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Post by Josh on Feb 27, 2011 21:32:53 GMT -8
Post your comments, questions, and discussion starters on 1st Samuel chapters 4-7 as replies to this post.
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Post by Josh on Mar 2, 2011 20:55:35 GMT -8
I like how when the Israelites tried to use the ark as a good-luck charm it failed them, but then it is God Himself who arranges to have it returned, revealing in the process that He is certainly not a "tame Lion" but rather a fearfully holy God.
I find verse 9 interesting in that it indicates that the ancient Philistines (and perhaps even the ancient Hebrews) did actually believe that some things just happen by chance.
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Michael
Intermediate Member
Posts: 68
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Post by Michael on Mar 3, 2011 19:53:29 GMT -8
I love God's sense of humor when Dagon is found fallen before the ark. He could have stopped at inflicting the Philistines with disease, showing his judgement. But He tipped over the statue in the middle of the night not once, but twice, clearly displaying His power and Dagon's impotence. He had to have at least chuckled when He did it, I think!
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Post by sarah on Mar 3, 2011 21:35:00 GMT -8
I love God's sense of humor when Dagon is found fallen before the ark. He could have stopped at inflicting the Philistines with disease, showing his judgement. But He tipped over the statue in the middle of the night not once, but twice, clearly displaying His power and Dagon's impotence. He had to have at least chuckled when He did it, I think! I totally agree, and this section makes me laugh. But beyond the obvious showmanship, I find the head and hand removal interesting...Josh is there anything particularly significant about Dagon's head/hands to the Philistines? Then there is the reputation the ark starts to develop. Talk about a disappointing "spoils of war" you start out with what you are thinking is really great, only to end up with "well I don't want it, you take it!" Gotta say though, feel a bit sorry for the two cows who get sacrificed......................
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Post by Josh on Mar 4, 2011 19:21:48 GMT -8
Head and hands represent the powers to think and act; self awareness and power. Dagon is shown to have none of these traits or abilities.
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Post by Josh on Mar 7, 2011 16:30:04 GMT -8
I listened to the teaching/ discussion on this from yesterday. Good input from everyone!
I'd like to chime in a bit on God's paradoxical use of the Ark of the Covenant- why did God in some instances put such emphasis on His power and presence being revealed through the ark while at the same time judging Israel for relying on it as a magical relic? And if God is the Lord of the whole earth, why did He choose to manifest Himself through something so often that could easily be confused as an idol?
I guess I see the ark as well as the tabernacle and temple as God emphasizing His separate-ness/ holiness. By fairly consistantly manifesting His presence in one place and then setting up rules about how to access that place, He taught the Israelites their need for a mediator between God and man. But all the while He was still saying "I am not limited to this Temple or this ark or this place or this ritual and if you begin to rely on the ritual, relic, or institution more than the Living God who instituted them, then you'll be missing the whole point and be guilty of the idolatry of the pagans".
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Post by Josh on Mar 13, 2011 20:08:35 GMT -8
The Philistines asked, “What guilt offering should we send to him?”
They replied, “Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. 5 Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and give glory to Israel’s god. Perhaps he will lift his hand from you and your gods and your land.
One commentary I'm reading suggests that the unclear Hebrew word translated here as "tumors" should actually be hemmorhoids. Fits a lot better with the comic nature of the story.
As to the ark, I like was John Henry Newman says it tells us about God and miracles. He points out how God's power in the ark
"showed itself as it would and when it would, and without fixed rules... for a while latent, and then becoming manifest again; which to some persons or generations was an evidence, and to others it was not.... The ark was a standing instrument of miraculous operation, yet it did not send forth its virtue at all times, nor at the will of man. .. The supernatural glory might bide, and yet be manifold, variable, uncertain, inscrutable, uncontrollable.... dispensing gleams, shadows, traces of Almighty Power, but giving no such clear and perfect visions of it as one might gaze upon and record distinctly in it's details... Thus we are told, "the wind blows where it will".
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Post by Josh on Mar 13, 2011 20:17:49 GMT -8
If the story of the ark slaying the curious Israelites who looked into is troublesome to you (as it is to me), Francesca Aran Murhphy has this to say:
"The instinctive reaction most readers have to the slaughter of the men of Beth-shemesh is that it is not right for God to kill [seventy] men because they looked into the ark of the Lord; like the people we see more in this story to lament than to laugh at. Just as we can gaze with pleasure at the sunbathed moon but cannot look directly into the sun, so, in this life, human beings cannot endure looking upon God. We know that the Israelites were forbidden to make images of God, and we know that they have been detected by archaelogists in breaking the second commandment. But we understand much less well that it would be death for a human being in this world to encounter God directly. We understand it less well than we should because we set stories like this aside as an importunate reminder that God in the Old Testament is really primitive."
This is a good reminder. We are so used to God in the Flesh as Jesus that we forget that Jesus was God's way of finally being able to be seen.
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Post by Josh on Mar 13, 2011 20:20:37 GMT -8
"For human beings, monotheism is never just a theory, but a decision, for the one God and against the easier substitutes."
-F. A. Murphy
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