The Glory Departs
CLASS 4 ISSUES
Study Scripture: 1 Samuel 4: 12 – 22
Background Scripture: 1 Samuel 4: 12 – 22
Lesson #8 November 7, 2026
Key Verse
And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father in law and her husband.
1 Samuel 4:21
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever been under stress? Have you had difficulties in making decisions that seemed to be so difficult to make because the solutions to your problems are so overwhelmingly large?
If this is the case with you, you should know that a tragedy is developing in your soul and in your body.
So what is the solution?
This Lesson Study has good news for you for there are times and things that happen that are not just personal tragedies, but sometimes they are national tragedies, and you have no control over those.
We therefore are looking at the history of Israel and this up to this point is one of the worst days in their history
This Study therefore teaches us who God is and how we should treat Him.
If you ignore this teaching you will up in a tragic situation.
This study lesson will hopefully teach you that when you are in difficulty you must look for spiritual mature people who you know from experience know exactly what God wants you to do when you face difficulties. It will end in disaster if you go for advice to the wrong people. So know who you can go to for advice. Do not go to the wrong people. Go to the people of God for advice.
The nation of Israel ended up in this tragic situation because they did not want to wait on God. When they tackled a serious problem that they faced from their enemies based on their own way of thinking it ended in disaster and they experienced failures.
But then when they did not wait on God for God’s timing but they rushed to come up with a solution to their problems which ended in disaster. The first time they made a mistake 4,000 soldiers were killed. When they reacted to this disaster and rushed into battle again 40,000 soldiers were killed and the rest that survived rushed back to their houses in order to escape their enemies.
Our Lesson Study therefore contains a series of great lessons for us as we live close to the end of the age. We are continuing to examine a dark day in Israel. This chapter concerns a national disaster which happened because the people of Israel had abandoned God and was not prepared to wait on Him, but instead try to manipulate Him
The Context of our Study surrounds the time when the nation permitted evil priests led by a weak and relatively spineless or venal High Priest who over the course of his 40 year reign did not seriously attend to ensuring that the commitments of God were followed. He allowed his evil sons to corrupt the operations of the tabernacle in Shiloh by taking possession of portions of the sacrifice that belong to God and in addition to this engaged in sexual immorality with the women that came to the tabernacle to worship God.
Everybody knew what was going on. The High Priest named Eli knew what was going on but he did not show any significant interest in maintaining the Holy nature of the sacrificial and worship system.
As a result of this the people began to confuse good spiritual things with God Himself and they made the mistake of thinking that simply having possession of the things that were given to them by God such as the existence of the tabernacle and the Ark of the covenant that was in it including the 10 Commandments and the mercy seat where God dwelt as his earthly point of sovereignty ensured their national success and victory over their enemies.
Now we must note that this disastrous situation did not originate with the events of this Study Chapter for as we study for this Chapter we see that it focuses on the military strength of the Philistine enemy.
The previous Chapters had exposed the pretty total corruption of Israel’s priesthood. The High Priest Eli had no stomach to govern the spiritual life of the nation as he ought to have done. His sons Hophni and Phinehas were evil men who treated the sacrificial offerings for God with contempt and in addition committed sexual immorality at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Father Eli who had the authority of a father as well as the authority given to him by the civil position that he held would only rebuke them verbally but did not restrain them as was required by his office. So the sons did not treat him seriously and refused any correction.
The sons and their father Eli knew that God had sent a man of God to pronounce judgment on the house of Eli. And God had brought this judgment to Eli’s attention through the young boy Samuel that had been given to God for the service of God.
1 Samuel 2: 12-17 and verses 22-36 tell us about the warnings which were also given in Chapter 3:11-14.
A man of God had been sent by God with a pointed warning, and he warned Eli that his sons Hophni and Phinehas would die on the same day because of their continually and persistently treating the Lord’s offering with contempt and committing sexual immorality at the entrance to the sanctuary.
The state of the priesthood was at such a low level that a significant portion of the people diverted their path away from the sanctuary to get direction from Deborah the prophetess. You can be sure that Eli and the rest of the priests knew this.
But they did nothing to correct the situation.
It is not that the priests and the people of the nation did not know the true things about God. But they twisted it into mere superstition.
Many of them did go to the sanctuary to worship for they thought that having the Ark of the Covenant there and the beastly priests that were descendants of Aaron was sufficient to guarantee their success. So in effect they had abandoned God and trusted in the spiritual things that God had given to them rather than in God Himself.
We cannot and should not believe that we are not like them because we trust in things like baptism, our prayer, or “getting saved” as defined by us and or sundry church practices, rather than trusting in the Lord Himself.
So we like the nation of Israel make the mistake of thinking that God is on our side, rather than as one writer points out, asking us if we are on His side.
Our Study today therefore shows the pitfalls of that sort of thinking and point us to and encourages us to find a better way. There is danger in treating the things that God has given to us as things and practices that are of great benefit to us rather than thinking that they in themselves do not bring salvation to us.
The problem with the people of Israel and the problem with us is that therefore forgot that they were under the Covenant. This meant that they should be seeking God, confessing their sins, removing the priests, and inquiring how they should live through confirmed prophets like Deborah and Samuel.
Their mistake of course was that they did not obey God and had not driven out all the pagan people who lived in the land and therefore they were surrounded by people who worshiped false gods and demonic spirits. They made friends with these people and intermarried with them and so they were led away from God into the worship of these demonic pagan gods.
One of these pagan peoples groups were called Philistines who lived in the area along the Mediterranean coast of Israel they had five main cities and five main leaders for each one of these cities. But the important thing was that they worshiped two main false gods. The name of one was Dagon and the name of the other was Astaroth.
The history of Israel shows us that the Philistines were the biggest threat to the people of Israel and war between the Philistines and the Israelites broke out often.Samuel and later Saul and later David spent a lot of time fighting against the Philistines and eventually subduing them.
It is most important to note that in all this Verse 1 of our Study Chapter tells us that the word of Samuel came to all Israel and so we are reminded that Samuel was now established as a prophet and known throughout all the land of Israel. His presence marked the end of the silence from God and so the vision of God was no longer rare.
The story however that we will examine today only mentions Samuel in verse 1. He will be totally absent until we get to Chapter 7 even though everybody knew Samuel and his position and relationship to God. They knew he was appointed by God and they knew that Eli and his corrupt sons and the corrupt priesthood would be destroyed. But somehow they saw fit to ignore Samuel.
It is therefore no surprise that when the nation went out to battle against the Philistines who had brought a alliance of pagan forces to conquer Israel to complete their harassment and troubling of Israel which they had done for decades, the corrupt leadership of Israel who thought that their cause was just and they were wise to defend themselves against the Philistines, missed an essential point.
None of them were seeking advice from the prophet that had been established by God. These corrupt leaders thought that the affairs of the state and the affairs of national security and war should not be influenced by the man of God. They felt that their approach and their analysis of the man of God had determined that men of God were not too important. So no one is seeking the advice of the prophet and they go out to defend themselves in this war not asking Samuel what they should do.
It is of course possible that the answer that Samuel would give them was too obvious but instead of following his advice or seeking his advice and asking God what to do, they decided what they wanted to do on their own they were not willing to wait for God.
The terms of the Covenant were not significant. Possession of sacred objects were enough despite the presence of corrupt priests who were leading them. Israel was prepared to go to battle against their ancient foes even though they were guilty of gross sin which led them not to even consult Samuel who is a prophet of the Lord.
Before we think that we do not do similar things just think what the people of the nation knew about God. They knew that God had conquered their enemies and armies that had come against them. God had led them by all kinds of methods and they had achieved success. They knew that God had delivered them from the Egyptian bondage and had taking them through the raging waters of the Red sea. They knew that God had sent His angels to protect them and they had traveled through the wilderness with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. But they did not think that such assistance was really necessary at this time.
Sounds familiar? We know about the truths of God but we sometimes feel that we can handle Satan and the demonic forces by ourselves by using the spiritual objects that we possess and the spiritual knowledge that we think we possess
So in every case the people of Israel devised their own plan to tackle the problems that they faced.
So do we!
And it makes no sense to point this out to the people of God for they simply will probably not listen to you for we must remember that Satan has transformed himself into an angel of light and the beauty of this Angel of light is quite sufficient for us to ignore the true God.
The Chapter continues by telling us that Israel went out to battle against the Philistines and they camped at Ebenezer and the Philistines camped at Aphek. The battle continued and Israel was defeated and 4000 men of Israel were killed. Israel loses and it was not a small loss; this was a great embarrassment.
Verse 3 tells us of the repercussions. But notice that they went to the wrong people. They came to the elders of Israel instead of pulling up their pants and going to seek out advice from Samuel. The people went to the national leaders asking why this disaster had happened.
“And when the people came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines?”
Somehow they sense that God was involved and so they asked the right question as to why this had happened for they were right to remember that God had defeated their armies and had in the past defeated them such as what happened under Joshua when Achan sinned in the camp.
They well knew that it is because of their sin that caused Israel to lose a battle. The Bible makes that fact clear to us. They knew that they always lost their battle because of their sin and they knew that they needed to repent. Or they knew that they lost the battle because it was a judgment from God and they should repent. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 had listed these as part of the covenant curses.
And so they knew that victory came as a result of obedience.
So they asked the right question, Why did God defeat us? They suspected that they were doing something that led to God not being on their side.
But we again point out that they asked the wrong people. Because they were really not seeking God they did not go to the prophet of the Lord
So again we remind you that it is not that you always have difficulties because you have sinned or done wrong like what Israel did. But you have to ask the right question, ask the right people for the answer, and be willing not to rush God for an answer.
Israel did not keep the question and meditate on it and talk about it until God answered it but instead they rushed to fix it and they came up therefore with their own idea on how to win and how to succeed.
That is exactly the same problem that we have today in our lives.
We are constantly reminded in Scripture that there are times when we need to sit and wait though we are experiencing discomfort and we experience lament. We are just to ask God why and wait until God answers.
We like Israel will not get to hear God speak because we really don’t want God to speak.
So the advice again is we need to be willing to listen. When we fail it should make us seek God. Our failures should make us listen to God because whether we believe it or not it is God that has caused us to fail. Obviously then when we fail God must be trying to tell us something.
But even if God does not answer us quickly and does not seem to want to tell us maybe God has determined that we can never find out the source of our difficulties. Rushing God will not help. We have to figure out how to listen to God and slow down. We must be quick to listen or we will get into a tragedy.
Israel made all kinds of decisions without seeking wisdom from God and we follow their example and do all kind of things without asking God what He thinks.
We maybe think that all we have to do is pray and stay where we are, but then we don’t seek spiritual counsel from others that know better and that are spiritually mature, people who seem to be righteous and mature in their faith. One writer points out our attitude:
“Most of the time we keep things super close to the chest because we don’t want to tell anybody until we have decided andthen it’s too late.
God’s way is often slow, inefficient and inconvenient.
And we try to rush Him at our peril.
We need to slow down and listen….
God will not be manipulated.
You cannot trick God.
You cannot use God as a good luck charm.
You cannot make God do what you want.
Just because you pray over your meal, doesn’t make it a blessed meal.
Just because you pray before you make a decision, doesn’t make it the right one.
And because you started a Christian business doesn’t mean it will succeed”.
So what do you think Israel did when they lost 4,000 men? They were thinking that if they took the Ark of the Covenant with them then God would be with them and then they could not lose. The coming of the Ark into battle would save them.
So note that their faith had moved from God to the box. They said, “Let us bring the Ark of the covenant of the LORD from Shiloh that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies”
Would you think they are trying to strong arm God to do what they wanted?
Do you think that they should have turned to God, and not to the Ark? One commentator reminds us, “It is common for those that have estranged themselves from the vitals of religion to discover a great fondness for the rituals and external observances of it, for those that even deny the power of godliness not only to have, but to have in admiration, the form of it”.
So what we are seeing is that the Israelites have abandoned God but seek comfort in the things of God. We see this all the while when we go to funerals where the person who died had no fear of God and even the family often doesn’t even know the Lord but they want a Christian funeral. They want the veneer without the substance.
So let us now be careful for putting on a Christian T-shirt or wearing a cross necklace doesn’t make you a Christian.
One scholar describes the ark that they took into battle for us and he states:
“The ark was a sacred chest made according to God’s command (Exodus 25: 10-22). It held the covenant testimony and was associated with the Lord’s throne-like presence between the cherubim. The BSB describes Him as “ the LORD of Hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim”
The language does not confine the infinite God inside or above a box. It identifies the Ark as the appointed earthly focal point of His covenant throne among Israel. The same God is Lord of Hosts—Lord over heavenly armies and every earthly power.
Under God’s prescribed order, the ark accompanied Israel at important moments. It went before the people in the wilderness under His direction, stood in the Jordan during the crossing and occupied the centre of the procession around Jericho (Numbers 10:33-36; Joshua 3:6-17; 6:4-16).
Those events do not teach that the Ark possessed automatic force. Victory came because the Lord spoke, Israel obeyed, and God acted. In 1 Samuel for the narrative records no command, consecration, inquiry, or repentance. The elders copy an outward feature of earlier victories while rejecting the relationship of trust and obedience those victories displayed”.
What is worse is the rather alarming fact that Hophni and Phinehas, the priests that God had condemned and whose death God had announced, accompanying the Ark. Along with them the elders of Israel andthe army of Israel places their confidence in a holy object administered by men who despise the Holy One, says one writer who adds:
“The combination of the ark and corrupt priests makes the contradiction visible: outward religious privilege is being used to cover inward covenant rebellion”.
And this writer goes on to note what happened when the Ark entered the camp.
“Israel’s shout shakes the ground. The noise expresses confidence and initially terrifies the Philistines, but volume is not faith.
Nothing in the passage says Israel has turned to the Lord.
Emotional intensity cannot transform presumption into obedience.
A congregation, Army, or individual may speak loudly about God while resisting what he has said”.
And then the reaction of the pagan Philistines make it worse if it is possible that anything could be worse. Remember that these people are still human beings who are living under Satanic distortion. The writer notes”
“The Philistines learned that the ark has entered the camp and interpret the event through their polytheistic worldview; “The gods have entered their camp! They remember the plagues connected with Israel’s exodus but speak of “mighty gods” and place the plagues in the wilderness”.
The report preserves a distorted memory of real divine acts. The Lord struck Egypt with plagues in Egypt and also though judged rebels during Israel’s wilderness journey, but Scripture never presents a group of gods as Israel’s deliverer.
The Philistines knew enough of past judgment to fear, yet they do not know the Lord truly. Fear becomes determination. The Philistines urge one another to fight so they will not become Israel’s servants. Israel’s shout does not paralyze them.
The battle ends in overwhelming Israelite defeat: 30,000 foot soldiers die, the ark is captured, and Hophni and Phinehas die together.
The prophecy concerning Eli’s sons is fulfilled exactly ((1 Samuel 2:34). Their death is not an unfortunate failure of the ark to protect its attendants. It is the Lord’s announced judgment”.
So another lessonis, Do not trust the Philistines or the pagans, or those who who do not believe in the Lord God Almighty, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and are prepared to live according to His will, and His direction recorded in Scripture.
Their memory is a distorted memory and so they do not know the full truth. What they are thinking about is mixed up with all kind of fleshly feelings. These feelings are in opposition to the feelings of God.
So think about what has happened. The Ark of the Covenant was made of gold and silver and was placed in the tabernacle, residing in the Holy of Holies. Inside it was manna from the wilderness, the tablets of the 10 Commandments written with the finger of God, and in it was Aaron’s rod which still had blooming flowers on it.
It was a symbol of God’s presence and the Ark was where the glory of God was physically located in the camp reminding everyone that God lives and dwells with them. It contained the Mercy Seat.
So these rebellious people led by corrupt priests who certainly were not holy had taken the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to do what they chose to do.
But note that the Ark is genuinely holy and yet God was willing to allow the symbol of His throne to be taken captive by those who were against Him. Psalm 78: 56-64 discusses story of God’s wrath against the unbelieving and disobedient. It tells of the great things that God had done for them. But the Psalm tells us what Israel did:
“They tempted and rebelled against the Most High God and kept not his testimonies:
But turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.
When God heard this he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel.
So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent where he dwelt among men;
And delivered his mouth into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand.
He gave his people over also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance.
The fire consumed their young men; and they their maidens were not given to marriage.
Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows made no lamentations”.
These people thought that they could not lose because they had the Ark. But they forgot God doesn’t live in the Ark and God doesn’t need them to protect it.
But what is terrible is that the repeated the same error in the days of Jeremiah for when the prophet warned them of their sinning they said that God would not lead them into captivity because they had the Temple of the Lord there with them.
THE TEXT
Verse 12: We start with a report given to Shiloh from the battle of Israel with the Philistines. The last skirmish took a toll on Israel. Reports were moving from the battlefield to all of Israel very quickly. The battle was fought near Aphek, and it was at least according to modern accounts 20 miles from Aphek to Shiloh. The meant that the messenger had a long way to go to deliver the message. Also, the route taken was mostly uphill. From verse 10 it mentions that every man fled into his tent due to the great slaughter that occurred. So many witnesses were in Israel to confirm the results of the battle.
Shiloh seemed to be the one place in Israel that needed to hear news of the battle. One could surmise that it was because Eli was there and his sons were near the battle. The Texts mention a man of the tribe of Benjamin was tasked with bringing the update to the area of Shiloh. Based on the grave news he carried, it mentioned that this person rent his clothes and put earth upon his head to signify that the news which he carried was indeed sorrowful. His appearance shows how he himself was affected by the news. There was a traditional sign of mourning.
A side note is, that according to an unfounded Jewish tradition, this unnamed messenger from the tribe of Benjamin was thought to be a young man named Saul.
Verse 13: This verse starts off illustrating the character of the messenger, and if indeed it was Saul, then this type of behaviour would not be out of character for him, especially in terms of the implication it would have on the nation. It says that Eli was anxiously waiting in the tabernacle for news of the battle. Eli was probably more concerned about the fate of the Ark than the fate of his sons, still understanding who God was even though he moved as a “lukewarm” child of God. Eli must have thought that bringing the Ark to the battle field was unwise; and especially since God did not decree such a thing, then it was just wrong to do so, and the decision could only lead to disaster.
Even so, the messenger knew or probably saw Eli sitting in the gate at Shiloh, but the messenger was reluctant to come to him first to deliver the message about the battle, so he continued into the city to deliver it there. The implications of this act are, if the messenger first went to a religious leader, perhaps the news of the battle coming from that leader could rally the people to seek God for assistance and comfort, but that could not be done in this case. Now the people were greatly agitated, and now instead of turning their hearts to God, their hearts were filled with fear and trembling.
The actions and decisions of men are not those of God. As children of God we must come to understand that we should first seek God out in the large decisions of our lives and the small decisions in our lives, for God cares for all of it. We cannot expect God to bail us out when our own actions lead to ruin. He may, but there will be consequences for such disobedience, which was what lead to the Ark of Lord being taken.
Believers have the hindsight of knowing the eventual results of the Ark being taken. The Ark was soon rescued out of the hands of the Philistines by God. Yet, it never returned to Shiloh again, the candlestick was removed out of its place. This is the result of Israel leaving their first love, God. The result for Shiloh is that the city fell in ruins, it lost its glory and became a city of no repute. God made the decision to look away from Shiloh and the tribe of Ephraim, who had about 340 years of being blessed with the presence of the Ark in it.
Sometime after this the honour of caring for the Ark was placed in the tribe of Judah, and Mount Sion was made God’s new choice. The abandoning of Shiloh is long remember afterwards as seen in Jeremiah 7: 1- 15, when it is said in the verses, if the people have seen what has happened to Shiloh, so that they may not have the same fate visited upon them.
Verse 14 – 17: Now back to Eli. His condition at this point in his life was that he was old, blind and heavy. At this stage of his life he could possibly was not that mobile, but nevertheless he set himself in a position to meet people coming into Shiloh to pass information unto the people. So he spent most of his time spent by the way-side, especially to receive first intelligence of the situation. His heart trembled for the Ark of God. However it appears he knew that it had been unwise to send it to the battle on some superstitious errand. But he was a model of a helpless, weak leader who had no moral strength. He was a representative of God who could not stand against evil men and a misguided people.
He possibly considered that dishonour would fall upon God if the Ark was captured by the Philistines, and it would be a great loss to Israel, something that they could not come back from, should it fall into the enemy hands. They would surely speak ill of God and of Israel, promoting their gods’ triumph of the One True Living God of Israel.
When Eli heard the cries of the people of Shiloh, he inquired what was the reason for such an uproar? At this time the realization of what he thought could have happened, indeed did happen. He had allowed the Ark to be put in danger, that is have the enemies of the children of Israel, and more importantly God, gain possession of the Ark.
Israel had forfeited the Ark (his own sons especially responsible for this) and the Philistines would now use this moment against Israel. He might have thought in his own heart that he should have used his authority to prevent the carrying of the Ark into the camp.
Mistakes cause people who are supposed to serve God to tremble. We know we should do certain things, but we selfishly believe that we know better than God, and do not seek His counsel in all matters.
The lesson for Christians here is that all good children of God should lay the interests of God’s church nearer to their hearts than any secular or concern of their own and cannot but be in distress and fear for them if at any time they are in peril.
He is told the situation with Israel’s army. The messenger relates the story to him very distinctly, and with great confidence, having himself been an eye-witness of it. The details of the defeat of the army, the slaughter of a great number of the soldiers, and the news concerning the death of this two sons, of who he had been so indulgent, and who, he had reason to fear died impenitent.
This is why the heart of this father would tremble. One for his children in this state, and then also for the Ark of God and all the things it might mean for the capture of it. It didn’t seem that he interrupted the messenger to express any lamentations for his sons, as David for Absalom, but waits until the end of the story. Eli was by waiting until the end of the story waiting for news of the Ark. When the story, or news is given to him, it ends with the fact that the Ark of God has been taken.
Verse 18: The calamities announced to Samuel concerning the fall from grace of the family of Eli (1 Sam. 2:34) are about to come to fruition. The sons of Eli have been killed. Their deaths are on record. Now upon hearing the news about his sons, Eli himself has died. But there are still some members of the family of Eli that will fall under God’s judgment.
Upon hearing that the ark has been taken, Eli’s heart had sunk, and his spirit fails him. This is where he falls and breaks his neck, and the Bible records that the High Priest and Judge of Israel has died. He is credited with judging Israel for forty years. Though some of his actions of late were questionable, especially regarding his sons who were acting wickedly and foolishly, Eli’s sin concerning them was not only that of being an overindulgent father. But this is the thing that could be said lead to his ruin. The more serious sin of Eli was that as God stated he preferred his sons over God, hence also despised God and did not honor God.
God has been know to punish His children, especially leaders if they err. However, as God is a good and gracious God, though a man die miserably, they shall not die eternally, though the person of God may come to an untimely end, yet will in the end be at peace.
To Eli’s praise, his death came when he heard of the Ark being taken, not the death of his sons. He still looked at the things of God as being that which was important, even though at times he didn’t act that way, especially regarding his children.
God promised that Eli’s two sons would die on the same day as a sign of judgment on the house of Eli (1 Samuel 2:34). God did not announce that Eli would also die the same day. God tells us much in prophecy, but not everything. Some is only seen in its fullness after it is fulfilled.
Verse 19: Tragedy strikes again when Eli’s daughter in law, Phinehas’ wife that was with child, once hearing about the fate of her husband, her Father- in- law and the ark, she went into labour. Not much is said of Phinehas’ wife, but despite all the things Phinehas was rumored to be doing, she kept with him, it appears as though she loved him. She also seemed to had reverence for her father in law.
One can only think back to what was said from Jesus, our Saviour in Mt. 24:19, as this woman at this point in time is a testimony to that. When hardship falls on people of God, and especially at that time when women are in labour it can only be a time of woe. Blessings are with those who have barren wombs, so that their grief is limited.
Verse 20: Upon hearing of the losses that occurred in her family, the anguish was too great, and the labour pains started. At a time where she would need all her strength to deliver the child and survive, all she had was the strength to bring her child safely into the world.
From her reaction of the death of her husband and overall concern of her father in law, it may lead us to conclude that she was a very gracious spirit, despite matched with a wicked husband. She seemed to have greater concern for the loss of the Ark showing her pious and devout affection to God and sacred things. It is clear that the former helped to hasten her travail, but it is clear, especially in light of her dying words that the latter was the tipping point that lead to her relinquishing the spirit, as it lay closer to her heart.
Verse 21: For a Jewish woman, the birth of a son was to be wonderful news, but not for the wife of Phinehas on this day. To reflect her anguish and the national tragedy upon Israel she named the child, Ichabod, meaning “The glory has departed from Israel”. With her dying lips she says there is no glory in Israel. This is a women who clearly knows that the children of Israel must do better for their God. The glory of God linked to the presence of the Ark of the Covenant, had departed from Israel. The Philistines now held it.
Note also that the Text does not say that the death of his wife was punishment for a personal sin she is a person who suffers when the collapse is brought about on Eli’s house and on Israel. Nothing in the Charter implicates her in her husband’s crime. Even when the women were attending her tells her she’s not to fear because she has born a son they are really dealing with ordinary joy and future hope attached to a birth. But for his wife the fact that she has had a son cannot overcome the weight of the catastrophe and she does not answer or pay attention to their attempts at comforting her.
She is dying and she names her son Ichabod using the name to explain the Ark’s capture and the deaths in her family. She means that the glory has departed from Israel though the Ark is not identical with God’s essential glory. It means for her that God has withdrawn His military protection and sanctuary in favour of judgment.
She has died and she does not know what God will do with respect to the Philistines and to Israel, but we are left to look closely at God displaying His supremacy in Ashdod, Gath and Ekron and her meaning in 1 Samuel 5:1-12 in her repeated declaration, “The glory has departed from Israel”.
God had departed in a sense from Israel. This glory left Israel due to them refusing to repent, and due to the fact that they stop trusting in God, seen from them acting in a superstitious manner of trusting the in presence of the ark to save them.
God had allowed the Ark to be captured as a form of righteous judgment upon Israel as a nation and on the family of Eli. God also allowed it as a correction to the nation, so they would not trust in things like the Ark, now clearly a form of idol worship, but start to trust in God again.
We come back to a situation where God would prove Himself to the people of Israel and to the enemies of Israel, so that all may know that He is the One, True and Living God. God was just beginning to show His glory.
Verse 22: Many circumstances that we regard as a calamity, God uses in a marvelous way to glorify Himself. Israel was right to be sad at the loss of life and the Ark on that day. But did they know that the Ark should not be put in that situation, or the Ark should not be looked at in that manner, like some idol? They, Israel should have been confident, knowing God was able to take care of Himself, His name, His Ark and His people.
Let us therefore understand what we are seeing in verses 12 to 22. We must hopefully learn that God’s glory is not our glory and God’s glory does not depend on us. God’s glory does not depend on our achievement or our awesomeness.
God’s glory as the language indicates is “heavy” but the glory can depart. God’s glory has departed or has gone into exile and that for Israel was a calamity.
The story determines how we look at God’s glory and what it means. It does not mean that God has ceased to be omnipotent and omnipresent or lost His essential glory, or has abandon HIs covenant promises and been carried away as a prisoner.
The very next chapter will show God’s independent power when the Ark was in Philistine territory. The Ark the appointed sign of God’s covenant throne was removed from Israel and the corrupt priestly house of Eli had fallen but God’s departure of glory did not diminish the glory and the power of God Himself.
We all know God is good and gracious. He will glorify His name if those who say are His people do not. This woman realized something was wrong with the people of Israel, their spirit had departed from God and God had judged them. That was reflected in the name of her child born to her before she died. The question is how soon or how long will it take the rest of God’s children to realize their errors, and in who their salvation lies. Hopefully, we do not have to be taught a lesson like Eli’s family to turn completely to God.
“Thus as God was no loser by this event, so the Philistines were no gainers by it; and Israel, all things considered, received more good than hurt by it, as we shall see.” [Poole]
CONCLUSION
Now we hope that you know from the Study Lesson that God does not need your protection when you choose to do things in your own way.
Do not dare to attempt to manipulate God. You might think we can do it in subtle ways and we can justify our ways and believe they are good. We can even pray and then say, ‘in the name of Jesus’ because we hope that when we say that God has to listen. We think that if we use the right words or the right theology God has to say yes.
Doing all of that in that way is trying to manipulate God for we believe that our prayers will help us perform and to help us win.
God used the occasion to show the Philistines that He was a real God and All- powerful. But note that He did not do it because of the deliberate actions of the Israelites for they had rejected a true faith with Him and had put their faith in a gold covered wooden box. God needed to reveal the poverty of their faith and so they lost the battle and the Ark was captured.
But note that after dealing with the rebellious people of Israel, then God had to deal with the Philistines, the pagans, the same kind of people that surround you in the modern world.
So note what happened when the Philistines captured the Ark. Then they began to learn what God’s glory was all about. One writer states;
“Even so, once the Philistines had the Ark God began to confront them with their own false worship., They took it first to the temple of their idol Dagon probably as a representation that Dagon was stronger than the Lord, and had arranged for the Lord to be captured. The next morning, the statue of Dagon was found toppled over, face down in front of the Ark, and had fallen into pieces.
In addition to the problem with their idol, the Philistines began to get sick. Somewhat sceptical, they sent the ark to a different Philistine city, but got the same results. Finally, they decided to see if God wanted the Ark back in Israel. They put it on a cart with some offerings of gold. They hitched the cart up to two cows that had never pulled anything. They took the calves of those cows and penned them up at home.
In fact this shows us that the priest of the Philistines really did not want anyone to believe that it was the Lord who was behind the sickness says in their cities. They said, if the cause the card to Israeli territory, then we know it was the Lord. What if they don’t, we know it wasn’t him. This is sort of like saying, “if we toss a coin and it lands on heads, I win. If it lands on tails I also win., but if it lands on the edge you win”.
So what kind of warnings are there for us?
- God’s will will always be done.
- Take heed to the warnings of God.
- God’s glory will never depart from His people for he is a forgiving God and his promises will always be carried out, though the corrupt ones in and among his people will suffer..
- All heads of Christian families must take heed and avoid making a shipwreck of their family.
- Great noise does not make for a great work of the Lord. The noise in Israel’s camp celebrated victory
- So be wise and do not trust in a crucifix, or a rosary, or even a Bible. You might swear on a stack of Bibles a mile high says one writer but it doesn’t matter if your heart is in the wrong place. Do not trust in “a box”.
- Trust in God. Use your privilege to go straight to God.