Samuel 1, Chapter 4 - Glory Departed | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends and welcome back to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is Shmuel Aleph chapter 4, Samuel [music] 1 chapter 4, brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the landofisrael.com. Shalom Jeremy, how are you? >> Shalom Ari, how are you doing? Good to see you, good to see you. Uh so Jeremy, yesterday you left us on the edge of something extraordinary. Samuel has just been established as a true prophet of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, just huge swath of the country. The whole nation recognizes him and a new era seems to be beginning. And then chapter 4 opens and everything falls apart. And this is the chapter where Israel goes to war and brings Hashem along as a weapon. Uh Vayetzei Yisrael likrat Plishtim lamilchamah. Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle. Right away, something's missing. No consultation with Hashem, no prayer, no Shmuel, they just go. And they are routed rooted routed routed. 4,000 men fall in the field. The elders gather and they ask what sound They [clears throat] ask what sounds like the right question. Lamah nifge'u Hashem bayom Lamah nifge'u Hashem hayom lifnei Plishtim? Why has Hashem struck us today before the Philistines? Yes, it's a little late, but it is the right question. They sense correctly that something spiritual is happening. But watch what they do with it. They don't wait for the answer. They don't go to Shmuel. They make their own diagnosis and their own prescription. Nikkachah lanu Let us take to us from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of Hashem. It will come along with us and save us from the hand of our enemies. Veyoshi'enu. It will save us, not God, The object. They're treating the Aron like a weapon system. Like if you deploy the right holy object, God is obligated to show up. Back to the vending machine thinking that my fourth grade rabbi warned us about. You know, Ari, that right there, that's exactly the disease of this era before the arrival of the king. I mean, you remember Micah's shrine? It's the same spirit. Now I know that Hashem will be good to me because I have a Levite as my priest. It's the same mistake, but just now on a national scale. The ark is meant to be in the Holy of Holies, seen only by the high priest on Yom Kippur once a year. It's not a mobile weapon system that's meant to be paraded into the battlefield. They didn't ask Hashem, should they go to battle? Should they not? They're all just saying, now we know we'll win because we have the Aron with us. It's like because the ark is with us. It's like one of the symptoms of idolatry is when spiritual mechanics replace a real spiritual relationship. And in some ways, this story is a learning process that Israel has to go through on a national level. But as the ark comes, the people are so sure that they can control the outcome of the war by bringing the ark that the people cheer so loud, it terrifies the Philistines. That's right, they were terrified. The Philistines have to encourage themselves. The text The text actually uses that word, hitazku. Right? To strengthen themselves, and they fight, and Israel is crushed. 30,000 soldiers fall. Hophni and Phinehas, right? The sons of Eli the high priest, die exactly as prophesied. And verse 11, varon Elohim nilkach. And the Aron of God was taken. The Ark of Hashem was captured. The very thing they thought would save them becomes the symbol of their deepest loss. And now the scene shifts to Shiloh. Eli, the high priest, 98 years old, blind, is sitting by the gate. The text tells us his heart was trembling, not for his sons, but for the Aron, for the Tabernacle. A messenger arrives from the battlefield, clothes torn, dirt on his head. The whole city cries out. The report comes in in four stages. Verse 17. Ness Yisrael lifnei Plishtim. Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people, and your two sons, Hofni and Pinchas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured. Israel was defeated. There was a great slaughter. Your sons are dead. The Aron HaBrit, the Ark of Hashem, is captured. Eli does not move when he hears about the defeat. He does not move when he hears about 30,000 died. He does not move when he hears his own sons are dead. But the moment he hears the Aron has been captured, verse 18. Vayehi. Ki hiskiru et Aron Elohim. And it was when he mentioned the Ark of God, he fell backward from his seat. He breaks his neck and dies. You know, it's so tragic. Eli is such a complicated figure. When he was younger, he led Israel. He raised Samuel in righteousness. But he failed in his most important responsibility. He saw corruption happening in God's own house, and he didn't stop it. But you see that he's righteous. I mean, his final emotion isn't grief for himself, not even the loss of his sons. It's the grief for the covered, for the honor of Hashem. His last breath is essentially, I can absorb the loss of my children. What I can't absorb is the departure of God's presence from Israel. That's what he was tasked with. And here's the tragedy. If Eli cared this much about the Aaron earlier, if he had disciplined his sons who were defiling everything around it, maybe none of this would have happened. And the seat tipping over backwards. In Hebrew we would say "shev v'altase". He was the man who sat by, stayed neutral, and while corruption grew in front of him, he falls backwards from his seat in the end. And to me, it seems like his sitting and his falling to his death, they're interconnected in a sign. Well, I I never really thought about that. It really is me to connect to me down some level attribute for attribute. I think so, too. Right? And then the final scene, Pinchas's wife, pregnant, near labor, hears that the Aaron has been taken. Her father-in-law is dead. Right? Her husband is dead. She goes into labor and dies in childbirth. The women around her say, "Don't be afraid. You're giving birth to a son." She doesn't answer. It's somehow it's like it's like she's just somewhere else entirely. Verse 21. "V'tikra lanar Ikavod." "Lemor galek vod miyisrael." She named the boy Ikabod, Ikavod, saying, "The glory has depart departed from Israel." Ikabod, Ikavod, where is the glory? And the text repeats it twice as if to make sure we feel the full weight. "Galek vod miyisrael." The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured. "Gala", departed. It's the same root as "galut", exile. This is the first time in Jewish history that the Aaron itself goes into exile. And a dying mother's last breath is not a blessing for her child, it's a eulogy for a nation. Yeah, know, I think it's important to note that in Hebrew, Eicha Kavod can be understood as there is no glory, but it can also be understood as a question. You know, Eicha Kavod, where is the glory? Not that glory is gone forever, but it's like where is it? Because the Shekhinah, the divine presence, never abandons Israel. The sages teach that when Israel goes into exile, the presence goes with them. It wanders alongside them. In the Aron itself, two chapters from now, it's already moving home on its own. And God fights his own battle inside Philistine territory without a single Israelite soldier. The glory didn't leave, it just went underground. It went undercover. And that has always been the secret of the Jewish people, of Am Yisrael. Well, you know, what others mistake for the end of the story, it's usually just the beginning of a deeper chapter. Yeah, you know, I'll say that to me this chapter is asking something, I think, directly of our generation. Right? The lesson of Samuel chapter 4 is that we cannot use Hashem. We cannot carry his symbols as substitute for living his covenant. Israel went to war without him. When they lost, instead of asking what was broken inside themselves, they reached for the holiest object they had they had, right? And they tried to deploy it. The Aron was real and holy, but it was not magic. And Hashem would rather allow the symbol to fall than let his people make idolatry out of it and confuse the symbol for him. You know, October 7th, it was an Even HaEzer moment. You know, we had the most sophisticated army in the Middle East, the most advanced intelligence, the Iron Dome, and none of it helped. And we found ourselves, like those elders at the camp, asking, "Why has Hashem struck us?" There's a There's a pull to reach for an external answer. More weapons, better alliances, stronger technology. None of that is nothing. We need an army. We need iron and iron domes. But, the chapter we just read is saying the Aron didn't save them. Not because the Aron wasn't holy, but because they had treated holiness as a tool instead of a relationship. Icabod is a question, not a verdict. The wars of these last 2 years have been a defibrillator to the heart of Am Yisrael, to the nation of Israel. A jolt, a calling back, a teshuvah, right? A return. And the kavod that seemed to depart on October 7th is being re-gathered. Neshama by neshama, soul by soul, soldier by soldier, prayer by prayer, vineyard by vineyard across the mountains of Israel. Um and that's just something that comforts me to see where we are in the story. Now, my friends, every week Jeremy and I sit down on Zoom with our fellowship. Jews and Christians and everyone in between from all of 35 countries around the world learning Torah live from the hills of Judea. It's It's a community. It's a family. We pray for each other and with each other. We connect. We talk. If something in you is saying you want more than just listening, you want to be a part of the conversation, part of the community, really part of this global movement, come join us at the [music] landofisrael.com. Chazak u'baruch, my friends. Be'ezrat Hashem, we'll see you tomorrow >> [music] >> as we step into the first book of Samuel, chapter five. With you, Jeremy. >> [music] >> Shalom shalom.