1 Samuel 7:9

These verses come at the end of a long dark stretch. The Philistines had beaten Israel and taken the ark of God (1 Samuel 4:11), and the story of the ark’s capture and return fills 1 Samuel 4–6. For twenty years “all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD” (1 Samuel 7:2). It was the kind of age the book of Judges sums up in its last line: “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Samuel, now prophet and judge, called the people to put away their foreign gods and the Ashtaroth and serve the LORD only (1 Samuel 7:3–4). They gathered at Mizpeh, drew water and poured it out before the LORD, fasted, and confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD” (1 Samuel 7:5–6).

Mizpeh, whose name means “watchtower”, lay in the land of Benjamin and was a place where all Israel came together, as it did in Judges 20:1. When the Philistines heard that Israel “were gathered together”, they took it as a threat. The verb is qâbats, the ordinary word for gathering or assembling, used of people coming together for a common purpose. To the Philistines a nation assembled in one place looked like an army mustering, and they moved to break it up before it could grow. Their lords “went up”, ʻâlâh, the plain verb for going up, here used of an army advancing against Israel. These lords, the seranim, ruled the five chief Philistine cities, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, so the whole strength of the Philistines was coming.

So Israel’s turning back to God brought an enemy to the door before it brought peace. That happens to God’s people still. Paul says that our real wrestling is against “principalities” and “powers” and “spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12), and James promises that when we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7).

The people turn to Samuel, their prophet and judge, and speak with one voice. “Cease not” carries the sense “do not be silent”: they want him to keep on praying until the LORD acts. To “cry”, zâʻaq, is to cry out, especially for help in hardship. It is the word Scripture uses for a call to God from trouble.

They call him “the LORD our God”. Having just put away the foreign gods, they claim the LORD as their own God again. What they ask is that he will “save” them, yâshaʻ, to deliver, rescue and give victory, “out of the hand of the Philistines”. The hand, yâd, stands for power and control. Israel had lived in the Philistines’ grip, and to be saved out of their hand meant to be set free from their rule and from the army now coming against them. They knew their own strength could do nothing here, which is what the psalmist says of every nation: “There is no king saved by the multitude of an host” (Psalm 33:16–17). The LORD invites exactly this cry, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee” (Jeremiah 33:3), and he promises to hear a people who humble themselves, pray and turn from their wicked ways (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Samuel takes “a sucking lamb”, a young lamb still nursing. The word for lamb is ṭâleh. The law of the burnt offering, set out in Leviticus 1, asked for an animal without blemish (Leviticus 1:3), burned whole on the altar as an offering pleasing to the LORD (Leviticus 1:9). Samuel offers it “wholly unto the LORD”. That word, kâlîyl, means whole or complete. In the burnt offering, the ‘olah, the whole animal went up in fire to God, and no part was kept back for priest or worshipper. It was a sign of complete dedication, and here it gives the nation wholly back to the LORD at the moment it asks for his help.

Samuel was a prophet and judge, and here he offers the sacrifice himself. This came at a time when the priestly house of Eli had fallen (1 Samuel 4), and in that emergency Samuel led the nation in worship as well as in prayer.

Then “Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel”. It is the same verb, zâʻaq, that the people used in verse 8: he does exactly what they asked of him. “And the LORD heard him.” To hear, here, is to hear and answer, as the next verse shows at once. Scripture says the same many times over: “The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth” (Psalm 34:17), “verily God hath heard me” (Psalm 66:19), and to the people in exile, “ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

The timing is precise. “As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering”, while the lamb was still on the altar, “the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel”. At that moment “the LORD thundered”. The name is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of Israel’s God, the self-existent and eternal one, and the verse makes him the one who acts. The verb ra’am, to thunder, comes from a root meaning to tumble or be violently agitated. It was “a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines”, aimed at them.

The thunder “discomfited them”. The verb hâmam means to put in commotion, to disturb, to drive or to destroy. The Philistine army fell into panic and confusion and could no longer fight as an army, “and they were smitten before Israel”. The same verb describes the LORD troubling the Egyptian army at the Red Sea, when the Egyptians cried, “the LORD fighteth for them” (Exodus 14:24–25). It is the promise Moses gave there, that the LORD would fight for his people (Exodus 14:14). The Psalms speak of the LORD thundering in the heavens against the enemies of his servant (Psalm 18:13), and Isaiah says the Assyrian would be beaten down by the voice of the LORD (Isaiah 30:30–31).

Once God had broken the enemy, the men of Israel “went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines”. The verb râdaph means to run after, to pursue or chase, usually with hostile intent. They “smote” them, nâkâh, the ordinary verb for striking, which covers wounding and killing alike. They kept on as far as “under Bethcar”. The name Bêyth Kar means “house of pasture”. Its exact place is unknown today, and it marks how far the chase went.

The victory was the LORD’s from first to last, and Israel had a real part in it. God threw the Philistines into confusion, and Israel went out and finished what he had begun. It matches what happened in Joshua’s day, when the LORD discomfited the kings before Israel and Israel chased them along the way (Joshua 10:10). It fulfils the promise of the law that the LORD would cause Israel’s enemies to be smitten before them, coming out one way and fleeing seven (Deuteronomy 28:7), and it echoes David’s words, “I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them” (Psalm 18:37).

When the battle was over, “Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen”, near the place where God had acted. He named it Ebenezer, in Hebrew ‘Eben ha-ʻÊzer, from ‘eben, “stone”, and ‘ezer, “help”: the stone of help. Then he said what the name means: “Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.” The verb ʻâzar means to surround, protect or aid, and the help in view here is the LORD’s thunder and the rout that followed.

The stone had no power of its own. Its work was to testify, so that anyone who passed it would ask what it meant and hear what the LORD had done. Israel had set up stones like this before. Jacob set up the stone he had slept on as a pillar at Bethel (Genesis 28:18), and Joshua set up stones from the Jordan so that the children of later days would know how the waters were cut off before the ark (Joshua 4:7). God told his people to remember all the way he had led them (Deuteronomy 8:2), and the psalmist tells his own soul to “forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2). Ebenezer is that remembering set in stone.

“So the Philistines were subdued.” The verb kânaʻ means to humble or to subdue. Strong’s gives its root picture as bending the knee. The enemy who had ruled Israel for twenty years was brought low, “and they came no more into the coast of Israel”.

The reason is given in the last clause: “the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.” In verse 8 the people begged to be saved “out of the hand of the Philistines”. Now the hand, yâd, that matters in the story is the LORD’s. The phrase yâd Yᵉhôvâh, “the hand of the LORD”, speaks of God’s own power at work, here turned against the oppressor. The psalmist says of the conquest of Canaan that Israel did not win the land by their own sword, “but thy right hand, and thine arm” (Psalm 44:3). The Philistines had already learned something of that hand when their god Dagon fell before the ark of the LORD (1 Samuel 5:2–5). Isaiah says that the LORD’s hand is never too short to save, and that it is his people’s sins that separate them from him (Isaiah 59:1–2). Here the people had turned from their sins, and the hand of the LORD was for them.

“All the days of Samuel” uses yôwm, “day”, which can also mean a span of time. Here it means the whole time Samuel judged Israel. The peace was tied to his faithful leadership and his prayers, and it lasted as long as he did.

“The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel.” The verb is shûwb, to turn back or return. The towns came back to the people they had been taken from. They lay “from Ekron even unto Gath”, the border country next to Ekron and Gath, two of the five chief Philistine cities, so the recovery reached all along the line where Philistine land met Israel’s.

“The coasts thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the Philistines.” The KJV’s “coasts” translates gᵉbûwl, which means border or boundary and so the territory inside it. It has nothing to do with the seashore here. Israel recovered the towns and the land around them. The verb in this clause is active: Israel delivered its own land, going out to take back what God had opened to them.

“And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.” The Amorites were one of the peoples of Canaan, and the verse does not say how this peace came. The point is its reach. God gave rest on more than one border. The word for peace, shâlôwm, names a state of completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety. It is the peace the law had promised to an obedient people, when God would give peace in the land and none would make them afraid (Leviticus 26:6), and the return Moses foretold when Israel turned back to the LORD with all their heart (Deuteronomy 30:1–5). The psalmist says the LORD “will speak peace unto his people” (Psalm 85:8–10), and Isaiah says that “the work of righteousness shall be peace” (Isaiah 32:17–18).

Samuel stood between God and Israel, offering a lamb and crying for the people, and the LORD heard him. That points to Jesus, the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Timothy 2:5). Samuel’s young lamb points to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ offered himself once for all (Hebrews 7:27), and by that offering we are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10). His own blood, offered through the eternal Spirit, does what the blood of animals could only picture (Hebrews 9:11–14). As the LORD heard Samuel, so God accepted his Son’s sacrifice and declared him the Son of God with power by raising him from the dead (Romans 1:4). Where Israel trembled, Christ trusted and obeyed his Father through all his suffering (Hebrews 5:7–8).

Israel begged Samuel, “Cease not to cry unto the LORD our God for us.” Jesus never stops. He “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25), he is at the right hand of God interceding for us (Romans 8:34), and he is our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14). So we may come boldly to the throne of grace and “find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). His very name tells what he came to do: “he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

The thunder at Mizpeh points to a greater victory. At the cross Christ “spoiled principalities and powers” and made “a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). He has overcome the world (John 16:33), and when he returns he will destroy the lawless one “with the spirit of his mouth” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). As Israel went out and pursued an enemy God had already broken, believers put on the whole armour of God (Ephesians 6:11–12) and through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13), as those who are “more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Romans 8:37–39).

Ebenezer was a stone of help, and Scripture calls Christ the precious corner stone God has laid in Zion (Isaiah 28:16), the living stone on whom his people are built (1 Peter 2:4–8). The peace of Samuel’s days lasted for one man’s lifetime. Christ gives a peace of his own that the world cannot give (John 14:27). He is our peace, who has broken down the wall between peoples and made them one in himself (Ephesians 2:14–16), and the peace with the Amorites gives a small foretaste of that. In the end God will wipe away all tears, and there will be no more death or sorrow (Revelation 21:4).

These verses show us a God who answers the prayer of people who have turned back to him. Israel came to him afraid, with nothing to offer but a young lamb and a cry for help, and he heard. He fought for them with his own thunder, gave their enemy into their hands, held the Philistines back for a whole generation, and gave them back what they had lost. Then he let a stone stand by the road to say that he had done it.

Samuel’s words belong to every believer who looks back over the way God has brought them: “Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.” The God who helped until now is the same God who goes ahead, and in Christ we have an intercessor who never ceases to pray for us.