Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 28-31.

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I struggle to interpret the story about the woman of En-dor who summons Samuel’s spirit (ghost?) for King Saul.  The description of it actually being Samuel who was summoned runs contrary to my understanding from other parts of the Bible about what happens when a medium actually produces results (as opposed to those mediums who are just charlatans).  However, I do not want to get too caught up on that because the point of the story is that King Saul went into his final battle with the Philistines knowing, and feeling, that he had been abandoned by God.  Repeatedly throughout his life, Saul turned to God for aid when things looked bad, but he did not truly turn from his sins.  King Saul sought God’s guidance to deal with problems he could not deal with on his own, but he did not seek God’s guidance in the rest of his life.  So, God finally stopped answering his requests for guidance.  Let us not let ourselves come to that point.

In contrast to that we see what happened with David at almost the same time.  While Saul was visiting a medium to consult Samuel’s spirit about what he should do, David was coming into the Philistine camp.  David had spent his time among the Philistines making it seem like he was attacking his fellow Israelites while actually raiding other peoples in the area (which lends an interesting insight into the peoples of the area at the time).  Now, his deception has led him into a place of prominence in the Philistine order of battle with the Philistine lord under whose protection he had placed himself.  However, the other Philistine lord’s remembered how in the battle involving Goliath the Hebrews who were in their army turned against them.  Therefore they told Achish to send David away.  They did not want David in their order of battle.  This shows God working to spare David from having to go against his own people in this war.  So, while Saul was seeking God’s guidance and not finding it, God was working to put David in the right place at the right time.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 25-27.

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Today’s passage contains three stories which tell us something about how David became the king that he was: the account of Nabal and Abigail, the account of David sparing King Saul’s life again, and the account of David’s time among the Philistines.  Over the years, I have written various things which we can learn from the account of Nabal and Abigail, but I still feel like there is something about that interaction that I am missing.  So, I am going to mention things which I noticed today and see where that takes me.  I never noticed before, but the passage seems to make a comment on the character of Caleb’s descendants.  It says that Abigail was discerning and beautiful, but that Nabal was “harsh and badly behaved, he was a Calebite.”  That seems to me to suggest that Calebites had a reputation for being harsh and lacking in tact.  Almost as if the descendants of Caleb took pride in their lack of tact to the point of being needlessly offensive.  Which reveals to me a lesson for us.

Some people speak plainly and accidentally offend others.  This passage indicates that Nabal went beyond that.  He likely prided himself on being a “plain speaker”, when he actually purposely spoke in ways which offended others.   We see how Nabal did this when he responded to David’s messengers.  Nabal implied that David was powerless to do him either good or harm because David was but a rebellious servant of King Saul.  Then the passage seems to imply that Nabal had a stroke, which led to his death a few days later, when he learned what had almost happened to him because of his rudeness.  Alternatively, it may mean to suggest that his harshness and bad behavior led to his stroke and death.  In either case, the passage clearly shows that being intentionally rude is bad.  Nabal would have called himself “blunt”, when in fact he was rude.  It is not wrong to be blunt and direct.  In fact, it is probably good.  However, there is a difference between being blunt and direct and being rude.  It is wrong to be rude.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 21-24.

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I always notice when I read this that Ahimelech was frightened when David came to Nob, apparently because David was alone.  This suggests that King Saul often sent out men to kill people he saw as a threat of some sort.  I suspect that David had been sent on such missions, but possibly not.  As we read the rest of this passage, it becomes clear that Ahimelech was dedicated to at least appearing to be a loyal subject of King Saul.  We also see that Ahimelech’s fear was justified.  We see David’s behavior contrasted with King Saul’s.  King Saul killed Ahimelech and most of his family because he, Saul, perceived Ahimelech as being disloyal for helping David at a time when almost everyone thought David was still one of King Saul’s favorites.  David, on the other hand, went to Keilah, at significant risk to himself and his men, in order to protect it from Philistine raiders.  Then, when David realized that the men of Keilah would surrender him to King Saul he left without causing any problems in Keilah.  Later when presented with an opportunity to kill King Saul, David refused to do so, or to allow his men to do so.

I want to take note that David had been anointed to be king in Saul’s place, yet he was not willing to raise his hand against King Saul because Saul was God’s anointed.  I struggle to articulate the lesson we learn from this, but we get part of it in Saul’s response to David showing him what he could have done.  Saul tells David that he had repaid Saul with good while Saul had repaid David with evil.  This seems to me to tell us that David did something which the Apostle Paul told us to do in Romans 12.  “Repay no one evil for evil, … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 18-20.

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I like today’s story, but I find it challenging to identify a spiritual lesson for us in it.  This passage makes me really like Jonathan, and then I feel bad about what happens to him as a result of his father’s sin.  So, this is not actually a spiritual lesson, but King Saul demonstrates some behaviors of a bad leader.  When people praised David, Saul became jealous.  Rather than see David’s actions as things which strengthened his kingdom and looking for ways to benefit from David’s skills, Saul felt threatened by him.  When King Saul offered his daughter(s) in marriage to David, he saw it as a means to set David up to be killed by the Philistines.  Instead of seeing it as a way to get David to be loyal to his family, Saul saw David’s success in getting the bride price he set as a threat.  Further, Saul failed to accept his son Jonathan’s assessment of David’s character, or to recognize that the loyalty between them went both ways.  King Saul failed to recognize that his daughter, Michal, also thought highly of David, to the extent of helping him escape Saul’s assassination attempt.  King Saul refused to recognize that both his son and his daughter thought highly of David.  A good leader would have found ways to use David’s success and popularity to strengthen his kingdom.  A good leader recognizes that the success of his subordinates reflects will upon himself.  Throughout the description of King Saul’s reign we see evidence that he was a totalitarian ruler.  He viewed everyone with power which did not depend upon his power as a threat to be eliminated.  A good leader seeks to empower those under them to become as powerful as possible.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 16-17.

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I first thought to title today’s blog, “The Battle Is the Lord’s,” but as I began to gather my thoughts to write I realized that the message God gave Samuel when he thought Eliab was the one to anoint to take Saul’s place applied to Goliath as well.  When Jesse had his sons pass before Samuel, Samuel saw Eliab as having the qualities we look for in a leader: he was tall and handsome, and probably stood with presence (eldest sons often do, they are used to bossing their younger brothers around).  However, God told Samuel that Eliab did not have what He was looking for in the next king.  After Samuel checked each of David’s older brothers, he asked Jesse to send for David.  The fact that David was not present tells us something about how even his father viewed him.  David was just the kid brother.   In the account about Goliath we get some hints as to why God did not choose Eliab, and clear evidence about why He chose David.  We also see in that account reason to believe that Jesse, David’s father, explicitly chose not to include David in the feast with Samuel.  When Jesse needed to send David with supplies to his brothers, he was able to leave someone else in charge of the sheep while David went.  Yet, he did not think it worthwhile to do the same in order to have David present for a feast with Samuel, the man who had made Saul king.

When David was trying to get someone in King Saul’s army to confront Goliath, Eliab did not just call him to account and correct him, he belittled his little brother.  I do not want to condemn Eliab  for this.  However, Eliab should not have been angry with David.  One should even consider that he may have felt called out by David.  Most importantly, we see that God did not choose Eliab to be king because he did not do what David did.  When King Saul had David brought before him to chastise him for trying to instigate trouble among his men, David immediately said, “If no one else is willing to fight this Philistine, I will go.”  David then dismissed Saul’s contention that he was too inexperienced to take on a seasoned warrior.  David said that he had taken on lions and bears to protect his father’s sheep and God had delivered him.  How much more could he expect God to deliver him from this Philistine who had defied the armies of the living God?*  When David confronted Goliath, Goliath proclaimed that he would kill David and cursed David by his gods.  David replied by saying that God would give him the victory bringing glory to His name because Goliath had defied God.  David did not believe he would win because he was the superior warrior or better tactician.  David outright stated that he would win because the battle was the Lord’s.  We will not emerge victorious from this life’s challenges and battles because of our own greatness, any victory worth having will come to us because God gives it to us.  God chose David to be king because he was willing to rely on God, even when others were afraid to act.

Note: this is one of the earliest references in the Bible where an Israelite compares YHWH, the living God, to the gods of other nations, which were carved out of wood, or formed out of metal.  It is clear that David did not fear the gods of the Philistines because they were man made.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 14-15.

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This passage highlights how King Saul went wrong, and gives us a warning of something to watch out for in our own lives.  First, Saul made a foolish vow which almost resulted in him killing his son Jonathan.  Jonathan’s life was spared only because the army insisted that Saul not kill him.  Later, God ordered Saul to conquer and completely destroy the Amalekites and their possessions.  However, Saul kept the best of the cattle and sheep captured from the Amalekites for a sacrificial feast, and spared the life of their king.  When Samuel came to him, King Saul greeted Samuel by saying that he had performed the command of the Lord.  When Samuel called him out for not completely doing as God had commanded, Saul repeated that he had done as God commanded and attempted to blame the people for his failure to destroy all of the sheep and cattle.  In doing so, he glossed over the fact that he had indeed violated God’s command by keeping Agag, the king of the Amalekites, as a captive.

Here’s the thing, I think King Saul actually believed it when he said, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.”  Despite the fact that he clearly had not.  He justified keeping the best of the sheep and cattle because he was going to have a big sacrificial feast.  We all too often do the same sort of thing.  We tell ourselves, “Oh, I am only doing this thing which is contrary to God’s commands in order to do this other thing to honor God.”  I thought of giving an example here, but I think that each of you can look at your lives and see the areas where you are tempted to justify violating God’s commands in order to do something which you think honors God.  We might even do what King Saul did here, blame others for our failure to fully carry out the will of God.  Let us not do that.  Let us examine our lives and our motives and seek to do away with our justifications for not following God’s instructions.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 11-13.

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At the end of yesterday’s passage, after Samuel had anointed Saul king over Israel, Saul went home to Gibeah with some men of valor who chose to accompany him.  Today’s passage begins with Nahash the Ammonite threatening to maim all of the men of Jabesh-gilead.  The people of Jabesh-gilead sent messengers to all of Israel requesting aid.  I point this out because it was the actions of the men of Gibeah which led to the rest of Israel all but wiping out the tribe of Benjamin in the account at the end of the Book of Judges.  Then, when the men of Israel realized that they had almost wiped out Benjamin, they got brides for most of the remaining men from Jabesh-gilead.

After Saul’s victory over Nahash, Samuel called the people of Israel to Gilgal to renew the kingdom and reaffirm Saul as king.  Once they had offered sacrifices to renew their dedication as one people under Saul as king, Samuel gave a farewell address.  In that address, Samuel pointed out how Israel had repeatedly sinned against God, yet God repeatedly sent people to save them and lead them back to Him when they cried out for deliverance.  Now they had sinned yet again by asking for a king, when God was their king.  Yet God honored their request and gave them a king.  Samuel further told them that they needed to live with the consequences of this sin, but that they should serve the Lord going forward and He would not forsake them.  We need to understand the message here.  We have sinned.  We cannot undo those sins.  Instead of focusing on our past sins we need to focus on fear of the Lord and serving Him faithfully going forward.  If we do so God will not forsake us.  However, if we do not put our sins behind us, we will be swept away.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 8-10.

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We do not think enough about how Israel’s request for Samuel to appoint a king over them reflects on Christians’ interaction with government today.  When Israel asked Samuel to appoint a king over them, they were rejecting God as their king.  Christians today often seek for the government to take God’s place over them in much the same way.  The Israelites wanted a king to fight against the Philistines and other threats to themselves.  In the same way, Christians also call on the government to protect them from threats rather than putting their trust in God to protect them.  I want to note that there is a subtle difference between recognizing that God established the government in order to punish evildoers and asking the government to protect ourselves from those evildoers.  I am not going to go into that difference here.  Instead, I am going to focus our minds on not calling on the government to take God’s place in our lives.  Let us put our faith in God, not in kings, not in government.  Samuel also warns them that the king will conscript their sons and daughters to do his bidding.  He further points out that the king will take the best of their goods in order to give those goods to his favorites.  What we overlook is that these things apply to any government which we set up over ourselves.  Those in the government take the best of things and give them to their favorites, to their cronies.  The more we ask of the government, the more power over us that it has.  We see in today’s passage the same issue to which Jesus referred when He said in Matthew 22 “Therefore render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”  Let us be careful not to give to the government that which belongs to God.  The Israelites asked for a king because they were not willing to put their full trust in God.  They thought a king would put less demands on them than God did.  The reverse is true.  A king, the government, will put greater demands upon us than God will.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 4-7.

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When the Israelites lost to the Philistines, they asked each other why God had allowed them to be defeated, but they did not ask God.  Instead, they brought the ark of the covenant to the battlefield, apparently thinking that they could force God to fight for them by doing so.  God doesn’t work that way and allowed Israel to be defeated again in the next battle, allowing the ark of the covenant to be captured.  The Philistines on the other hand thought that they had defeated the Israelites and captured the ark of the God of Israel because their god, Dagon, was more powerful than the God of Israel.  The symbolism of their statue of Dagon falling on its face before the ark of God was not lost on them.  Yes, the first time it happened, they assumed it was just coincidence.  However, when it happened a second time they got the message.  Perhaps the most interesting thing here is what the Philistines decide to do when they wish to return the ark of the covenant to the Israelites.

They do not just take it back to the Israelites and turn it over.  Instead, they put it on a cart and harness two cows which had recently given birth and were still nursing their calves…and which had never been yoked previously.  They then shut up the calves “at home”, which implies to me they shut up the calves on the farm from which the cows were taken.  The cows, yoked to the cart carrying the ark of the covenant, went straight towards Israelite territory, “lowing as they went.”  Anyone who knows anything about milk cows would expect the cows to go towards their calves, or towards the place where they were regularly milked.  “Lowing” refers to the sound milk cows make when their udders are uncomfortable because they need to either nurse their calves or be milked.  So, the cows heading straight for Beth-shemesh is not natural behavior for cows.  Further, the reason they chose two cows which had never been yoked was to ensure that they were not reacting to training.  The Philistines wanted to be absolutely certain that no one could think that there was some purely natural explanation for the cows taking the ark back to Israel.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 1-3.

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When Hannah cried out to the Lord for a son and vowed that if God gave her that son, she would dedicate him to serve the Lord his entire life, she received peace after Eli blessed her.  It reads to me that it was what Eli said to her after her prayer which gave her peace.  I think the writer is telling us that, despite his failings as a father, Eli was a good priest who gave comfort to the people.  Unfortunately, Eli did not see the way in which his sons were abusing their authority as priests until after his sons had “learned” that no one would hold them accountable for their sins.  God sent a man to tell Eli what would happen.  After telling Eli what God’s judgement on his household would be, this man of God made a Messianic prophecy.  He tells Eli that God would set up a faithful priest who will go in and out before God forever.  A casual reading might lead one to think this refers to Samuel.  However, later in this book we learn that Samuel’s sons behaved much like Eli’s sons.  So, this passage clearly refers to someone else.  I see it as a prophecy of Jesus, but I understand if others view it differently.

Now I want to look at the night when God first spoke to Samuel.  When God first called to Samuel, Samuel thought that it was Eli calling him.  As an aside, it seems likely that Samuel was a caretaker for Eli, just as many time children become caretakers for their elderly parents, and thus Eli calling for him in the night was not uncommon.  On the third occasion Eli realized what was going on and explained it to Samuel.  So, when God called to Samuel a fourth time in the night, Samuel responded by saying, “Speak, for your servant hears.”  At which point, God gave Samuel the same message about Eli which He had previously given through the man of God.  In the morning Samuel was afraid to tell Eli what God had said to him and only did so because Eli insisted.  And again we see that Eli was a good man, even though he was a poor father.  Eli accepted the Lord’s judgement on his family and calmed Samuel’s fears.  We learn two things from this incident.  Sometimes God needs to repeat His call before we realize He is speaking to us.  When we realize that God is speaking to us, we need to listen.  Oh, and there is a third lesson: sometimes we will not want to hear what God has to say to us, but we should listen anyway.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.