1 Samuel 4, Ichabod, Dr. John Carpenter

First, Samuel chapter 4. I'll be reading the entire chapter. Hear the word of the Lord. And the word of Samuel came to all

Israel. Now, Israel went out to battle against the Philistines. They encamped at Ebenezer, and the

Philistines encamped at Aphek. The Philistines drew up in line against Israel, and when the battle spread,

Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about 4 ,000 men on the field of battle. And when the troops came to the camp, the elders of Israel said,

Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the

Ark of the Covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh, that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.

So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who was enthroned on the cherubim.

And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. As soon as the

Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel gave a mighty shout so that the earth resounded.

And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shouting, they said, What does this great shouting in the camp of the

Hebrews mean? And when they learned that the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord had come to the camp, the

Philistines were afraid, for they said, A god has come into the camp. And they said,

Woe to us, for nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods?

These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Take courage and be men,

O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you. Be men and fight.

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated. And they fled, every man to his home. And there was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel 30 ,000 foot soldiers.

And the Ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died. A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head.

When he arrived, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road, watching, for his heart trembled for the Ark of God.

And when the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out. When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said,

What is this uproar? Then the man hurried and came and told Eli. Now, Eli was 98 years old, and his eyes were set so that he could not see.

And the man said to Eli, I am he who has come from the battle.

I fled from the battle today. He said, How did it go, my son? He who brought the news answered and said,

Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great defeat among the people.

Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead. And the Ark of God has been captured.

As soon as he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy.

He had judged Israel 40 years. Now, his daughter -in -law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, about to give birth.

And when she heard the news that the Ark of God was captured and that her father -in -law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth, for her pains came upon her.

And about the time of her death, the women attending her said to her, Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.

But she did not answer or pay attention. And she named the child Ichabod, saying,

The glory has departed from Israel, because the Ark of God had been captured, and because her father -in -law and her husband.

And she said, The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. What are you missing?

Is there something you want or something you lost? And you're looking for what you need, that secret something that you need to get it?

You want money, but you're missing customers. How are you going to get them? What's the magic formula for success?

Or maybe you want a good job and you're missing that magic something, whatever it is, the education, the credentials to get it.

Or you want a relationship and you're missing whatever it is to charm the special one.

Or the relationship you do have is missing something. You're missing that magic ingredient. Are you missing something?

And looking for the magic bullet to give you what you want? Magic is defined as a use of means by which you can get what you want with no natural cause and effect.

Magic claims that what you need are words or techniques or the right things, power items like charms or images, talismans, magic wands, lucky rabbit's feet, which weren't very lucky for the rabbit, but never mind that.

For some, a little more religious, think they're Christians, for a crucifix or a cross or an icon that have the ability, they think, to wield supernatural power.

Or maybe you need the right techniques, the power gestures, the right wave of the hand, like illusionists do.

We call them magicians most of the time, but I'm talking about entertainers. And I really have no problem with them. They're all right. But they usually use some kind of gesture, which they think does the magic.

They wave their hand over the hat and pull out a rabbit. Of course, that's just play. But it mimics what we think real magic is like.

And often, really, it's to distract us from something else that's going on they're doing. Or for some, the magic gesture is the sign of the cross.

A few goal kickers, football, they often do some sign to help them.

I guess they think it helps them make the kick. A motion that releases supernatural power. Or you need power words, like spells, incantations.

Magic words, like abracadabra, open sesame, or famously hocus pocus, which gives supernatural power.

Magic is like science in that it's about the things you need for mastery over nature, except that magic tries to tap into supernatural power to get it.

Now, if you're not a mere materialist, you might think, well, what you need, what you're missing is some magic.

You've had some bad luck. You've had curses, bad chi, whatever that is, karma.

And the right magic can turn all that around. Feng shui, literally wind water, is sometimes a kind of magic.

You can design a building or arrange furniture in a way that creates harmony, allows good forces to flow in.

And so you get more business, more money, more happiness, or happier family, whatever.

People want to get more power working for themselves. So they're looking for whatever, for the design, the techniques, the words to bring it about.

Some people think that's what religion is all about. It's giving you good luck, giving you magic, blessings, good power on your side.

So you come to church to get that magic, to get that good power.

Now, some people see religion magically, like the Lord's Supper. Now, in it, they say you receive grace and power.

So it doesn't really matter whether you understand what's going on. And some, they'll use an entirely different language.

They'll give it in Latin. It doesn't matter if you don't understand because that's not the point of understanding. The point for them is what we would call magic.

You're getting the body and blood of the Lord Jesus when you take it when the right priest says the right words, the magic words.

Indeed, the words hocus pocus come from a garbled understanding of the priest's words.

What the priest said supposedly turns the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Jesus. The priests say hoc es corpus.

And some people misunderstood that and got hocus pocus. This is the body, literally hoc es corpus.

When the right person, the priest says the right words, the magic words, then the supernatural happens and the bread and the wine turn into the literal flesh and the blood of Jesus, even though you can't see it and you can't taste it, but it's magic and you're just supposed to believe.

Of course, the Bible teaches no such thing. Indeed, to the contrary, in those words that I always quote at the end of the

Lord's Supper, if you've noticed, as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the

Lord's death until, which implies something new is going to happen, until He literally, physically comes, which implies that He has not literally and physically come in the

Lord's Supper. He hasn't done that in the Lord's Supper. But it is common to mistake faith in God for faith in things that represent

God. Or I could turn that around. It's common to mistake faith in things that represent

God for faith in God. We see that here in five parts.

First, the question. Second, the solution. Then the intimidation.

Fourth, the destruction. And finally, the realization. First, the question.

Israel has a question. What are we missing? We're not missing the weapons. We're not missing the men.

We're missing something from God. We've lost this battle. What are we missing? The Philistines are powerful and aggressive.

They're the sea people, probably originally from Greece, and they've been expanding and invading all around the eastern

Mediterranean for centuries. And we've already seen how the Philistines have caused much trouble for Israel, particularly the tribe of Dan, which was supposed to have their territory near the

Philistines, but they got so oppressed and so harassed by the Philistines, they decided to move away from them as far as they could go up north.

They will continue, the Philistines will continue being the main source of trouble for Israel until David finally subdues them.

But for now, they have subdued Israel, but Israel is fighting back. The Philistines are in their northernmost city,

Aphek, and Israel is camped out nearby in Ebenezer, an Israelite town.

They go to battle, and the Philistines win, as usual, at this point anyway, killing about 4 ,000 men in verse 2.

Israel's question is then, what are we missing? When the troops return to the camp in verse 3, after being defeated, the elders of Israel ask, why has the

Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Now notice what they assume in that question.

They assume that the Lord is responsible for the outcome of the battle, that He is in control.

What happened in this battle, us being defeated, was the result of what the Lord did, that this wasn't an accident, as if anything on earth is not in the

Lord's control. They understand the Lord is in control of it all. That's what makes their theology superior, even though it's like almost 3 ,000 years ago, their theology is still superior to that of a lot of modern day

American Christians who often don't even consider the question, when bad things happen, why did

God do this? In the famous footprints poem, which is sort of the epitome of modern

American spirituality, the question isn't, why Lord did you bring these hard times on me?

We're not even supposed to ask if God is in control. We just kind of assume that He's not. We're not supposed to ask, well, if He's in control, then why did

He do this? No, that doesn't enter in anywhere in that. Instead, He's a therapeutic

God who exists to comfort me and to carry me through those bad times that are apparently out of His control.

And so we can complain why we see only one set of footprints through those hard times that were out of God's control.

But here, the Israelites know better than that. They know that the loss that they just suffered was the

Lord's doing. Why has the Lord defeated us? They know that the

Lord is all -powerful and in control. So the natural question is, well, if He's all -powerful and sovereign, which means in control, so why did this happen?

The natural question, He's all -powerful and sovereign. Why did He defeat us?

Not even just the Philistines defeated us, as though God left it up to them. No, God was behind it. Why did

He do it? And not just allow us to be defeated, as though He just kind of abandoned us to the laws of nature, just abandoned us to our, quote, free will against the

Philistines. No, He was in control of all this. But why then did we lose?

Why did this loss we just suffered come from the Lord? That's the question. Next, second, is the solution, what they think is their solution.

You'd think that now that Samuel is being recognized as a prophet, after a long time, remember, the word of the

Lord was rare, that they'd consult him. Hey, Samuel, we want to know why the Lord has fought against us, is defeating us.

Now, sure, he's still a boy, but the word of God is coming to them through him. You know, ask him, ask

Samuel. Ask him to ask God for us. Why, God, are you defeating us in this battle?

But they don't. They don't think to ask God for His word. It's like Christian today, facing a question, should

I date or marry this non -believer? Or should I keep this promise that I made?

And instead of going to the word of God, which actually answers those questions pretty clearly, they go to magic, or they go to their feelings, which almost always magically confirm their feelings.

Their feelings confirm what they want. Instead of going to the word of God to say it's right, they go to what they want to hear. Here, with Israel, they have what they think is a better solution.

They have magic. If God is not going to bless us, then we can make Him do it. We can make

Him bless us with the right magic. Basically, we can take Him hostage. We can force Him to fight for us with the magic box.

You know, it's like if you put a fish emblem on your car. You just, you know, God's got to keep me from getting in a wreck because otherwise

I'll mess up His holy symbol. He's got to. Here, they kind of think of the same way.

In the second half of verse 3, the solution is, let us bring the Ark of the Covenant to the Lord here from Shiloh. Not, okay, you might think, well, to bring the

Ark of the Covenant, is it to remember the covenant? To remember this commitment they made to the

Lord? Remember what's in the Ark of the Covenant, which is the Ten Commandments, and therefore examine ourselves whether we've fallen short of the

Ten Commandments? Maybe challenge Hothni and Phinehas to repent of their adultery, and they start keeping the

Ten Commandments, and stop abusing the sacrifices. Maybe recommit ourselves to the

Lord, who made a covenant with us, and we've been breaking our covenant with Him.

Let's do that. What are we missing? Love and faithfulness to the Lord. That might be a good use for it, but no, that's not what they think.

What they think is, we don't want to humble ourselves. We don't want to submit ourselves. What we want is some power we can use for ourselves.

They were thinking, let's bring the magic box here so that it may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies.

Now, the Hebrew word there where it says that it may come among us could just as well be translated that He, that is the

Lord, may come among us. But I think the translators here at ESV are right to translate it as it, because the

Israelites are treating the Lord as an object. They're treating Him like He's an it. Let's bring it, or Him, whatever, it doesn't really matter because they're treating

Him like an it, here so that He has to give us His power. Because He's not going to let

His box be taken away, is He? It, the magic box, has power. Now, notice what is missing in the mind of those with magical thinking.

They're not interested in the person of God, only His power. We need power to be saved from the power of our enemies.

They specifically mention the power of our enemies. Magical people are obsessed with power.

They're afraid of the power of the enemy, and they want the power of God, or whatever power they can get, to counter it.

They seek God's hand, not His face. So religion, they think, exists for them to get that power.

And so they think the Lord's Supper exists to get that infusion of power that they need so they aren't overcome by the power of Satan.

And so they'll sin, then they'll go back, get the sacrament, and they'll go on sinning again, trusting that the sacrament will keep them safe from the power of the sin that they never really repent of.

Actually, knowing and loving God isn't important to them. Now, for others, maybe it's not the sacrament, maybe it's the cross, or maybe

Bible verses or pictures of what they think Jesus looks like. That'll give us power.

They think if they have the Bible verse or a fish symbol on their bumper sticker, they'll be protected from a wreck.

If they have a crucifix around their neck, that'll give them good luck. Back during the height of the Iraq War, I read an article about how

American soldiers there were using crosses or Bible verses or whatever, maybe little pocket Bibles, like talismans, lucky charms, to hopefully protect them.

Their enemies were probably using verses from the Quran for the same thing. Here the Israelites thought the

Ark of the Covenant was like that. It's a magic box that God couldn't allow to be captured or destroyed.

And so if they had it with them, they'd be certain to win. The movie,

The Raiders of the Lost Ark, presents that magical view of God. You know, His power supposedly can be wielded by whatever army carries it.

That's the way they present it. They present it as if the Bible teaches that. Every time I watch the movie, they're like, well, no, the premise is wrong.

The Bible never teaches it. If you have any army that has that box, you will win. But whatever, it's kind of enjoyable if you put that aside.

It presents this view that the thing can kill you if you look at it the wrong way or not kill you if you look away.

But it's very impersonal. It's just impersonal power like electricity. You know, the power line dropped out of the ceiling.

You touched it. You could get killed. If you don't, you won't. It's kind of like that. God's power is like that. It has power you can control without having to bother about loving and submitting to God.

It's an impersonal power. And that's exactly what magical people want. They don't want the person. They just want the power.

So in verse 4, they sent to Shiloh and had the Ark brought to them. If Eli had any reservations, they weren't strong enough for him to put his foot down.

It'll tell us later that he was anxious about it, but he's not going to stop. He's the high priest.

He's the judge. He can say no, and he could stop them from taking it. But just like he's enabled his son's sins, he enables this attempt at magic.

Now, literally, they carried or they took up the Ark apparently with the poles like they are supposed to. So imagine

Hophni and Phinehas in their priestly clothes, kind of looking holy, carrying the Ark. Maybe they carried it between them, or maybe they had other

Levites carry it, and they kind of stood and walked in front of it in a procession, looking very holy and sophisticated at the end of verse 4.

Never mind, of course, that Hophni and Phinehas were living contrary to the commandments actually in that Ark.

Believers in magic aren't so interested in righteousness, integrity, faithfulness, in the person of God.

They're just interested in the objects. Here, the Ark, or rituals, or magic, the power. They want the hand of God, not his face.

Well, the Ark of the Covenant is a chest, not particularly big. It's about the size of a regular chest or footlocker.

It's covered in gold with two carvings of cherubim on the top and two rings on the side for poles to be slid through so it can be carried without having to touch it.

It is called the Ark. Here, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts of armies, remember?

So they could think it's fitting you bring it to their army camp, who is enthroned on the cherubim.

The Lord, of course, is spirit and so is invisible. His throne was over this

Ark or this chest. There was no image of God, of course. Now, magical people love images of God.

If they can't get it of God, they'll settle for angels or something holy. Because if you can control the image, they think, you can control

God. This is why the second commandment forbids us from making any images and using them in worship.

There are no holy images because of our tendency to magic, to think that if we have the holy image, then we have

God's power. The image is a conduit, is a way to get His blessing if we treat it right.

We do the right thing for the image, we get something right from God. There are windows. Some people call their icons literally windows to heaven.

So God's heavenly blessing, His power can come to you through that window, that icon.

Some argue that we can have pictures of Jesus since that He came in the body. People could see Him physically when

He was on earth, so why not have an image that we can see now? There's two problems with that, at least for us.

First, we don't have any description of what Jesus looked like. So any picture supposedly of Jesus is really just of what the artist thinks

Jesus looked like. It's a picture of ourselves. It's a picture often of what we think is the ideal of spirituality.

So you see medieval pictures of Jesus, He often looked very stoic. And then you see contemporary pictures of Jesus, He looks like a surfer dude, friendly, laughing.

The second problem with that, though, having pictures of Jesus is we can't separate the symbol of something from what it represents.

You can say, well, this is what I think Jesus looks like. Well, there's the picture there. And then what do you do with the picture? If you treat the picture disrespectfully, aren't you treating the person disrespectfully?

Since Jesus is God and He deserves worship, doesn't a symbol of Him deserve worship in some ways?

Now, they make up a different term for that. They call it veneration. It's the same thing. Veneration, worship is the same thing.

That's totally bogus, saying they're separate things. It's worship. You're giving it respect. It's worship. And so if we had a supposed picture of Jesus, say here, we'd have to give it respect because it shows something of the respect we have for the one it represents.

We'd have to say, don't mess it up. Don't paint over it if it gets messed up. Treat it with care.

They put it under glass, have a little rope around it so it doesn't get... And then on it goes, and we're breaking the second commandment.

We're becoming idolaters. But more to our point here, we'd think that the image has power, like He has power.

So if you touch it, you kiss it, maybe you bow before it, you get some power. We think it's magical.

And the Philistines thought it was magical. So they are intimidated. Third, the intimidation.

When the ark is carried into Israel's camp and they hear that the Israelites, that they shouted so loudly, they're so encouraged by this ark of the covenant coming in here, earth resounded, they're celebrating, they're so confident because the

Israelites now thought they had the power of God on their side. They have God under control. They are certain that He will wield

His power to defeat the Philistines' power. They're confident of victory now.

And so if a positive mental attitude is all you need for success, think positively, say the right positive slogans.

If that's all you need, you know, to be a successful business or athlete or whatever, well, they're certain to win. And the

Philistines hear this premature victory shout and are intimidated. Those with magical thinking are intimidated by other magic.

They're afraid of crossing the path of the black cat or breaking a mirror or Friday the 13th or stepping on a crack.

People seek magic to overcome some fearful problem that they can't control, but then they end up living in fear because of magic they don't have.

You know, maybe the Lord's magic, the Philistines' thinking is better than Dagon's magic.

So they're in fear. So one magic cancels out another. And here the Philistines are living in fear when they learned that the

Israelites were celebrating because the Ark of the Covenant had been brought into their camp and they had the magic box. And so superstitious people are afraid when there is magic they can't control.

In verse 7, they wail. Notice this, a god has come into the camp.

Woe to us, for nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us. That's the

Philistines. They're in panic. They've heard something about what the Lord has had done in the

Exodus. They've heard he's a powerful god. So in verse 8, who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods?

Plural, they assume that the Israelites like themselves have multiple gods. They're gods, they think,

Israelites, Israel's gods, they think. They have an intimidating reputation.

These are the gods who struck down the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness. Well, not quite.

They're getting the details wrong. The Lord struck down the Egyptians with the plagues in Egypt and then brought

Israel through the wilderness. But the Philistines got the main point right. God had destroyed

Egypt and so he could easily destroy them, these Philistines. So they're intimidated.

Courage is defined not as an absence of fear but what you do with fear, overcoming fear.

Here the Philistines show courage and they show us that the enemies of God often use gifts from God, virtues, morals, good things to fight against God.

Now if they didn't, if they did have courage and resolve and conviction and integrity and other virtues, they'd be totally ineffective.

Someone with no positive qualities, no virtues, is just totally ineffective, does nothing.

Sleeps as late as he can, never, not a threat to anybody because he's too lazy to do anything, get in shape, to go out and get a gun, can't do anything.

Totally evil people are totally ineffective people. If the Nazis weren't courageous and hardworking and had convictions to achieve greater things, if they didn't have a vision that drove them, greater than just their mere comfort, they would have been no serious threat at all.

I mean, they would never have gone to practice, never have invented things and weapons and yeah, we would have rolled over them easily.

Greedy people often see that what they need to achieve, their greedy goals, is hard work, is a virtue.

So oddly enough, greedy people will often deny themselves for years, sometimes for decades, work all the time in order to get all the money they want.

So they're using self -control, even though they're not enjoying that money for decades, all to satisfy their greed.

Evil is the most destructive when it takes virtues and then makes them serve evil goals.

The devil will use our love for our family or our God -given desire for a spouse to draw us away from God.

Here, the Philistines face their fears and they muster up their courage.

In verse 9, they say, "'Take courage and be men, O Philistines, lest you become slaves to the

Hebrews as they have been to you. Be men and fight.'" That's a courageous, virtuous response used in the service of evil.

So the intimidation factor of Israel's resort to magic fails.

The Philistines aren't just going to fall over dead because they brought this thing, this ark into the camp, because the

Philistines overcome their fear. And the result in verses 10 and 11 is destruction.

Next, the destruction. The battle is on. Israel is encouraged, but the

Philistines are courageous. Israel is defeated. The men who weren't killed fled home, not even back to the army camp like they had before.

There was a very great slaughter, over seven times worse than the battle before, that it provoked the question in verse 3, why has the

Lord defeated us? That it caused them to resort to magic. The magic didn't work. Indeed, the very ark that they were depending on to save them was itself captured, and Eli's two sons who were with it were killed.

They died on the same day. Just like the prophecy said, the destruction is not only to Israel's army and Eli's sons, but hopefully, one thing you hope is being destroyed, is

Israel's delusion that they could use magic to control God's power without living in His ways, without Him.

That they could have God's hand without His face. Of course, whether this calamity results in the destruction of their magical thinking depends on how they respond.

Will they come to the realization of what this says about the Lord, or will they just double down on magic? Fifth, the realization.

The realization for verses 12 to 22 comes in two parts, that of Eli and Phinehas' wife.

An Israelite man, a Benjamite, surviving the battle, runs to Shiloh about 20 miles, arriving the same day.

A long run, but you can do it. If you're a resident of Shiloh, you could tell, just as soon as you see him, that he's bearing bad news.

Torn clothes, they did often when some horrible happened, they tore their clothes.

Dirt on his head, in verse 12, all symbols of tragedy. Eli is sitting by the roadside, although mostly blind.

He's watching, hopefully to hear right away what the result is. Verse 13 says that his heart trembled for the ark of God.

He's afraid it will be destroyed. Kind of like earlier with his sons, he rebuked his sons for their sin, but didn't do anything to stop them.

Here he knew that something was wrong taking this ark there, but he didn't do what he could do to stop it. He didn't think this attempt to use magic, a magical token, would work.

But he was just too weak to refuse to let them take it. The messenger first comes into Shiloh.

He tells the people of the town the horrible news. Says, all the city cried out. This is the second time

Israelites have cried out loudly. First time was that premature victory shout, when the ark was brought into the camp, thinking, now that we have the magic box, we're going to win for sure.

Now, after, the Israelites cried out and Eli heard it.

And from his roadside seat outside the tabernacle, in verse 14, he asks, what is this uproar?

He's afraid of what it might be. The messenger then hurries to tell

Eli. Eli is 98 years old and nearly blind. He can't see that the messenger has torn clothes and dirt on his head.

And so when the messenger says, I am he who has come from the battle. I fled from the battle today.

Eli asked, how did it go, my son? Well, he should be able to figure it out already. And the messenger is talking about fleeing from the battle.

But he's still hoping because he doesn't realize, despite all the prophesying and all the warnings he'd been given, he doesn't realize how angry the

Lord is for what he's allowed, including this latest sin, thinking that God's power could be wielded magically.

Well, the messenger says in verse 17, Israel has fled before the Philistines and there has been a very great defeat among the people.

That's horrible. It gets worse. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead.

He had been warned that they would die on the same day, but he continued to let them profane worship for their lust.

Then finally, worst of all, what he'd been dreading, the ark of God has been captured.

This is stunning. As soon as he heard that last news, the ark of God, the token, the symbol of their covenant with God is no longer theirs.

He fell over backwards from his seat. Breaking his neck, dead instantly.

Notice we're told that he's heavy. We're told that because his family indulged themselves on the sacrifices.

He was certainly invited to family dinners, family barbecues hosted by his sons, with plenty of the choices meats to feast on, making him fat.

And that was a contributing cause to his death. His irony, his realization after 40 years of judging

Israel, but not restraining his own sons. His realization as he collapsed was the

Lord is holy. But it was too late. Phinehas' wife, much betrayed by her husband, comes to a realization too, starting in verse 19.

She's pregnant near the end of her term and the shock of everything. The news of the defeat, the death of her adulterous husband, the loss of the ark, the death of her long -lived father -in -law who was the judge over Israel, induced labor, which was complicated and eventually brought her own death.

But just before she died, the women attending to her were trying to encourage her, said, you know, do not be afraid for you have born a son.

She wasn't uplifted. After all, the ark is gone, the symbol of God's covenant with them. If they had no symbol of the covenant, do they have no covenant?

And so no Lord with them anymore? At the end of verse 20, she did not answer or pay attention.

She realized what this could mean. She responds only to name her newborn son

Ichabod. Ichabod means glory and the i prefix means where or it could be alas.

So his name means where is the glory or alas the glory.

In other words, it is gone. Because she explains verse 21, the glory has departed from Israel.

Here's this unnamed woman, betrayed, unnamed woman, and her dying breath says the glory has departed from Israel.

So the boy she gave birth to will be a living lament carrying this name whole life that they've lost

God's glory because they lost the symbol of that glory. She said it again, repeated for us in verse 22, stunned by the realization, the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God has been captured.

She's come to the realization that the glory of God's people is God. But she assumes that the symbol is the glory, that without the symbol, we don't have

God himself. Just like people commonly assume the symbol of God is

God. I don't think her realization is complete. She too is guilty of magical thinking, assuming that with the symbol of God gone, so God must be gone.

Those with symbols of God trust in their symbol instead of the

God it symbolizes. Now some think they need to get rid of the old magic, get rid of the old symbols, get rid of the kitchen

God. Let's get new magic instead, put up a Bible verse or a cross.

But if they just continue to seek first money or serving mammon, they haven't realized that being right with God, having his glory isn't a matter of having the right symbol, the right magic, having

God's magic now instead of the pagan magic. Our glory isn't in symbols, an ornate building, a cross, a beautiful pulpit, not even in the

Lord's Supper properly served. Our glory is in the Lord himself.

What are you missing? You've got all the symbols. You can be saturated in symbols, stained glass and crosses and icons and dresses, sashes and altars and sacraments.

And you can think that's your glory. It's what assures you of God's presence with you.

And it can all be Ichabod, the glory has departed.

Or you could even be a good Puritan, have no symbols.

So much so that your lack of symbols is itself a symbol. That lack of symbols is your glory.

But if in your heart, the Lord is not your glory, your vision of what is glorious, so that not be all else to you, except that he is your glory.

So that riches you heed not, nor man's empty praise, but he is your inheritance now and always.

If he is not your glory, even if you have no symbols, you have no magic.

But if he is not your glory, then that too is

Ichabod. Your glory is the Lord whom you can't control with magic symbols or gestures or words.

He is holy, majestic, and sovereign. What are you missing?