1 Samuel 11

Wow, now this chapter is pretty amazing! Some of the Israelites weren't sure that Saul was the right man to lead them - questioning God yet again - but when one of their towns is attacked and Saul finds out about it the Spirit comes on him again and he summons the Israelites to war. He is very persuasive, in that he threatens death to anyone (presumably any man fit for battle, at least) who doesn't come with him, and in turn 300,000 men report for duty. Saying they defeated the invaders would be an understatement: no two enemy survivors made it out together.

Some interesting things to take away from this chapter:

- Saul was working his fields when the news of the invasion came to him. Working... in his fields... despite being king. I guess the Israelites really didn't have the concept of what a king was like yet, or maybe things were just different back then.

- After the battle, many called for the execution of those who had spoken out against Saul's kingship. Saul prevented it, though... again showing that he at least started his reign with honor.

1 Samuel 4

This chapter doesn't deal with Samuel himself, though he is mentioned briefly in the first verse. Reading over chapter 3 again it actually seems like the first part of that verse belongs more in the context of the end of chapter 3... but that is a good reminder that these chapter and verse distinctions didn't exist in the original documents.

The bulk of this chapter deals with the Israelites going to war, and bringing the Ark of the Covenant with them thinking it would grant them victory. I find it javascript:void(0)interesting that they did that, but we aren't told that they asked God for success in battle. That *almost* makes this border on idolatry in my mind: they thought the presence of God's dwelling among them (the Ark) would ensure victory, when it is God Himself would could do that - whether or not the Ark itself was present.

When they are defeated, despite its presence, the Ark is taken by their enemy - the Philistines. Word of that reaches Eli, who collapses and dies. It is interesting that we are told he had been concerned for the Ark's safety, but no mention is made of his being worried about his sons who were there with it.

From a military perspective, the battle described in this chapter is a pretty serious blow to Israel. The loss of 30,000+ troops in a single engagement is tremendous; to put that in perspective, it is three times the number of casualties the Allies had in the combined D-Day landings - and more losses than either side sustained in the battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. I'm not sure what size the combined Israelite army was at the time, but from the description in the text it was a massive defeat.

Why would God have permitted such devastation to be visited upon His people? I can't answer that in full, but I can say that the coming chapters will see God turning a heavy hand upon the Philistines for taking the Ark, and I'm sure that the judgement prophesied against Eli's sons - who died in the battle - played a part.

Exodus 17

Today's section of Scripture was two-fold, but there is a specific thing I picked up on in the second half that I want to write about. Here we have a battle going on between the Israelites and a group that attacked them, and whenever Moses raised the staff of God the battle would go in their favor. If he lowered it, though, they would begin to lose. This showed that God was the one in charge, and He was fighting for them. In a similar way we need to depend on God to fight for us when we alone are not strong enough - and just like Moses, when we grow tired we need godly friends whom we can depend on to help us through and support us. Community is really an important theme in the Bible, and we need to work together as Christians to build each other up and reach out to those who don't know Jesus. We are each just a part of the body of Christ, and by ourselves cannot do much - but together, with Jesus as the head, we are invincible.