Read 1 Samuel 4 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
4:1-17 {p} Israel defeated before the Philistines/ Eli’s sons killed and the ark taken
4:18-22 {p} The death of Eli/ The birth of Ichabod
1 Samuel 4:1b-17 Chiastic Structure:
God is so great, so awesome, so powerful, so wonderful, and so majestic, that His presence inspires fear, Strong’s H3372, which we have seen before. The Philistines were not merely afraid, they were in terror, according to Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon. To be in terror is to be filled with intense or oeverwhelming fear, according to Webster’s. YHVH inspires terror in His enemies.
The problem was, that Eli’s two sons did not fear YHVH, to reverence and respect Him, as we saw in chapter 3. If they reverenced Him, they would have adhered to His commandments concerning their high office. YHVH inspires reverence and respect in His people.
Israel was not defeated before the Philistines because the Philistines acquited themselves like men, and fought from a place of desperation. The might of the foe against Israel is as nothing, when YHVH has determined to fight for His people. They were defeated because their leaders had lost their fear, their reverence and respect, for YHVH. And this defeat catapults Israel into the soul searching, to find the true answer, begun in verse 3:
And when the survivors returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why has YHVH struck us today before the Philistines?” 1 Sam 4:3a
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