Ichabod

As she lay dying after giving birth, Eli’s daughter-in-law left her son the name “Ichabod.” When she heard the news that God’s ark had been taken and that her father-in-law, her husband, and his brother were all dead, the shock brought on the birth suddenly, and she died as soon as the baby was born. Samuel had delivered the word of judgment, but Eli and his sons did not believe it. Before Samuel, a nameless man of God had come and delivered the word of judgment, and after that Samuel heard God’s voice himself and passed on exactly what he had heard. But they were content with the life they were enjoying at the moment, so they paid no mind even to God’s word.

Samuel’s prophecy had come to pass at last, and Phinehas’ wife named her son “Ichabod,” meaning “God’s glory has departed from Israel.” Look closely at this event. God’s glory did not depart because the ark was captured by the Philistines. The priests, who should have honored and served God more closely than anyone, did not wholly believe and follow God’s word. That is why God’s glory had no choice but to depart. The woman probably knew God’s wrath, and so she would have urged the proud Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas to turn back. But her persuasion had no power, so it had no effect on them. It was like the way Jesus’ words had no effect when he preached the gospel to the chief priests, scribes, and elders who held worldly power. To the wicked, the truth is nothing but something they do not want to hear.

Yet the Bible has not forgotten her faith. It hands down to us today how she paid no attention to the birth of her son, but died anxious for Israel, from which God’s glory had departed. It matters very much where the Bible puts its focus. An Israel from which God’s glory has departed is no longer God’s people. Hophni and Phinehas died in the war with the Philistines, but the prayer and faith of a woman who had no power in the world left precious descendants.

1 Samuel 14:3

3including Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of Yahweh in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. The people didn’t know that Jonathan was gone.

Between the account of Saul offering a sacrifice to God without Samuel’s permission and the account of Jonathan’s raid on the Philistines, the Bible suddenly introduces one man. Ahijah, the priest now wearing the ephod and serving God, is the son of Ahitub, and Ahitub is a son born to Phinehas’ wife. Ahitub had another son: Ahimelech, who appears in 1 Samuel 22:9. Ahimelech was the priest whom Saul killed along with eighty-five priests for the crime of giving David bread and Goliath’s sword. The descendants of the woman who bore Ichabod carried on the line of upright priests, and despite Saul’s threats they chose an upright death. From this we can see that she raised her children in faith. This passage shows how important it is for a mother to live rightly by faith as she raises her children.

1 Kings 2:26-27 tells of Abiathar, who saw the holy deaths of his father Ahimelech and the priests, yet for the sake of getting ahead chose Adonijah instead of following Solomon. Though Abiathar made the wrong choice, Solomon forgave him, telling him to go back to his hometown of Anathoth. The faith of one weak woman caused her descendants to receive forgiveness without end.

Amos 9:7 records that the Philistines, who are at war with Israel, came up from Caphtor. Caphtor refers to the region of the island of Crete. Around 2000 B.C., in the time of Abraham, the Philistines lived on the island of Crete, but in the period of the judges they took full control of the southwest of the land of Canaan. From then on they harassed Israel without end. They were a people with an advanced civilization and highly developed iron-working skills, so a corrupt Israel was no match for them.

In the first battle with the Philistines, Israel suffered a crushing defeat in which four thousand soldiers were killed. The battle belongs to God. So the defeated Israelites, rather than looking back on their sins and repenting, came to think that God had made them lose. When they had suffered a crushing defeat, they should have examined their own faith before blaming God for not helping them.

When Israel was defeated, the elders thought that if they took the ark of Yahweh’s covenant to the battlefield, God would drive back their enemies. Their thinking may even look like great faith. But the elders could believe that taking the ark into battle would surely bring victory only because they did not know what the ark of the covenant was. In fact, when the ark of the covenant, which had always worked miracles for them, came onto the battlefield, Israel rejoiced, sure that victory was theirs no matter what. The Philistines, on the other hand, knew the power of Almighty God and were gripped by fear that they would lose.

All such thinking comes from looking at the ark of the covenant from the human side. If we look at the ark of the covenant, or at salvation, only from the human point of view, we can end up like Israel, who suffered a terrible defeat even with the ark among them. We can end up sure of salvation, yet without eternal life. To put it simply, it is the same state of faith as the complacent thought that God will protect me as long as I wear a cross necklace. Someone may hold a worship service in a car after buying it, or drive around with a Bible that is never read, or with a cross hanging in the car. That may show what religion they have, but it is not the measure of faith.

The wars of this world are not decided by weapons or the number of soldiers. Wholehearted faith in God and a life lived by that faith bring about God’s help, and that help leads to victory in the wars of this world. In the end, it is God’s help, which comes from the whole faith of God’s people, that decides the outcome of every war in the world. Stand in the place of a sinner to the end, and look to God. Only then will you experience the work by which your sins, though they are as scarlet, are made as white as snow; and though your sins are red like crimson, God will forgive you and bless you.

As the deeds of Hophni and Phinehas show, the priests and the people wanted to use God to live a prosperous life in the world. Not realizing their sins, they thought that as long as God’s ark was on the battlefield they would win, but instead they failed badly. Even with the ark of the covenant among them, another thirty thousand soldiers died. The Philistine soldiers not only took the ark but even came into Shiloh and carried out a great slaughter. In the midst of this, Hophni and Phinehas were also killed.

From the time Moses made the ark of the covenant, the ark was a holy symbol confirming that God himself was ruling as Israel’s king. Countless miracles took place because God’s presence was there. But an ark of the covenant that God’s presence has left is nothing more than a wooden box. Today, too, countless churchgoers believe in God as if he were an idol, and that is not faith but superstition. Every form of religion practiced out of the thought that disaster will strike unless people offer something is a badly mistaken faith that has nothing to do with God.

Of course, it is true that people who skip church have no interest in the Word, and it is also true that those who agonize every time they give an offering begrudge it because they love money more than God. But if the reason for keeping the Lord’s Day and giving offerings lies in receiving fleshly blessings, that is a faith that seeks blessings. True offering is expressing thanks to God, who has supplied everything we need to live in this world. True worship is the worship offered to the King by his people because they hope for the eternal kingdom.

Hebrews 9:4

4having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

Inside the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold were a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and two stone tablets. All three were given when the people of Israel complained, grumbled against God, and opposed him. What lay inside God’s ark of the covenant was not a confession of faith offered to God, but things that symbolized humanity’s utter sinfulness.

Deuteronomy 4:13 says that the two tablets were the ten commandments, which Yahweh declared as his covenant and commanded the people to perform, and that God wrote them himself. In the Ten Commandments God said not to make or serve any god other than him, yet even at the very moment of grace when God was giving the Ten Commandments, the people of Israel were sinning by making a golden calf and serving it. At the very moment God was showing them the everlasting way, human beings were sitting in the seat of utter sin. When Moses saw this, he grew angry and threw down the first tablets on the spot and broke them. Afterward he made a second set of tablets and went up to God again, and it was these tablets that were in the ark of the covenant.

Deuteronomy 8:3 records that God “fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth.” God had worked supernatural events to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt, yet the people of Israel sinned by grumbling against God and demanding food. To a people who complained and grumbled against God that there was nothing to eat in the wilderness, God sent down manna.

“Manna” means “What is it?” It was not food that people had sown and harvested in the ordinary way; when they went out into the field in the morning, the dew that had fallen from the sky had formed into manna they could eat. By sending down manna, God wanted to show that his people do not live a life confined to this world. When Jesus had fasted, Satan tempted him to prove that he was the Son of God, saying, “Command that these stones become bread.” Then Jesus answered, “Man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth.” Of course, people must eat to live. But we must keep in mind that if people live focused only on physical food, they can fall for Satan’s temptation and sink into spiritual death. Only when we live by the word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth can we live according to God’s will and gain spiritual power and life as well. Only by living by faith can we enjoy the glory of seeing heaven’s miracles.

Numbers 17:8

8On the next day, Moses went into the Tent of the Testimony; and behold, Aaron’s rod for the house of Levi had sprouted, budded, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds.

There was an incident when Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and two hundred fifty men chosen from the congregation challenged the authority of Moses and Aaron and rose in rebellion. When God saw what they did, his glory appeared, and in his wrath he told Moses and Aaron that he would destroy this whole congregation. Then Moses and Aaron earnestly prayed that he would withdraw his wrath. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who had opposed them, went down alive into the split ground and died, together with their households, all who belonged to them, and their goods. To obstruct the work of a leader God has appointed and to challenge that authority is the same as obstructing God’s work, and it is like the sin of resisting the Holy Spirit. Of course, this holds only on the condition that the leader lives according to God’s word. To the people who did not obey Moses and Aaron, whom God had appointed, God gave a command: take the rods of the twelve tribes and place them in the Tent of Meeting. He said that the rod of the one God chose would bud, and that by this they should know that this man was the one God had chosen, and not oppose him. When the twelve rods were laid before God’s ark, only the rod of the tribe of Levi blossomed with almond flowers and bore fruit.

So the ark of the covenant held three symbols that represent the sins of Israel. Forgetting this forgiveness by the sprinkling of blood, the people of Israel used the ark of the covenant as a tool for their own greed. If believers too try to use God as Israel did, that in itself would mean they are no longer God’s people. Faith that is thankful for God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice becomes a power through which one can experience astonishing miracles and wonders, but those who use their faith to pursue worldly comfort will not be protected by God.

God did not strike the Philistines; he made his own people suffer defeat. So the people of Israel should have sought God’s will with their lives on the line and produced fruit worthy of repentance. Had they repented of the sin of treating God as no different from a mere pagan god, the God of love would have forgiven and protected them. Never think lightly of God as the people of Israel did, because God is the Creator who made the world.

Hebrews 10:19-20

19Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

Jesus came to this earth to give himself as a ransom for many. Christ opened by his precious blood the holy place that sinners could never enter. Because of that, we have now received the blessing of being able to enter the holy place with boldness. The heart of the sacrifices offered to God lies in “receiving forgiveness of sins.” Now, of course, we no longer offer blood sacrifices, because Jesus Christ atoned once for all for the sins of humanity. Believers who hold to this truth will never face judgment. So the children who have received God’s favor must now keep the Word at the center without ceasing, so that they never forget that they are sinners. We must believe with certainty, as the people of Asia Minor believed when they heard the apostle Paul preach, and as the Ethiopian eunuch believed when he heard Philip preach. Such faith is a blessing from heaven, given when one understands the Word and turns back.

In verse 18 of the text, when Eli heard that God’s ark had been taken, he fell from his seat, his neck broke, and he died. Eli carried out the priesthood for forty long years, yet in the end broke his neck and died miserably. Seeing him, we too must take care that our faith does not grow heavy. Even in the urgent situation of God’s ark being out on the battlefield, the priest did not pray but sat on his seat and only waited for news. Seeing this, we too must ask ourselves whether we are living on the fierce battlefield of this world without prayer, only hoping for a stroke of luck.

If we believers leave the place of prayer and act just like the people of the world, how are we any different from Eli? Eli complacently thought that since he was one of God’s people and a priest, God would take care of everything on his own. The people would keep bringing offerings to sacrifice to God, and he already knew how to offer sacrifices, so he carried out his office without fear, keeping up only the outward form. This is the thought that one can make a living by trading on God’s name, and it is the same sin Adam committed when he ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Some think it is enough to go to church as a formality, worship, give a moderate offering, and have heaven guaranteed. To think this way is to commit the sin of eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil every day. Only when we know that God, being almighty, reads every deep thought of the human heart can we keep away from sin.

The daughter-in-law proclaimed judgment without ceasing, even though her father-in-law Eli and her husband Phinehas would not listen to her. Only when we are like her can our descendants stand upright before God. Looking at Eli and Phinehas, God had no choice but to bring a curse, but because of the prayers that Eli’s daughter-in-law earnestly offered, God’s heart was moved. From the house of Eli, which was to face destruction and judgment, he raised up holy descendants like Ahimelech, who helped David. If you have faith like that of Eli’s daughter-in-law, the watercourse of life will flow on through you to all the fruit, spiritual and physical, that is born through you. One person’s whole faith becomes a power that carries God’s grace to their descendants and to those around them, and so it bears the fruit of salvation. But when someone lacks whole faith, as Eli did, not only the sons at his side but even the people come to suffer along with him.

I hope the faith you have now is the faith of this woman, who even as she was dying grieved that God’s glory had departed from Israel. When you have a faith that knows that the departure of God’s glory means judgment and destruction, you can keep a whole faith.

May you always see the glory of God as his precious people. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 5:1-5

1Now the Philistines had taken God’s ark, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2The Philistines took God’s ark, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 3When the people of Ashdod arose early on the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark. They took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 4When they arose early on the following morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold. Only Dagon’s torso was intact. 5Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any who come into Dagon’s house, step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod, to this day.