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Meet Saul - 1st Samuel 9

Israel has decided that they want a king, and I think it’s because they want to become like the nations around them, the powerful ones. They don’t want to be the way that God wants them to be, they want to be like the other nations, powerful militarily, rich, financially prosperous. Ironically, if they had lived the way that God wanted them to live, they wouldn’t have had to devote resources to the military, and they would have been prosperous like they were promised in the law of Moses. But they didn’t want it that way, they wanted it their own way, they wanted to be seen and envied by other nations. I think that that was the main difference between the way God wanted them to do it and the way they wanted to do it. God’s way meant taking care of everyone, they wanted to be rich themselves and at best, didn’t care if it affected others, and at worst, they wanted a system in which they could become rich by exploiting the vulnerable of their community. God’s way would have had them be hu...
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King - 1st Samuel 8

Samuel has judged Israel as a whole for several decades and he’s getting old and he was hoping to pass on his position to his sons, I think like most fathers want. Unfortunately for Samuel, like Eli, his sons were not righteous, nor were the people. Specifically, his sons “walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgement.” TB says that the translation of the word “lucre” specifically indicates that they made money through illegitimate and ill-gotten methods. The elders of Israel met together and decided that they didn’t want Samuel’s sons to become their judges and that they wanted a king “like all the nations.” The IM says that the fact that Samuel’s sons were not righteous was just an excuse used by the elders to advocate for a king over the theocratic system that they were currently living under. I tried to think about why they would do this, why would they want a king instead of a righteous judge, and some of the thoughts that I had w...
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Repentance - 1st Samuel 7

The people of Beth-shemesh were terrified of the ark after the 70 people were killed by God for their mishandling of it and called for someone from Kirjath-Jearim to come and pick it up, and a man named Abinadab did just that and took it to his house. The fact that Abinadab was not killed by God for taking the ark to his house indicates to me that he was authorized to handle the ark in the way prescribed by God. Abinadab “sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord.” So the son seems to have been given the job of looking after the ark and taking care of it and he did just that for 20 years. TB notes that it’s probable that there was no sacred place like Shiloh or the tabernacle to keep the ark in at that time due to the defunct nature of the priesthood at that point, and again, to me, the fact that no one else was killed while caring for the ark in his house for 20 years indicates to me that that was probably true. Verse 2 says “all the house of Israel lamented after the Lo...
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The Ark is Back - 1st Samuel 6

At the end of chapter 5, the Philistines were afflicted with a serious disease process in all the cities where the ark of the covenant was taken. The KJV just says “emerods” which is footnoted to mean tumors or boils which is an interesting description. It would be weird to have the people erupt in tumors, boils would make more sense, but the IM gives a pretty good suggestion. Later in chapter 6 we learn that this plague was also accompanied by rats or mice, which lends credence to this suggestion. The IM notes “many died, and those who did not seem to have endured great suffering.” The IM also says that Josephus indicates that is was a “very destructive disease’ involving dysentery, bleeding, and severe vomiting… There severity of the disease and the fact that rodents were involved lead many scholars to conclude that what smote the Philistines was bubonic plague.” Whatever it was, it was severe enough that the people of these cities knew something was wrong and suddenly, to the point ...
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Dagon - 1st Samuel 5

The Israelites are devastated that the ark of the covenant has been captured by the Philistines, and maybe it’s partially because they have a quasi legitimate view of their God because it’s been so warped by centuries of apostasy that I think they are more equating the ark with the pagan idols that everyone else worships. In their mind, I would imagine, this is no different than when Rachel stole her father Laban’s idols and he came after them so fiercely. I think that they saw the ark as their idol representative of God and it being captured was the same as their God being captured. Yesterday I talked about why God would command Israel to go to war knowing that they were going to be slaughtered and have the ark captured, and I think there maybe two different reasons for that. The first might have been that maybe the 34,000 soldiers who were slain were a especially wicked part of Israel that would have impeded their turn back to God. It’s interesting to note that in the Book of Mormon ...
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Attacking the Philistines - 1st Samuel 4

Now that Samuel was recognized as a prophet throughout all of Israel, which had not been united for a while, “the word of Samuel came to all Israel.” We don’t know what the word was nor do we know what God said to Samuel beforehand to cause him to put this word out. The result of Samuel’s word, though, was that “Israel went out against the Philistines to battle.” Presumably Samuel told Israel to go to battle against the Philistines because presumably the Lord told Samuel to tell them to do that. TB reminds us that the Philistines were seafaring people so the fact that they had a military presence so far into Israel’s territory was proof that Israel had not only lost significant territory to them but just how entrenched the Philistines were in Israelite society. He also reminded us that the Philistines had a professional, skilled military whereas the Israelite army was most goat herders and farmers, so militarily, without God, it was going to be a bloodbath and the only reason why the H...
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Here I am - 1st Samuel 3

At this point, Eli has had “a man of God” come curse him and his family because of their wickedness and I’m sure that weighed heavily on him because he’s not a bad guy. TB gave an excellent summation of Eli and it was a very powerful commentary on leadership in God’s kingdom. He said, “We must be careful not to mischaracterize Eli as a thoroughly wicked man and thus worthy of destruction; he was not and thus God did not destroy him. Rather Eli was a decent man who loved the Lord, but he was a weak man, not strong enough for the challenging and critical role as Israel’s High Priest… Eli’s lack of fortitude led to allowing his sons to run rampant over God’s people… Undoubtedly Eli had inherited (and not created) a dysfunctional priesthood along with 12 dysfunctional tribes to oversee, but there is also no evidence that he did any more than to passively man his post, enjoy the honors and privileges of his lofty office and abide by the many questionable manmade traditions that developed an...
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