1 Samuel 4-7
“God Can Do What God Wants”
Rev. Tom Harris
July 26, 2009
We have come to a part of 1 Samuel that is better taken as a larger section than one paragraph or chapter at a time. Chapters 4 through 7 of 1 Samuel lend themselves to interpretation as a cohesive unit. So in just a moment I will briefly summarize the narrative of these four chapters. Before that I want to make two observations about the content. First, this story from 1 Samuel, could be described as religiously primitive. There are elements to the story that sound very superstitious. In addition, God in the story is not a lovey dovey, Jesus loves the little children, kum ba ya, kind of God. God in this story, inflicts whole cities with tumors and kills people in large numbers. I look at the understanding of God in this story as a precursor to more universal understandings that are further developed in the Old and New Testaments. So, first, this story is religiously primitive.
Second, though this story may seem to be about two religious symbols, the Ark of the Covenant and the statue of Dagaon duking it out I think the Ark of the Covenant, which is Israel’s symbol offers a profound development in religious thought. The other god in this story is Dagon the god of the Philistines. Dagon is symbolized by a statue of the god himself, complete with a head and hands, which we will hear more about in a moment. Now, there is a place for religious statues and even for altars where offerings can be left at a statue’s feet, for instance, but the Ark of the Covenant is not a statue of the God of Israel. It is considered, on the contrary, a throne upon which sits an invisible God, a God that cannot be imaged. That may seem like an insignificant difference but I think acknowledging the invisibility and imagelessness of God releases God in our minds and allows God to be quite a bit less definite than he or she might be when imagined in the form of a statue that looks like us or kind of like some animal. And in fact, one of the main points of these four chapters as I will say is God’s freedom from our human manipulation and imagination.
So here we go with the story, first to recap chapter 4: The Philistines who lived along the coast of the Mediterranean and occupied 5 cities in the region go to war against the Israelites and defeat them. The Israelites decide they would do better if they had their God with them in battle so they go and got the two corrupt priests Phineas and Hophni, son’s of Eli to bring the Ark of the Covenant upon which God is enthroned into battle with them. Apparently, though their God is invisible he is not able to get out of his chair. This seems like a good move and gets the Israelites really pumped up and scares the Philistines to death, but the Philistines suck it up, go into battle and end up defeating the Israelites even worse than before and they captur the Ark upon which the God Israel is supposed to enthroned. Phineas and Hophni the corrupt priest are killed in battle on the same day as had been predicted and when their father Eli hears about the defeat and capture of the Ark he falls over backward, breaks his neck and dies. Old Testament scholar Walter Bruegemann observes that the only theological reflection on the capture of the throne of the God of Israel by a foreign nation, the only commentary on that event in the whole story comes from an unnamed woman, the pregnant wife of Phinehas who hears of the arks capture, gives birth, and names the child Ichabod which means “The Glory has departed from Israel.” In other words, the only thing that made Israel great was the Ark of the Covenant and it has been taken away.
Moving to chapter 5 the Philistines take the Ark to one of their cities, Ashdod and put it in their temple with the statue of their God Dagon. The Ark is like a trophy of war and positioned to show the superiority of the god Dagon over Israel’s God, Yahweh. But, the next day the Philistines go to admire their trophy and their statue of Dagon has fallen over and is lying on its face before the Ark of the Covenant, the throne of invisible Yahweh. Dagon is bowing to Yahweh. So, the Philistines look at that for a minutes and then shrugged it off as kind of odd and put Dagon back in his place. One nice thing about idols is you can pick them up and put them in their place. But, the next day, when the Philistines go to the temple, Dagon is again lying face down before the Ark this time with his head and his hands cut off. Now, things start to get kind of ugly. Chapter 5 verse 6 says, “The hand of the Lord was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and struck them with tumors.” So the people of Ashdod, looked at their tumor ridden bodies and said, “we need to get this thing out of here. Where can we send it?” So the people of Gath, another Philistine city say, “We’re not afraid of that Ark. Sent it to us.” But when it gets to Gath, the people panick and they all get tumors. So the people of Gath sent the Ark to Ekron and the people of Ekron say, “Woah! We don’t want tumors. Get that thing out of here.” So the Philistines all get together and decide the Ark has to go back to Israel. But, no one, understandably, wants to take it there. So they decide this will also be a good test of Yahweh’s power. Tumors are impressive but let’s see the Ark get back to Israel on a cart without a driver. So they put the Ark on a cart with no driver drawn by cows that have just born calves. They figure if this God is so powerful then cows will be compelled to leave their new born calves behind and take the Ark to Israel even without a cart driver. Before they try this driverless cart experiment the Philistines take one precaution. They don’t want to make Yahweh any more angry, so they send the cart with an offering. What is a fitting offering for this Ark that has done so much damage to the Philistines? They decide as they look at their tumors that the most fitting tribute would be five gold tumors one for each of the cities of Philistia, and they also decide to throw in five gold mice, and then just for good measure they put in four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in pear tree.
So they get it all ready to go and the big moment comes to see if the cows will go back to Israel with the cart and the Ark of the Covenant and lo and behold that is just what they do. Chapter 6 verses 12 says the cows went straight in the direction of Israel, along one highway, they turned neither to the right nor the left and they were lowing as they went.
When the ark arrives in Israel it is gratefully received with much celebration but just so no one gets too comfortable, we are told that a group of guys from one family did not rejoice when the ark came back and it says, “The Lord killed seventy of them.”
What a great story! So, here is the point. God is free to do whatever God wants to do. God cannot be manipulated by our false or sincere piety. God is dangerous and not to trifled with. God does not need anybody to go where God wants to God. God is just God.
I read something recently and I wish I could remember where I read it. It was an essay that said that Judaism was the only major religion that does not include and element of magic. And by magic the author meant the manipulation of special words or object to guarantee a divine response. So, first, I don’t agree with that. Depending on how it is argued, one the hand in their theoretical form I don’t think most major religions really have elements of magic as the author defines it. On the other hand, its is practical form Judaism along with other religions does have elements of magic. But, I know what the author was saying. He was saying that Judaism clearly stresses that people are supposed to follow the law of God and revere God and God has no obligation to do any favors for the people. A person could live a beautiful, righteous life and God would not be required to bless that person. Many streams of Judaism do not even believe in eternal life yet the requirements of God’s law must still be fulfilled. So the rules are do what God says, because God says so and God will do what God wants. In other words, God is not bound.
The Christian slant on that is that yes God is free to do whatever God wants but in the freedom God has chosen to love us. God is not bound yet God freely chooses to bind to us through love. Christians claim that it is God’s nature to love.
But still, the message from these chapters of 1 Samuel remains true for all of us regardless of our religion or lack thereof. We cannot manipulate God to our purposes. We can take God into battle with us. That does not mean we will win. We can leave God home. That does mean we will lose. We can have our most precious religious symbols taken from us and that does not mean God is gone nor does it mean God is powerless if we are not there. God does not need any group of people, whether it is the nation of Israel, or the Christian church, or Islam or Presbyterians or atheists, God does not need any group of people to do anything. God is still God. God is free. God is all powerful. God is invisible and beyond our comprehension. Yet, this tiny piece of truth we continue to hold: this unbound, powerful, incomprehensible God chooses to love us.
