1. The Capture of the Ark of the Covenant (4:1b-11)
Chapter 4 records two skirmishess between the Israelites and the Philistines. “The immediate cause for the battle in chap. 4 is not made clear. Mayes (Israelite and Judean History, 323) has proposed that the Philistines were responding to Israel’s victory over their leader Sisera reported in Judg. 5, but reasons for battles between Israel and the Philistines were, no doubt, numerous.”[1] The fact of the matter is that “Israel found the Philistines to be their most serious perennial adversay in the eleventh century,”[2] and struggles between the two nations are numerous in this time period (cf. Judg. 3:31; Judg. 13-16; 1 Sam. 13-14; 21:11-16; 27:1-28:2; 29:1-11; 31; 2 Sam. 5:17-25).
• The battlefield of the Israelites and the Philistines (4:1b)
While Israel camped beside Ebenezer, the Philistines camped at Aphek. This region was roughly twenty miles west of Shiloh and twenty miles north of the Philistine city of Ekron.[3]
• Israel's defeat (4:2-11)
During the first battle (vv. 2-4), the Philistines killed about 4,000 Israelites, so the people brought the Ark of the Covenant into battle. The purpose for bringing the Ark of the Covenant into battle was because “the elders doubtless remembered the account of Joshua’s victory over Jericho, in which the ark was a highly visible symbol of divine help and strength (Josh. 6:2-20; cf. also Num. 10:35). It would accompany Israel’s army on at least one other occasion in the future as well (2 Sam. 11:11). What the elders failed to understand, however, was that the ark was neither an infallible talisman nor a military palladium that would ensure victory. If God willed defeat for his people, a thousand arks would not bring success. Marten H. Woudstra has well stated concerning attempts to manipulate the ark: ‘the offenses against the ark as pledge of Yahweh’s presence appear to be mainly of two kinds: (1) a misplaced reliance on the ark, and (2) an irreverent disregard for the ark’ (The Ark of the Covenant from Conquest to Kingship [Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1965], p. 55). The elders understood clearly that if God was not ‘with’ them, defeat was inevitable (Num. 14:42; Deut. 1:42). They mistakenly assumed, however, that wherever the ark was, the Lord was.”[4]
During the second battle (vv. 5-11), 30,000 Israelite soldiers were killed (v. 10)—more with the Ark than without the Ark in the first battle. Hophni and Phinehas both died in this battle on the same day, and the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines (v. 11).
2. The Death of Eli (4:12-22)
• The Benjamite's message (4:12-17)
▪ Israel had fled before the Philistines.
▪ There was a great slaughter among the people.
▪ Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, had been killed.
▪ The Ark of God had been captured.
• The aftermath of the message (4:18-22)
When Eli heard this news, he fell off his chair, broke his neck, and died (v. 18). He was a heavy man, perhaps due to his participation in gluttony with his sons (cf. 2:30). Additionally, Phinehas's wife went into premature labor when she heard the news. She named him Ichabod ("no glory"), because the glory had departed from Israel.
3. The LORD Afflicts the Philistines for Capturing the Ark (5:1-12)
• The Ark of the Covenant is brought to Ashdod (5:1-2)
When the Philistines brought the Ark of God to Ashdod, they placed it in the temple of Dagon: “The ark would have been placed in the temple to indicate that Yahweh, Israel’s God, was a defeated prisoner of Dagon . . . . There are several examples in the ancient world of statues of a god being carried off as trophies of war."[5] Dagon was considered the father of the storm-god Baal in Ugaritic literature, and scholars believe that he may have been considered to be the god of grain.[6]
• Dagon's humiliation (5:3-6a)
Dagon's statue fell on its face (v. 3), as if in worship to God. Then, Dagon's head and hands had been cut off (v. 4), just as the Philistines did to their defeated enemies. The message is clear; the LORD was more powerful than the false god Dagon!
• The LORD strikes the Philistines with a plague (5:6-12)
The purpose for moving the Ark of God was that God smote the people with a plague of tumors wherever they brought the Ark. There have been several views as to what the plague of tumors refers to:
1) Boils
2) Abscesses
3) Hemorrhoids
4) Dysentery; cf. Josephus, Antiquities 6.3
5) Bubonic Plague
“The connection of the swellings with the bubonic plague has been supported by the mention of rats or mice in v 6 . . . . It may well be that the mice [6:5] had been the carriers of the bubonic plague, which had raised buboes or tumors on the people."[7] Bubonic plague is spread through fleas that infest rats.”[8] “Untreated,[bubonic plague] is fatal in well over half of those who contract it."[9]
[1] Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel, vol. 10 in the Word Biblical Commentary, ed. David A. Hubbard and Glenna W. Barker (Waco, TX: Word, 1983), 41.
[2] Walter Brueggeman, First and Second Samuel, in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, ed. James Luther (Louisville: John Knox, 1990), 29.
[3] Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, The IVP Background Commentary: Old Testament, 286.
[4] Youngblood, "1, 2 Samuel," 595.
[5] Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, The IVP Background Commentary: Old Testament, 287.
[6] Youngblood, 1, 2 Samuel, 601-2.
[7] Klein, 1 Samuel, 57.
[8] Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, The IVP Background Commentary: Old Testament, 288.
[9] Baldwin, 1 and 2 Samuel, 74.
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