God Saves by Few or Many
1 Samuel 13:14–14:15
Opening Prayer
ÒOur Father, we are thankful that we can come together to focus on Your
Word tonight. As we live through our days with all the uncertainties and vagaries
of life, especially in this election year, when each day seems to bring more
extreme statements and sayings from one side or the other. Father, we know that
the only hope for real stability in our nation, in a culture, is to be grounded
upon You and Your Word. It is only when a nation or a people are focused upon
You that we can have any measure of happiness, any measure of joy.
Father, we have a great opportunity through the website, through
missionaries that we have, through individuals in this congregation, who are
constantly going out to communicate the truth, whether it is the Good News
Clubs, Vacation Bible School coming up this summer, or whether it is through
their individual witness to others, we pray that You would give them the
wisdom, the skill, the opportunities to present the truth of Your Word.
Father, we continue to pray for Chafer Seminary. We pray for Jim Myers.
We pray for Doug [Karn] and Jeff [Phipps] as they are ministering down in
Brazil. We pray that you would give each of those individuals and organizations
opportunities to make the truth clear, and that they would have responsive
listeners. Father, we pray for us, that we would be responsive to Your Word
tonight. We pray this in ChristÕs name. Amen.Ó
We continue our study of 1 Samuel. We are in 1 Samuel 13–14, where
we stopped last time. We are working our way through what I think is one of the
more interesting chapters that we run into in the Scripture. It is narrative.
It is the turning point in SaulÕs reign as king. In these chapters the writer
of Samuel is helping us understand the failures of SaulÕs heart.
Saul is not a man who is devoted to God. He is a man who is
self-absorbed. He is a man who is arrogant, and has a superficial religious
focus on God. He thinks if he says the right things, does the right things,
engages in the right ritual, and acts religious, then somehow that is being
spiritual and is having the right relationship with the Lord, but it is a
complete failure.
What we see in this section starting in 1 Samuel 13:14 through 1 Samuel
14:15 is the contrast. The writer really wants to make this clear, this
contrast between Saul and Jonathan. We saw the failure of Saul last time in his
disobedience. He is impatient. He rushes instead of waiting all day for Samuel to
show up and present the sacrifices. Saul jumps in and makes an excuse,
rationalizes disobedience to God and performs the sacrifice himself.
This is a sign of SaulÕs internal problem of rebellion, which will be
really focused by Samuel when we get to 1 Samuel 15. Samuel will say that
rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. There is a whole interesting and
important doctrine that comes out of that, because what Samuel is focusing on
is the original sin of Satan. The original sin of Satan is disobedience to the
authority of God. This is why the Bible emphasizes authority so much.
What we have in Saul is a man who does not submit to the authority of
God, but in contrast we have his son Jonathan who does submit to the authority
of God. As we start I want to address your attention to 1 Samuel 14:6. This is
the crux verse in this section. It tells us what this whole section is all
about. Jonathan is getting ready to go into a battle against overwhelming odds.
It is just Jonathan and his armor bearer going against a large number of
Philistines.
Jonathan says to his armor bearer, ÒCome,
let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised.Ó The use of that
word indicates that he is focused on divine viewpoint. By using the term
ÒuncircumcisedÓ Jonathan is recognizing that the Philistines have no right to
the land. They are deep in the heart of the land that God promised to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and by calling them ÒuncircumcisedÓ Jonathan is focusing on
the fact that they are not participants of the Abrahamic Covenant. The
Philistines have no right to the land.
God did not give this land to the Philistines. Therefore, this is
ultimately a spiritual issue. David will say the same thing when we get over to
1 Samuel 17 when he faces Goliath. It shows that the focal point is on
spiritual truth and divine viewpoint. No matter how overwhelming, how large the
problem may be, and the same thing is true for the rest of us, God is greater
than any circumstance, any situation, any problem, any group of people, any
political party, any political decision, any Supreme Court decision. God is
greater than any of those things. We dare not let circumstances ever get us
down.
Jonathan says, ÒLet us go over to
the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the Lord will work for us:
for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or few.Ó
In other words, there is nothing in human experience that can limit
GodÕs ability to solve the problem. That is a great focal point. That no matter
what our problem is, whether it is financial, health related, job, career,
marriage, people, circumstances, whatever it might be, there is no problem that
is too big for the grace of God.
There is no sin in your life or my life that is too big for the grace of
God. The grace of God solved the greatest problem we will ever face at the
Cross. The grace of God will solve every other problem we face. That does not
mean it is going to be easy. That does not mean that everything is going to
work out the way we think it ought to work out, but it does mean that God and
God alone can solve our problems. We need to learn to trust Him—not trust
in other related circumstances.
This tells us what the focal point is, God Saves by Few or Many. If you will notice in the introductory
slide, what I have chosen as the basic theme of 1st & 2nd Samuel is what
gets repeated through one episode after another throughout both of these books,
originally one book in the Hebrew, is that The
Battle is the LordÕs. We saw that in
terms of the recovery of Israel under the priesthood and judgeship of Samuel.
In Samuel the Israelites were at the bottom of the barrel. They were
just in total cultural collapse and chaos, and the degradation and apostasy of
religion under the house of Eli and the priesthood of Eli. Yet God responds to
the prayer of Hannah, one of the faithful few in Israel. God turns things
around through His power working through an obscure little child who grew to
adulthood.
We saw the problems with IsraelÕs defeat and the apparent defeat of God.
In 1 Samuel 4, at the Battle of Aphek, when the Israelites were defeated, the uncircumcised
Philistines captured the ark of God. God showed that He does not need the
Israelites to win the battle. He was very capable all by Himself of defeating
the Philistines. We have the whole episode with:
Then we saw the other episodes with the rats, the bubonic plague and
tumors or hemorrhoids. There is a lot of earthy humor. The Hebrew text is
extremely earthy in Samuel. God is really poking fun at those who are not
biblically correct.
We live in an age today where everybody wants to become politically
correct and succumb to political correctness. If you are not politically
correct you are going to scare the pants off of these weenie college kids who
are so self-absorbed that they think the college campus is a safe space that is
going to reconfirm all their hideous little ideas.
But when we know the truth we can stand on the truth. That is what we
see with Samuel. We will see it with Jonathan. We see it with David. Jonathan
is going to take a stand. He is going to turn the tide of battle here because
he understands the principle that the
battle is the LordÕs. LetÕs go back and review a little bit of what is
going on here.
Here is our map. This is one of those sections where you have to know
the geography and the terrain. Fortunately we live in a day when we are not
left without these visual aids. This is one of those great couple of chapters
for teaching using the visuals to come to a much better understanding of what was
happening on the ground.
Here is the basic set-up. We have the Mediterranean to the west. We have
the Jordan River to the east flowing into the Dead Sea. Gilgal is located to
the north [of the Dead Sea], where Saul was crowned king. Previously it was significant
because when the Israelites crossed over into the Promised Land they
recommitted to the Mosaic Law at Gilgal.
Gilgal is where the men of Israel, who had grown to maturity during the
wilderness wanderings and had not been circumcised, a sign of the Abrahamic
Covenant, were all circumcised in one very large group circumcision. We know
from Numbers that that would have involved approximately 650,000 plus men. In
Numbers all the men over the age of twenty were numbered.
All the men who were over the age of 20 years were old enough to fight.
These were the ones who would have been circumcised. This was quite an event. I
will leave the rest of that to your imagination.
This is Gilgal. Directly to the west you have Ramah, which is the city
of Samuel. Just a couple of miles below that is Gibeah. Then in the area to the
north east of Gibeah you have Geba and Michmash, the focal point of these
particular events.
As we looked at this previously, at the beginning of 1 Samuel 13, there
has been an incursion by the Philistines into this highland country, the high
hill country, and mountainous
country of Samaria. They brought in 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen.
There is a lot of debate about how to translate this. Probably the
30,000 does not work. That would have been an exceptionally large number of
chariots. When you compare it with other things, for example, the 900 chariots
of Sisera in Judges 5, 30,000 seems out of order.
One thing I did point out last time is that 30,000 chariots with the interpretation
Òcharioteers,Ó which could conceivably be the translation, and then it would make sense if there were 3,000 chariots and 6,000
charioteers that would be two per chariot. Although I was doing some additional
study and some think that this could even
mean horses as opposed to horsemen.
Some translations have cavalry there, which is probably what this would
imply to a lot of people. The trouble is that you do not have evidence of any
armies at that time in the Middle East using cavalry. That would not work. But
it could be horses, and it could mean those who are in the chariots.
The problem with charioteers is that there are examples of using two
men, the Greeks used two charioteers, and these are Philistines, who are
related to the Greeks, but there are also Syrians who use three charioteers,
and others who use three or four per chariot. It most likely is talking about
3,000 chariots with those who ran the chariots. Those were the warriors who
were involved.
We are introduced to the locations at Michmash and Beth Aven. The result
of this is that:
I remind you of what happened at Kadesh Barnea, when ten of the twelve
spies came back and said, ÒWe cannot do it. We cannot conquer these people.
They have giants in the land. There are too many people. They have fortified
cities.Ó
The focal point that God is always trying to get across to Israel is
that it is by His power and His might.
It is not based upon technology or numbers or skill. It is not based
upon how many West Point and Annapolis graduates you have. It is not based upon
how may computers you have. It is based on your spiritual relationship with the
Lord. If Israel is obedient, then God is going to give them the victory.
The people are scared to death. They scatter. They hide everywhere. Many
of them even fled east across the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead.
Saul is left at Gilgal. All the people following him are trembling,
scared to death, 1 Samuel 13:6–7.
After Saul has violated his role and responsibility as king (the role of
the priest is to offer sacrifices, not the king), Samuel then tells him what
the real problem is:
1 Samuel 13:13, ÒYou have done
foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He
commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel
forever.Ó
This is one of those interesting situations that have come up in Scripture that shows something about the
omniscience of God. Just remember, God knows all of the knowable. This is one
of the significant aspects in understanding GodÕs omniscience. He not only
knows everything that will happen. He knows everything that could happen.
Jesus says the same kind of thing when He says to Capernaum and
Bethsaida that if the works that had been done there had been done in Sodom and
Gomorrah, then Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented in sackcloth and ashes
long ago, Matthew 11:20–21.
Jesus knows the Òwhat ifs.Ó That is important because you have a whole
school of theology called Calvinism that emphasizes the idea that God only
knows what He has decreed to be true.
God does not know all of the knowable—He can only know what He has
decreed to be true.
Therefore, God decrees what will take place, and everything that takes
place is what He has decreed.
What this shows again, from an Old Testament example, is God knows what
would happen ÒifÓ somebody had exercised their volition in another direction.
ÒIfÓ Saul had been obedient, God says He would have established SaulÕs house
forever. How that would have worked out we do not know, but Samuel clearly
states that there would have been a distinction there.
Then Samuel says, 1 Samuel 13:14,
Ò ÔBut now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a
man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over
His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.Õ Ó
The way this is translated in the perfect tense in the Hebrew is to
indicate that it is seen as a past-completed action. But it is really what they
call a futuristic perfect, which is stating that this is something that is Òso
certainÓ of its future fulfillment that it is stated as if it has already been
completed.
The issue here is what does this phrase Òa man after His own heartÓ mean?
There are basically two views:
The only example I ran across of this particular confirmation of this
translation is an excerpt that is quoted from the Babylonian Chronicle during
the early years of Nebuchadnezzar. In that it says: ÒIn the seventh year, in
the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to the
Hatti-land, and encamped against the City of Judah. And on the ninth day of the
month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He appointed there a
king of his own choice and taking heavy tribute brought it back to Babylon.Ó
In the Akkadian, that is literally a king according to his heart. That
is translated in that text quote, Òa king of his own choice.Ó But that is an
interpretive statement.
In 1 Samuel 2:35, God is speaking about Samuel. He says, ÒThen I will raise up for Myself a faithful
priest who shall do according to what is in My heart and in My mind.Ó
That is a slightly different phrase, but it is the same preposition,
which in the Hebrew is the preposition ke,
according to. It is Òaccording to My
heart.Ó That is the same idea. It is the fact that the person who has a
heart after God is a person who has a focus on the Lord, a commitment to the
Lord, and who desires to do that which pleases the Lord even if they fail, as
David did on a number of occasions, and he failed pretty seriously.
In 1 Samuel 16:7 the Lord speaks to Samuel when he is looking at all of
DavidÕs brothers. Some of them looked like a king. Some of them looked a whole
lot more authoritative than the one that was eventually brought in.
David was out with the sheep. Even Jesse his father remembered David as
an afterthought. David apparently was not real impressive as a teenager. At
least he did not impress his family.
At that time, Samuel had looked all these brothers over thinking that
these look like kings, but God is not indicating one of them. The Lord said to
Samuel, ÒDo not look at his appearance or
at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see
as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the
heart.Ó
He has said in 1 Samuel 13:14 that He is going to choose a man after or according to His own heart. This is, in
my view, choosing someone who is focused exclusively on God, who is really
devoted to God in contrast to Saul who is not. I think that an argument against
interpreting this as a man after GodÕs own choosing is in contradiction to the
text because we have already seen that God chose Saul.
Did He not choose Saul? He chose Saul to be king. Whatever the reasons
were are not important in terms of that particular choice, but God did choose
Saul. The idea of choosing someone else who is according to His heart is not
choosing someone who is according to His choice. This would be a contradiction
with what we have seen already.
After Saul has been duly confronted and rebuked by Samuel, we then read
in 1 Samuel 13:15, ÒThen Samuel arose
...Ó He left. We are not told that he performed the sacrifices. Saul has
already done that. Samuel stands up, after he has rebuked Saul and told him
that he is not going to have a dynasty. Samuel got up and went from Gilgal to
Gibeah of Benjamin.
Then we are told that Saul numbered the people present with him. How
many have I got left? There were six hundred men.
This is reminiscent of what happened with Gideon in Judges 6–8,
but in that instance God narrowed the number that Gideon had from 32,000 down
to 300 men.
Here the men have all fled because they are panicky and afraid of the
Philistines. But we have two geographical locations, Gilgal and Gibeah of
Benjamin. We have some textual problems here that I am not going to go into a
lot of detail on. I think that it reads well. The best reading is in the
Masoretic Text, ÒSamuel arose.Ó
Samuel goes from Gilgal. This map is a good topographical rendition. You
can see Jericho and Herodian Jericho going into the Plain of the Jordan. Just
off to the east of the map would be the location of Gilgal. What we see in
terms of the movement is Samuel is going to leave and head west and south to
Gibeah of Saul, which makes sense because what has happened already is that the
Philistines moved into this territory.
The Philistines had taken up their position at Michmash. Going a
northern route to get back to Ramah would have put Samuel in danger of the
Philistines. It makes more sense. It makes good sense that he headed toward
Gibeah of Benjamin.
Then we are told in 1 Samuel 13:16,
ÒSaul, Jonathan his son, and the people present with them remained in Gibeah of
Benjamin. But the Philistines encamped in Michmash.Ó
One of the things we ought to note here is that there is again a bit of
discrepancy. Here we have the word Gibeah of Benjamin, and in the Masoretic
Text it reads Geba, not Gibeah. There is debate over this. For example, in the
New King James and a couple of other translations, the translation is ÒGibeah,Ó
because in their thinking that makes a little more sense.
But what we are told here in 1 Samuel 13:15 is that Samuel went to
Gibeah of Benjamin. Then he would have circled around to the south and gone up
to his home in Ramah.
But in 1 Samuel 13:16 we have Saul and Jonathan moving. Where are Saul
and Jonathan going to go?
They are going to go to Geba. That is what is in the Masoretic
Text—not to Gibeah. This makes sense because in the early part of 1
Samuel 13, Jonathan had already attacked the Philistines in Geba. The
Philistines retreated from Geba.
See the line that runs from northwest to the southeast?
If you cannot read the text there, it says Wadi Sheban to the northwest
and Wadi Suwenit to the southeast. This is really important for what we are
going to study in this battle, because on the northeast side you have Michmash.
There is a huge chasm between Michmash and Geba. Saul and Jonathan are on one
side, and there is the chasm between them and Michmash.
The Philistines are on the other side. That is going to set us up for
the battle that begins to take place in the first half of 1 Samuel 14. From
this position I want you to notice these three towns:
I am going to add this line. They are going from southwest to northeast.
They are almost in a straight line in those three points. If you are standing
to the southwest of Gibeah, this is what you are going to see today.
You see Gibeah in the foreground, then you see Geba in the mid-distance,
then you see Michmash in the far distance. The interesting thing is, when you
are looking at this terrain, it is dry and rugged. You do not see the fact that
when you get about halfway between Geba and Michmash it is going to drop away
into this huge chasm.
It is like when you are driving across either northern Arizona or you
are driving across the panhandle of Texas. In the panhandle of Texas all of a
sudden the ground splits open and you have the Palo Dura Canyon. In Arizona it
splits open, and you have the Grand Canyon. But until you are right up on it,
you do not see it. That is what we see here. This is where we get to look at
these topographical features.
This is an aerial photograph looking at this area.
Adding the labels, you see Geba on the west. We are really looking to
the northwest. To the right would be north. We are looking from the southeast
to the northwest. You see Geba, then the Michmash pass, which is going to come
up in the text. Then there is the pass that is mentioned. The Philistines are
going to send one of their troops out to guard the pass.
Over to the right you have Michmash. You see how Geba is on one side of
the chasm, which runs northwest to southeast. Michmash is to the northeast.
When you look from Mishmash southward toward the chasm, you can see that that
looks pretty rugged. The text mentions the names of these cliffs. They are
located on each side of the chasm.
In 1 Samuel 13:17–18 we read, ÒThen
raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company
turned onto the road to Ophrah, to the land of Shual, another [second] company
turned to the road to Beth Horon, and another company turned to the road of the
border that overlooks the Valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness.Ó
How anybody can read this without a good map in front of him I do not know. This is what tells you what is going on.
This is a dynamic battlefield. What happens is that the Philistines are going
to cut off all aid and succor to the Israelites.
Remember, the Israelites are down to six hundred. The Philistines have
3,000 chariots and 6,000 charioteers, and we are not told how many infantry
accompanied them. The Israelites are definitely outnumbered in an extremely
rugged terrain. You have the Philistines who are now bivouacked and have set up
their garrison at Michmash.
Here is Michmash right here (#4, center of map). The Philistines are
going to send their troops north to the land of Shual. By the way, above
Ophrah, at the bottom of the ÔIÕ on EPHRAIM, that is where Shiloh was located.
Shechem is even further north. The Philistines are right on the backbone of the
hill country of Samaria. It is very rugged. This is going to cut off any aid
that is going to come in from the north.
Then the Philistines are going to send another troop east. This goes
down the Zeboim Valley, and is going to prevent any aid that comes up from any
troops that are going to come across in the Transjordan and would come in from
the east—they would be cut off there.
Then the Philistines are going to send a third group to Beth Horon,
which is off due west of Michmash. Those black long lines on the map represent
the troop movements of the Philistines.
In 1 Samuel 13:19 we read, ÒNow
there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel.Ó
Here you have a transition. There is a dynamic explanation of what is going
on on the battlefield, and all of a sudden the author
stops. We have to understand what the situation is here.
This is a bad situation. Not only are the Israelites being trapped. I do
not know if you have ever been in any circumstances in life where you feel
trapped, like you do not have any options, but that is exactly how Saul felt.
In fact, SaulÕs response is: I am trapped. I am just going to sit back
here and do religious things and hope something is going to happen. It is a
faith in fate. It is not a faith in God. In contrast, you have Jonathan who is
going to put his faith in God. He is going to execute a maneuver to see if God
is going to open the door to victory. That is what we are going to get to here.
In 1 Samuel 13:19 we are reminded that it is not only a geographical
problem. It is not only a problem in terms of the fact that they are vastly
outnumbered, but it is also a problem of technology. This is one of the
greatest examples in Scripture that I have found as to why individual citizens
need to have access to the latest and greatest technology, just like the
government.
I know some people are going to get upset with that, because the
government has atomic bombs, all kinds of different missile systems, and
everything else, but the whole idea of the Second Amendment is to give the
citizens the ability to protect themselves against tyranny. We cannot do that
anymore. It is silly to think that we can. A bunch of Texans with 30-06s and a
few AR15s can hold off a mechanized unit today? That is insane, but the
principle is still true.
This was practiced many times in the ancient world. The Philistines did
this. We are told that they removed all blacksmiths from Israel. This is not
quite at the beginning of the Iron Age, but there were definitely many cultures
that already had access to iron and the smelting of iron before the Iron Age
really came into full bloom.
The Philistines removed all the blacksmiths so that the ÒHebrewsÓ (a
term of derision—it was not politically correct. They called them
ÒHebrewsÓ to run them down), Òlest the
Hebrews make swords or spears.Ó So the Israelites did not even have
blacksmiths who could help them with bronze weapons.
Then the Israelites were forced to have to go down to the Philistines,
down along the coast, Òto sharpen each
manÕs plowshare, his mattock, his ax, and his sickle.Ó This shows that they
were tyrannizing the Israelites. It also forced the destruction of their
economy. This is their livelihood. In order to farm, the Israelites had to go
get all their tools sharpened by the enemy. They were completely under the
control of the Philistines.
Here we have the remnants of a forge that was found down along the coast
of what was Philistia. These kinds of things in that time period are not found
archeologically in Israel. That is something of an argument for silence, but it
shows and confirms what the Scripture says in that time period.
Then there is the economic level to this in 1 Samuel 13:21, Òand the charge for a sharpening was a pim
for the plowshares.Ó How many people know what a ÒpimÓ is?
Nobody. You need a good Bible dictionary. These are a couple of weights
that had the Hebrew word ÒpimÓ inscribed on them. What we discover from these
weights is that a ÒpimÓ was two-thirds of a shekel. Right now it runs about
four shekels to the dollar, but a shekel at that time was about what a common
laborer made in a month.
Think about that. One shekel was what a common laborer made in a month.
This meant that he had to give two thirds of his monthly income in order to get
one thing sharpened, not everything. If he had a couple of plowshares, and he
had axes, each one was going to cost him two-thirds of what he made in a month.
That is an economic catastrophe for the Israelites. They had no money left over.
They are completely under control of the Philistines.
This is arms control. Arms control was practiced in different ways by
the pagans in the ancient world. We have one example at the beginning of Judges
with Adoni-Bezek.
Adoni-Bezek is one of the Canaanite kings. Adoni-Bezek fled before the
tribes of Israel, and they pursued him. When they caught him, they cut off his
thumbs and big toes. This is a sign that the Israelites were all being affected
by paganism.
Dismemberment was not part of the Mosaic Law on how you treated your
enemies.
Why did they do that? That is what the pagans did. They cut off their
thumbs so they could not hold a spear. It is awfully hard to hold a spear, even
to shoot an arrow, and it is terribly difficult to wield a sword if you do not
have a thumb. You cannot grip anything. It is hard to run into battle and to
maintain your balance if you do not have big toes.
Adoni-Bezek said that there were 70 kings that he had defeated with
their thumbs and big toes cutoff that used to gather scraps under his table.
This was a bit of revenge that was executed by the Israelites. They just gave
Adoni-Bezek what he had always done, what he had a reputation for doing.
And this is what the Philistines are doing. They are controlling the
Israelites by controlling their access to weapons to defend themselves.
So not only do you have an army that is outnumbered, an army that has a
weakened position, but you have an army where the only two people in the army
that have a sword are Saul and Jonathan.
You think you are in trouble? Everybody else just has wooden weapons and
maybe the odd bronze weapon, but they do not have anything to really carry into
battle except for the few odd tools that they could gather together. As a
result of this, there was not much available. They may have had slings,
javelins, clubs, and knives, and that was about it. They were certainly
inferior to the metal weapons of the Philistines.
1 Samuel 13:23, which is the last verse in chapter 13 says: ÒAnd the garrison of the Philistines went
out to the pass of Michmash.Ó
What we saw earlier was that the Philistines sent out three companies:
one went north; one went east; and one went west. And they are going to send
out a fourth one to guard the pass.
This is going to prevent any maneuverability on the part of Saul and the
Israelites. They cannot maneuver. They are trapped down in Geba now. Remember,
they have this huge chasm in front of them. They cannot go up the road through
the pass. They cannot go east. They cannot go west. They cannot have any troops
to come in to save them.
This gives you a little of an idea of what this terrain looks like. It
is extremely rugged.
Here is another look at the pass from another aerial view. This is a
modern photograph. It may look a little different, but roughly the terrain is
the same.
Here is another look at it from the north. This was a main east-to-west
transition.
This gives a wide-angle view of the area. You can get an idea of how
rugged the topography is. You can see Michmash is over on the far north
ridgeline.
Here is one more aerial look at Michmash. This is looking from the north
to the south. You see the ravine, the wadi that comes through here, and the rugged
terrain. At the time, in the ancient world the Philistines had their outpost on
the northeast, on top of the rugged cliff face.
Here is what happens next. One day as Saul and his army are trapped. Jonathan decided, ÒWe have to do something to shake things
up.Ó You cannot win a battle, football game, anything on the defense. You have
to engage the enemy. You have to defeat the enemy.
That is what happens in the Christian life. We have to engage and defeat
the enemy in two areas.
That deals with the sin nature. It deals with worldliness. That is when
we are on the offensive. We are on defense when it comes to Satan and the
demons.
We are told in 1 Samuel 14:1–2 that Jonathan the son of Saul says
to his armor bearer, ÒLetÕs go over to the PhilistineÕs garrison that is on the
other side.Ó Basically what he said was, letÕs go stir up a little trouble.
LetÕs go see if we can start something. There is a lesson here in terms of
discovering GodÕs will for your life.
This is not like Gideon. Gideon put out the fleece, but he did not put
out the fleece to determine whether God really wanted him to attack the
Midianites or not. He put out the fleece to see if he could come up with
something so difficult for God to do that he could end up avoiding what God had
clearly told him to do.
Earlier in Judges 6, God had said, ÒI have chosen you to go and raise up
an army and go defeat the Midianites.Ó It is very clear what GodÕs will was for
Gideon. Gideon said, ÒI am going to
put the fleece out, God. Hopefully it is going to be so difficult that You
cannot do it. Then I will not have to go fight the Midianites.Ó
When God did what Gideon requested, he said letÕs twist things up a bit.
Last time I wanted You to have the dew fall on the fleece and not on the
surrounding area. This time I want You to have the dew fall on the surrounding
area, but not on the fleece. God did it both ways. Gideon could not get out of
it. He had to go through with it.
God then reduced his force from 32,000 to 300 to show that the battle
was the LordÕs. It was not GideonÕs. It is not up to technology. Whoever heard
of a battle where you take a bunch of soldiers at night and you surround the
enemy camp. Each soldier has a torch that is enclosed in a clay pot. Then on
the signal the clay pot is broken and the torches all of a sudden become seen
by the enemy.
Usually there was a torch for every 30 or 40 men. If youÕve got 300 men and 300
torches were seen, one would think that there was about 30 times that number of
people that were attacking you. That was what the deception was with Gideon.
There once was a young British man who was exceptionally eccentric. He
was reared in a Plymouth Brethren home. He had a great love for the Jewish
people, even though as an adult he became somewhat cynical. He was not as convinced
about the truth of Scripture as he was when he was younger. His name was Orde
Wingate.
Orde Wingate was detached by the British military to the Jewish army,
the Haganah, prior to WWII. This was in the late 30s in the middle of the Arab
rebellion. At that time the Jews in the kibbutzim would not attach the Arab
night raiders. They went into a defensive position. The Arab night raiders
would come and attack the kibbutzim, and the next day the Jews would have to
clean up whatever mess the Arabs had made. But the Jews never took it to the
enemy.
Orde Wingate came along and said that they needed to take a lesson out
of GideonÕs book. Wingate did exactly this. He tried GideonÕs tactic. They
surrounded an Arab village. They attacked it at night suddenly with torches,
suddenly appearing and breaking the clay pots.
Just as Gideon did, they
defeated the Arabs.
Wingate was responsible for training the Haganah member, Moshe Dayan and
numerous others who were the great heroes in the war for independences some ten
years later. Wingate trained them in night attack strategy and tactics. He
basically laid the foundation for the later IDF in the way he trained the
Israelis. That is the kind of thing that makes a leader. That is the kind of
thing that initiates.
What Jonathan is doing here is—he is not Òif God is going to
deliver them,Ó but he thought through the situation. He said, ÒI have a
strategy. I have a tactic in mind for attacking these Philistines. We can
defeat them. But it is going to depend on a couple of factors. If God is with
us we are going to be able to get up on top of the cliffs. Then we can take out
the Philistines because they will not expect it.Ó
Jonathan says that if he and his armor bearer get up on top of the
cliffs, the Philistines will think we are worn out. The Philistines will be
thinking they are in a position of strength. If God lets us get in that
position we can wipe them out. But if we have to stay down below, where they
have the high ground, then God is not with us. We are not going to win the
battle. Jonathan thought this through.
Jonathan is not just coming up with some random test—that if they
call us up to the top of the cliff we will get into the battle. If we stay at
the bottom we will not. He has really thought through the implications of where
he is going to be. He sets this up. Jonathan is going to leave and go after the
Philistines.
We are told something about Saul here. In 1 Samuel 14:2 we are told, ÒAnd Saul was sitting in the outskirts of
Gibeah.Ó
This again should be Geba. He is probably along the cliffs there. The
Hebrew word here translated ÒGibeahÓ means hill. It very likely should be
translated Òon top of a hillÓ or Òalong the edge of the cliff.Ó
Then it says Òunder a pomegranate
tree which is in Migron.Ó It does not say Òtree.Ó It says Òunder a pomegranate.Ó
There is one man who has done some interesting speculation here. He
thinks that just as you have names that are given to the cliffs, these caves
were very large, and there were places where a large number of soldiers could
hide. These places had names. This man speculates that one of these caves,
because it had a lot of holes in it, was called the Òpomegranate.Ó I think that
very well may be true, that Saul is sitting in a cave with a number of his men
waiting in a defensive position. He is not looking to engage the enemy. Saul
had 600 men with him.
We are told another note in 1 Samuel 14:3, that ÒAhijah the son of Ahitub, IchabodÕs brother, the son of Phinehas, the
son of Eli, the LordÕs priest in Shiloh, was wearing an ephod.Ó
The ephod is the emblem of the high priest, but the ephod would have
also had the Urim and Thummim on it. The high priestly garment with the Urim
and Thummim was the means of seeking divine guidance. What we have is Saul, and
for good luck he has the high priest with him. But there is an irony here.
Saul is the man whose dynasty has been taken away from him. And Ahitub
is the high priest whose dynasty has been taken away from him.
Remember, Ahitub is a descendant of Eli. In 1 Samuel 4 when Israel was defeated the Ark of the Covenant is captured. When the
messenger gets back to Eli he tells him that the Ark of the Covenant is captured. Corpulent Eli falls over, breaks
his neck and dies.
EliÕs daughter-in-law, who is the wife of Phinehas, is pregnant. She
goes into labor and gives birth to a son. She names him Ichabod meaning, Òthe glory has departed.Ó It
literally means Òno glory.Ó The glory has departed.
What we are told in 1 Samuel 14:3 is that Ichabod had a brother Ahitub.
Ahitub had a son named Ahijah. Ahijah is the last high priest in the family of
Eli. He is a man whose family lineage is going nowhere, just as SaulÕs lineage
is going nowhere.
And the only place we have this mentioned is in this one verse. Why is
it there? It is here to tell us that Saul is seeking cover through religious
observance.
In 1 Samuel 14:4 we get into what Jonathan does. ÒBetween the passes, by which Jonathan sought to go to the PhilistinesÕ
garrison, there was a sharp rock on one side and a sharp rock on the other
side. And the name of one was Bozez (slippery), and the name of the other Seneh (thorny).Ó
Jonathan is going to be the first person in the Bible to do any serious
rock climbing here. He has got to scale the one that is on the north side,
which is Seneh, so he can engage the Philistine troops.
We have seen this slide already. This is Bozez and Seneh. We are told in
the next verse that Seneh faces the south and Bozez faces the north. Seneh is
on the north side of this huge chasm that runs between Geba and Michmash. We
are going to start off looking at this from the southeast. Each of the photos
we will see will allow us to go around to the south and come around to the
southwest. That is going to give us a pretty good aerial view of what this
terrain is like.
Here we have Michmash and the other cliffs. These are the cliffs that
Jonathan would be scaling to the center north. Here is Michmash up on the
center ridgeline. The Philistines were up in that area somewhere.
This is another shot. We still see Michmash up here. It gives us another
look at the terrain and the height of all of these cliffs Jonathan has to scale.
Moving to the south, we are looking due north. Michmash is to the north
of where Jonathan has to scale the cliffs. We can look down and get a different
shot of the cliffs that Jonathan is going to have to scale.
We are to the southwest and looking back toward the direction we were
coming from to get an idea of what Jonathan has to climb up.
This is another view of the cliffs near Michmash and Geba from the
southwest. We have a pretty good idea of what Jonathan has to do.
This is another shot of the Wadi Suwenit near the cliffs of Michmash. It
looks even steeper in this particular shot.
Here are the cliffs near Michmash and Geba. This is a rugged
perspective.
This is the view of the cliffs near Michmash and Geba from the west and
looking at JonathanÕs rock climbing ability.
1 Samuel 14:6, ÒThen Jonathan said
to the young man who bore his armor, ÔCome, let us go over to the garrison of
these uncircumcised.Ó
This is where I started. We have seen what led up to this. Jonathan has
divine viewpoint because he understands the enemy has no right to the land. God
did not make a covenant with the Philistines to give them this land. God made a
covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Philistines have no right to the
land. Jonathan identifies the enemy correctly. He recognizes that nothing can
beat them if the Lord is with him—that the Lord can give them the battle.
When we talk about the term Òuncircumcised,Ó the Jews were not the only
ones that practiced circumcision in the ancient world. They were the only ones
whose circumcision was connected to a covenant with God. This tells us that
there was a definite theological dimension to this.
Later on in Jeremiah 9:25–26 we see an interesting passage where
God warns that He is going to punish even Israel. ÒI am going to punish all who
are circumcised.Ó That would be Israel and maybe a few others. The Egyptians
practiced it, but it was more of a coming-of-age thing, where you would have
large group rituals. It was entering into manhood. Everybody had to be tough
and man-up and not wimp-out. It was a rite of passage, but it had nothing to do
with anything spiritual. Other nations around did not practice it: Edom,
Ammonites, and Moabites.
Notice in Jeremiah 9:26, all Òwho
dwell in the wilderness. For all
these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised
in the heart.Ó The issue was not the physical external circumcision. It was
whether they were set apart to God spiritually internally. Paul is going to use
that terminology to apply it to the baptism of the Spirit in Colossians 2:9ff.
1 Samuel 14:7, ÒSo his armor bearer said to him, ÔDo all that
is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.Õ Ó
1 Samuel 14:8, ÒThen Jonathan
said, ÔVery well, let us cross over to these men, and we will show ourselves to
them.Ó LetÕs see if we can do something that is going to propel some
action. Let us see if we can stop this stalemate.
1 Samuel 14:9, ÒIf they say to us,
ÔWait until we come to you ...Õ—if they are up on top and they spot
Jonathan and his armor bearer down
below and say wait, stay there, until we come down to you
Jonathan says, ÒÉ then we will stand still in our place and will
not go up to them ...Ó— we will not be engaging in the battle.
Jonathan understands the terrain, that they would have the advantage.
1 Samuel 14:10, Jonathan said, ÒBut
if they say thus, ÔCome up to us,Õ then we will go up. For the Lord has
delivered them into our hand [or given them over to us], and this will be a sign to us.Ó
Jonathan is not arbitrarily picking this. He has thought it through. Jonathan
says if God gives us this, it will be a tactical advantage. If God gives us the
opportunity to scale the cliffs, then we can take them.
That is what happened. Both of them showed themselves to the garrison of
the Philistines. The Philistines are taunting them. They are making fun of
them.
1 Samuel 4:11, ÒLook, these
Hebrews are coming out of their holes in the ground! They have hidden away.Ó The
minute that the garrison called to Jonathan and his armor bearer and said to come on up and we will show you something,
they are treating it lightly. That shows that they are not treating this as a
serious assault.
1 Samuel 14:12, ÒJonathan said to
his armor bearer, ÔCome up after me,
for the Lord has delivered them into the hand of Israel.Õ Ó Jonathan has
confidence because God is his shield and his fortress. He knows the battle is the LordÕs. He is going to
win the battle.
1 Samuel 14:13, what happens is that ÒJonathan
climbed up on his hands and knees with his armor
bearer after him.Ó Jonathan begins to assault the Philistines. His armor bearer is coming behind him and
kills them. Jonathan is knocking them down. The armor bearer comes along behind to make sure they are dead.
We are told in 1 Samuel 14:14 that within the first half an acre they
killed about twenty men. It reminds me of the Rangers going up on Pointe du Hoc
on D-Day when they were making their assault there.
1 Samuel 14:15, this is where God intervenes. ÒAnd there was trembling in the camp ...Ó The people are afraid.
They are being taken by surprise. The Philistines are beginning to act in fear. ÒThere was trembling in the camp, in the
field, and among all the people. The garrison and the raiders also trembled;
and the earth quaked ...Ó
I read that and the first thing I did was texted Steve Austin. I said,
ÒHave you done any work on this?Ó He said, ÒA little bit.Ó He said that it is
very likely that this location was probably an epicenter of a small earthquake.
He said that this is very likely a phenomenon called an earthquake swarm where
you have a bunch of small earthquakes in one location within a few minutes of
each other.
At the epicenter of a small quake like that it would sound like a cannon
battle, like an artillery battle going off with all of these explosions taking
place. Remember, he talked about the earthquakes
in the Bible when he was here at the Chafer Conference. He mentioned
that the earthquake at
the cross is that the cross is the epicenter. It would not shake as
much at the epicenter, but it would sound like an explosion going off.
If you have a bunch of explosive sounds going off, this would scare the
Philistines to death. That is exactly what is depicted in the text. The
Philistines are afraid. They begin to run and to panic. This is what we will
pick up next time.
By the way, Steve Austin also pointed out, if you remember from his
lectures at the Chafer Conference, he showed a slide of this mud core that he
took at the Dead Sea. That core showed at certain key levels a disturbance in
the strata that would indicate an earthquake. He said that there was definitely
a disturbed layer in the Dead Sea mud at approximately 1050–1040 BC in
this area, which would be this particular earthquake. I thought that was quite
fascinating.
What we see again is that the
battle is the LordÕs. Next time we are going to come back, and we are going
to see what happens. When religious Saul gets a hold of this, he is really going to mess it up. He is going to
almost turn victory into defeat because he takes over, because he fails to
trust the Lord to win the battle.
That is what happens in all of our lives. Sometimes we start off great,
trusting the Lord. The battle is the
LordÕs. The next thing you know the battle is mine, then it all falls
apart. We have to stay the course. Remember that. Next time we will come back
and look at the conclusion of the battle of Michmash.
Closing Prayer
ÒFather, thank You for this opportunity to study these things and to
look at the details of what has been recorded so that we can understand it
better, and we can get a very clear idea of the fact that You work and
intervene in the lives of men. You solve our problems. You overwhelm our
enemies. You are the One who protects us. You are the One who puts fear into
the heart of those who oppose us.
Father, we face much opposition in this nation. We face many people who
seek to destroy the influence of the Bible and Christianity on the laws and the
institutions of this nation. The only way that we are going to see this reverse
is if You intervene. We pray that You would intervene. We pray that You would
do whatever is necessary in order to bring these people back to an orientation
to truth and to understand the truth of Your Word that this nation may continue
to be a bulwark for the teaching of Your Word, the proclamation of the gospel,
sending out missionaries, and supporting Israel. We pray all these things in
ChristÕs name. Amen.Ó