And when the people came into the camp
At Ebenezer, where they pitched their tents, and from whence they
went out to battle, and whither they returned after their defeat:
the elders of Israel said, wherefore hath the Lord smitten
us today
before the Philistines?
they were right in ascribing it to the Lord, who had suffered
them to be defeated by their enemies, but it is strange they
should be so insensible of the cause of it; there was a reason
ready at hand, their sins and iniquities were the cause of it,
the corruption of manners among them, their neglect of bringing
their offerings to the Lord, and the idolatry that many of them
were guilty of, at least secretly, ( 1 Samuel
2:24 ) ( 7:3 ) to
punish them for which, they were brought into this war, and
smitten in it; and yet they wonder at it, that so it should be,
that they the people of God should be smitten before Heathens and
uncircumcised Philistines; and the rather, since they went to
battle with them according to the word of the Lord by Samuel; not
considering that they went into this war without humiliation for
their sins, and without praying to God for success, and that it
was intended as a correction of them for their offences against
God:
let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of
Shiloh unto us;
in which the law was, sometimes called the covenant between God
and them; and which was a symbol of the divine Presence, for want
of which they supposed they had not the presence of God with
them, and so had not success; and the rather they were encouraged
to take this step and method, because that formerly Israel had
success against their enemies when the ark was with them, (
Numbers
31:6 ) ( Joshua 6:6 ) though no
doubt in this there was an overruling providence of God, by which
they were led to take such a step as this, in order to bring the
two sons of Eli into the camp, that they might be slain in one
day, according to the divine prediction:
that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the
hand of our
enemies;
foolishly placing their confidence in an external symbol, and not
in the Lord himself; ascribing salvation to that, which only
belongs to him, whether of a temporal or spiritual kind: and such
folly and vanity are men guilty of when they seek to, make use
of, and trust in anything short of Christ for salvation; as in
carnal descent; in the rituals of the law; in the ordinances of
the Gospel; in any religious exercises, private or public; or in
any works of righteousness done by them: in Christ alone is
salvation from spiritual enemies; and indeed from the Lord only
is salvation and deliverance from temporal enemies.