Ep. 75 - Samuel Judges Israel

Last we left our story, the Ark had just come back to the Israelites. After a series of not-so-bright decisions, the Israelites decided to bring the Ark to battle…and then they lost the Ark to the Philistines. But of course, God wasn’t going to let the Philistines keep the Ark forever. And after enduring a lot of pain, the Philistines eventually loaded the ark onto a cart with no driver, and God led the Ark back to Israel. But even though the Ark had been returned, things were still bad in Israel. The Philistines were still oppressing the Israelites…now worse than ever. They had no judge. And the Israelites were still worshipping false Gods. In fact, the Israelites had been worshipping false Gods for a long time now…all the way since the time of Samson…60 years ago. How much longer would this go on? Would the Israelites ever turn back to God? Let’s find out.

Well, after God returned the Ark to Israel, they immediately restarted the Tabernacle services. (Which, BTW kidzos, if you don’t know what those are, Mama and I did a whole episode about the tabernacle back in episode 30…so check that out.) Then a man named Eleazar was consecrated as a priest to take care of the Ark. But hang on a second…why wasn’t Samuel consecrated as the priest to take care of the Ark? Why didn’t Samuel get the job? I mean, Samuel had worked side-by-side with Eli…the last high priest…since he was a boy. Shouldn’t Samuel have gotten the job of taking care of the ark? Well, maybe Samuel would have gotten the job if he’d wanted it. But it seems that he didn’t…because Samuel had an even bigger job to do. All of Israel knew and respected Samuel. They knew that Samuel was just and fair, they knew that God was with him, and they knew that…as the Bible says…”none of his words [fell] to the ground.” (1 Sam. 3:19) That is to say, if Samuel said something was going to happen, it happened. But while everyone seemed to hold Samuel in high regard…and everyone seemed to know that God was with Samuel, the Israelites were still worshipping false gods. Someone needed to try to convince the Israelites to turn back to the one true God. And since Samuel had a good reputation all over Israel, well…that someone was Samuel.

So, what did Samuel do? How was he going to turn the hearts of the Israelites back to God? Well, basically Samuel went on a super long evangelistic campaign. I don’t know if you kidzos have seen these things before…basically it’s just a preacher who kind of travels around sharing about God. And Samuel went on an evangelistic campaign all throughout Israel trying to convince everyone to turn their hearts back to God. And as Samuel travelled around, his message to everyone was, “If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” (7:3) From town to town to town, north and south, east and west…all throughout Israel Samuel went…doing his very best. And Samuel definitely had his work cut out for him. Because as we talked about before, it wasn’t that the Israelites didn’t believe in God at all…it wasn’t that they thought that God didn’t exist (like a lot of people do now)…they knew that God existed. But the problem was that they thought about God just like how all the surrounding nations thought about their gods. Ya know, thinking that if they brought the Ark to battle, it would help them win (because, ya know, God could be controlled by where a golden box was). Thinking that if you worshipped the right god that he (or she) would give you an easy life. And especially, thinking that God was just one of many gods and that there was nothing wrong with worshipping all the gods you wanted. This is why Samuel went around convincing Israelites to worship God “with all their hearts” and that they especially had to “put away foreign gods”.

For 20 years Samuel did this. Painstakingly and patiently working to change people’s minds…to get through to their hearts. It was the longest evangelistic campaign ever. And after all this hard work, what was the result? Well, finally and at last, the Bible says that the Israelites, “put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only.” (7:4) Yah that’s right…Israel had a change of heart. They finally returned to worshipping the one true God. It was a change that had been a long time coming…at least 60 years! But they were finally there. After Samuel’s work was done, he decided that they needed to somehow make it official…they needed to make some kind of public declaration that the whole nation had returned to God. And so Samuel called for a big meeting in the center of Israel…at a place called Mizpah. It would be the final evangelistic meeting to wrap everything up. And wouldn’t you know it, the whole nation showed up. Everyone was super excited to declare to God that they would follow Him now. They all fasted, and confessed that they had made a huge mistake by worshipping other gods, saying, “We have sinned against the Lord.” (7:6) And recognizing all of Samuel’s hard work, they officially made Samuel the judge of Israel. Everything was finally happening…and the future looked bright.

But of course, when good things are happening, evil doesn’t take long to rear its ugly head. And the Bible says, “When the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel.” (7:7) When the Philistines saw this huge gathering of people at Mizpah, they thought that the Israelites were gearing up for another battle…and they got their army together and marched out to meet them. So as the Israelites were in the middle of this big meeting, they looked over the horizon and saw the battle formations. The Philistines were attacking them…and they were terrified. Here they were all together at one place, with no weapons, and no preparations for war…and the fearsome Philistines were bearing down on them with their huge professional army. What were they going to do?

Now, let’s take a little pause here to talk a bit more about the Philistines. The Philistines have been coming up a lot in our stories…basically ever since Samson…and we’ve learned a few things about them. So far we know that they lived near coast of the Mediterranean Sea, they lived in 5 major cities, they worshipped a god named Dagon, and the Philistine girls were apparently quite pretty. But why were the Israelites so deathly afraid of the Philistines? If you kidzos remember, they were so afraid of the Philistines that they didn’t fight them even when they had super duper strong Samson around. Why? Well, as it turns out, the Philistines were truly a fearsome and warlike people. According to historians, before the Philistines came to Canaan, most of them lived across the Mediterranean on one of the large islands in the country that we now call Greece. If you kidzos have ever read any books or seen any movies about the battle of Troy (ya know, Agamemnon, Achilles, Paris, Hellen of Troy, and all that), well the Philistines were one of the peoples that fought in that famous Greek battle. So as it turns out, the Philistines were ancient ancient Greeks.

But not too long after the famous Battle of Troy, some unknown disaster happened, and many of these Greeks left Greece…they got in their boats and decided to invade all the nations around the Mediterranean Sea…and of course, Canaan and Israel were one of those nations. Now, when these invasions began, there were several powerful empires in and around the Mediterranean and Israel…and these were – Egypt, Assyria, and the Hittites. (And just so we know when all this happened in the Bible, these invasions would have happened sometime between the stories of Jephthah and Samson.) And when these Greek invaders arrived, they basically tore these empires to shreds. One city after the next, the invaders arrived on their ships, completely destroyed the city, and then disappeared back to the sea. It was complete chaos. One of the reasons that the invaders were so successful was not just because they were fierce warriors (which they were) or that they had advanced battle tactics (which they did), but also because they had super awesome weapons. This was during the time historians call the Bronze Age…when basically all the metal that anyone used for anything was bronze…including for swords and spears. But when the invaders jumped off their ships to attack this or that city, they had iron weapons. Iron is much stronger than bronze…which you can imagine gave the invaders a huge advantage in the fighting. And because of this, no one could stop these invaders…and for many years the invasions continued. And after all was said and done, the map around the Mediterranean was completely different - the Hittites were gone…the Assyrians had to retreat all the way back to their capital city. Egypt was the only country that managed to somewhat defeat the invaders, but only after being severely weakened. The invaders caused so much death and destruction that many historians believe that they single handedly ended the Bronze Age and began the Iron Age. And once the invasions were over, the Philistines broke off from the invasion force, and settled in Canaan…right next to the Israelites. So the Philistines were a big deal. In fact, the only reason that Israel survived at all was probably because of Samson and of course God’s merciful protection. So it’s no wonder that the Israelites were supper afraid of the Philistines.

So, coming back to our story, there are the unarmed, completely vulnerable Israelites about to be attacked by the fearsome Philistines. So, what did the Israelites do? Well they did the only thing that they could do…they turned to God for help. And they said to Samuel, “Do no cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” (7:8) So Samuel quickly made a sacrifice to God, and with the Philistines so close that they could probably hear them breathing, Samuel prayed to God for help. And boy did God answer Samuel’s prayer! With the sacrifice still on the altar, and with Samuel’s prayer still hanging in the air, the Bible says, “the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day, and so confused them that were overcome before Israel.” (7:10) Out of nowhere, a thunderstorm came and settled right over the Philistine army. The storm came so suddenly, and was so strong, and was so loud, that the Philistine army was like…what is going on…we need to get out of here! And they lost their nerve and started running away. And with all the noise and the darkness, it was probably complete chaos…with soldiers climbing on top of each other and trampling on each other…anything to get out of this crazy storm.

The Israelites looking at this were no doubt amazed. From their point of view, a big dark cloud had just come out of nowhere, and settled down right exactly and only over the Philistine army. And the Philistine army…one of the fiercest armies in the world at the time…just went crazy! This was the God that they had heard about from the Bible. This was the God that Samuel had been teaching them about for 20 years. This was the God who had sent the mighty plagues on the Egyptians…who had parted the Red Sea…who had led the Israelites through the desert with a pillar of fire. And now, even though they had been unfaithful, even though they had rejected God so many times, even though they had treated God like He was any other god, God was fighting for them!

And knowing that God had forgiven them, and that God was obviously on their side, the Israelites at Mizpah looked down at the fleeing Philistines…and went on the attack. As you kidzos know, in ancient battles, most people died when one army or the other began to run away. And so, with the Philistines in a full chaotic retreat, and not wanting the Philistines to come back anytime soon, the Israelites went after them. And the Israelites attacked and attacked and attacked…and the Philistines ran and ran and ran…until the Philistines had run all the way back to a place called Beth Car…which was a huge distance from Mizpah. It was a huge victory for the Israelites. But not only did the Israelites win the battle that day, the Bible says that, “the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.” (7:13) So not only did the Philistines lose the battle at Mizpah, but the lost every battle after that for as long as Samuel was judge of Israel.

But after this amazing turn around, after all these amazing victories, and after Israel was no longer being oppressed, Samuel’s work wasn’t over. For many years afterwards, Samuel continued his evangelistic campaigns. From year to year to year, he would travel around Israel, continually working on the hearts of the people…doing his best to make sure that the Israelites continued to know their amazing God so that they didn’t start worshipping false gods again. It was a work that he would do until the day he died. And it’s a work that we have too kidzos…a work to make sure that the people around us continue to remember how amazing God is and all the great things He has done for us. And that they stop worshipping the false gods of money, comfort, and ease.

As a result of Samuel’s never-ending work for people’s hearts as a prophet, and as a result of his leadership as judge and God’s overall leadership of the country, Israel entered into one it’s most peaceful and prosperous times ever. They had no enemies on any side. They had no one oppressing them. Despite all the chaos that was happening in the world around Israel because of the invasions, Israel was strong. But would Israel continue to be strong? Would Israel’s peace and strength cause its own problems? Well, we will find out all about it…next time.