek at this point (the NRSV, the REB, the NAB and the NJB are four examples).

Since we have some text which is found in the Greek (as well as the Latin), but not in the Hebrew, we examine the Greek text here:

Translation: And it was in those days... This sounds like the beginning of a new chapter or a completely new topic. Around the time that God spoke to Samuel, might be a way of paraphrasing this.

Translation: ...that Gentiles assembled in order to war against Israel. We have foreign troops gathering together to go to war against Israel. That the Jews have constant difficulties in the Land of Promise today should be no surprise to us.

That we have this line here seems to complete this verse and give the topic a true beginning. On the other hand, it could have been inserted for that purpose, and added so that the Philistines are seen as the aggressors here.

Translation: Therefore, Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle;... It is at this point that I see a connection between v. 1a and 1b—Samuel begins to take a position of authority and begins his ministry, which includes the dissemination of truth. So, as truth from Samuel is in Israel, Israel goes out to battle, away from the truth. It is not that it is wrong for Israel to go to war against the Philistines, it is simply the fact that they do so apart from any spiritual preparation. The word of Samuel has just come to Israel and Israel goes away from it. Just because there are a handful of good men in Israel does not mean that Israel has recovered as a nation. A cancer of villainy has developed in Israel, which cancer must be removed. A callousness toward the revealed Word of God has developed. No one in this chapter asks God, Eli or Samuel for guidance. They simply go to war against the Philistines and at no step along the way do they inquire of God’s will. What we find with v. 1a is not so much a verse which must be placed with chapter 3 or with chapter 4 of Samuel, but a verse which is a transition verse. It takes us from God revealing His Word to Samuel in the Tent of God to the moving away of Israel from the Word of God. In a time when a division of chapters meant nothing, we would expect to find transitional statements which take us from one scenario to another, smoothly and simply.

Who they are meeting are the Philistines, who have remained Israel’s bitter enemies (in the Greek, it simply reads them; in the Hebrew, it reads Philistines). We last encountered the Philistines in Judges 13–16, which seems like eons ago, but, in terms of time, this was recent or almost simultaneous to the events of these first few chapters of Samuel. Some teach that no interval of time has taken place since the death of Samson. In fact, Barnes even suggests that the birth of Samuel and the events of these first few chapters of 1Samuel could even be simultaneous to the last several years of the life of Samson. Samson was a judge in Dan, whereas Eli was a judge in Ephraim/Benjamin. Now, these were adjacent territories, but this does not mean that Samson and Eli could not have had coterminous and similar authority in their lifetimes. On the other hand, I believe that there is clearly a break in time between Samson’s death and the birth of Samuel (during which time period, Eli was a judge and the Philistines did not rule over Israel). My thinking is that, Sampson, for many years, kept the Philistines out of Dan, but, at his death, the movement of the Philistines continued, until even the tribe of Dan was forced to take property in the far northern portion of Israel. But my basic point here is that establishing an exact time line is difficult; however, it is quite clear that Israel continued to be at war with the Philistines. Samson killed a great many Philistines at his death, which very likely ended Philistia rule over Israel, but did not end the ongoing Israeli-Philistine conflict. In fact, Israel’s only significant military leader, Samson, seemed to be out of the picture altogether now. We covered the Doctrine of the Philistines back in Judges 14:4; however, it would not hurt for you to review that doctrine.

We continue this sentence with a lâmed preposition, the definite article and the feminine singular noun battle, war. This gives us, so far: And so Israel went out to meet [the] Philistines to the war...

The Egyptian texts from the time of Rameses III (1198–1167 b.c.) mentions the Philistines, naming them as among the Sea peoples of the Mediterranean Sea. What appears to be the case is that the Israelites moved into Palestine slightly before the invasion of the Philistines. The Philistines made several moves along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to find an area suitable for them. They were rebuffed by the Egyptians, but they were able to chisel a portion of land out of Palestine for themselves along the sea. Robert Gordon: Since such a limited terrain was incapable of satisfying the territorial ambitions of both incoming groups, conflict was unavoidable.

Translation: ...they camped beside Ebenezer... In the next portion of v. 1, we have the definite article followed by feminine singular noun e^bven (ן ∵ב ∵א) [pronounced EH^B-ven] is found over 250 times in the Old Testament and is consistently translated stone. Because of the definite article, this word would not be a construct. Then we have the definite article again followed by the masculine singular noun ׳êzer (ר ∵ז ֵע) [pronounced ĢAY-zer], which means help. This gives us: ...and so they camped beside the stone the help... Since this cannot be a construct relationship (i.e., the stone of help), our other option is that this is a proper noun, which is what this appears to be, and it is transliterated either Ebenezer or Eben-ezer. This would give us: ...beside the Ebenezer... instead.

The site of Ebenezer is only found in this passage. It is obviously near Aphek (mentioned below), probably to the east of it (as the Philistines occupied the land on the west and the Israelites occupied the land to the east). The Open Bible is more dogmatic about this and states that Ebenezer is 20 miles (32 km) west of Shiloh and that Aphek is about 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Ebenezer. Ebenezer was the site of two battles between Israel and the Philistines, both recorded here. The first battle is mentioned in vv. 1–2, and it is actually unclear whether it occurred in Ebenezer, Aphek or somewhere between. 4000 Israelites will die in this battle. The second battle in Ebenezer is found in vv. 10 and it appears as though the Philistines went to the Israelites in Ebenezer, as the Ark which they will capture is said to have been taken from Ebenezer to Ashdod (1Sam. 5:1). Some scholars, according to ZPEB, believe that the modern site of Ebenezer is Majdel Yaba, which is northeast of Jaffa. Now, we will hear the name Ebenezer again in 1Sam. 7:12 when the forces of Israel defeat the Philistines. Samuel takes a stone a sets it there, between Mizpah and Shen, as a memorial to the battle. Since Aphek, mentioned here, and Mizpah mentioned in 1Sam. 7:12, are about 25 miles apart, this would indicate that the two Ebenezer’s are different. One Ebenezer is a stone which is a memorial; and the other is the site of two battles, both of which saw the sound defeat of Israel. Although I would like them to represent the same place, it just does not seem reasonable without completely rethinking the locations of Aphek or Mizpah. Keil and Delitzsch suggest that Samuel named this camp many years after the battle in this chapter, in 1Sam. 7:12, but that would be illogical from the standpoint of location. Although Keil and Delitzsch often provide excellent insights to the understanding of various passages in the Word of God, they appear to be somewhat off their game so far in this chapter.

Translation: ...while the Philistines camped in Aphek. We covered the Doctrine of Aphek back in Joshua 12:18, and came up with two or three different Aphek’s from Scripture (and another in the holy land outside of Scripture). This one would have been in the far west portion of Ephraim, next to the territory of Dan, which was controlled by the Philistines. It would make sense for the Philistines to continue to pressure the Israelites for more territory via more military action, and moving in this particular direction also makes perfect sense.

One of the discussions that we had in the introduction is, Is Israel under Philistine domination at this time? An answer to this question will help us to put together a time line. Throughout most of Israel’s early history, the Philistines occupied the Mediterranean coast of Palestine (the name Palestine, by the way, comes from Philistine). Early on, the Philistines moved into Dan and Dan went northward (Judges 18). In fact, almost all of Israel was marked by an inability to remove the pagan populations from their territory (Judges 1:21–36). So, in other words, even if some of the indigenous population of Palestine remained and occupied territory, this is not the same as that group ruling over Israel (ala Judges 2:11–23 3:13–14 4:1–3 6:1–7 etc.). So, my point in this is that the Philistines lived side-by-side the Israelites for hundreds of years. They were generally a thorn in the side of the Israelites throughout that time period. However, there was a specific time period, 40 years, during which the Philistines actually dominated Israel (Judges 13:1). When that domination ended is where theologians disagree. One theory (mine), is that it ended when Samson killed thousands of Philistine aristocrats and leaders in Gaza (Judges 16:21–30). Another reasonable theory is that their domination of Israel ended about 20 years into the judgeship of Samuel (1Sam. 7). It is clear that 1Sam. 7 marks an end to serious Philistine aggression against Israel, and it is possible that official ends the 40 years of domination (nowhere previously do we have any language which specifically marks the end of Philistine domination as we do for the other dominations). I bring all of this up because in this passage, the Philistines are in Aphek, which is past the former territory of Dan, which would certainly imply that the Philistines occupied the area of Dan. In 1Sam. 6, Israel will face down the Philistines in Beth-shemesh, which is also on the border of Dan, again, away from the Philistine coastline, which implies that the Philistines controlled the territory of Dan. However, so far, none of these points allow us to unequivocally conclude when the forty years of Philistine domination were completed.

To sum up, we have essentially two possible, but very similar scenarios: (1) The Philistines control a significant portion of Israel, although there are apparently a few Israelites still living in that portion of land (this would be the Mediterranean coastline and the former territory of Dan); and they, the Philistines, are looking to take control of more territory. Or, (2) The Philistines rule over a portion of Israel, meaning that they occupy and control territory which is simultaneously occupied by Israelites and that they collect some sort of tribute from Israel (think protection money). What the Philistines are doing is simply expanding both their territory and influence over Israel. There are several factors at play here, some practical and others psychological. As a population increases, it requires more resources and, therefore, more land. The Israelites had no negative appreciable affect on the population growth of the Philistines, so, as they increased in size, they required more land and resources. Secondly, you have the psychological drive of the leaders of the Philistines. People who go into public service often suffer from power lust. Their seemingly altruistic motives of making a difference really boils down to the fact that they want power and control. They may rationalize that with their power and control, they will make a difference, but it is often this power and control which are the true motivating factors. The population in general also looks to expand, and again, for the two similar motives. We might not be able to look at the United States now and grasp this—after all, we have no desire to take over any portion of Canada or Mexico. However, at our inception, with a relatively small population, we sought, mostly as a nation of individuals, to take and dominate the land which is now the United States. Point in fact is that we did not really need all of the territory which we took. Furthermore, we were not driven by politicians to take the land, but by our own lusts (generally, it was for land and wealth which the west promised). To see a more modern-day equivalent of this is to examine the very land of Palestine which we are studying now. If you examine the land of the middle east and that controlled by Arabic nations, you will note that the land occupied by Israel is a mere postage stamp by comparison. However, some groups of Arabs are up in arms over this extremely small Israeli-occupied area and will sacrifice their own lives to take a city block here and a few square miles there away from Israel. Now, much of that motivation is fueled by hatred, which is certainly another factor in our study of the ancient land of Palestine.

First, what others have done:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         And put their army in array against Israel. And when they had joined battle, Israel turned their backs to the Philistines: and there were slain in that fight, here and there in the fields, about four thousand men.

Masoretic Text                       And so prepared Philistines to meet Israel and so permitted [or, forsook] the battle; and so was defeated Israel to faces of Philistines and so they struck in the army in the field about four thousand a man.

Peshitta                                 And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel; and when they fought, Israel was defeated before the Philistines; and there were about 4000 men slain on the battlefield.

Septuagint                             And the Philistines prepared to fight with Israel, and the battle was turned against them; and the men of Israel fell before the Philistines, and there were struck in the battle in the field four thousand men.

Significant differences:          The differences found here might be a result of an attempt to translate from the Hebrew into the Greek. In any case, the differences are not serious. The Latin is also very different, which suggests that there was probably a problem with making sense out of the Hebrew.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

NAB                                       The Philistines then drew up in battle formation against Israel. After a fierce struggle Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who slew about four thousand men on the battle field.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         The Philistine organized their troops to meet Israel in battle. As the battle spread, [the Philistines defeated Israel and killed about 4,000 soldiers in the field]. [I included their translation of v. 3 here to complete the thought of v. 2].

JPS (Tanakh)                        The Philistines arrayed themselves against Israel; and when the battle was fought, Israel was routed by the Philistines, who slew about four thousand men on the field of battle.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

Updated Emphasized Bible   And the Philistines set themselves in array to meet Israel, and <when the battle spread out> then Israel was struck down before the Philistines, —and there were slain of the army in the field about four thousand men.

NASB                                     And the Philistines drew up in battle array to meet Israel. When the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines who killed about four thousand men on the battlefield.

NRSV                                    The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battled was joined, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men on the field of battle.

NKJV                                     Then the Philistines put themselves in battle array against Israel. And when they joined battle, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men of the army in the field.

Young's Updated LT              ...and the Philistines set themselves in array to meet Israel, and the battle spread itself, and Israel is smitten [or, struck] before the Philistines, and they smite [strike] among the ranks in the field about four thousand men.

What is the gist of this verse? In the battle, the Philistines strike down about 4000 of the Israelites.

Translation: Then the Philistines prepared to meet Israel;... The idea is that they simply did not all run out to do battle with one another, but there was organization—at least on the part of the Philistines. They were professionals in the realm of the military and they organized their army to do battle against Israel.

Translation: ...and the battle spread [out];... The Septuagint has that the battle was turned against them; Young, Owen, the NASB and God’s Word™ have the battle spreading (those three are fairly good company to be in, so I will go with that rendering, despite what we have in BDB). Although several translations insert the word when at this point, there is no when. ...and the battle spread... I am thinking that perhaps this was in contrast to the Philistines organizing themselves and setting themselves up in battle array. Once the war began, the disorganization and chaos of warfare increased.

Translation: ...and Israel was defeated before the Philistines;... One of the discussions earlier in this chapter was, is Israel still under the tyranny of the Philistines? Although this verse would be a good place to set the record straight, God the Holy Spirit chose not to. We are not clear whether the Philistines rule over a small amount of Israel territory and are looking to expand their influence; we don’t know if Israel is under their tyranny and is now revolting against them; we don’t know if this is simply another skirmish between the two powers. It appears that Israel does have a reasonable amount of autonomy and there is no language indicating that this is a rebellion by Israel. My thinking is that these are two major powers who exist side-by-side who, each of whom would like to carve out more real estate for themselves. The Philistines appear to be the aggressors (which is more clear in the Greek than in the Hebrew).

Translation: ...and they struck down from the army in the field about 4000 men. We are generally uncertain about the word thousand in the Hebrew, and, in this case, it could refer to [military] units, meaning the casualties were much smaller. In the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Vulgate, it reads and there were struck; i.e., the word slain is in the passive voice. Now, even though there are some difficulties in the rendering of this verse, the final outcome is fairly easy to grasp. In their skirmish with the Philistines, Israel was soundly defeated.

First, what others have done:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so come the people unto the camp and so said elders of Israel “For why struck us Y^ehowah the day to faces of Philistines? Let us bring unto us from Shiloh an Ark of Covenant of Y^ehowah and He will come in our midst and He will deliver us from a hand of our enemies.”

Septuagint                             And the people came to the camp, and the elders of Israel said, “Why had the Lord caused us to fail this day before the Philistines? Let us take the ark of our God out of Selom and let it proceed from the midst of us, and it will save us from the hand of our enemies.”

Significant differences:          The minor differences are noted in the different colored font. There is nothing which significantly alters our understanding at this point.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

The Message                         When the troops returned to camp, Israel's elders said, "Why has GOD given us such a beating today by the Philistines? Let's go to Shiloh and get the Chest of GOD's Covenant. It will accompany us and save us from the grip of our enemies."

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         When the troops came back to the camp, the leaders of Israel asked, “Why has the Lord used the Philistines to defeat us today? Let’s get the ark of the Lord‘s promise from Shiloh so that he may be with us and save us from our enemies.”

JPS (Tanakh)                        When the [Israelite] troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh; thus He will be present among us and will deliver us from the hands of our enemies.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

NASB                                     When the people came into the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us take to ourselves from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it [or, he] may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies.”

Owen's Translation                And when the troops came to the camp and said the elders of Israel, “Why has put us to rout Yahweh today before the Philistines? Let us bring unto us from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of Yahweh that he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.

Young's Updated LT              And the people come in unto the camp, and the elders of Israel say, ‘Why has Jehovah smitten us today before the Philistines? We take unto us from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and it comes into our midst, and He will save us out of the hand of our enemies.’

What is the gist of this verse? The troops are upset that God has allowed them to be struck down before the Philistines. Then they come up with the idea of bringing the Ark of Jehovah into battle.

Translation: And the people came into the camp... Not all of Israel was destroyed. They were soundly defeated, but they still had an army remaining. They regroup in camp.

Translation: ...and the elders of Israel said, “Why did Y^ehowah strike us today before the Philistines? Their question, which is not asked of God, but apparently amongst each other, is: “Why did Y^ehowah strike us today before the Philistines?” This is actually a question similar to what Israel has asked before. After they had defeated Jericho for their first step into the Land of Promise, Israel was then beaten by the inhabitants of a smaller city named Ai. No less a man than Joshua himself petitioned God, saying, “Alas, O Jehovah God, why did You bring this people over the Jordan, and then deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us?” (Joshua 7:7a). On the plus side, the stricken Israelites don’t cry out, where is God? Instead, they ask, Why did You, O God, bring us to this side of the Jordan just to kill us? (which was a common refrain of gen x, the exodus generation). Why did God strike us? is the reasonable question that the Israelites should be asking themselves. They recognize that God is over all and in control, and that their loss relates to Him more than to anything else. The problem is, they do not pursue this question to its logical end, which would be that their relationship with God is messtup.

Translation: Let us bring the Ark of the Covenant of Y^ehowah from Shiloh... So, then, they don’t really answer this question, although it might be implied that they do, by deciding the problem is that there is no Ark of God with them. So they decide to bring the Ark into battle. Some of them no doubt knew a little of their history and recalled that Joshua brought the Ark into battle against Jericho. However, what they fail to realize is, this was at the guidance of Jehovah Elohim.

Translation: ...that He will come into our midst... Their reasoning comes next: they will bring the Ark into battle, because this will cause God to go into battle with them. Now, do you see a problem here? God is not confined to the Ark. They did not lose because the Ark is kept in the Tabernacle. They lost because God was not with them, or God wanted many of them to die in battle. Bringing the Ark into battle will not change that fact.

Translation: ...and deliver us from the hand of our enemies.” It is unclear whether the verb’s subject is Ark or Y^ehowah. However, they are closely associated, so that they would be considered a package deal. That is, if the Ark is with them, Y^ehowah would be with them as well.

No doubt that the person who suggested bringing the Ark either quoted Scripture or told a familiar Bible story which involved the Ark of God. Now, this idea to bring the Ark reveals is an imperfect knowledge of what happened in the past. Perhaps one of the elders got this really holy look on his face and suggested that Joshua brought the Ark to the battle of Jericho (which is true—Joshua 6:6–21). However, Joshua didn’t bring the Ark to every battle against every city. In fact, Joshua was not even the one who made the decision to bring the Ark with the troops of Israel when they marched around the city of Jericho. It was God, and not Joshua, who determined that would be done in Israel’s attack against Jericho (Joshua 6:1–5).

Right after Israel destroyed the city of Jericho, they went up against a smaller city, Ai, and this time, Israel was soundly defeated (Joshua 7:1–15). Did they go fetch the Ark of God and regroup against Ai? Absolutely not. There were two things which were done by Israel to defeat Ai: (1) they dealt with the sin of Achan, who kept some items taken out from Jericho which should have been completely sacrificed to God (Joshua 7:16–26); and, (2) the army of Israel employed strategy and tactics (Joshua 8). The Ark of Jehovah was not a good luck charm which they took to Ai.

You may wonder by what means did these men of Israel take the Ark. First of all, the leadership of Tent of God was iffy. Eli was old and blind and certainly retired. It is unclear how old Samuel was; his authority, although God-granted, was not respected and would not be respected until 1Sam. 7:3, 21 years from this time (the end of 1Sam. 3 notwithstanding, as that gives an overview of his ministry—not an indication of how the people of Israel felt right then and there). Phinehas and Hophni had both acted as head priests prior to this and although it was not their idea to get the Ark, they certainly would have consented to it. I doubt that they really concerned themselves about the Ark. The BBQ was outside, and that was their primary concern.

Maybe an elder quoted Num. 10:34–35: And the cloud of Jehovah was over them by day, when they set out from the camp. Then it was, when the ark was set out, that Moses said, “Rise up, O Jehovah, and let Your enemies be scattered; and let those who hate You flee from You.” Some of the worst suggestions you will ever hear will be preceded by the quotation of a verse or two. Something like this would sound holy and godly, even though it does not pertain at all to the situation in which Israel now finds herself. With respect to the quotation, was Israel going to war against anyone in specific at that time? No. They were simply marching toward the Land of Promise at the time of Num. 10. In fact, almost immediately after Moses’ stirring call to God in Num. 10, the spies bring back a report about the people of the Land of Canaan and how big they are. Then Israel went into a whining fit and refused to go to war against the peoples of Canaan. When they did have a change of heart and went to fight the Amalekites and the Canaanites, they were soundly defeated (Num. 14). Now, even though they did not take the Ark into battle with them that time, Moses didn’t send them back a second time with the Ark (Num. 14:44–45).

My point in these two mentions of the Ark was that, any of the elders could have stood up and quoted Scripture out of context, conveying only half the information. They could have said that Joshua brought the Ark into battle against Jericho; that Moses put the Ark before them as they marched to the Land of Canaan. However, that would have only been a portion of the story. Note that I gave you the entire context, which shows that bringing the Ark into battle did not guarantee victory. Note what the elders of Israel did not do. They did not consult God; they did not inquire of Urim and Thummim by the High Priest. They did not go to Samuel or to Eli to ask them for their opinions. It was simply that they needed the Ark of God as a good luck charm, and that it would automatically pull God into the battle. Zodhiates makes essentially the same comment: The Israelites were treating the ark as a kind of magic charm instead of the testimony of God’s power and presence. There mere presence of the ark would not bring victory in the battle. Again, we have discussed Israel’s initial defeat by the city of Ai, and that Israel did not bring the Ark of God into battle against the people of Ai in order to reverse their defeat. You might even wonder, why didn’t this work? If you went to war and held up a Bible in front of you, it would not deflect bullets, would it? The presence of the Ark is not going to guarantee victory.

McGee: My friend, this reveals the superstition and paganism of these people who thought there was some merit in the object. The merit was not in that box because God was not in that box. You cannot get God into a box! The merit was in the presence and person of God. In church work today many people, even in our good churches, are equally as superstitious. They think that God, as it were, is in a box. They say, “Look at this method. It is a nice little package deal. It is success in a box. This method will solve our problem.” So many people are moving in that direction today. My friend, that is not being spiritual. That is being superstitious. The merit is in Christ. Success is determined by whether or not we are with Him. That is all important.

You must also have an insight as to how the Philistines viewed this. Some pagan groups viewed their wars ultimately as wars between their gods and the gods of their opposition. The Philistines themselves understood and feared the strength of the God of Israel, which will come out later in this chapter. However, in this battle with Israel, there was nothing to indicate that the God of Israel was with them. When Israel chose to get the Ark, their thinking was reduced to the level of the Philistines. They saw it as a war between their respective Deities as well. The pagan notion was that the religious symbol or idol was directly connected to their god. You bring the idol, you have the god; you forget the idol, and the god of that idol isn’t coming either. The NIV Study Bible puts it this way: [Israel’s choice to bring the Ark into battle reflected the pagan notion that the deity is identified with the symbol of his presence, and that God’s favor could automatically be gained by manipulating the symbol. In case you don’t recognize what the Israelites are doing here, they are being idolaters. The Ark of God represents God and it teaches salvation, but the Ark cannot be used to manipulate God or to invoke His power or presence. Now let me give you the even darker interpretation: taking the Ark into battle was like holding God hostage. Whatever considerations should have been taken were unnecessary because they had the Ark of God. God had to follow them into battle and deliver them. He did not have a choice because they had His Ark. By their thinking, God could not allow their defeat with His Ark and He could not allow anything to happen to His Ark. They took the Ark hostage, and now God would have to do their bidding. They were wrong.

This bypasses the idea of personal responsibility and their relationship with God. Israel was not going to win every battle because their God was the God of the Universe. Their thinking and their responsibilities toward God were a part of their existence as a nation and this relationship impacted the very wars in which they were engaged. How do I explain this? There was no contest between the God of Israel and the gods of the Philistines. That was not the issue. The problem was the soul of Israel and Israel’s relationship with God. If Israel were right with God, everything else would fall into place. If Israel was not right with God, all manner of problems could occur. So the war here is not one between God and gods, but between Israel and herself.

Practical application: Now, as I go through this, you often think to yourself, well, this borders on almost being fascinating, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me. And you would be wrong. There are several applications. First, do you wear a cross? Do you have a cross hanging from your rearview mirror or a statue of Mary on your car dashboard? What do these represent to you? Do you think that it is less likely that you will be in an accident with these paraphernalia scattered about your car? That is idolatry. Do you think your cross will ward off evil? That is idolatry. Do you think that these items will bring God closer to you or invoke the spirit of Mary somehow to ride shotgun? That is idolatry. Now, let’s say you take the statue of Mary down, and then you get into a car wreck, does that mean that I was wrong and you were right? Hell, no! It means that I am still right and you are an idiot. God’s Word is what stands, and this is part of what this passage teaches us. It does not matter what happens in your day-to-day experience (and you should never supplant spiritual truth with that which you perceive from experiences in your daily life—that is what makes you a fool).

Practical application: Secondly, you don’t win every battle in this life. There are some you lose because God chooses for things to be that way and there are some you lose because of your spiritual state of being. Being a child of God does not mean that you go through this life without pain and suffering and defeat. Being a child of God who is right spiritually means that you can face this pain, suffering and defeat with enough internal fortitude to be able to deal with it and the outcomes, right or wrong, good or bad. Israel will lose their next battle just as they lost this one because of their spiritual state. Bringing the Ark, if anything, incensed God.

Let me go off on another tangent, now that I am here: I recall when I was first saved—I figured that no matter what decision I made, things would just turn out okay because I was a new believer and God was taking care of things. Now, God was able to take all of the decisions which I made, good and bad, and make them turn out for good; just as my parents could take my good and bad decisions and teach me from those decisions what is right and what is wrong. However, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to make the good and right decisions from the get go.

Practical application: Now, the third spiritual point which can learn from the application of this passage is this: You cannot simply pick some experience recorded in Scripture and copy it, thinking that is God’s plan of action for you. What they did is, some of these men knew that the Ark had been used at a previous battle, so they decided to copy that. They took something which was legitimate and right and misapplied it to their own situation. Let me give you a common place where this is done: in holy roller churches. They notice that Jesus and the Apostles healed and also that the Apostles went out and spoke in tongues (actually, in foreign languages which they did not know); and they decide to copy these actions. Now, what they do is a rather lame copy. If you have ever seen holy rollers heal, you can immediately recognize that it bears little resemblance to the healings of Jesus. You have men striking or appearing to strike members of their congregation in the head, and those people will fall to the ground, having been struck by the spirit. Finding legitimate healings is nigh impossible. Much of what we find in the gospels are miraculous healings (although, it is very likely that not all of them are). We have cripples who walk, people who are insane cured, and we even see the dead rise. Not one time does Jesus blame a person He heals for not having enough faith.

Another place where these holy rollers develop a lame counterfeit to what we find in Scripture is speaking in tongues. There is one passage, and one passage only, which can be mistakenly understood to indicate that people speak with the tongues of angels. And so, instead of a few members of the congregation speaking in foreign languages to evangelize the unbelievers, as the Apostles did, you have most of the congregation speaking in a holy ghost language, a language of angels; which is just flat out emotional gibberish. Again, this bears little resemblance to the Apostles speaking the languages of the hearers on the day of Pentecost, evangelizing them in their native tongue. My point in all of this is, you do not pick some experience or some incident recorded in the Bible and copy it. That is not how we are supposed to conduct our lives.

Practical application: Many times a believer will suggest a course of action for a congregation, for a marriage, for himself and at least one other believer, and he will sound holy and he will mention things like God, covenant, Holy Spirit, and he might even quote some Scripture. The end result, is he will convince those around him to pursue some bogus course of action. Similar people convince others of some bogus doctrine of Scripture by saying a few holy words and quoting some Scripture. If anyone had any spiritual discernment, they would have stood up and said, “You can’t simply haul the Ark of the Covenant into battle as some sort of a good luck charm. God did not guarantee us that whenever the Ark was taken into battle that He would defeat the enemy. We were just soundly defeated and we need to determine why before we go back into battle against the Philistines.” You learn Scripture in order to be discerning. All sorts of believers and unbelievers twist Scripture into meaning something that it does not. Peter, when speaking of Paul’s letters, as an aside said that what Paul wrote was often hard to understand, and then Peter adds, which the untaught and the unstable distort, as they do with the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction (II Peter 3:16). So, will Scripture be distorted? Obviously. Will it be distorted by seemingly godly men? Obviously. How do you keep from being taken in? By knowing God’s Word. Believers are often taken down some wrong path—this is Satan’s joy. He loves to quote Scripture, he loves to take believers in, and he loves to place us in compromising positions and in the wrong place doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. My point is, this passage has everything in the world to do with you. The people of Israel are being taken in by their elders, who know just enough doctrine to be dangerous. The best advice that I ever received as a believer early on was to do nothing and take in Bible doctrine. You might, as a young believer, have all kinds of enthusiasm, and that is great. Channel that enthusiasm into learning the Word of God. Don’t think, one month or six months after salvation that you are going to go out and do all these great things for God. You are barely a spiritual baby. Two and three year old children have all kinds of energy and enthusiasm. Do we then send them out to set up great business corporations to support their family? Certainly not. Paul tells us that, in spiritual youth, do not attempt to make any great decision (II Cor. 7:17–27). The key is fairly simple: upon your salvation, God will place before you a number of decisions to be made, each often increasing in its requirement of spiritual discernment. If you take in God’s Word and apply God’s Word, you will make the proper decisions. But do not go out there looking to make decisions that God has not placed before you. So, our Scriptural illustration: Israel has just been defeated in battle by the Philistines. What should they do? They should inquire of God what the problem is; through Samuel, if they can’t figure it out themselves. They are not to head on over to Shiloh to snatch up the Ark as though it is their secret weapon, and go back into battle against the Philistines. Now, we have every reason to expect that the men who place their hands on the Ark will die. However, that does not happen. And, there is a reason for that. We do not know the mode of transportation for the Ark, and it is even possible that they properly transported it. In any case, there were no resultant casualties from the moving of the Ark. However, just keep in the back of your mind that God allowed the transporting the Ark without incident for a reason.

Let me make another point: I teach each passage of the Bible in order, in its context, with as accurate of translation as I can come up with. When Scripture is taught using ICE principles, it is much more difficult to twist Scripture out of its context. No one, with a complete understanding of Num. 10:33–36 or Joshua 6:1–6 would ever suggest to bring the Ark of God into battle as a solution.

Now, allow me another tangent: your pastor is supposed to teach you the entire body of Scripture. If you go to the same church for, say, 5 years, and he has not even exegeted two or three books in that time (or one long book), then he is not doing his job. As he teaches you Scripture, he should make application, as I have done here. You wouldn’t get this on your own. Even if you were in some Bible study group that meets every Tuesday or Friday night, you would never, ever gain the insights and information which I have provided for you in these first four chapters of the book of Samuel). You wouldn’t have necessarily seen, for instance, the application of this passage to your life. You might have read this passage three or four times in your program to read through the Bible once a year and still, as far as you are concerned, it is some battle between two peoples which occurred a long time ago. This passage is relevant to you and your life. It has application to you and your day-to-day decisions. Not only the victories, but the losses suffered by other believers teach us about our spiritual walk. It is your pastor who both teaches your Scripture, line by line, and then makes application of God’s Word to your life.

First, the translations:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so sent the people [to] Shiloh and brought from there an Ark of a Covenant of Y^ehowah of Hosts, sitting, the cherubim; and there [were] a pair of sons of Eli with an Ark of a Covenant of God—Hophni and Phinehas.

Septuagint                             And the people sent to Selom, and they took there the ark of the Lord, Who dwells [between] the cherubs; and both the sons of Heli, Ophni and Phinees, with the ark.

Significant differences:          This time, it is the Greek which appears to be lacking a few words. However, the differences between the texts are insignificant.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       The army sent some soldiers to bring back the sacred chest from Shiloh, because the LORD All-Powerful has his throne on the winged creatures on top of the chest. As Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas,...

The Message                         So the army sent orders to Shiloh. They brought the Chest of the Covenant of GOD, the GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Cherubim-Enthroned-GOD. Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, accompanied the Chest of the Covenant of God.

TEV                                       So they sent messengers to Shiloh and got the Covenant Box of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned above the winged creatures. And Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, came along with the Covenant Box.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

JPS (Tanakh)                        So the troops sent men to Shiloh; there Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were in charge of the Ark of the Covenant of God, and they brought down from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts Enthroned on the Cherubim.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

Updated Emphasized Bible   So the people sent to Shiloh, and carry from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of hosts, who inhabits [or, sits upon or, is enthroned in] the cherubim, —and ║there║ were the two sons of Eli with the ark of the covenant of God, namely, Hophni and Phinehas.

NASB                                     So the people sent to Shiloh, and from there they carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts who sits above cherubim; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

NKJV                                     So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from there the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

Young's Updated LT              And the people sent to Shiloh, and they take up there the ark of the covenant of Jehovah of Hosts, inhabiting the cherubs, and there are two sons of Eli, with the ark of the covenant of God, Hophni and Phinehas.

What is the gist of this verse? The elders apparently sent some of their men to Shiloh to pick up the Ark, and Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s two sons, came along with the Ark.

Translation: And the people sent to Shiloh... The people refer back to the Israelites who had returned to camp defeated, along with the elders who were there. They apparently send a small but forceful delegation to Shiloh, where Eli and his sons were; and where the Ark was.

Translation: ...and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of Y^ehowah of the Armies,... We are given very little by way of specifics. We do not know if there was a negotiation here between these soldiers and Eli’s sons; whether anyone stopped to ask Eli about this. We do not even know if the Bible was consulted with regards to the moving of the Ark. However, God allowed the Ark to be taken into the camp of the Israelites, and apparently without incident.

Translation: ...[Who] is sitting [between] the Cherubim. Then we have the Qal active participle of inhabiting, dwelling in, sitting upon. Now, I would like to associate with this verb the masculine plural of k^erûwb (בר) [pronounced k^eroo^bv], which is transliterated cherub. When using this word, it is not clear whether we are referring to a classification of angels, or if this is simply a word which can be used instead of angel. On top of the Ark of the Covenant, we have two sculpted cherubim (the -im is plural in the Hebrew) facing one another (Ex. 25:18–21). My particular thoughts is that the purpose of such a reference is to remind us that we are in the midst of the angelic conflict and that the unseen angels play a real part in our lives. We examined the Cherubim back in Gen. 3:24.

Now, even though it is clear that the Cherubim are sitting upon the Ark of God, the Qal participle is not in the plural, but in the singular. Therefore, the nearest masculine singular noun belongs to this verb, which noun is Y^ehowah, which, therefore, requires us to insert some words: ...[the One] sitting [between] the cherubim... We can reasonably infer the One from the masculine singular Qal participle, but whereas we have two prepositions meaning between in Ex. 25:22, we have no preposition here. So, no matter how we take this, this portion of the verse appears to be missing something. If it is Y^ehowah Who is sitting between the Cherubim, it would seem that we would need a preposition to describe where He is sitting with respect to the Cherubim, as we have in Ex. 25:22 and Num. 7:89. If it is the Cherubim who are sitting upon the Ark, we would need a plural ending for the verb (and, point in fact, they stand upon the Ark). Now, I personally thought that I had this problem solved in suggesting that it was Young who conveys the most accurate sense where it refers to God inhabiting the Cherubim. Whereas, God does not inhabit or indwell the Cherubim, the elders of Israel were behaving as though He did. The problem with that approach is that we have the same verbiage in 2Sam. 6:2 (and Psalm 80:1 99:1), where David is fetching the Ark, and it is an occasion of joy and celebration. Therefore, in the English, it seems our only reasonable approach is to insert the prepositions between or above and assume that yâshab implies one of those.

Translation: With the Ark of the Covenant of God, were two of Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Now, recall, from a couple chapters ago. Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli. They disrespected God and His authority. Animal sacrifices were merely opportunities for them to add more meat to their diets. They had no concept or understanding of the Lord they served. In their own minds, Hophni and Phinehas had a good thing going. They worked very little and got all the barbeque they could eat. So, they did not want the Ark to fall into the wrong hands, so to speak. Therefore, they came along with the Ark of God. This is so indicative of the refrain in the book of Judges: In those days there was no king in Israel, so every man did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6). Again, the details are sketchy. Although it is possible that Eli sent them with the Ark, it does not appear as though they would listen to Eli. Furthermore, Eli knows that his sons are going to die—sending them along with the Ark into battle might not be the sort of thing an overindulgent father would do.

One of the things which is left out is the confrontation between the army of Israel and these two hack priests is that these were large men, probably nearing 300 pounds, fairly rotund, and they were able to bully the average Israelite (1Sam. 2:16). However, here they faced a contingent from an army of rugged Israelites, which was a lot different from those they were used to bullying. So, on the one hand, you have these rough and tumble army veterans who don’t want to offend Jehovah God or those they perceive that work for Him; yet, they intend to take that Ark with them into battle no matter what. On the other hand, you have these two very rotund hack priests, who (1) recognize that no matter what they say or do, the Ark is going into battle; and, (2) these priests still need to protect their goose that lays the golden eggs. Now, I am certain that, because of manners, much of this was left unsaid. The army (or, actually, several representatives) show up, explaining how they were beaten in battle and how they need to take the Ark into battle to insure victory. Even though this may have been presented as a formal request, the answer no was not going to be accepted. This was patently clear to the two brothers, who therefore had to determine how to go along with the request and protect their Ark.

First, what others have done:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And he was as a coming of an Ark of a Covenant of Y^ehowah unto the camp and so they shouted all of Israel a shout great and so stirred up the earth.

Septuagint                             And it came to pass when the ark of the Lord entered into the camp, that all Israel cried out with a loud voice, and the earth resounded.

Significant differences:          None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       ...[Hophni and Phinehas] brought the chest into camp, the army cheered so loudly that the ground shook.

The Message                         When the Chest of the Covenant of GOD was brought into camp, everyone gave a huge cheer. The shouts were like thunderclaps shaking the very ground.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         When the Lord‘s ark came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth rang with echoes.

JPS (Tanakh)                        When the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord entered the camp, all Israel burst into a great shout, so that the earth resounded.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

NASB                                     And it happened as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, that all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth resounded.

Young's Updated LT              And it came to pass, at the coming in of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah unto the camp, that all Israel shouted—a great shout—and the earth is moved.

What is the gist of this verse? When the Ark entered into the camp of the army of Israel, the Israelites shouted so loudly, that the earth was moved (this is an expression, by the way—don’t take it as being literal).

Translation: And it was when the Ark of the Covenant of Y^ehowah came into the camp... Why have I inserted the definite articles, yet they are not found in the Hebrew? Constructs simply do not have definite articles in the Hebrew.

The first thing they should have done was notice that with the Ark came Hophni and Phinehas, and those two should have been sent packing. However, there is no indication that the army or the elders of the army knew what they were doing any more than Hophni and Phinehas. The two brothers used their position to gorge themselves and the army was using the Ark in order to defeat the Philistines. There was nothing of spiritual dynamics here.

You may ask, where is Samuel in all of this? Samuel is still quite young, even though 1Sam. 4 may not follow the events of 1Sam. 3:1–18 immediately, there is nothing to indicate that they occurred after Samuel was firmly established as a prophet of God (1Sam. 3:19–4:1a). Those final verses are a summary, and not meant to be taken as the chronological order of things—that is, we do not have God calling Samuel, followed Samuel growing spiritually and being recognized by all Israel, followed by this war against the Philistines. Hebrew Scripture, for the most part, is very topical; therefore, what we have in 1Sam. 3:1–4:1a is a topical unit, beginning with God calling Samuel, and ending with a summary of Samuel’s ministry. When we examine the movement of the Ark and this battle with the Philistines, that is a new topic which reasonably occurs before the summary verses of 1Sam. 3. Therefore, Samuel, not being yet recognized as a prophet from God, but probably still being a teen, had no authority to do anything. It is unlikely that anyone consulted him about the taking of the Ark; and it is very possible that no one even consulted Eli about the taking of the Ark. Very likely, this was an executive decision made by the elders at war and Eli’s two sons.

Translation: ...that all Israel shouted a mighty shout,... What they shouted was a great shout. Their trust was not in God but in this religious artifact, which is quite a different thing. This religious artifact represented God; however, realize what came with it: Hophni and Phinehas. They represent unbelieving religion; they are the leaven in the faith; they are the distortion of that which is true and right. The fact that they came along, despite what is know about them in all of Israel, indicates that the people of Israel were willing to compromise the truth of God.

Secondly, bringing the Ark into battle does not insure victory in any way. There is nothing in the Law which states, “When you find your wars against the heathen not going so well, then go fetch the Ark of God to lead you into battle.” What we do have is one historical incident of the Ark being taken into battle by Joshua at God’s request. God made it clear that He was at war with the gods of the indigenous heathen of the Land of Promise. That is, from the earliest beginnings of Israel, God made it clear that He was against and at war with religion. Now, for the 1% who misapply everything they hear: this does not mean that you go out and burn down the nearest Mosque. Do not mix up the dispensation of Israel (where Israel was a theocracy) with the dispensation of the Church (where no national entity is a theocracy). Israel had specific commands to remove the religious heathen from the Land of Promise; we of the Church Age, on the other hand, have not received any such command, specifically stated or implied.

Application: Do not find some miscellaneous passage in the Old or New Testament where we find an historical narrative and copy what is done there. We are not supposed to copy each and every action which we find in Scripture—there is no call for us to do so at any time. Paul, Peter and John give us the doctrines which we should follow; the principles that we should learn—the epistles tell us what should and should not be done. Never go to any historical narrative, including the gospels and the book of Acts, and set out to copy what you read there. Some actions which we find are valid, some are not. Some apply to a very specific place in time; some actions have a wider application. Some actions are only valid for the pre-canon period of the Church Age. What I hope is obvious is, when Jesus came to this earth, He did things which were absolutely incredible—He healed all who came to Him; He never complained that someone did not have enough faith to be healed. This drew man’s attention to Jesus as God’s Son. Please have enough sense to realize that, God has not called any of us to duplicate Christ’s miracles—God does not think it necessary for huge groups of people to remark, “Hey, check out Charlie Brown—if you go to him with any disease, he will heal you.” God is not in the business of glorifying man. God focuses our attention on Jesus.

Translation: ...and the earth was stirred. Then we have the wâw consecutive followed by the 3^rd person feminine singular, Niphal imperfect of to murmur, to roar, to throw into chaos, to discomfit, to cause a stir, to cause a disturbance. What receives the action of the verb is the earth (or, the land), giving us: ...a great shout so the earth was stirred up. All those of Israel were quite enthusiastic at the bringing of the Ark into the camp. This further illustrates that the men there viewed the Ark as equivalent to God coming into their camp; that is the essence of idolatry, pure and simple. When interpreting this, let us use a little sense. The earth did not swerve off of its axis; nor were people in India disturbed by the shouting of the Israelites. This simply means that the Israelite soldiers received the Ark of God with a resounding shout, which could be heard far outside their camp.

Here’s the deal: these soldiers, even though they had great confidence, it was essentially in an idol—they saw the Ark of God as being an unbeatable good luck charm. They were making decisions based upon practically no doctrine at all; they were making decisions based upon copying an incident which occurred several hundred years previous, an incident which they did not understand or properly interpret. As a believer, you cannot just make any willy nilly decision and expect everything to be okay (and I am assuming that these men are believers, which they may or may not be).

Application: When I first believed in Christ Jesus, I foolishly thought that I could do whatever seemed right, and God would work things out. Now, certainly, it is true that God works all things together for good.  No matter how much we screw up our lives, if we are still alive, then God still has a plan for us and He can straighten everything out. However, this does not mean that we should make whatever decisions that we feel like making (and I am not even talking about sin here). Paul emphatically tells us that at salvation, we should not endeavor to change our status in any major way. If we are single, we stay single; if we are married, we stay married; if we are slaves, we remain slaves (that is, don’t suddenly change jobs from the CEO of a major company to running a Christian book store). You will be faced with hundreds of decisions immediately after salvation, and Paul tells us to avoid major changes (I Cor. 7:10–29). The implication is that you will spiritually grow and then be able to make the proper and correct decisions. I, knowing very little at the beginning of my spiritual life (like everyone), made a lot of major decisions which I should have put off until I was ready to make these decisions. The results were pretty disastrous. These Israelites are just jumping into this battle without any spiritual foresight. They do not inquire the will of God; they look for no spiritual direction; they grab the Ark and go into battle. At salvation, you do not grab the flag and run into battle. You cool your heels; you grow; you learn the spiritual side of life, and make decisions based upon God’s Word.

What others have done:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so heard Philistines a sound of the shout and so they said, “What sound the shout the this great in a camp of the Hebrews.” And so they knew that an Ark of Y^ehowah had come unto the camp.

Septuagint                             And the Philistines heard the cry, and the Philistines said, “What [is] this great cry in the camp of the Hebrews?” And they understood that the Ark of the Lord was come into the camp.

Significant differences:          None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       The Philistines heard the noise and said, "What are those Hebrews shouting about?" When the Philistines learned that the sacred chest had been brought into the camp.

The Message                         The Philistines heard the shouting and wondered what on earth was going on: "What's all this shouting among the Hebrews?" Then they learned that the Chest of GOD had entered the Hebrew camp.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

JPS (Tanakh)                        The Philistines heard the noise of the shouting and they wondered, “Why is there such a loud shouting in the camp of the Hebrews?” And when they learned that the Ark of the had come to the camp,...

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, "What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?" And when they learned that the ark of the LORD had come to the camp,.

NASB                                     And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, “What does the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?” Then they understood that the ark of the had come into the camp.

Young's Updated LT              And the Philistines hear the noise of the shouting, and say, ‘What is the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?’ and they perceive that the ark of Jehovah has come in unto the camp.

What is the gist of this verse? The Philistines hear the shout made by the army of Israel and understand that the Ark of God was brought into their camp.

Translation: Then the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting,... The two camps of the two armies are near enough to one another that when the Ark of God comes into the camp of Israel and Israel cries out in relief, the noise is loud enough to be heard by the Philistines.