51 – The Loss of the Ark of the Covenant – Part 1

FULL MEETING WITH MIDRASH HERE

NOTE: THE TRANSCRIPT IS NOT EXACTLY LIKE THE RECORDING.

Let’s do a quick historical review of ancient Israel. At the time of Samuel and this battle, the Children of Israel had been in possession of the Promised Land for about 400 years. During this time, they had rebelled against YHVH’s Law that governs His Kingdom, Israel, and had become treasonous image worshipers, idolaters and rebellious as a nation against the Law of YHVH. Let me add here that there was a righteous and obedient remnant among them that I am not including in that statement. These were people with personal relationships with YHVH like Elkanah and Hannah, Samuel’s parents and others.

YHVH has now come to the point where had a problem and He’d had enough. The Israelites’ rebellions were destroying what He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, i.e. that their descendants would become a nation. But sin cannot be in the presence of YHVH. He had continued being merciful to Israel but they had responded with ever more rebellion and abominations against Him.

It was time to do something; time to remove the tribe of Ephraim from power and time to destroy the irreparably defiled temple at Shiloh. In destroying Shiloh (using the Philistines to do it) YHVH would remove His name from His own dwelling place and from His people, too (at least for a short time).

What to do? He had used Samson to stir up the Philistines against Israel during the time of Samuel! The Philistines became His punishing rod.

YHVH could not outright kill the Israelites to get rid of them from His Kingdom (as He had wanted to do in the wilderness at Mount Sinai) because He had promised Moses (Exodus 33) He would be with them. And before that, He had promised Jacob, and before that, Isaac, and before that, Abraham, that He would be with their descendants and would make a nation of them. It sort of looks like YHVH is stuck with the Israelites He ended up with because, even though they were committing treason each time the worshiped another god, you can bet they knew about His promises to them. They thought YHVH had no options but to continue being their supreme deity among all the other gods they worshiped in their polytheism because who else was He going to get to be descendants of Israel than the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Gentiles who came with them out of Egypt? YHVH requires that His people worship Him alone. It was an impossible situation. Israel’s antics were making it hard for YHVH to fulfill His promises to forefathers! But was He stuck with them?

Well, no. This is true even though it is not possible for YHVH our King and Elohim, our God, to break a promise. So He had to find another way to deal with His people. He decided to get away from His own people who hated Him, His Law and who rejected Him in favor of gods that were not even gods at all! What else could YHVH do but get up and leave since He couldn’t kill ‘em!?

By the way, this kind of thing Israel did throughout its history, even to today, is the very reason Yeshua came to die for Israel’s sins and to restore Israel on the Cross, the Israel He created at Mount Sinai. And through that, the Gentiles were able to convert to being in YHVH’s Kingdom. The Israel who vowed to accept His deliverance, His salvation, from Egypt and then continue to live righteously by His Law in His Kingdom. His death and resurrection make it possible for Him to choose who He wants in His Kingdom instead of being stuck with those who reject Him!

All of that said, we now come to the place where Israel will lose its God and King.

The Philistines Capture the Ark

1 Samuel 4:1  The word of Samuel came to all Israel…

The word of Samuel was a prophetic warning of impending destruction. When the prophetic word goes forth, war will follow. Undoubtedly, Samuel was calling Israel to repent as he prophesied of the coming doom. But did they? They lost the war. Why? Because they did not repent! They did not return to His ancient path (Jeremiah 6:16), wherein each citizen of Israel had a personal relationship with his God and King, and they live as obedient citizens of His Kingdom, Israel. Nope. This generation was not like those before it who repented and called out to YHVH each time they were oppressed by foreign armies. Over time, the hearts of the people hardened to the point where repentance was a “no-go”. They did not listen to Samuel! They were happy in their situation living under Philistine rule and they did not need YHVH and His ways. They had their own ways. This is why He used Samson to stir up the Philistines. He wasn’t trying to destroy the Philistines! He was going to use the Philistines to destroy His own people.

We have that situation today! It is why we will have a Great Tribulation. YHVH’s peoples’ hearts are so hardened today, like they were with the Shiloh generation, that they refuse to repent of their sins from the list of sins YHVH gave us in the Torah. Rather, they choose to rely on their religious list of sins which is different that YHVH’s. That’s because when you use His list of sins to repent of, then you are obligated to live by His list of rules and regulations! People aren’t willing to do that.

Let me go down a rabbi trail here. The Christian Church isn’t the first to set aside YHVH’s Law. The Jews did that even before YHVH, as Yeshua our Messiah, came to dwell among us. And the Jews were not the first to set aside YHVH’s Law, either. The Shiloh generation did that before there were people called “Jews” in Israel. At the time of the Shiloh generation, Israel was 12 tribes, not 4!

The Law was set aside with the first generation that came out of Egypt! So Christians and Jews aren’t doing anything new! But in the wilderness, we know the second generation repented of their sins before Joshua took them across the Jordan river. However, now this Shiloh generation (a type and shadow of today’s wicked religious people), won’t even repent. They won’t even open the scrolls to see what sins they are committing. Nope! That was done away with when they got happy living under Philistine rule! So, just like back then, YHVH will do the same thing to His people that He did in Shiloh. He will destroy His rebellious people while saving the righteous ones.

Oh!, that they would have remembered Joshua’s words to understand that YHVH has a cutoff point, a point beyond which He will go no further with His people because of their sins.

Joshua 24:20  If you forsake Yahweh, and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you evil, and consume you, after he has done you good.”

Joshua understood that YHVH wanted to destroy His people for committing adultery/idolatry against Him now more than a few days after He married them at Mount Sinai! But the intercession of Moses caused YHVH to forgive them. Remember? That’s because they repented. They mourned, they took of their jewelry. They brought so many gifts to make the Tabernacle that Moses had to tell them to stop! But this Shiloh were now at the cutoff point for refusing to repent and return to keeping YHVH’s Law in His Kingdom, Israel.

1 Samuel 4:1 … Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and encamped beside Ebenezer; and the Philistines encamped in Aphek.
1 Samuel 4:2  The Philistines put themselves in array against Israel. When they joined battle, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men of the army in the field.
1 Samuel 4:3  When the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has Yahweh defeated us today before the Philistines? Let’s get the ark of Yahweh’s covenant out of Shiloh and bring it to us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies.”

“Why has Yahweh defeated us today”? The elders of Israel did not say the Philistines defeated them. No! It was YHVH! They were beginning to understand what was happening. This thing was from YHVH!

The casualty numbers from this war have significance. Four thousand is 100 times more than 40. YHVH used this number to jog our memory of the forty years Israel’s first generation spent wandering in the wilderness because they were so wicked that YHVH refused to let them enter the Promised Land. That mathematically describes this final Shiloh generation! One hundred times worse than the first wicked generation.

1 Samuel 4:4  So the people sent to Shiloh; and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of Armies, 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 Israelites thought the Ark, the OBJECT within the Holy of Holies, was a lucky charm! It was the “war box”, not the mercy seat, but the seat of the commander of armies, and now they needed it because the Philistines had killed 4,000 of them! Nowhere in the Torah does YHVH define the Ark of the Covenant as the seat of the commander of armies! Rather, it is was His mercy seat!

But now, their attitude was that it was a lucky charm so they could win the war. They said, “So let’s take the war box with the Cherubim guardians on top into the battle because, when we take the Ark into battle, we can’t lose”. This was a massive misinterpretation of Moses and a manipulation of witchcraft!

Numbers 10:35  When the ark went forward, Moses said, “Rise up, Yahweh, and let your enemies be scattered! Let those who hate you flee before you!”

This was not a command for the Ark to be carried into battle. This was a call for YHVH to go before the nation of Israel as it moved between 2 and 3 million people toward the Promised Land so that enemies would think twice about attacking them. The Ark had never before now been carried into battle. That’s because that is not what the Ark is for.

Numbers 10:35 has special meaning for us as we go through the Tribulation. YHVH will make His enemies flee before us on our way from wherever we are in the world all the way to Jerusalem! This verse is a promise, not a war command! When your enemies are fleeing, folks, there is no war.

The Ark was no longer YHVH’s mercy seat. It was their war weapon. It makes me wonder how many of them actually participated in Yom Kippur from year to year! These folks were about to learn that you can’t manipulate YHVH – ever! He doesn’t hearken to your witchcraft!

Here’s another rabbi trail. We learned last time that the Ark is with YHVH in His Heavenly throne room now. This is because the wicked might use it as a war weapon again. They might use it as propaganda to convince people that the God of Israel has come, for the first time, and has restored Israel with the 4 tribes that comprise the Jews, and all the people will come running! So be aware! If the Jews claim to have the Ark in their possession, don’t believe them! It is in Heaven where John saw it. YHVH showed it to John so that we would know the lie if and when it comes forth.

1 Samuel 4:5  When the ark of Yahweh’s covenant came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.

Notice there was no trumpet blast for war recorded in this account. It was the trumpet blasts that call YHVH to war with His people, not the removal of the Ark from its rightful resting place within the Holy of Holies and onto the battlefield. These disobedient people took it on themselves to go to war without the proper procedures laid out in Torah. They went to battle in a state of disobedience just like that first generation with its 10 spies who took it upon themselves to go to battle after YHVH told them no.

Whereas the Israelites thought they could manipulate YHVH by using the Ark as an amulet, they did not understand that they were actually doing exactly what He wanted. How is that, you ask?

YHVH had no physical body. Yes, he had appeared to many people in physical form but He is Spirit. It would be another 1,000 years before He would be born as a human male, Yeshua. So He needed the Israelites to come and get Him and take Him onto the battlefield where He could then be taken captive as He had planned (and yes, I will show the scriptures that verify this). YHVH used wicked Israel’s panic against them!

This action by YHVH also put wicked Hophni and Phinehas right where YHVH wanted them – on the front lines where He could use the Philistines to execute them! Isaiah (Isaiah 10:5-7), Daniel (Daniel 4:17) and Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:12-13) would later write about how YHVH uses the wicked nations to punish Israel. “O LORD, my God, my Holy One? … You, Rock, have established him to punish”, says Habakkuk. He was crying out about Nebuchadnezzar who was coming to punish Israel.

1 Samuel 4:6  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?” They understood that Yahweh’s ark had come into the camp.
1 Samuel 4:7  The Philistines were afraid, for they said, “God has come into the camp.” They said, “Woe to us! For there has not been such a thing before.
1 Samuel 4:8  Woe to us! Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.

We see that the Philistines had more respect for the Ark and YHVH Elohim than the Israelites! And they were rightfully frightened. This fright would not last long, however, and they would never again be afraid Israel, though they might have remained leery of YHVH after the diseases He gave them, but afraid? No. Not again. It would take the Babylonians coming to destroy the Philistines when the Jews were carted off to their Babylonian captivity. The Philistine population completely disappeared after the Babylonian invasion of Israel. That is why there is no Philistine DNA. There are historical records, but not DNA.

The Philistines expressed in their fear what the Israelites had forgotten and should have expressed in love through obedience – the great miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea! The Feast that celebrates these victories were supposed to teach the Israelites to revere YHVH from year to year at Passover. The Israelites forgot their heritage because they did not keep YHVH’s Feasts.

Also, there is a translation problem here because the English word “gods” is still the plural אלהים. This is the word, Elohim, translated as “God” singular in all other places in scripture. What kind of trick of doctrine are the English translators trying to pull here? This is likely a literary device to show us how the translators THINK the Philistines would have spoken about God, Elohim. People who do Bible translations just can’t help themselves. They just have to change or add words to YHVH’s scriptures. Blessedly, these changes do not affect the fundamentals of our faith even though they can and do cause confusion.

1 Samuel 4:9  Be strong, and behave like men, O you Philistines, that you not be servants to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Strengthen yourselves like men, and fight!”

The Philistines knew the history of Israel as much as Rahab at Jericho who said the Canaanites’ hearts melted before Israel when they crossed the Jordan river with Joshua. The Philistines were now having their turn for melted hearts! But they bolstered themselves against Israel and its magic box. This battle went very differently from Jericho.

The Philistines calling the people of Israel “Hebrews” is intended to be an insult by not acknowledging that Israel was a nation with a God and King. The Philistines were in the land when Joshua brought Israel across the Jordan river. But they never acknowledged that the people were Israelites and that the land was the nation, Israel. Therefore, they used the word “Hebrews” as an insult to the Israelites.

1 Samuel 4:10  The Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter; for thirty thousand footmen of Israel fell.
1 Samuel 4:11  God’s ark was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
1 Samuel 4:12  A man of Benjamin ran out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn, and with dirt on his head.
1 Samuel 4:13  When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching; for his heart trembled for God’s ark. When the man came into the city and told about it, all the city cried out.
1 Samuel 4:14  When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, “What does the noise of this tumult mean?” The man hurried, and came and told Eli.

The meaning of this tumult was that the Shiloh temple, over which Eli, the High Priest, ruled was set for destruction. Other scriptures allude to Shiloh’s destruction. Here is where I will reveal the scriptures that tell us YHVH literally got up and left Israel.

Psalms 78:58  For they provoked him to anger with their high places [where they worshiped other gods], and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
Psalms 78:59  When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel;
Psalms 78:60  So that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh [He got up and left], the tent which he placed among men;
Psalms 78:61  and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand.

This section of Psalm 78 speaks directly to the destruction of Shiloh and YHVH Elohim getting up and walking out of Israel using the Philistines to do it! This is the first time YHVH removed His glory from Israel but it would not be the last. Ezekiel 10:18 speaks of when YHVH removed His glory from the southern King of Judah, the Jews, who had done worse things than the other 9 northern tribes of the House of Israel.

Here is Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 7:12  “But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

Shiloh had been destroyed for over 200 years at the time of Jeremiah. YHVH said HE destroyed it. “See what I did to it!”. We are to understand what HE did to it. The Jews during Jeremiah’s time thought YHVH was stuck with them just like the ancient Israelites during Samuel’s day. Not only did YHVH get the Philistines to destroy Shiloh but He was telling Jeremiah He would use the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem! Don’t ever think that YHVH has no options. By the way, He will destroy Jerusalem again in the next few years or decades!

Archeology has shown that the stone wall of the Shiloh Temple was destroyed but the interior Tabernacle was actually hastily taken down and removed from Shiloh at the approach of the Philistines. We know this because the Tabernacle was set up at Nob in Benjamin’s territory.

From Aphek, where the Philistines were camped, the trek to Shiloh was mostly uphill so it would have taken a couple of days for the Philistine army to get there, according to BiblePlaces.com. This is what bought the Levites time to disassemble the Tabernacle from within the stone walls and move it to Nob.

1 Samuel 4:15  Now Eli was ninety-eight years old. His eyes were set, so that he could not see.

This man was not only physically blind, he was spiritually blind, as well.

1 Samuel 4:16  The man said to Eli, “I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army.” He said, “How did the matter go, my son?”
1 Samuel 4:17  He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”
1 Samuel 4:18  When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died; for he was an old man, and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.

Eli had served Israel during the lives of Samson and Samuel which overlapped each other.

YHVH had already decided He was going to execute Hophni and Phinehas (1 Samuel 2:34), for their treachery against Him and His faithful people who had continued coming to Shiloh 3 times a year as commanded. Remember they were stealing the meat from the offerings of worshipers, desecrating the altar, and committing adultery and fornication with the women who sat at the entrance gate to Shiloh. In other words, there were abominations and whoredoms going on because of Hophni and Phinehas right there in YHVH’s Temple! This should now have us thinking of the Great Whore of Mystery Babylon. Whoredom among YHVH’s people is not a new thing but it will reach its full height with this final whore, the final whorish people who do not know YHVH just like this Shiloh generation did not know Him.

1 Samuel 4:19  His daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to giving birth. When she heard the news that God’s ark was taken, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth; for her pains came on her.

Here is another element of the Tribulation. The birth of a son who was a type and shadow of the coming Antichrist.

1 Samuel 4:20  About the time of her death the women who stood by her said to her, “Don’t be afraid; for you have given birth to a son.” But she didn’t answer, neither did she regard it.

The apostate woman/whore of Babylon will die in childbirth. The Great Whore of Mystery Babylon will also die giving birth to the Judaism’s “world to come”. The Jews’ “world to come” is not YHVH’s Kingdom.

1 Samuel 4:21  She [the nurse] named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel;” because God’s ark was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

In 1 Samuel 14:3, Ichabod was the priest at Nob during the time when YHVH’s glory was gone. Thus, he is another Antichrist figure. In fact, his name means “no glory”. Ichabod’s death is unknown in scripture but the Antichrist’s death is known. He will go into the Lake of Fire.

1 Samuel 4:22  She said, “The glory has departed from Israel; for God’s ark has been taken.”

But never fear for YHVH Yeshua’s glory will return!