Introduction
My name is Jeshua, and I am of the tribe of Levi living in the land of Benjamin in the nation that is Israel. Among my fathers were Elihu, the chronicler of Moses, and Aram, the chronicler of Joshua. Although their stories are of the past, they bring the men and events to life so that they shine a light for our future. So it is with my story of Samuel the prophet and Saul the king.
David now reigns in wisdom and strength. We bask in the light of God’s blessings. God has so blessed Israel in the reign of this man that remembrance of the foundation for this moment is already fading. Who will remember Samuel and his faith in God that rekindled the faith of a nation? And who will remember the victories of Saul, God’s anointed, victories that are becoming lost in the shadows of his tragedy?
Our challenge is to remember what has brought us to this place in time. If we forget these two men, we will forget the depths from which we have come and how blessed we are. The peace of the moment is but for the moment. It must actively be preserved or it will dissolve into the chaos of the days of my youth.
My years number more than one hundred. God has blessed me and the nation of Israel during this time. He has brought us from the edge of darkness back into the light of His presence. He has brought us from a land nearly subdued by the Philistines to the strength that was Israel under Joshua. And He has held in abeyance the Assyrians and the Hittites and the Egyptians, making them too weak to threaten us.
In the days of my youth when Samuel was but a young man, Israel had little more life than the dying nations around her. The place called Caanan had absorbed many nations – the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites[i] - nations that existed no more except in the mixed blood of their descendents, the remaining Canaanites of today. These people had nothing that held them together as a people, nothing that existed beyond the moment of their earthly power.
Israel might have been absorbed into these peoples, as well, becoming just another nation whose star had risen and then fallen from the sky, lost in the mixture of races called Canaanites. Only God endures from generation to generation, and only faith in God has held together the tribes of Israel as a nation. Samuel was God’s messenger who rekindled the flame, and Saul, for all of his faults, was the man that God used to bind the tribes together as He brought us from the dark days when our faith was but an ember.
Moses was God’s friend and servant, and he led the People back to God from idolatry. Joshua secured the Promised Land for the second generation after the bondage of Egypt. So it was with Samuel and Saul. Samuel brought the people out of idolatry and back to God. And God placed Saul at the head of Israel, sustaining her against the onslaughts of the Philistines and other nations until the end of his reign.
Under David, Israel’s star burns ever brighter, and his house will be established so that his son will follow in the footsteps of his father. But the foundation of David’s glory is God’s accomplishments through His chosen servants, Samuel and Saul. Samuel was God’s instrument to restore faith in a nation drifting away from her God. And Saul was God’s anointed, the first King of Israel. Let us not forget what has made Israel great, just as we should not forget that which later humbled Saul.
I tell this as Samuel’s story, but I also must tell it as the story of Saul. They cannot be separated for their stories are intertwined, wrapped together like the threads of the tribes themselves. May their stories light the path for future generations as they have done for this generation that lives in the reign of David, the servant of God.
The story begins in the dark days when Israel was weak, a nation surrounded by idolatrous nations of power. Israel was weak in faith, as she listened longingly to the siren song of idolatry. And Israel was weak in power, the Philistines encroaching ever deeper into Israel from the west, and armies of Ammon, Moab, and Edom threatening from the east and south.
The story begins with the faith of one woman and a prayer answered by God. A mustard seed of faith is sufficient.
[i] Genesis 15:19-21
My name is Jeshua, and I am of the tribe of Levi living in the land of Benjamin in the nation that is Israel. Among my fathers were Elihu, the chronicler of Moses, and Aram, the chronicler of Joshua. Although their stories are of the past, they bring the men and events to life so that they shine a light for our future. So it is with my story of Samuel the prophet and Saul the king.
David now reigns in wisdom and strength. We bask in the light of God’s blessings. God has so blessed Israel in the reign of this man that remembrance of the foundation for this moment is already fading. Who will remember Samuel and his faith in God that rekindled the faith of a nation? And who will remember the victories of Saul, God’s anointed, victories that are becoming lost in the shadows of his tragedy?
Our challenge is to remember what has brought us to this place in time. If we forget these two men, we will forget the depths from which we have come and how blessed we are. The peace of the moment is but for the moment. It must actively be preserved or it will dissolve into the chaos of the days of my youth.
My years number more than one hundred. God has blessed me and the nation of Israel during this time. He has brought us from the edge of darkness back into the light of His presence. He has brought us from a land nearly subdued by the Philistines to the strength that was Israel under Joshua. And He has held in abeyance the Assyrians and the Hittites and the Egyptians, making them too weak to threaten us.
In the days of my youth when Samuel was but a young man, Israel had little more life than the dying nations around her. The place called Caanan had absorbed many nations – the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites[i] - nations that existed no more except in the mixed blood of their descendents, the remaining Canaanites of today. These people had nothing that held them together as a people, nothing that existed beyond the moment of their earthly power.
Israel might have been absorbed into these peoples, as well, becoming just another nation whose star had risen and then fallen from the sky, lost in the mixture of races called Canaanites. Only God endures from generation to generation, and only faith in God has held together the tribes of Israel as a nation. Samuel was God’s messenger who rekindled the flame, and Saul, for all of his faults, was the man that God used to bind the tribes together as He brought us from the dark days when our faith was but an ember.
Moses was God’s friend and servant, and he led the People back to God from idolatry. Joshua secured the Promised Land for the second generation after the bondage of Egypt. So it was with Samuel and Saul. Samuel brought the people out of idolatry and back to God. And God placed Saul at the head of Israel, sustaining her against the onslaughts of the Philistines and other nations until the end of his reign.
Under David, Israel’s star burns ever brighter, and his house will be established so that his son will follow in the footsteps of his father. But the foundation of David’s glory is God’s accomplishments through His chosen servants, Samuel and Saul. Samuel was God’s instrument to restore faith in a nation drifting away from her God. And Saul was God’s anointed, the first King of Israel. Let us not forget what has made Israel great, just as we should not forget that which later humbled Saul.
I tell this as Samuel’s story, but I also must tell it as the story of Saul. They cannot be separated for their stories are intertwined, wrapped together like the threads of the tribes themselves. May their stories light the path for future generations as they have done for this generation that lives in the reign of David, the servant of God.
The story begins in the dark days when Israel was weak, a nation surrounded by idolatrous nations of power. Israel was weak in faith, as she listened longingly to the siren song of idolatry. And Israel was weak in power, the Philistines encroaching ever deeper into Israel from the west, and armies of Ammon, Moab, and Edom threatening from the east and south.
The story begins with the faith of one woman and a prayer answered by God. A mustard seed of faith is sufficient.
[i] Genesis 15:19-21
