Collapse of Theocracy; United Kingdom

 

We are now going to look at the collapse of the theocracy and the rise of the monarchy in the nation Israel. The book of Joshua is basically laid out in two parts. The first half of the book up through chapter eleven talks about the campaign to take and conquer the land; the second half of the book talks about how they take control of the land. They take control by seizing the major areas of the land. The spiritual application that flows from this is found in Hebrews 3:7 to the end of chapter four. What is important here is that when we look at Old Testament events they happened as they are portrayed in the Scripture. Sometimes when we start getting into typology and analogy some people say it really didn’t happen that way, they just roll it that way so they can make spiritual applications. No, that is false. Te reason they can make spiritual applications is because this is viewed as accurate history, is exactly what happened, and on the basis of that we can make application. The Scripture itself tells us how to properly interpret these Old Testament events.

Hebrews 3:7 NASB “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, [8] DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS…” So there is a warning to the church today, based upon the actions of the Jews in the wilderness and their rejection of God’s provision. [9] “WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED {Me}  BY TESTING {Me,} AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS. [10] THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’; [11] AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.’” The promised land is pictured as the rest for Israel—not that they would not have struggles but that that was the promise of God and in the land was the place where they would have all of the place of blessing from God, just as in Christian life when we are in fellowship and are faith-resting that doesn’t mean that we are free from adversity, trial and struggle, but that is the place where we see God give us victory over these things, and we can have the peace of God that passes all comprehension and have the happiness of God that goes above and beyond the circumstances.  

Hebrew 3:12 NASB “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. [13] But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is {still} called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” The principle that we learn from this is that the Bible always tells us how to interpret itself.

In the book of Joshua we see this tremendous victory that God gives them over all the Canaanites. But something happens. They don’t maintain the victory, they don’t maintain the initiative; they become somewhat complaisant and begin to compromise with God’s commands. As we have seen in Judges they come to the point where they completely give up and lose control of many portions of the land.

1 Samuel 4:1 NASB “Thus the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle and camped beside Ebenezer while the Philistines camped in Aphek.”

This is the most significant battle in Israel’s history. The events of Exodus took place in 1446 BC. The Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness which means that in 1406 they went into the land. We know from comparing various other Scriptures that in the conquest, the three campaigns of Joshua to seize control of the land takes seven years. By the time Joshua and Caleb die it is approximately 1350 BC. We know then that Saul comes to power as king in about 1050, so there are about 300 years covering the period of the Judges and the battle of Aphek takes place at approximately 1100 BC. The last two judges mentioned in the book of Judges are Jephthah who fights the Ammonites and the Amorites in the east, and at the same time as Jephthah God is raising up Samson in the west to deal with the Philistine threat. By the time Samson dies Samuel has already been born and Eli is the high priest. Eli is also functioning as a judge. At the time of the battle of Aphek Eli is 98 years old. Samuel is somewhere between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Israel has been completely disobedient to God and has not at all turned back to God after the oppression of the Philistines. They have not sought deliverance or confessed their sins, so God is going to judge them. That is the context of 1 Samuel chapter four.

1 Samuel 4:2 NASB “The Philistines drew up in battle array to meet Israel. When the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines who killed about four thousand men on the battlefield.” This is phase one of the battle. Israel is shocked and dismayed because they have been defeated but look at how they respond to this problem. [3] “When the people came into the camp, the elders of Israel said, ‘Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us take to ourselves from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of the LORD, that it may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies’.” This was just a lucky charm to them, there was no sense of spiritual reality, no obedience or submission to God. [4] “So the people sent to Shiloh, and from there they carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts who sits {above} the cherubim; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, {were} there with the ark of the covenant of God.”  The two sons of Eli are the successors in the priestly line, so we need to catch what is happening here. They were like bandits, incorrigible and depraved. But they are in the priestly line so the people are not only going to bring the ark out, they are going to bring Hophni and Phinehas out and that will give them victory, they thought. [5] “As the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth resounded. [6] When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, ‘What {does} the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews {mean?}’ Then they understood that the ark of the LORD had come into the camp.

Word had gone out and everyone is the area knows about the ark of the Lord. 1 Sam 4:7 The Philistines were afraid, for they said, “God has come into the camp.” And they said, ‘Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. [8] Woe to us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who smote the Egyptians with all {kinds of} plagues in the wilderness.” They think the game is over, all is lost at this point. [9] ‘Take courage and be men, O Philistines, or you will become slaves to the Hebrews, as they have been slaves to you; therefore, be men and fight.’ [10] So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated, and every man fled to his tent; and the slaughter was very great, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers.” This was a devastating defeat for Israel.

In context this was as devastating a defeat for Israel as the dropping of the atomic bombs were on Japan at the end of World War II. This is crushing. Psychologically as a nation this just wipes them out. They think God has left them. There is no more hope, they are absolutely devastated and they go into one of the darkest periods of their history.

1 Samuel 4:11 NASB “And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.” The ark was the throne of God; He was the King of the nation. The throne is taken. With the death of Hophni and Phinehas it was the end of the priesthood. At this point there was no successor. It was the end of everything. That is how they were looking at this. This is it; God has left us, the priesthood is dead, there is no more hope.

1 Samuel 4:12 NASB “Now a man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and dust on his head. [13] When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on {his} seat by the road eagerly watching [an idiom; Eli was blind], because his heart was trembling for the ark of God. So the man came to tell {it} in the city, and all the city cried out. [14] When Eli heard the noise of the outcry, he said, ‘What {does} the noise of this commotion {mean?}’ Then the man came hurriedly and told Eli. [15] “Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were set so that he could not see. [16] The man said to Eli, ‘I am the one who came from the battle line. Indeed, I escaped from the battle line today.’ And he said, ‘How did things go, my son?’ [17] Then the one who brought the news replied, ‘Israel has fled before the Philistines and there has also been a great slaughter among the people, and your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been taken.’ [18] When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for he was old and heavy. Thus he judged Israel forty years.”

1 Samuel 4:19 NASB “Now his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’s wife, was pregnant and about to give birth; and when she heard the news that the ark of God was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband had died, she kneeled down and gave birth, for her pains came upon her.” The news was so crushing that she immediately goes into labor. [20] “And about the time of her death the women who stood by her said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, for you have given birth to a son.’…” In other words, there is hope. The priestly line would go forward. “…But she did not answer or pay attention. [21] And she called the boy Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel,’ because the ark of God was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband. [22] She said, ‘The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God was taken’.” Ichabod means “no glory.” Every time his name was pronounced they would be reminded of the defeat at Aphek. The one who is left in the high-priestly line, the grandson of Eli, was a reminder that glory had departed from Israel and the ark of God had been taken.

This shows that the theocracy ends with this battle. After this there is a time elapse of somewhere between twenty and forty years, but God is going to come along and institute the monarchy. What we are going to see is that the people want a king for all the wrong reasons. God always intended to give them a king but the people wanted to jump the gun, they were impatient, they wanted to be like every other nation, and so God gave them Saul.

After the battle of Aphek the Philistines pursue their victory and their initiative, they come to Shiloh and destroy the tabernacle. They wipe out everything, there is nothing left. The priesthood is almost destroyed, the only one left is Ichabod, a baby incapable of fulfilling the role, so how are they going to have a spiritual life as a nation? This is devastating and a major turning point of history and it is the end of God’s direct rule. It is almost a dispensational shift. Every time God changes His way of administering human history we mark as a dispensational shift. This is a major shift from God’s rule of Israel to rule through a human king. This is a major event that is often overlooked in the history of Israel.

Why was it necessary that they were defeated? First of all, from a natural viewpoint the Philistines were militarily and technologically superior. They had entered the iron age and they would not allow the Hebrews to have blacksmiths. It is always the way of the tyrant to keep the citizen from being able to own the latest technology in order to protect themselves. The issue is not sportsmanship, the issue is the personal protection of the home against the possibility of an encroaching federal power. The real issue in Israel, though, is not that the Philistines were technologically superior but that they were spiritually in rebellion. They have lost the capacity to enjoy their freedom and to live responsibly. The principle that we see here is: As goes the believer, so goes the nation. The decisions that we make affect the nation.  

Psalm 78 goes back and rehearses these particular events and the tragedy that took place in the nation at this time. Psalm 78:60 NASB “So that He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, The tent which He had pitched among men, [61] And gave up His strength to captivity And His glory into the hand of the adversary. [62] He also delivered His people to the sword, And was filled with wrath at His inheritance. [63] Fire devoured His young men, And His virgins had no wedding songs. [64] His priests fell by the sword, And His widows could not weep.”

Another principle that we should get from all of this is that our use of our volition might be a matter of privacy but its consequences affect everyone around us—either cursing by association or blessing by association. No man is an island.

We have seen that Israel spiritually trusted God when they went into the land under Joshua. Then by the time 300 years goes by they are in absolute defeat, the theocracy is ended, the priesthood collapses, the tabernacle is in ruins. What is it that took place during this time? That takes us back to the book of Judges. We saw that the main idea in Judges was that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The ultimate authority was no longer the Word of God; it was whatever anybody wanted to do. The spiritually mature Jews who conquered the land were unable to pass on their faith to the subsequent generation. There was a failure of their parenting so that Judges 2:10 describes the next generation as the generation who did not know Yahweh. Even Moses’ family failed. We are told in Judges 18:30 NASB “and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh [actually Moses—textual problem], he and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. [31] So they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image which he had made, all the time that the house of God was at Shiloh.” So we see the continuous collapse of the nation throughout the period of the judges.

We come to the changes now in society. There are various changes as a result of the kingship that is going to take place.

1.       They are going to have a visible, tangible leader now. There will be a dynastic succession, something they have not had in the past. Under the judges they had no idea who would come up next; God would just raise up a deliverer.

2.       There would be a centralization of power. Now there would be one man who would impose his will on the people. He would have an army, would be able to impose taxes, extreme taxes in order to do whatever he wanted to do. God warned the nation that because they wanted a king this is what they would have to put up with.

3.       There would be a privileged class within the society. Now they were going to have a king, and with that king there would be the development of royalty and an aristocracy supported by the taxes of people. So there would be a complete transformation of Jewish society as a result of this king coming.

The initiation to kingship: 1 Samuel 9:1 NASB “Now there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite, a mighty man of valor. [2] He had a son whose name was Saul, a choice and handsome {man,} and there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of the people.” He had a majestic presence, a regal bearing, and he looked like a man who should be king. 

1 Samuel 9:3 NASB “Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, were lost…” He eventually finds them through the help of Samuel and it is demonstrated that Saul is the one who is going to be designated king. But our picture is that the last thing that he wanted was to be king. But God chooses him to be king and there is a vast difference between Saul and David. Remember that at this time the nation is spiritually, economically and militarily bankrupt. The ark was taken to Ashdod by the Philistines where it was put in the temple of Dagon. When the ark comes back to Israel what does Saul do? He ignores it. Saul is totally self-absorbed when it comes to his reign. He is not concerned for God or the priorities of God and so he just ignores the ark.

Saul goes into battle with the Amalekites and defeats them but he doesn’t annihilate them. He rationalizes his disobedience. Saul is rejected because he doesn’t obey God, but the interesting this is that Saul is rejected because he doesn’t kill somebody. David is not rejected though he commits adultery and murder and conspiracy and cover-up. What makes the difference? Saul is indifferent to God; David has a heart for God. At the very core of David’s person, no matter how much he might mess up and how badly he sinned, he wants to do what God wants him to do. He wants God’s priorities for his life. That is the difference. David is called a man after God’s own heart, and that is exactly what that means.

Ps 132:1 Remember, O LORD, on David’s behalf, All his affliction; [2] How he swore to the LORD And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, [3] ‘Surely I will not enter my house, Nor lie on my bed; [4] I will not give sleep to my eyes Or slumber to my eyelids, [5] Until I find a place for the LORD, A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob. [6] Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah, We found it in the field of Jaar’.” All this time throughout Saul’s reign the ark is just left sitting out in a field. He just doesn’t care, he is negative to God. David is positive. That is what makes the difference.