Bible Commentaries
1 Samuel 7

Verse 1

The Return of the Ark (6:1-7:1)

The Philistines consulted their priests and diviners, who advised returning the Ark to Israel with an appropriate guilt offering. Once more we see the priestly office associated with divination. The priest was the guardian of the oracle among the peoples of the Near East. It was usual in the case of a "guilt offering" (1 Samuel 6:3) to give reparation. Here it was to consist of five golden models of the boils which had afflicted the Philistines, together with five golden mice. The association of mice with boils is explained in the ancient Greek translation of this section, which indicates that a plague of mice swarmed across the land in connection with the plague of boils. If the word "mice" is representative of the divers pestilential rodents which carried the bubonic plague, the association is explained. The number of these golden images, five of each, was based on the number of cities and princes which constituted the Philistine confederation. There may have been an element of sympathetic magic in the gift of these images, the belief that if they were sent out of the country, then the ills which they represented would also disappear.

There remained the difficult issue of conveying the Ark back to Israel. By taking two cows from their calves, the Philistines argued that they could divine whether the Ark was really causing their trouble. The Ark was to be drawn by the cows, who were yoked to it. The calves were to be left at their sides, and then at the last moment taken away and penned up. The cows would naturally turn in the direction of the calves when allowed to move, and if they did, then the association of the Ark with the trouble in Philistia was pure chance. But if the cows acted contrary to nature and conveyed the Ark back to Israel, then the holiness and power of the Lord would be disclosed, and it would be evident that it was he who had sent the pestilence. When the cows took the latter course, the Philistines were confident that their trouble was of divine origin and that they were right in making their golden images to "give glory to the God of Israel," that is, to acknowledge his power and supremacy (vs. 5).

The cows drew the Ark back to the land of Israel to Bethshemesh, and came to the field of a man named Joshua, who was reaping his wheat harvest. The men of Bethshemesh left their reaping and joyfully sacrificed the cattle which had drawn the visible seat of God’s invisible presence back into their midst. We are told that the Levites offered the sacrifice, but this is probably a later addition to the text, coming from the days when the priests did not merely direct but alone administered sacrifices. The fact that the sacrifice was made upon a great stone is a reminder that an altar had to be improvised. Against it the blood of the slain beasts would be poured out to God and on it the carcasses would be burned.

The end of the chapter records a tragic concomitant. We are told that many men were slain because they looked on the Ark. The number of men (see margin) seems incredible and the reason for the judgment is difficult to understand since looking on the Ark (the correct rendering of the Hebrew) was not an offense. Here the Greek translation helps us. It tells us that seventy men were slain because they did not rejoice with the rest when they looked on the Ark. The number is more reasonable, even though the reason is still somewhat unintelligible. Probably the same pestilence struck which had struck the Philistines and which could have been carried in the Ark. The Hebrew author, convinced that all suffering was inextricably bound up with sin, sought for a theological answer. Such was certainly the hard-core doctrine of the Deuteronomists who were responsible for the writing of the Books of Samuel. The effect of this disaster was the removal of the Ark to Kiriath-jearim, a Canaanite city, possibly located nearby.

Verses 2-17

Samuel’s Day of Power (7:2-8:22)

Samuel as Judge (7:2-17)

We are told that the Ark remained twenty years at Kiriathjearim. The story now returns to Samuel, and the scene changes from Shiloh to Mizpah. In the original source there may have been some account of the destruction of Shiloh, but we are left with the mystery of its disappearance. In a speech which echoes the Deuteronomic framework of the Book of Judges, Samuel arraigns the Israelites on the ground that they have fallen away from the true worship of the Lord into the pagan ways of their Canaanite neighbors. They worship the fertility gods and goddesses, "the Baals and the Ashtaroth" of Canaan. Samuel calls for absolute and undivided loyalty to the Lord, and summons the people to Mizpah, about five miles north of Jerusalem. Jeremiah, in the last years of his ministry, had contact with Mizpah (Jeremiah 40:6), and he preserves the memory of Samuel as a man of prayer (Jeremiah 15:1), a memory authenticated in this story where Samuel offers to pray for Israel. We have to remember that the function of a prophet was twofold — to declare the will of God and to intercede with God for the people. Oracle and prayer both played a part in the prophet’s ministry, thus showing that the prophet was much more akin to the priest than has often been allowed, a truth supported by the fact that the priest was also associated with oracular consultation, though with a different type. Samuel, trained to be a priest at Shiloh, here emerges also as a prophetic leader. Jeremiah with his emphasis on prayer stands in the same tradition (Jeremiah 29:7; Jeremiah 42:2; Jeremiah 42:20).

The penitence of the people was acted out symbolically by the pouring out of water. There was no law enjoining this, although we need to remember that water was a precious thing in the Near East, and there is a parallel in 2 Samuel 23:16 (see comment). The people of Israel fasted, showing penitence and acknowledging sin.

The gathering of the Israelites at Mizpah also brought together the Philistine hosts, always on watch for a possible resurgence of Israelite power. The craven Israelites were encouraged by Samuel, who is now described as judge (1 Samuel 7:6). Once more a charismatic personality was to lead Israel. Samuel, the prophet-priest-judge, directed the burnt offering, possibly as the beginning of a military . campaign (see Judges 6:20; Judges 6:26; Judges 20:26), and sought to allay the fears of his compatriots. The narrative seems somewhat telescoped. We may assume that battle was joined, but that a terrible storm swept the Philistines away in defeat. The Hebrew word for "voice" (1 Samuel 7:10) is also a word for "thunder" and the latter was often interpreted in those early days as the direct intervention of the Lord himself. The "Stone of help," Ebenezer (7:12, see margin), set up by Samuel near the place of victory, was a victory marker.

In verses 13 and 14 we come on difficulty . There is every indication that the triumph over the Philistines was by no means so complete as these verses imply. The Philistines continued to invade the land of Israel, as the stories of Saul show. This short passage, out of keeping with the early tradition, is usually attributed to the Deuteronomic editors of First Samuel, who thus sought to glorify Samuel as the last great judge. Undoubtedly, however, the Israelites did win a notable victory near Mizpah.

Samuel’s judgeship appears to have carried him on a regular annual circuit, centering in Raman but passing through Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. Thus the judgeship was now understood as a true rule, rather than simply as leadership in war and the championing of the oppressed. Samuel administered justice, and since the shrines were centers of such activity, we can understand both Samuel’s right to do this, as prophet and priest, and his choice of the three centers, since each had a local sanctuary.