1 Samuel, Chapter 5 - God Acts | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom everybody. Welcome to the Prophets of Israel Daily. My name is Jeremy [music] Gimpel. I'm here with my Havruta, Ari Abramowitz. This is 1 Samuel chapter 5. Ari, how are you? >> Shalom. Good to see you, Jeremy. >> Well, you know, this series it's brought to you by our network, the Land of Israel Network. And if you're enjoying this journey so far through the book of Samuel, you can find all of the series of the Prophets of Israel on the landofisrael.com. So, let's dive right in. There is one religious object that has captured the minds and imaginations of people around the world for centuries. Legends have been passed down, movies have been made about it, and it's the most sacred object in the universe and the one thing chosen as the vessel to transmit the voice of God and the dwelling of the divine presence in the world. And that's the Ark of the Covenant, the Aron HaBrit. And last chapter, Israel went out to war and it was captured by the Philistines, by the pagan nation, by a people who worship an idol called Dagon. And now the Ark is sitting inside Dagon's temple. So, on the surface, it looks like one of the most devastating theological headlines in Israel's history. I think it is. And um it looks like the God of Israel is defeated, his Ark, his covenant with Israel. It's like a trophy of war on a pagan shelf. It's a nightmare. And I think this chapter though gives a deep lesson over about what it means and why we need to learn this now. And so, the Philistines bring the Ark from Ebenezer to Ashdod, one of their five great cities. And it had to have felt like just triumph, a celebration. They carry the Ark into the temple of Dagon and place it right beside their god. Verse 2. Like who placed him at the And the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. Now, understand what this meant in the ancient world. When a nation conquers another nation, the gods of the defeated were placed in the temple of the victorious god. It was the ultimate statement of divine hierarchy. Our god is above your god and your god now serves us. And Dagon wins. The god of Israel loses. That's what it's saying. And that was the theology of the ancient world and that's exactly what the Philistines believed they had just enacted. And then the morning comes. Verse three. And when the Ashdod when they in Ashdod arose early in the morning, behold Dagon was fallen on his face on the earth before the ark of the Lord. So Dagon is on the floor bowing, prostrating himself. The great god of the Philistines is on his face before the ark in his own house in front of his own worshipers. And so the priests pick him up and put him back. And I think about those priests as they arrive in the morning and they see their god prostrating himself on the floor before the ark of the god of Israel. Like you imagine the theological gymnastics required. Oh, Dagon, he fell. He does that sometimes. Like, no. They knew what happened and they put him back anyway. I think as the alternative was just too difficult for them to accept. >> Yeah, you know, it's so easy to say, "Oh, they're them. They're pagans. They're so different than us. We have nothing in common." But really, this is the most human thing in the world, right? Being confronted with an unmistakable truth and choosing to to overlook it to tidy it up anyways. Picked Dagon up off the floor, put him back where he was, act like nothing happened. But this isn't the first time a great power looked at overwhelming evidence and decided to double down instead um of then really reckoning with it and looking at it for what it was. The who comes to my mind all the time when it comes to this? Pharaoh. Pharaoh watched 10 plagues remake Egypt, wipe out the water into blood, darkness at noon, death at every door, and still sent his army into a sea that had just split open for another nation. He saw the walls of water and he rode in anyways. That's not courage, that's the desperate momentum of a worldview that cannot afford to be wrong. The Philistines are doing the same thing just maybe on a little bit of a lesser level. They sent Dagon back on his pedestal not because they believe he's fine, but because the alternative that the God of Israel just humiliated their God in his own house is a truth too large to live with. So they chose the the smaller life, right? And they get one more night to to reconsider, right? One more morning is coming. >> Well, that's exactly what happened. I mean because they come back the next morning in verse four. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the torso of Dagon was left him. So now Dagon isn't just bowing anymore. Dagon is dismembered and decapitated. His head gone. His hands are cut off. The head represents wisdom. It's intelligence and authority. The hands they're the instruments of power and action. And Dagon before the ark has no wisdom, no power, no agency. All that remains is the stump, a body without thought and without action. And Dagon, that's the same God of the Philistines that's mentioned in the spinal story of Samson. And the God of Israel has, and two quiet nights without a single Israelite soldier dismantled the most important God in the Philistine world piece by piece on the floor of Dagon's own temple. And so, then the text gives us insight to how devastating this really was for the Philistines in verse five. Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor anyone who enters Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. The threshold became a permanent reminder. Generations later, people were still stepping over that spot, still honoring the memory of the night the God of Israel walked into Dagon's house alone and destroyed him into pieces. >> You know, this is one of those moments that's that's so it's almost funny if it wasn't so profound, right? A God that falls on his face twice, loses his head and his hands, and then its own priests have to watch where they step inside their own temple, right? That's not a God, that's an embarrassment. But here's what sort of what what gets me here when I really dive into this text. Nobody in the story is defending God. No prophet stands up to explain what's happening. No Israelite army arrives. No priest is interceding here. Hashem doesn't need a defense attorney. He doesn't need anyone to manage his reputation. He just acts quietly in the night with nobody watching. And I think that's one of the deepest things this chapter is really teaching. The moments when God seems most absent are sometimes the moments he's most at work. Right? When the room goes dark and quiet, it's precisely when you should pay closest attention because the morning is going to require an explanation that nobody's ready for. >> You know, in this story, it doesn't end here. Um it doesn't stop at Dagon's temple. In verse 6, but the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and he devastated them and struck them with hemorrhoids. Ashdod and its territory. So, the Yad Hashem, the hand of God, falls heavy, tohorim. Hemorrhoids, tumors. It's like painful, humiliating. The city, all of them, devastating pain. And just notice the language carefully. The very thing Dagon no longer has, his hands, they like cut off in the threshold, God's hand is now moving freely through Philistine cities. And the text is making a point. Dagon, no more hands. God's hand is very active. And so, tohorim, they're understood by Chazal, by the sages of Israel, as hemorrhoids, like painful internal swellings in the most private of areas. And the punishment reflects a middah k'neged middah, measure for measure response. The Philistines, who treated the ark as a public trophy, are struck dafka in their most private internal places where no one can see, losing control, losing their dignity, and they lose the illusion that they've somehow submitted to God of Israel. So, the Philistines call council, and they move the ark to Gath, another Philistine city. And the hand of God follows and strikes at the Philistine in Gath, death and hemorrhoids for whoever survived. And then they move the Aron to Ekron, another Philistine city. And the people of Ekron cry out in verse 10, "They've brought around the ark of God of the God of Israel to us to kill us and our people." So, the people are just terrified. They've already heard the news. They're like, "Don't bring the ark here. They're bringing here to kill us." And so, So place to place, like the ark is like a hot potato. Nobody wants it. Every city it enters becomes a city in crisis. Like the great trophy that was supposed to crown the Philistine victory and has just become a disaster that they desperately just passing it from city to city. And the chapter ends in verse 12. And the men who did not die were struck with tohorim, tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven. So the cry went up to heaven. So when I think that's important to note, they're not crying to Dagon. Their god is in pieces on the temple floor and there's no one to cry out to but the god who created heaven and earth. And they thought they had captured him and that's how the chapter ends. They defeated Israel in battle but not the god of Israel. And so now in total desperation, they call out to heaven because they know now in the most intimate way that Hashem runs the world and rules over all of his creation. >> Yeah, I'll tell you what strikes me about this section is that they keep moving, right? Ashdod to Gath to Ekron. Three cities and same result every time. The Philistines keep thinking the problem is location, like you said. Maybe Ashdod was unlucky. Maybe a fresh start somewhere new will change things. But the problem was never the city. The problem is you're trying to contain the uncontainable. And I think about how often you know, we make the same mistake in our own lives. We try to compartmentalize our relationship with Hashem. We try to give Hashem a a designated corner. He belongs in the synagogue on Shabbat and certain conversations, not in others. Outside those borders, you know, outside those borders we'll manage ourselves. But God doesn't honor the borders we draw for him. He didn't stay in Dagon's temple. He didn't stay in Ashdod. He moved through every wall the Philistines put up. And the only real question facing them, the same question facing us, is whether we meet that movement with with openness and honesty or with panic. >> You know, and it really does speak to our times right now. I mean, we live in a generation that has watched one of the most impossible reversals. Nations that set themselves against Israel to destroy us, to replace Israel, I mean, any way you cut it, an attack on the people of Israel is an attack on the God of Israel. And at the time, we've watched their plans unravel in ways that no one could explain. I mean, October 7th was our darkest hour. And yet, it's unleashed a chain of events that's moved through the entire region in directions no political analyst could have predicted. The nations that attacked us are in shambles, and Israel has emerged stronger than ever before. I mean, with GoPros, they broadcast their message for the public to see. And now, their arms are chopped off, their head has been cut off, and now they're left with just their torso lying on the floor. And I think there's a prophecy for all generations and for ours as well. It's like when the ark was sitting in Dagon's temple for everyone to see. When every external appearance looked like God had been defeated, that was happening in Israel. What was happening in our hearts? I mean, mourning. We were grief. Eli was dead. Ichabod was born. The glory had departed. But the glory didn't really depart. It just moved somewhere nobody in Israel could have seen. And it was doing things no one could have imagined. And sometimes, that's exactly where we find ourselves. When it looks like God is nowhere to be found, or it looks like God has been humiliated or defeated. It's happened before. Nothing represents that more than the ark being lost and placed in the temple of idols. And so, when it looks like all has been lost in Israel, in our homes, in our communities, maybe in our hearts, chapter 5, this story says, "Don't you believe it." Somewhere in the darkness, in a room you can't see, the hand of Hashem is heavy. The idols are falling, and the one who cannot be captured is already working on the next chapter. And so, your job isn't to defend him. Your job is to be ready when the morning comes. And the story of the ark of the covenant is being lost. I mean, it's been lost with us now for 3,000 years. We've had this story with us, and it's telling us that the ark of the covenant, the covenant, is never lost. In the night, when the idols, they seem triumphant, and we're sitting in shock and in grief, and just asking ourselves like, "Where has the glory gone?" The book of Samuel is telling us, "Our people have lived through that before. Be patient. Don't measure God by what he's doing that you can see with your own eyes. You don't count the falling as final. The same God who dismantled Dagon in the night, piece by piece, with no audience, he is working the night shift. He's still moving through history. Still placing his hand where it needs to go. And the morning always comes. The morning always comes for Israel. And so, friends, we are on a journey together through the prophets of Israel. And if you want to take this journey to the next level, we would love to welcome you to our global community. The Land of Israel Fellowship, we gather every week from around the world. It's like nothing else on the planet. And if you're enjoying learning Tanakh with us and seeing how our events are happening today through the paradigm of the prophets, I think the fellowship is absolutely right for you. And so, you'll love learning with the Fellowship of Israel fellowship. [music] Hazak u'motz, my friends. B'ezrat Hashem, we'll see you tomorrow for Samuel chapter 6 when the Philistines have finally had enough [music] and the ark begins its journey home. Shalom from Judea.