In this chapter, Saul defeats the Ammonites.
I don’t think we even knew they were in conflict, but apparently the Ammonites are attacking Israel. Not that we should be surprised at this point; it seems like Israel has been in conflict with all of their neighbors for generations. 1 Samuel 9:16 told us that Saul would deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. Even though the Philistines were defeated in 1 Samuel 7, it appears they have become a threat again, and are oppressing Israel.
It’s hard for me to understand the chronology of the next three chapters. In chapter 10, Samuel tells Saul to meet him in Gilgal within 7 days, and without spoiling anything, there is a passage in chapter 13 that implies the 7 days had not yet expired. This would seem to indicate that all of the events of this chapter happened in less than 7 days, including Saul’s messengers traveling around the nation, the Israelite army mustering, and the battle with the Ammonites. I don’t know how that is possible. Admittedly, the nation of Israel is relatively compact by modern standards, so maybe they really could field an army in 2-3 days. Still, it’s difficult for me to imagine how anyone could rally an army of 330,000 people in less than 7 days. In modern times, we could compare this to e.g. the first world war. In the first world war, it took the principal actors (France, Germany, Russia) between a few weeks and a few months to mobilize their national armies. Again though, these were armies of millions of people over significantly larger countries, but also with far more sophisticated infrastructure (i.e. railroads) and advanced preparation. It is not directly comparable, but I think it also gives us an idea of how long I would have expected mobilization to take.
I believe the flow of the story indicates to the contrary, as we will read in the next two chapters. But even at the end of this chapter, we see Samuel and Saul travel to Gilgal, which is perhaps the meeting that Samuel had instructed Saul to go to. This was a point of confusion for me, so hopefully this will help my readers to understand what happened. To the best of my knowledge, everything in this chapter happened within the 7 days that Samuel laid out, and the next chapter likewise.
Next, I would like to point out something in v. 8. The author writes that Saul mustered an army of men from Israel and Judah. Why would he separate Judah from Israel, if the entire nation put together is Israel? The answer is that this is an anachronism of sorts. Some time in the future, we will see Israel be separated into two kingdoms. There will be a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. The southern kingdom will be known as Judah, because Judah is the main tribe in the south (there is also Simeon in the midst of Judah, but Simeon is largely forgotten). The northern kingdom will be known as Israel. This split has not yet happened, but the author is writing this book in a time after the nation was split, and this sentence anticipates their division. It’s really confusing, but for much of the OT going forward, “Israel” does not refer to all of the tribes of Israel, but only the northern tribes. Judah will refer to the southern kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capitol. I will try to clear up these references when I see them.
In the end, Saul takes his army and smashes the Ammonites, delivering the men of Jabesh Gilead (in the land of Gilead, east of the Jordan, part of Manasseh), and Saul is confirmed as king by the jubilant masses. Saul even goes so far as to graciously forgive his earlier detractors.
All things considered, this seems like a good start to Saul’s kingship. He led the people into battle and fought on their behalf, and they are obviously grateful to have such a strong man to help defend them. This is what they had wanted, someone to lead them, defend them and fight for them. Saul, in turn, has the “spirit of God [coming] upon him in power” (v. 6), leading him to defend Israel and wipe out their enemies. It is a good start. We will see how things progress.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 10
In this chapter, Saul is anointed and made king over Israel.
There are so many fascinating little details in this chapter I hardly know where to start. I guess we can start at the very beginning, with Samuel anointing Saul with oil. This appears to be a cultural tradition that existed at the time, that pouring oil onto someone is a sign of favor. Nowhere is this explained, so we’ll just have to take it for granted.
Samuel tells Saul about a series of events that will happen through the day, concluding with the “spirit of the LORD” coming upon Saul, causing him to prophesy. The word prophesy here is the same word as when the 70 elders of Israel prophesied in Num 11:25-27, which was something I discussed extensively at the time, and I believe that this is the same kind of prophesying as there. But what I find more interesting is verse 6, where Saul “will be changed into a different person” as a result. Is this what prepares him for the kingship? This leaves me equally wondering what kind of man Saul must have been before, and what kind of man he will become after.
Part of this question is answered by the next paragraph, verses 9-12. Apparently Saul is not the sort of person who would normally be amongst the prophets. I love the dialogue between “all those who had formerly known him” and “a man who lived there”. What the people who knew Saul ask is, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” This is a remark of surprise; they never would have expected him to associate with the prophets. Keep in mind, the prophets would have been some of the most dedicated followers of the LORD, so this suggests pretty strongly that Saul is not the most religious fellow in the nation. He might be among the least.
But I love the response in verse 12, when the man asks “and who is their father?” Perhaps people who knew him would not expect the son of Kish to be amongst the prophets, but you could just as well ask why anybody else is amongst the prophets. Nobody is really qualified to be amongst the LORD’s prophets; everyone is there because they choose to be there, or like Saul, they were chosen.
After all this, Saul being anointed and joining with the prophets, still nobody knows that he is going to become king. Samuel deliberately sent away the servant before anointing Saul, and in v. 16 Saul deliberately omits telling his uncle about the kingship. Saul has been anointed as king, but the reality of it hasn’t yet set in. This is addressed next when Samuel calls the people together to choose a king by lot. This is more or less the equivalent of rolling dice and choosing the king by random selection. Samuel probably wouldn’t have been able to influence the randomness, so this is a second confirmation of Saul as king. Perhaps more importantly, it is a very public selection, so now the entire nation knows that Saul has been chosen to be king, and from v. 26-27 we know that some people accepted it and some people didn’t.
This leads me to my next amusing detail, which is Saul “hiding among the baggage”. I can’t even imagine what series of thoughts would make him believe this is a good idea. Inauspicious metaphors abound here: Saul is lost in his own personal baggage, much like he is hiding in the assembly’s baggage. But seriously, why is he there? It just doesn’t make sense, unless he’s trying to avoid something; is he trying to avoid his selection as king, by staying away from the assembly?
Out of this chapter, I think my favorite two parts are the dialogue exchanged in v. 11-12 and the mental image of Saul hiding in the baggage. It’s also interesting to imagine this procession of prophets, playing many different instruments and Saul getting swept along with them.
In the end, Samuel writes down the “regulations of the kingship”, and I wonder how similar that is to Deut 17 when Moses had previously describes the laws governing the selection and behavior of kings over Israel. We don’t have any record of the regulations that Samuel gave Saul, but I would guess it’s similar to what is recorded in Deuteronomy.
Samuel also told Saul to go to Gilgal, and I believe this hasn’t happened yet. We will see what happens in the next couple chapters with this.
There are so many fascinating little details in this chapter I hardly know where to start. I guess we can start at the very beginning, with Samuel anointing Saul with oil. This appears to be a cultural tradition that existed at the time, that pouring oil onto someone is a sign of favor. Nowhere is this explained, so we’ll just have to take it for granted.
Samuel tells Saul about a series of events that will happen through the day, concluding with the “spirit of the LORD” coming upon Saul, causing him to prophesy. The word prophesy here is the same word as when the 70 elders of Israel prophesied in Num 11:25-27, which was something I discussed extensively at the time, and I believe that this is the same kind of prophesying as there. But what I find more interesting is verse 6, where Saul “will be changed into a different person” as a result. Is this what prepares him for the kingship? This leaves me equally wondering what kind of man Saul must have been before, and what kind of man he will become after.
Part of this question is answered by the next paragraph, verses 9-12. Apparently Saul is not the sort of person who would normally be amongst the prophets. I love the dialogue between “all those who had formerly known him” and “a man who lived there”. What the people who knew Saul ask is, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” This is a remark of surprise; they never would have expected him to associate with the prophets. Keep in mind, the prophets would have been some of the most dedicated followers of the LORD, so this suggests pretty strongly that Saul is not the most religious fellow in the nation. He might be among the least.
But I love the response in verse 12, when the man asks “and who is their father?” Perhaps people who knew him would not expect the son of Kish to be amongst the prophets, but you could just as well ask why anybody else is amongst the prophets. Nobody is really qualified to be amongst the LORD’s prophets; everyone is there because they choose to be there, or like Saul, they were chosen.
After all this, Saul being anointed and joining with the prophets, still nobody knows that he is going to become king. Samuel deliberately sent away the servant before anointing Saul, and in v. 16 Saul deliberately omits telling his uncle about the kingship. Saul has been anointed as king, but the reality of it hasn’t yet set in. This is addressed next when Samuel calls the people together to choose a king by lot. This is more or less the equivalent of rolling dice and choosing the king by random selection. Samuel probably wouldn’t have been able to influence the randomness, so this is a second confirmation of Saul as king. Perhaps more importantly, it is a very public selection, so now the entire nation knows that Saul has been chosen to be king, and from v. 26-27 we know that some people accepted it and some people didn’t.
This leads me to my next amusing detail, which is Saul “hiding among the baggage”. I can’t even imagine what series of thoughts would make him believe this is a good idea. Inauspicious metaphors abound here: Saul is lost in his own personal baggage, much like he is hiding in the assembly’s baggage. But seriously, why is he there? It just doesn’t make sense, unless he’s trying to avoid something; is he trying to avoid his selection as king, by staying away from the assembly?
Out of this chapter, I think my favorite two parts are the dialogue exchanged in v. 11-12 and the mental image of Saul hiding in the baggage. It’s also interesting to imagine this procession of prophets, playing many different instruments and Saul getting swept along with them.
In the end, Samuel writes down the “regulations of the kingship”, and I wonder how similar that is to Deut 17 when Moses had previously describes the laws governing the selection and behavior of kings over Israel. We don’t have any record of the regulations that Samuel gave Saul, but I would guess it’s similar to what is recorded in Deuteronomy.
Samuel also told Saul to go to Gilgal, and I believe this hasn’t happened yet. We will see what happens in the next couple chapters with this.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 9
In this chapter, a young man named Saul meets Samuel, and the LORD tells Samuel that Saul will be king.
This chapter introduces us to Saul, and also foreshadows that he will be king. He is introduced to us wandering through the Ephraimite countryside, looking for his father’s lost donkeys. “Lost” and “wandering” is a pretty good way to describe Israel as a nation, too. They spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness of Sin, and now that they have settled in the promised land, their wandering has become more metaphorical, but how else are we to describe the Judges period? Each man doing what is right in his own eyes, they are like sheep without a shepherd, straying wherever their myopic vision leads them. Although Saul is chasing lost donkeys, soon he will be chasing lost Israelites. We will see if he does well or if he does poorly.
I love the minor note in verse 9 telling us that “the prophet of today used to be called a seer”. It’s just one of those funny little things that show us how even to the ancient author, the stories he is reciting to us are even older, possibly handed down from earlier generations. It’s also possible that this is a later addition, added to the story as the language became more and more archaic to those reading and transcribing it.
In any case, things just so happened to be arranged that Saul meets with Samuel, and when Saul asks where the seer’s house is (in verse 18), he gets a somewhat unexpected response. I am the seer, eat with me, and by the way, your donkeys are fine. I don’t think there’s many people who can answer your questions before you ask them, so I’m sure this must have been an interesting experience for Saul. I know a few prophetic people and I can say that things like this never get old. There is something uniquely penetrating about being told “all that is in your heart” by a stranger who should not know such things, yet he does.
Saul’s response is very much like Gideon’s from Judges 6:15: I come from a weak and small family, how is it possible that I could be the “desire of Israel”? Just like Gideon, the LORD has a tendency to prefer selecting the weak as his methods of salvation. What’s different about Saul is that he personally is an “impressive young man”, “a head taller than any of the others” (v. 2). Saul is physically strong, but that does not qualify him to be king. He is from a weak family, but that does not disqualify him. The only thing that could qualify him is his heart. And the LORD has chosen Saul, so perhaps he will lead well? However, I remember Samuel’s warning from the prior chapter, and I fear that Saul may not prove a capable leader.
This chapter introduces us to Saul, and also foreshadows that he will be king. He is introduced to us wandering through the Ephraimite countryside, looking for his father’s lost donkeys. “Lost” and “wandering” is a pretty good way to describe Israel as a nation, too. They spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness of Sin, and now that they have settled in the promised land, their wandering has become more metaphorical, but how else are we to describe the Judges period? Each man doing what is right in his own eyes, they are like sheep without a shepherd, straying wherever their myopic vision leads them. Although Saul is chasing lost donkeys, soon he will be chasing lost Israelites. We will see if he does well or if he does poorly.
I love the minor note in verse 9 telling us that “the prophet of today used to be called a seer”. It’s just one of those funny little things that show us how even to the ancient author, the stories he is reciting to us are even older, possibly handed down from earlier generations. It’s also possible that this is a later addition, added to the story as the language became more and more archaic to those reading and transcribing it.
In any case, things just so happened to be arranged that Saul meets with Samuel, and when Saul asks where the seer’s house is (in verse 18), he gets a somewhat unexpected response. I am the seer, eat with me, and by the way, your donkeys are fine. I don’t think there’s many people who can answer your questions before you ask them, so I’m sure this must have been an interesting experience for Saul. I know a few prophetic people and I can say that things like this never get old. There is something uniquely penetrating about being told “all that is in your heart” by a stranger who should not know such things, yet he does.
Saul’s response is very much like Gideon’s from Judges 6:15: I come from a weak and small family, how is it possible that I could be the “desire of Israel”? Just like Gideon, the LORD has a tendency to prefer selecting the weak as his methods of salvation. What’s different about Saul is that he personally is an “impressive young man”, “a head taller than any of the others” (v. 2). Saul is physically strong, but that does not qualify him to be king. He is from a weak family, but that does not disqualify him. The only thing that could qualify him is his heart. And the LORD has chosen Saul, so perhaps he will lead well? However, I remember Samuel’s warning from the prior chapter, and I fear that Saul may not prove a capable leader.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 8
In this chapter the people of Israel ask Samuel to select for them a king.
This chapter is quite literally where the Judges cycle ends and where the kingdom period begins. Everything that we have read up to this point in 1 Samuel has been providing us the context about Samuel’s life and the state of the nation, such that the nation would desire to have a king and such that Samuel would be available to provide one. The people give us three reasons why they want a king. The first is the corruption of Samuel’s sons. The second is that they want to be like all the other nations around them. The third is that they want a king to lead them and to “fight our battles.”
The corruption of Samuel’s sons is something I really wonder about. How does someone whose life is marked by such righteousness have sons who “accepted bribes and perverted justice”? What happened in their lives and in their hearts, such that they did not walk in Samuel’s ways? I think this is really challenging, especially for parents, because it’s hard to imagine people who walk closer to the LORD than Samuel. But I don’t know; we aren’t given any details or explanation of his sons lives, so it’s difficult to say anything about them. This isn’t the only time in Israel’s history that a righteous leader had corrupt or idolatrous children. It’s something that has frequently bothered me. Intellectually, I believe that everyone has a choice to follow the LORD or not, but from a practical standpoint I know how powerful of an influence parents have on the formation of their children. How is it possible that so many righteous leaders could have children who strayed so far from their path? I don’t have answers, I only have questions.
The second point, that Israel wishes to be like the nations around them, has been a pervasive issue through much of the OT. In Deut 20:18, Moses threatened Israel that they should not allow the nations in the promised land to survive, because they would teach Israel to worship other gods and in doing so, to sin. Other parts of the OT warn Israel against intermarrying with the other nations of the promised land, because of this same issue. In general, the LORD (through Moses) expresses a concern that Israel would seek to adopt the culture and religion of the nations around them and through that to be immersed in the idolatry and “detestable practices” of those nations. Verse 5 of this chapter says very specifically that they want a king “such as all the other nations have.” Verse 20 says “Then we will be like all the other nations”. Having a king is just one aspect that Israel is seeking to adopt. We have seen elsewhere that Israel has been worshiping “foreign gods” and “ashtoreths”, wooden poles that are dedicated to Ashurah, a fertility goddess. In all of these ways, Israel is threatened by a sort of cultural extinction if they intermarry and adopt the customs of the nations around them.
The last point is that they want a king to lead them in battle and fight on their behalf. In essence, they want a king to protect and guide them, to help them to feel safe, like having a parent to watch over them. Their request displeases Samuel because the Israelites are implicitly rejecting the LORD when they ask for a king. The LORD is supposed to be their king, leading them in battle, guiding and protecting them. By asking for a physical king, they are “rejecting me as their king” (v. 7).
It’s a little hard to understand this criticism of Israel's behavior, because in Deuteronomy Moses implies that Israel will eventually have a king. Deut 17 even lays out the process for how to select a king, and laws that should govern the hypothetical king’s behavior. It’s strange to think of Moses explaining laws governing the kingship if here, the LORD and Samuel are rebuking Israel for requesting a king as such. It seems contradictory.
Clearly Moses was anticipating they would ask for a king. Perhaps the passage in Deut 17 is not meant to condone this, but just to anticipate their request and govern the eventual kingship. I'm not sure.
Another plausible suggestion I’ve heard is that the LORD wanted to give them a king eventually, but not at this time. Or perhaps the LORD would tell them when to get a king, and that time is not now.
Certainly Samuel thinks it’s a bad idea, but this is the event that takes us out of the Judges cycle. I personally would hypothesize that Israel as a nation is getting battle-weary from their many defeats and oppression at the hands of other nations, and that’s why they are asking for a king. They expect that somehow, having a king will keep them from the cyclical tragedies that have been striking their nation every 20-40 years. If they understood that the root cause of all their problems is disobedience to the LORD, they would know that having a king is going to change nothing. However, they prefer to follow a man that they can see to a God that they cannot. Even though the leadership of God will always be superior, they desire something visible and tangible to make them feel safe, rather than the invisible God to help them to actually be safe.
In the end, the LORD commands Samuel to give them a king, but after all of Samuel’s warnings it is hard to see how this can end well.
This chapter is quite literally where the Judges cycle ends and where the kingdom period begins. Everything that we have read up to this point in 1 Samuel has been providing us the context about Samuel’s life and the state of the nation, such that the nation would desire to have a king and such that Samuel would be available to provide one. The people give us three reasons why they want a king. The first is the corruption of Samuel’s sons. The second is that they want to be like all the other nations around them. The third is that they want a king to lead them and to “fight our battles.”
The corruption of Samuel’s sons is something I really wonder about. How does someone whose life is marked by such righteousness have sons who “accepted bribes and perverted justice”? What happened in their lives and in their hearts, such that they did not walk in Samuel’s ways? I think this is really challenging, especially for parents, because it’s hard to imagine people who walk closer to the LORD than Samuel. But I don’t know; we aren’t given any details or explanation of his sons lives, so it’s difficult to say anything about them. This isn’t the only time in Israel’s history that a righteous leader had corrupt or idolatrous children. It’s something that has frequently bothered me. Intellectually, I believe that everyone has a choice to follow the LORD or not, but from a practical standpoint I know how powerful of an influence parents have on the formation of their children. How is it possible that so many righteous leaders could have children who strayed so far from their path? I don’t have answers, I only have questions.
The second point, that Israel wishes to be like the nations around them, has been a pervasive issue through much of the OT. In Deut 20:18, Moses threatened Israel that they should not allow the nations in the promised land to survive, because they would teach Israel to worship other gods and in doing so, to sin. Other parts of the OT warn Israel against intermarrying with the other nations of the promised land, because of this same issue. In general, the LORD (through Moses) expresses a concern that Israel would seek to adopt the culture and religion of the nations around them and through that to be immersed in the idolatry and “detestable practices” of those nations. Verse 5 of this chapter says very specifically that they want a king “such as all the other nations have.” Verse 20 says “Then we will be like all the other nations”. Having a king is just one aspect that Israel is seeking to adopt. We have seen elsewhere that Israel has been worshiping “foreign gods” and “ashtoreths”, wooden poles that are dedicated to Ashurah, a fertility goddess. In all of these ways, Israel is threatened by a sort of cultural extinction if they intermarry and adopt the customs of the nations around them.
The last point is that they want a king to lead them in battle and fight on their behalf. In essence, they want a king to protect and guide them, to help them to feel safe, like having a parent to watch over them. Their request displeases Samuel because the Israelites are implicitly rejecting the LORD when they ask for a king. The LORD is supposed to be their king, leading them in battle, guiding and protecting them. By asking for a physical king, they are “rejecting me as their king” (v. 7).
It’s a little hard to understand this criticism of Israel's behavior, because in Deuteronomy Moses implies that Israel will eventually have a king. Deut 17 even lays out the process for how to select a king, and laws that should govern the hypothetical king’s behavior. It’s strange to think of Moses explaining laws governing the kingship if here, the LORD and Samuel are rebuking Israel for requesting a king as such. It seems contradictory.
Clearly Moses was anticipating they would ask for a king. Perhaps the passage in Deut 17 is not meant to condone this, but just to anticipate their request and govern the eventual kingship. I'm not sure.
Another plausible suggestion I’ve heard is that the LORD wanted to give them a king eventually, but not at this time. Or perhaps the LORD would tell them when to get a king, and that time is not now.
Certainly Samuel thinks it’s a bad idea, but this is the event that takes us out of the Judges cycle. I personally would hypothesize that Israel as a nation is getting battle-weary from their many defeats and oppression at the hands of other nations, and that’s why they are asking for a king. They expect that somehow, having a king will keep them from the cyclical tragedies that have been striking their nation every 20-40 years. If they understood that the root cause of all their problems is disobedience to the LORD, they would know that having a king is going to change nothing. However, they prefer to follow a man that they can see to a God that they cannot. Even though the leadership of God will always be superior, they desire something visible and tangible to make them feel safe, rather than the invisible God to help them to actually be safe.
In the end, the LORD commands Samuel to give them a king, but after all of Samuel’s warnings it is hard to see how this can end well.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 7
In this chapter Israel defeats the Philistines in battle.
Israel has recovered the ark, by no action of their own. To them, it must have been pretty strange seeing an undriven cart riding into Beth Shemesh containing their nation’s most holy relic and a symbol of the LORD’s presence. For whatever reason, they did not take it back to the tabernacle at Shiloh, but left it for 20 years in a man’s house in Kiriath Jearim. And after all of the defeats and embarassment that they had suffered, Israel did once more what they had done so many times before, and they repented. This really is another “Judges cycle” like from the book of Judges. After suffering a staggering defeat and living in bondage to the Philistines for 20 years, they “mourned and sought after the LORD”.
Samuel calls the people to gather at Mizpah, in a sort of religious convocation. Incidentally, their gathering could also be interpreted as a military act because they are essentially mustering an army at the same time. What’s funny is that Mizpah is actually the same place where the Israelites gathered in Judges 10 when they wanted to fight against the Ammonites, after “they got rid of the foreign gods among them”. It’s hilarious how similar all these events are to the episodes from the book of Judges.
The Philistines, as I said, interpreted the Israelites’ gathering as an act of rebellion. The Israelites were gathering together so that they could fight against the Philistines, who were oppressing them at the time, and the Philistines were not willing to let them go. The Philistines also gather to fight, but the LORD intercedes on behalf of Israel, bringing “loud thunder” to disrupt the Philistines and give Israel victory. The Philistines are defeated for the rest of Samuel’s lifetime, and Samuel judges Israel from his hometown of Ramah. This is not where he was raised, since he grew up near the tabernacle in Shiloh. But what we read in chapter 1 of this book is that Samuel’s parents were from Ramah of Ephraim, so it appears that Samuel moved back to the town of his birth and his family.
So far, everything is the same as prior Judges cycles. Now we will see if Israel dives back into sin, like earlier generations, or if they will maintain their devotion to the LORD. What we will read in later chapters is that while the Philistines are defeated, they are not crushed, and they return to attack Israel towards the end of Samuel's lifetime.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 6
In this chapter, the ark of the LORD is returned to Israel.
The basic premise of this chapter is the Philistines asking their “priests and diviners” what they should do to return the ark to Israel, because everywhere they keep it in their own lands brings nothing but death. The ritual involves bringing a “guilt offering” for the LORD, and sending it back on a new cart with two cows that have never pulled a yoke, and then they should just let it go and see what happens. When they do this, the cows behave exactly as the priests and diviners expected, delivering the ark back to the town of Beth Shemesh. God “strikes down” some people for looking into the ark, but other than that everyone lives happily ever after.
Is it just me, or does this whole story seem a little strange? In particular, how is it possible that the priests and diviners of the Philistines, who worship false gods, would know what things they could do to bring the ark back to Israel? Can anyone guess what a “cow that has calved” would behave if her calf is taken away and penned up? And these are two cows that have never pulled a cart before, so they have no training or experience doing this kind of work. The natural expectation is that the cows would not pull the cart, they would turn around and go in search of their calves. They would not pull in the same direction, and even if they weren’t searching for their calves, they would probably walk to a field somewhere and start eating grass. It simply doesn’t make sense that they would pull the cart to Israel, “keeping on the road and lowing all the way”.
That’s the point, of course. The diviners set this up as a test, because it would take some sort of supernatural intervention for the cows to behave completely contrary to their nature, delivering the ark up to Israel. (With some irony, the cows also delivered themselves up as a burnt offering.) What I find more peculiar about this story is that the diviners knew how to test the LORD’s will in this matter. I’m not sure how exactly to express this. By one interpretation, we could say that it was the wisdom of the diviners that they knew the correct test. By another interpretation, we could say it’s like Gideon’s fleece, that the diviners simply could have done anything and the LORD would have responded to get them to bring back the ark to Israel.
I think there are two things about this that are interesting. The first is to draw a parallel between this story and the story of Balaam. By all regards, Balaam was also a pagan prophet/diviner and not a follower of the LORD. However, the story of Balaam (Num 22-24) also contains references to Balaam speaking to the LORD at some times and having the “spirit of God” come upon him before he prophesied at other times (Num 24:2). I would not otherwise have envisioned such a close interaction between a pagan prophet (who was later killed by Israelites because he helped to lead Israel into sexual immorality) and the LORD. This story isn’t quite the same, but it also contains the notion of the LORD interacting in some ways with idolatrous priests.
The second is to observe how the LORD relates to people outside of the covenant. Almost all of the OT is about how the LORD relates to Israel, or how Israel relates to other nations. In the cases where the LORD does speak to other nations, it is almost always through an Israelite prophet who is himself under the covenant. In this case (and in the case of Balaam), we can read about how the LORD interacts directly with the people from other nations.
To be clear, I think the OT was written by Israelites and for Israelites. In so many ways, it is a story about Israel, and that is what it is meant to be. The text is biased towards Israel for this reason, and generally omits anything that does not relate in some way to Israel, so the rarity of passages that describe the LORD speaking directly to other nations is in large part a result of this bias.
However, every nation has a story; every person has a story. Not every story is told in the OT, but that doesn’t mean those stories don’t exist. And every story, in one way or another, contains the LORD, who is the creator of the universe and everything within it. It should not surprise us, then, to find the LORD interacting with people outside of the covenant. Even more, it is those interactions that bring us into the covenant in the first place. When the LORD first spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12, Abraham was not under the covenant. And when the LORD speaks to every man or woman in our present age, and guides our hearts to him, we are not at that time under the covenant. The covenant itself is an act of God brought to strangers who did not previously know him.
Therefore, I do not find the contents of this chapter surprising, but I do find it unusual, because there are not many passages like this where pagan priests mediate between the LORD and other people. I believe that God has spoken to unbelievers in many times and many ways, but it's not frequently described in the OT due to a sort of selection bias implied by the Israelite authorship of these books.
We also discover from this chapter that rats were part of the plague. This wasn’t mentioned in the previous chapters, but golden rats form part of the guilt offering, so by implication it must have been part of the curse as well.
Lastly, when the ark gets to Israel, verse 19 says that 70 people died “because they had looked into the ark of the LORD”. There are two notes I want to make about this verse. First, the covenant does not explicitly condemn looking into the ark. However, only Levites would be permitted to carry it, and even then I’m not sure if they were permitted to touch it. Opening and looking into it is, in this case, a kind of sacrilege. What’s interesting is that Samuel (who is not a Levite or priest) slept in the room with the ark. I think this shows more than anything else the importance of intent, and not just action. Samuel could touch the ark and live because he did so respectfully; the 70 who died were killed because they looked into the ark out of curiosity and not respect. Or at least, that’s what I would guess. In the end, the people decide that the LORD is too holy to remain in their presence, so they send messengers to Kiriath Jearim to move the ark there.
The second point is about the number 70. Is it 70, or is it 50070? This is a really minor point, but it’s got a surprisingly long story behind it. The reason why this is even an issue is that some manuscripts contain the Hebrew number 70, and some contain the number 50070. The Septuagint also contains the number 50070, and the majority of extant Hebrew manuscripts (a.k.a. the Masoretic Text) contain the number 50070. But God killing exactly 50070 people is both impractical and unrealistic. It’s impractical because most estimates would not even put the entire town’s population at 50000, and it’s unrealistic because it doesn’t make sense why God would kill such a precise number of people.
From what I’ve read, the textual difference in Hebrew between 50070 and 70 is very small, so it could have been a typographical error that happened somewhere early in transmission, and the error was reproduced for generations until it got into the Masoretic Text. Its presence in the Septuagint means that such an error (if that is the source) had to have occurred before the 1st century BCE.
This is the simplest and most likely explanation. However, to many people it raises important issues about the meaning and fidelity of the biblical text. Especially to people who believe in scriptural infallability, it can be hard to accept the idea of an error in transmission.
After all of the time that I have spent studying biblical archaeology and translation methods, I don’t think there is any inconsistency here. This is something I discussed more in my introduction to bible translations at the beginning of this commentary, but to summarize, the world has many thousands of extant bible fragments. Some of these are short, and some of them contain the entire text of the old and new testaments. Some of them are old, and some of them are very new. Even the bibles of our day will at some point become an “extant bible fragment”, just like the Septuagint and Vulgate of earlier periods are the source manuscripts of our day. As one would expect, there are thousands of differences between all of these manuscripts, and nearly all of them are minor (many don’t affect the meaning at all, like if I forgot to put a period or comma somewhere). Scholars produce unified manuscripts by taking all of these fragments and reconciling the differences. It’s a complicated process, but the essence is that they are trying to identify what the original source text would have contained (the original source is called the “autograph”).
So it is meaningless to say that every manuscript that exists is “infallible”. There are too many differences to do that. Some people will say that the original autographs are infallible, but that errors can sometimes emerge in derived copies. That leaves me wondering what it even means to say that the originals are infallible if we no longer have them. Infallibility was not one of the criteria used to select the canonical books of the bible, and even further, different churches have different bibles (the Catholic bible includes a few books that Protestant bibles do not, and Eastern Orthodox bibles have a few extra books on top of that): are all of these infallible? Only some? If so, which ones?
My personal opinion is that these kinds of questions have no satisfying resolution. Further, I do not think these are the right questions to ask. The only way the bible could have ever gotten down to us is if God shaped and controlled its transmission, not just the original authorship. But what does any of this mean to me? I think the right question to ask is, “does God use the bible to teach us about himself, about ourselves, and about how to live in the world?” I don’t find pedantic arguments about the technical definition of “infallible” to be constructive.
I am very pragmatic: if God uses the bible to teach me about life, the universe and everything, then I should read it. To me, that is the true measure of authenticity. If God speaks through some text, then that text becomes the word of God in that moment and in that way. In other moments and other ways, it might not be the word of God, just as much as people use the bible to justify e.g. violence or slavery. I believe the LORD can speak through many things. One day he might speak through the bible, another day he might speak through a dream, another day he might speak through a newspaper article or science fiction or anything else. In a more ephemeral sense, everything can be the word of God to someone and not be the word of God to another. Romans 1:20 says that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” The way that I would rephrase this is that all of creation exists to testify to the “invisible qualities” of God, and in that sense everything is the word of God.
But to the people who do not understand, it might not be the word of God, insomuch as God does not speak to those people through these things. There is something powerful about the word of God. There have been times where I felt the word of God acting upon my life like an external force; something concrete, real and very, very powerful. These times form the minority of my experience. Most of the time I pass through life hearing very little from God on a day to day basis. But everything that I hear, I value. I believe that this is a good way to live.
From all this, it should be obvious why I am not personally concerned about 70 or 50070 dead Israelites from a bygone era that may or may not be allegorical depending on whom you ask. What I care about is the reality of God’s voice speaking into my life from anything or everything in creation. If the LORD chooses to honor the bible by speaking through it, who am I to gainsay him? But if he speaks through the natural world or anything else, who am I to contradict? The only thing that I know for sure is what Moses said in Deuteronomy 8:3, that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” I can’t afford to choose what words I want and what I don’t. I need every word. For several years when I was first learning about Christianity, I had a pervasive fear about “what if I miss a word”. What if God is speaking something to me, but I am not mature or wise enough to discern it, or I’m distracted or anything else happens. I think this is similar to the issue of mistranslation: what if God created some original infallible bible, but it has been corrupted over time (as some people believe) and no longer corresponds with the original message. God might be speaking, some would say, but we are no longer capable of hearing it.
What I eventually realized is that God understands me. He knows what I am capable of hearing and what I’m not. He knows how to speak to me in a way that I understand, and if there’s something he wants me to know, he won’t just throw it out there and leave me to figure it out on my own. If God speaks, he has the power to both bring a message to us and also enable us to understand it. I have never felt that this relieved me from the importance of trying to understand, but it relieved me from the fear of failing. It works the same way with the bible. He isn’t going to just “throw out there” an autographical text sometime between 1100 and 300 BCE and leave it up to the world to ponder over it and mine it for lessons about life. The whole reason why I talked so much about the “word of God” as distinct from the bible is because God is capable of actively empowering the bible to speak messages to us. God speaks the message, but he also gives us the ability to understand it if we are sincere and willing to hear it.
I am still growing in wisdom and discernment, and I hope to continue growing in these for a long time. But I do not depend on my wisdom to perceive the word of God; I depend on the Spirit of God enabling me to understand. As 1 Corinthians 2 beautifully explains it, “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him - but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” God reveals all things by his Spirit, and how much more does he reveal the things of God, those words that he speaks to our hearts to guide us to him.
In summary, I feel like in some ways it is God’s responsibility to speak to me in a way that I can understand, and it is my responsibility what I decide to do with it.
The basic premise of this chapter is the Philistines asking their “priests and diviners” what they should do to return the ark to Israel, because everywhere they keep it in their own lands brings nothing but death. The ritual involves bringing a “guilt offering” for the LORD, and sending it back on a new cart with two cows that have never pulled a yoke, and then they should just let it go and see what happens. When they do this, the cows behave exactly as the priests and diviners expected, delivering the ark back to the town of Beth Shemesh. God “strikes down” some people for looking into the ark, but other than that everyone lives happily ever after.
Is it just me, or does this whole story seem a little strange? In particular, how is it possible that the priests and diviners of the Philistines, who worship false gods, would know what things they could do to bring the ark back to Israel? Can anyone guess what a “cow that has calved” would behave if her calf is taken away and penned up? And these are two cows that have never pulled a cart before, so they have no training or experience doing this kind of work. The natural expectation is that the cows would not pull the cart, they would turn around and go in search of their calves. They would not pull in the same direction, and even if they weren’t searching for their calves, they would probably walk to a field somewhere and start eating grass. It simply doesn’t make sense that they would pull the cart to Israel, “keeping on the road and lowing all the way”.
That’s the point, of course. The diviners set this up as a test, because it would take some sort of supernatural intervention for the cows to behave completely contrary to their nature, delivering the ark up to Israel. (With some irony, the cows also delivered themselves up as a burnt offering.) What I find more peculiar about this story is that the diviners knew how to test the LORD’s will in this matter. I’m not sure how exactly to express this. By one interpretation, we could say that it was the wisdom of the diviners that they knew the correct test. By another interpretation, we could say it’s like Gideon’s fleece, that the diviners simply could have done anything and the LORD would have responded to get them to bring back the ark to Israel.
I think there are two things about this that are interesting. The first is to draw a parallel between this story and the story of Balaam. By all regards, Balaam was also a pagan prophet/diviner and not a follower of the LORD. However, the story of Balaam (Num 22-24) also contains references to Balaam speaking to the LORD at some times and having the “spirit of God” come upon him before he prophesied at other times (Num 24:2). I would not otherwise have envisioned such a close interaction between a pagan prophet (who was later killed by Israelites because he helped to lead Israel into sexual immorality) and the LORD. This story isn’t quite the same, but it also contains the notion of the LORD interacting in some ways with idolatrous priests.
The second is to observe how the LORD relates to people outside of the covenant. Almost all of the OT is about how the LORD relates to Israel, or how Israel relates to other nations. In the cases where the LORD does speak to other nations, it is almost always through an Israelite prophet who is himself under the covenant. In this case (and in the case of Balaam), we can read about how the LORD interacts directly with the people from other nations.
To be clear, I think the OT was written by Israelites and for Israelites. In so many ways, it is a story about Israel, and that is what it is meant to be. The text is biased towards Israel for this reason, and generally omits anything that does not relate in some way to Israel, so the rarity of passages that describe the LORD speaking directly to other nations is in large part a result of this bias.
However, every nation has a story; every person has a story. Not every story is told in the OT, but that doesn’t mean those stories don’t exist. And every story, in one way or another, contains the LORD, who is the creator of the universe and everything within it. It should not surprise us, then, to find the LORD interacting with people outside of the covenant. Even more, it is those interactions that bring us into the covenant in the first place. When the LORD first spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12, Abraham was not under the covenant. And when the LORD speaks to every man or woman in our present age, and guides our hearts to him, we are not at that time under the covenant. The covenant itself is an act of God brought to strangers who did not previously know him.
Therefore, I do not find the contents of this chapter surprising, but I do find it unusual, because there are not many passages like this where pagan priests mediate between the LORD and other people. I believe that God has spoken to unbelievers in many times and many ways, but it's not frequently described in the OT due to a sort of selection bias implied by the Israelite authorship of these books.
We also discover from this chapter that rats were part of the plague. This wasn’t mentioned in the previous chapters, but golden rats form part of the guilt offering, so by implication it must have been part of the curse as well.
Lastly, when the ark gets to Israel, verse 19 says that 70 people died “because they had looked into the ark of the LORD”. There are two notes I want to make about this verse. First, the covenant does not explicitly condemn looking into the ark. However, only Levites would be permitted to carry it, and even then I’m not sure if they were permitted to touch it. Opening and looking into it is, in this case, a kind of sacrilege. What’s interesting is that Samuel (who is not a Levite or priest) slept in the room with the ark. I think this shows more than anything else the importance of intent, and not just action. Samuel could touch the ark and live because he did so respectfully; the 70 who died were killed because they looked into the ark out of curiosity and not respect. Or at least, that’s what I would guess. In the end, the people decide that the LORD is too holy to remain in their presence, so they send messengers to Kiriath Jearim to move the ark there.
The second point is about the number 70. Is it 70, or is it 50070? This is a really minor point, but it’s got a surprisingly long story behind it. The reason why this is even an issue is that some manuscripts contain the Hebrew number 70, and some contain the number 50070. The Septuagint also contains the number 50070, and the majority of extant Hebrew manuscripts (a.k.a. the Masoretic Text) contain the number 50070. But God killing exactly 50070 people is both impractical and unrealistic. It’s impractical because most estimates would not even put the entire town’s population at 50000, and it’s unrealistic because it doesn’t make sense why God would kill such a precise number of people.
From what I’ve read, the textual difference in Hebrew between 50070 and 70 is very small, so it could have been a typographical error that happened somewhere early in transmission, and the error was reproduced for generations until it got into the Masoretic Text. Its presence in the Septuagint means that such an error (if that is the source) had to have occurred before the 1st century BCE.
This is the simplest and most likely explanation. However, to many people it raises important issues about the meaning and fidelity of the biblical text. Especially to people who believe in scriptural infallability, it can be hard to accept the idea of an error in transmission.
After all of the time that I have spent studying biblical archaeology and translation methods, I don’t think there is any inconsistency here. This is something I discussed more in my introduction to bible translations at the beginning of this commentary, but to summarize, the world has many thousands of extant bible fragments. Some of these are short, and some of them contain the entire text of the old and new testaments. Some of them are old, and some of them are very new. Even the bibles of our day will at some point become an “extant bible fragment”, just like the Septuagint and Vulgate of earlier periods are the source manuscripts of our day. As one would expect, there are thousands of differences between all of these manuscripts, and nearly all of them are minor (many don’t affect the meaning at all, like if I forgot to put a period or comma somewhere). Scholars produce unified manuscripts by taking all of these fragments and reconciling the differences. It’s a complicated process, but the essence is that they are trying to identify what the original source text would have contained (the original source is called the “autograph”).
So it is meaningless to say that every manuscript that exists is “infallible”. There are too many differences to do that. Some people will say that the original autographs are infallible, but that errors can sometimes emerge in derived copies. That leaves me wondering what it even means to say that the originals are infallible if we no longer have them. Infallibility was not one of the criteria used to select the canonical books of the bible, and even further, different churches have different bibles (the Catholic bible includes a few books that Protestant bibles do not, and Eastern Orthodox bibles have a few extra books on top of that): are all of these infallible? Only some? If so, which ones?
My personal opinion is that these kinds of questions have no satisfying resolution. Further, I do not think these are the right questions to ask. The only way the bible could have ever gotten down to us is if God shaped and controlled its transmission, not just the original authorship. But what does any of this mean to me? I think the right question to ask is, “does God use the bible to teach us about himself, about ourselves, and about how to live in the world?” I don’t find pedantic arguments about the technical definition of “infallible” to be constructive.
I am very pragmatic: if God uses the bible to teach me about life, the universe and everything, then I should read it. To me, that is the true measure of authenticity. If God speaks through some text, then that text becomes the word of God in that moment and in that way. In other moments and other ways, it might not be the word of God, just as much as people use the bible to justify e.g. violence or slavery. I believe the LORD can speak through many things. One day he might speak through the bible, another day he might speak through a dream, another day he might speak through a newspaper article or science fiction or anything else. In a more ephemeral sense, everything can be the word of God to someone and not be the word of God to another. Romans 1:20 says that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” The way that I would rephrase this is that all of creation exists to testify to the “invisible qualities” of God, and in that sense everything is the word of God.
But to the people who do not understand, it might not be the word of God, insomuch as God does not speak to those people through these things. There is something powerful about the word of God. There have been times where I felt the word of God acting upon my life like an external force; something concrete, real and very, very powerful. These times form the minority of my experience. Most of the time I pass through life hearing very little from God on a day to day basis. But everything that I hear, I value. I believe that this is a good way to live.
From all this, it should be obvious why I am not personally concerned about 70 or 50070 dead Israelites from a bygone era that may or may not be allegorical depending on whom you ask. What I care about is the reality of God’s voice speaking into my life from anything or everything in creation. If the LORD chooses to honor the bible by speaking through it, who am I to gainsay him? But if he speaks through the natural world or anything else, who am I to contradict? The only thing that I know for sure is what Moses said in Deuteronomy 8:3, that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” I can’t afford to choose what words I want and what I don’t. I need every word. For several years when I was first learning about Christianity, I had a pervasive fear about “what if I miss a word”. What if God is speaking something to me, but I am not mature or wise enough to discern it, or I’m distracted or anything else happens. I think this is similar to the issue of mistranslation: what if God created some original infallible bible, but it has been corrupted over time (as some people believe) and no longer corresponds with the original message. God might be speaking, some would say, but we are no longer capable of hearing it.
What I eventually realized is that God understands me. He knows what I am capable of hearing and what I’m not. He knows how to speak to me in a way that I understand, and if there’s something he wants me to know, he won’t just throw it out there and leave me to figure it out on my own. If God speaks, he has the power to both bring a message to us and also enable us to understand it. I have never felt that this relieved me from the importance of trying to understand, but it relieved me from the fear of failing. It works the same way with the bible. He isn’t going to just “throw out there” an autographical text sometime between 1100 and 300 BCE and leave it up to the world to ponder over it and mine it for lessons about life. The whole reason why I talked so much about the “word of God” as distinct from the bible is because God is capable of actively empowering the bible to speak messages to us. God speaks the message, but he also gives us the ability to understand it if we are sincere and willing to hear it.
I am still growing in wisdom and discernment, and I hope to continue growing in these for a long time. But I do not depend on my wisdom to perceive the word of God; I depend on the Spirit of God enabling me to understand. As 1 Corinthians 2 beautifully explains it, “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him - but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” God reveals all things by his Spirit, and how much more does he reveal the things of God, those words that he speaks to our hearts to guide us to him.
In summary, I feel like in some ways it is God’s responsibility to speak to me in a way that I can understand, and it is my responsibility what I decide to do with it.
Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 5
In this chapter, the Philistines are afflicted in whatever city they bring the ark of the covenant.
This is an interesting chapter. In the previous chapter, the Israelites brought out the “ark of God” in the hopes that it would ensure their victory over the Philistines. The Israelites did not follow the LORD or obey the covenant in this time, and we have a lengthy account of their disobedience in the book of Judges. In most respects, their defeat at the hands of the Philistines here is just a continuation of the stories from Judges. In this way, the LORD demonstrates that it is not the objects associated with the covenant (such as the ark or the tabernacle or the altars) that brings Israel prosperity or success, it is whether their hearts follow the LORD. They were living in rebellion, and bringing the ark of the covenant with them just means that when they are defeated, they would lose the ark as well.
That is how the Philistines find themselves in verse 1, carrying the ark of God to Ashdod, one of the 5 major cities in the land of Canaan. In fact, the Philistines are taking this as a spoil of war, and they carry it to the temple of Dagon as a symbol of their dominion over Israel. Furthermore, they take it as a symbol of the supremacy of Dagon over Yahweh, the God of Israel. In previous chapters of this commentary, I have noted that culturally, each nation is associated with one or several patron gods, and that victory of defeat in battle is interpreted as the strength or weakness of their respective gods. The Philistines are triumphing over Israel, but they are also triumphing over the LORD.
The puts the LORD in an interesting position. I think it is most similar to when the LORD threatened to destroy Israel in the wilderness, but Moses interceded that their enemies would interpret that as the LORD being weak, unable to bring his people into the promised land (Num 14:16 for instance). In this case I think it’s similar, because Israel is bringing disaster upon themselves by their rebellion, but the LORD doesn’t want to be caught in a position where Israel’s defeat is interpreted as his own weakness. The logical result is that the LORD has to demonstrate his supremacy over Dagon and the Philistines, and the only thing they would understand is a demonstration of power.
That is the context of this chapter, and in light of this context I think it’s pretty straightforward. The LORD literally overthrows the statue of Dagon, breaking off pieces, and by extension he also brings a “heavy hand” upon the people of the city. Verse 5 gives us an interesting etiology, that “to this day” people skip over the threshold of the temple of Dagon because pieces of Dagon broke and fell there. My readers should also note the association between the statue of Dagon and Dagon himself. The way that modern readers might think of this is, “there is a statue that represents Dagon”, much like Michelangelo's David is a representation of David. I don’t believe that is what the ancient writer is trying to convey. Verse 3, for instance, uses the expression “there was Dagon, fallen on his face”. In this verse, the statue of Dagon is considered to be Dagon himself; the representation and the “reality” of Dagon are the same. I think this is a meaningful distinction and it is pervasive throughout the OT.
For instance, when Micah constructed an idol in Judges 17, it’s very possible he believed that he was, in some fashion, creating a god. Maybe I’m off base here, but there are many places in the OT where the physical structure of an idol is conflated with the identity of the god it purports to be. It’s like the famous painting, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. In that case, the painting is not a pipe, it is only a representation. But in this case, it’s plausible that the Philistines thought that the statue of Dagon really was Dagon.
It’s also possible this is why the Ten Commandments contains such a strong injunction against making idols. Partly this is because idols are a gateway to worshiping other gods, but partly this is because the LORD is not, and could never be, represented by any physical form or image, and to do so would necessarily result in misunderstanding and underestimating him. Gods like Dagon are “safe” because they are finite and controllable. Any god made by human hands can similarly be destroyed by human hands, and that gives humans the ultimate power over any gods with such forms. It’s an interesting paradox, to worship a god of one’s own creation. Devotion is an act of submission, such that the Philistines might have called Dagon lord. They worshiped him and offered sacrifices out of the belief that he could protect and bless them, and that would only be possible if Dagon were stronger and more powerful than them. At the same time, Dagon has all of the limitations that I discussed above; he is finite, controllable and even destroyable. That is the inherent paradox, to worship a God for his strength while at the same time exerting control over him.
(Minor note: I am using male pronouns “he” and “him” for convenience only. Ancient gods were associated with both male and female genders. The LORD himself is neither male nor female, but it would be far too cumbersome to write “he/she/it” everywhere I go through hundreds of chapters. This is an unfortunate limitation of the English language.)
Tangent over. The Philistines move the ark a couple times, to see if the suffering would be relieved in some other city. Perhaps the god of Gath is stronger than Dagon of Ashdod. This reminds me of Balak taking Balaam around to various places to see if perhaps he could curse Israel from one vantage point but not another (Num 23-24). It doesn’t work, and by the time the ark gets to Ekron the people freak out and refuse to allow it in.
The last thing I will mention is the peculiarity of a plague of tumors. I think this is the only place in the OT where tumors are recorded. The word also appears in Deut 28:27 as one of the promised curses if Israel should ever depart from the covenant, but this is the only place where it is recorded happening. My first thought when reading this is “the LORD is giving them cancer”. It’s possible the tumors are non-cancerous, as Deut 28 associates the tumors with boils and scabs, and given the limitations of Israelite medical science, these tumors are probably visible near the skin surface, because it’s unlikely they would have known about other kinds of tumors. I'm not sure what else to say other than that I always found this passage a bit strange.
This is an interesting chapter. In the previous chapter, the Israelites brought out the “ark of God” in the hopes that it would ensure their victory over the Philistines. The Israelites did not follow the LORD or obey the covenant in this time, and we have a lengthy account of their disobedience in the book of Judges. In most respects, their defeat at the hands of the Philistines here is just a continuation of the stories from Judges. In this way, the LORD demonstrates that it is not the objects associated with the covenant (such as the ark or the tabernacle or the altars) that brings Israel prosperity or success, it is whether their hearts follow the LORD. They were living in rebellion, and bringing the ark of the covenant with them just means that when they are defeated, they would lose the ark as well.
That is how the Philistines find themselves in verse 1, carrying the ark of God to Ashdod, one of the 5 major cities in the land of Canaan. In fact, the Philistines are taking this as a spoil of war, and they carry it to the temple of Dagon as a symbol of their dominion over Israel. Furthermore, they take it as a symbol of the supremacy of Dagon over Yahweh, the God of Israel. In previous chapters of this commentary, I have noted that culturally, each nation is associated with one or several patron gods, and that victory of defeat in battle is interpreted as the strength or weakness of their respective gods. The Philistines are triumphing over Israel, but they are also triumphing over the LORD.
The puts the LORD in an interesting position. I think it is most similar to when the LORD threatened to destroy Israel in the wilderness, but Moses interceded that their enemies would interpret that as the LORD being weak, unable to bring his people into the promised land (Num 14:16 for instance). In this case I think it’s similar, because Israel is bringing disaster upon themselves by their rebellion, but the LORD doesn’t want to be caught in a position where Israel’s defeat is interpreted as his own weakness. The logical result is that the LORD has to demonstrate his supremacy over Dagon and the Philistines, and the only thing they would understand is a demonstration of power.
That is the context of this chapter, and in light of this context I think it’s pretty straightforward. The LORD literally overthrows the statue of Dagon, breaking off pieces, and by extension he also brings a “heavy hand” upon the people of the city. Verse 5 gives us an interesting etiology, that “to this day” people skip over the threshold of the temple of Dagon because pieces of Dagon broke and fell there. My readers should also note the association between the statue of Dagon and Dagon himself. The way that modern readers might think of this is, “there is a statue that represents Dagon”, much like Michelangelo's David is a representation of David. I don’t believe that is what the ancient writer is trying to convey. Verse 3, for instance, uses the expression “there was Dagon, fallen on his face”. In this verse, the statue of Dagon is considered to be Dagon himself; the representation and the “reality” of Dagon are the same. I think this is a meaningful distinction and it is pervasive throughout the OT.
For instance, when Micah constructed an idol in Judges 17, it’s very possible he believed that he was, in some fashion, creating a god. Maybe I’m off base here, but there are many places in the OT where the physical structure of an idol is conflated with the identity of the god it purports to be. It’s like the famous painting, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. In that case, the painting is not a pipe, it is only a representation. But in this case, it’s plausible that the Philistines thought that the statue of Dagon really was Dagon.
It’s also possible this is why the Ten Commandments contains such a strong injunction against making idols. Partly this is because idols are a gateway to worshiping other gods, but partly this is because the LORD is not, and could never be, represented by any physical form or image, and to do so would necessarily result in misunderstanding and underestimating him. Gods like Dagon are “safe” because they are finite and controllable. Any god made by human hands can similarly be destroyed by human hands, and that gives humans the ultimate power over any gods with such forms. It’s an interesting paradox, to worship a god of one’s own creation. Devotion is an act of submission, such that the Philistines might have called Dagon lord. They worshiped him and offered sacrifices out of the belief that he could protect and bless them, and that would only be possible if Dagon were stronger and more powerful than them. At the same time, Dagon has all of the limitations that I discussed above; he is finite, controllable and even destroyable. That is the inherent paradox, to worship a God for his strength while at the same time exerting control over him.
(Minor note: I am using male pronouns “he” and “him” for convenience only. Ancient gods were associated with both male and female genders. The LORD himself is neither male nor female, but it would be far too cumbersome to write “he/she/it” everywhere I go through hundreds of chapters. This is an unfortunate limitation of the English language.)
Tangent over. The Philistines move the ark a couple times, to see if the suffering would be relieved in some other city. Perhaps the god of Gath is stronger than Dagon of Ashdod. This reminds me of Balak taking Balaam around to various places to see if perhaps he could curse Israel from one vantage point but not another (Num 23-24). It doesn’t work, and by the time the ark gets to Ekron the people freak out and refuse to allow it in.
The last thing I will mention is the peculiarity of a plague of tumors. I think this is the only place in the OT where tumors are recorded. The word also appears in Deut 28:27 as one of the promised curses if Israel should ever depart from the covenant, but this is the only place where it is recorded happening. My first thought when reading this is “the LORD is giving them cancer”. It’s possible the tumors are non-cancerous, as Deut 28 associates the tumors with boils and scabs, and given the limitations of Israelite medical science, these tumors are probably visible near the skin surface, because it’s unlikely they would have known about other kinds of tumors. I'm not sure what else to say other than that I always found this passage a bit strange.
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