Scripture Daily

Context No. 36 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 7:12-17: in context

12Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, “The LORD helped us until now.” 13So the Philistines were subdued, and they stopped coming within the border of Israel. The LORD’s hand was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. 14The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even to Gath; and Israel recovered its border out of the hand of the Philistines. There was peace between Israel and the Amorites. 15Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. 16He went from year to year in a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; and he judged Israel in all those places. 17His return was to Ramah, for his house was there, and he judged Israel there; and he built an altar to the LORD there.

Israel had lost the ark of the covenant to the Philistines in a battle at Ebenezer years before, and the loss had gone deep. Under Samuel, the last of the judges, the people put away their foreign gods and gathered at Mizpah, and when the Philistines attacked the gathering, they were routed. This passage is what Samuel does the day after.

He sets up a stone between Mizpah and Shen and names it Ebenezer, which means stone of help, saying, the LORD helped us this far. The name is pointed. Ebenezer was the place where Israel had been beaten and the ark had been captured. Samuel takes the name of the worst defeat and fixes it to a rock marking a rescue. His claim is careful, too. Not that God will always help, but that he has helped, up to this point.

The rest of the passage is unglamorous. Samuel spends his life riding a circuit between Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, judging cases, and going home to Ramah. A stone by the road, and then years of ordinary work. What would I have to set up to remember that I was helped, in a place I mainly remember as a loss?

Sources