God, the Bible and Political Justice: Chapter 16
Part Three: Political Lessons from Jewish History
Chapter 16
Samuel and The Wandering Priests
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” Judges 17:6
So, where are the priests? In the history of the Judges they are almost entirely absent. Are they not important to the history of the country? Surely they are, but why so quiet?
Clues to the answer may be in the way Judges concludes and I Samuel begins. We finish the Book of Judges with two rather bizarre stories that, at first, seem out of place. The subjects in these two stories are priests of the Levitical tribe.
Micah and the wandering priest
In the first story we are told of a man named Micah in the tribe of Ephraim who has stolen a great quantity of silver from his mother, [1] about 28 pounds or 13 kilos to be exact. He confesses because his mother has put a curse on the thief. She in turn gives it back to her son, consecrating it to the Lord and encouraging him to make “idols” from it. Micah already has a shrine and uses the silver to add new “idols” and an “ephod”. He then installs his son as priest.
We must wonder at this point, “What Lord they are consecrating these things to?” Everything they are doing breaks the Laws of Moses. They are not to have idols. They are not to “curse” in God’s name and they are not to build shrines. Ephod’s are to be worn only by the priest and the priests are to be Levites.
The picture God is painting for us is one of total disregard for what God has taught them about worship. The people are in rebellion, worshiping the gods of the nations around them. All the while, still using the Name of the Lord as though they are worshipping Him.
A priest of the Levitical tribe enters the scene. He is from Bethlehem and has wandered off looking for another home. We don’t know why he does this but we do know the clans of the priests have all been assigned homelands. He comes across Micah in Ephraim and Micah makes him an offer. Live with his family, become his priest, wear his new ephod and represent them in their shrine with the idols. Micah will pay him an annual sum and give him food and clothing. Micah installs him as priest noting that now he knows “the Lord will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.” Judges 17:13 What Lord?
If we do not read the Bible with the Laws of Moses in mind we will miss the point here. The Law lays down the template by which we understand everything else that happens in the history of Israel including the prophets, the coming of Christ and the expansion of the gospel to the Gentile nations. God is not starting His thinking over in each book of the Bible. They build progressively and the one before helps us understand the ones that follow. Everything everyone does in all of Scripture is to be measured by what God has already told them in the Law. Without this measurement we will distort the meaning of the history of Israel and distort God’s message.
God is showing us in the life of this priest and Micah’s hiring of him that at this point in time the Israelites have no regard for the Law of God. Everything the priest and Micah do here is in direct violation of God’s instructions. However, they still want the God of the Law to bless them! The deterioration is from within the Jewish community.
The story continues and gets worse! God, Moses and Joshua have all assigned the tribes to specific tribal lands with detailed borders and yet we have a wandering tribe. The Danites are looking for a place to move. We don’t know the exact story but the Danites have not been able to take their assigned land. In fact, they have been run out. It appears that none of the tribes have come to their rescue.[2]
They come across Micah and his young Levitical priest. They ask this priest to inquire of the Lord whether their mission to find a new home territory will be successful. They find a beautiful, prosperous land, where they attack, a “peaceful and unsuspecting people” Judges18:27 destroying them and burning their city (Laish) down.
The army of Dan returns to Ephraim steals the idols and ephod and makes the priest a better offer. Why be a priest for a family when he can be a priest for a whole tribe? They rebuild the city of Laish and rename it Dan. “There the Danites set up for themselves the idols, and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan…” Judges 18:30-31 The tribe that has just sought God sets up idols. The wandering priest is the grandson of Moses![3]
The idolatry set up in the city of Dan will plague Israel for the rest of their history.
Well there we are! Idolatry, unlawful priesthood and lost tribes weaken Israel. Not only is there political corruption but it would seem the priesthood is in a very bad state as well.
Now we come to the second story of a priest and the last of the book of Judges.
The Levite and His Concubine
Another priest from the hill country of Ephraim took a concubine, a lesser wife, from Judah to live with him. We are not told why, but she runs away from him and returns to her father’s house. The priest comes looking for her and is hosted by the father for days. The concubine leaves with the priest with a promise not to stop in non-Jewish towns along the way where they will not be protected.
On their way home they stop for the night at Gibeah in the Bengamite territory. They wait at the town square as customary if you were a traveler looking for lodging for the night. No one helps them until evening comes, an old man from Ephraim who lives in Gibeah graciously takes them in and provides for their needs.
We hear echoes of Sodom and Gomorrah when while eating, wicked men from the town come demanding the old man give up the priest for them to sodomize. He pleads with them attempting to shame them by offering his own virgin daughters or his guests concubine. The men decline the daughters but accept the concubine. They rape her all night long and in the morning she lies dead on the threshold of the house. The priest cuts her body into 12 pieces and sends one to each tribe of Israel as a message. How can such a thing happen in Israel?
The tribal response is unanimous; “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!” Judges 19:30
The Jews seem to be astounded by their own wickedness. And when one priest finally calls them to accountability they respond. Eleven tribes come together with 400,000 soldiers. They hear the priest’s testimony and determine to bring judgment on the Benjamites. They ask for the surrender of the guilty men. The Benjamites refuse and amass more than 26,000 soldiers of their own and go to war with their brothers. Neither tribal accountability nor accountability to the Law seem to exist in the Benjamite’s minds.
In the first day of fighting the Benjamites kill an astounding 22,000 soldiers from the other tribes. 18,000 are killed the next day. Weeping and inquiring of the Lord they fight another day. On the third day of civil war the eleven tribes kill 25,100 of the 26,000 Benjamite troops and destroy their towns and livestock.
The lose to the Benjamites was so great that if the tribes had not helped them they would have become extinct. And the book of Judges closes out: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” 21:25
There is no victory here. There is some level of justice and retribution. There is some course correction in the moral decline of the Jewish people. With all that God has done and given to this chosen people, they are still as bad, if not at times, worse than the pagan nations that surround them. Their religious leaders are full of idolatry and their political leaders are morally spent.
The red thread of violence continues it’s destructive flow now through God’s chosen people. He has wanted to use Israel to reveal His values for nation building for all nations. But Israel is going backwards.
Judges 2:20 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did.” 23 The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.”
Israel has enemies because God is using the conflict to get their attention. In the ???? hundred years since the times of Joshua the character and fiber of Jewish justice has deteriorated dramatically. It is time for change.
Samuel 1060-1020 B.C.
As we enter the book of 1 Samuel the writer’s inspiration begins with the condition of the priesthood again. We are told that Eli the Priest and his sons are wicked. His sons steal from the Lord and use temple prostitutes. God says He is going to destroy the family and raise up a new leader.
In God’s search throughout all of Israel He can find no one able to lead the nation. They have reached the cultural bottom. Both the political leadership and priesthood are in serious trouble. Still there is faithfulness in Israel beyond the institutions. We are told of a faithful women and her husband that, while all of Israel runs headlong into paganism, stand firm in their commitment to God. The husband, Elkanah is an Ephraimite with two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah has children but Hannah is barren.
This faithful man goes up to Shiloh every year to worship and offer sacrifices. Eli, Hophni and Phinehas are priests. Elkanah, like Job before him, offers sacrifices for all of his children and both wives. Hannah is inconsolable because she is childless, and she cries out for God. She is so fervent in her prayer that Eli thinks she is drunk. Denying it, she puts her petition for a child before Eli. He blesses her and asks God to grant her request. The next morning, before they leave for home, Elkanah lies with Hannah and she conceives. She names the child Samuel because “I asked the Lord for him.” 1 Samuel 1:20
As soon as the boy is weaned, Hannah takes him up to Shiloh. After worship and sacrifices are made, she offers him to the service of the Lord for the rest of his lifetime. Hannah then leaves this precious gift child under the supervision of these awful priests. Her trust is in the Lord, not the system.
God says, “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always.”1 Samuel 2:35
When God speaks of raising up a faithful priest is He speaking of Samuel? Many times in Scripture thus far God speaks of raising up a faithful leader who will establish His house. But who is He talking about? Certainly Samuel will give faithful leadership for a generation and will improve Israel’s state. However, it will decline again. What is God saying?
Beginning with a child, God turns His attention to a new generation, as He did in the wilderness with Moses. He is willing to use every generation. His desire is to use every generation (repetitive of the previous sentence) but there comes a time when it may be too late for that generation to change, and He must start again with the younger generation.
“In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.”1 Samuel 3:1
God begins to prepare Samuel. He hears God speak from an early age and Eli is righteous enough to understand that it is the Lord. Samuel grows in maturity and does not forget anything God has said. He is recognized throughout Israel as a prophet of God.
Israel’s nemeses, the Philistines, are as feisty as ever. They raid Israel, defeat the army and steal the ark. The Israelites have been smart enough to know that the ark had power so they brought it to the battlefield. But they are too far from the truth to understand that God will not bless such decadence even in the Temple. The Philistines are smart enough to be afraid of the presence of the ark because they know the God of Israel is powerful. But they win anyway and become the owners of the “magical artifact.” Hophni and Phinehas are killed in battle along with 30,000 others. Eli drops dead on hearing of the death of his sons and the capture of the ark.
Samuel is a priest though not a Levite, prophet and political leader though not a traditional Judge. He is a transitional leader that God uses in untraditional ways. Like Moses, who was a Levite, but gives Aaron the priesthood while he retains political leadership, he does not fit God’s norm for institutional authority. Samuel is essential to get the nation back on track, but he is not the template of leadership.
The Philistines are having a terrible time with the ark. They place it in the temple of Dagon, their god. The people begin experiencing a pandemic of tumors and the statue of Dagon keeps falling over. They finally decide to return the ark to Israel.
Twenty years have passed since the ark was taken. And “all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord.” 1 Samuel 7:2 Samuel leads the people in giving up their pagan worship of gods and coming back to the God of Israel. He then, as the Judges of old, leads them into war with the Philistines at Mizpah, the same battle field as the devastating civil war between the tribes and the Benjamites. Is that a coincidence?
The Philistines are defeated, Israel’s land is restored and there is peace. Samuel goes back to his home in Ramah and judges Israel from there riding like a circuit judge from tribe to tribe. It seems he has ceased to function as priest.
As Samuel gets old we read, “he appointed his sons as judges for Israel.” 1 Samuel 8:1 But his sons do not walk in integrity before God as Samuel has. They accept bribes and they pervert justice. And “the people” reject them. (8:3-5). Israel wants a king to lead them. (8:6)
God has said he will establish the house of Samuel in leadership over Israel. But as with Eli and his sons, this promise is conditional. The character of the sons is unacceptable to God and the people. Samuel is a messenger that brings this word of the Lord to Eli in I Samuel 3:11-14 So why does Samuel now think that God will use his sons regardless? We are not told why. God does not elaborate for us. But this disregard of the father for the character of their sons will plague Israel throughout its history, from David to the last of the kings.
Now we begin the history of Israel’s kings. The next (453ish between Saul and Israel’s captivity) years will bring us to the greatest highs and devastating lows of Jewish History. God requires us to read through tragedy after tragedy for hundreds of pages with only a few points of historical encouragement. Why? What are we to learn from all of this? What are we missing in the message of Jesus if we do not understand this history? Jesus mastered these events. He understood them and He knew what the Father was saying in them. So must we.
