That’s Not Normal! (Part 1 of 2)

Today on Truth for Life, we'll learn about Eli's shocking response when he heard the devastating response of the battle.

Alistair Begg is teaching from 1 Samuel chapter 4 verses 12 to 22. 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 ninety-eight 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. And he said, How did it go, my son? He who brought the news answered and said, Israel has fled from 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 forty 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 woman 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 has been captured, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured. Amen. Amen. Father, with our Bibles open before us, we humbly pray for the help and work of the Holy Spirit so that the page might be illumined to us, that our eyes might be open to see, our ears quick to listen, and our hearts ready to embrace all that you have for us in and through your Word. For we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, the verses to which we have turned are the verses which we consider this morning. I found this week, in studying this passage as last time, greatly challenged by it. And I also found that a phrase came to me from out of the dim and distant past. I was able to track it down to Edinburgh, I think 1976, when Susan and I had attended a play. We didn't go to plays very often in those days, and so I remember that it was a play. I don't remember the name, and I don't remember what it was about. All that I remember is one line from that play. And it was a recurring line, because it was poignant and it was at the same time humorous. It was delivered by a lady with a kind of glasgow accent, and as something would happen in the play, she would say, "'That's not normal.'"

Just like that. "'That's not normal.'" And so for the last forty-plus years of our lives, Susan and I have, as things unfold in our marriage and in life, we use that phrase, "'That's not normal.'" And the reason it's in my mind is because I think that if you followed carefully when I read, or if you've been reading this text during the week, you must have come to the place where you said to yourself, This isn't normal. It's surely not normal for this lady to get the news of a son being delivered and yet to pay no regard to it at all, because the news of the loss of a box on the battlefield so predominates in her thinking. And in the cases we will see this morning of this woman, we might not say, That's not normal.

I think we would say, Though that's not natural. And then the only explanation we have is to conclude that in fact it is supernatural. Now, in the telling of the story, we the readers—because we have read the first half of the chapter—we are aware of the disaster on the field of battle. We are aware of the fact that the judgment pronounced on the House of Eli has begun.

We are aware of all of that, but the news is only now reaching Shiloh—is reaching Shiloh on the lips of a man of Benjamin who has run from the field of battle. Now, I've tried to remind myself in my study and also now in seeking to expound the text that what we're dealing with here is, of course, a narrative. We're dealing with a story. It is being told in such a way that we the readers might also enjoy the story and be intrigued by the story and learn from the story.

It's not given to us in bullet points. So we are supposed to get underneath, if you like, the text itself. The various genres of Scripture—some prophecy and some epistles and some history and some poetry and so on—are there in the vast diversity of the sixty-six books so that for us the enjoyment of the reading of the Bible might simply be that, actually, the enjoyment of it. And even the opening phrase here, A man of Benjamin ran, ought to make some of us think, because we've been reading, well, that sounds a little bit like how the book began.

Because it's exactly how the book began. There was a certain man of Ramathim-zophim. We also were introduced to another man, a man of God, in chapter 2, and there came a man. So, there was a man, there came a man, and here we are again, and a man of Benjamin. If you know your Bible at all, it might force you forward—just a page in your Bible to chapter 9, where we find, again, there was a man of Benjamin. And the thought is that the way the writer puts this is to provide just a little hint, so that in the same way that when you read something, it triggers something in your mind. And when you read the beginning of chapter 9, you know that what is described there is actually he who had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. And in some Jewish traditions, they actually believe that the certain man here of Benjamin in verse 12 was none other than Saul himself. How they arrive at that, I don't know.

And you are not to be unsettled by it, because, as you would tell me, it's not a main thing or a plain thing. But this man of Benjamin has run from the battle. That tells us something, because we know that the battlefield was about twenty miles or more away cross country. That's quite a run.

That's almost a marathon runner. And he has arrived not wearing Lululemon or Nike, as you can see, but he has arrived with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. Unless we understand that this is an expression of mourning, we will assume that he's actually fallen or been beset by robbers on the way. The very way in which he reveals himself is an indication of the bad news that he brings.

It would be obvious to anyone who saw him coming that he was a bearer of bad news. Of course, it couldn't be obvious to Eli as we know, because Eli was blind. The fact that he's blind doesn't stop the writer from saying, in verse 13, that Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching. So how do you watch when you're blind? Well, presumably, you watch with your ears. And friends that I've had who are physically unable to see seem to have a perception, a grasp of things, that is almost uncanny, and that they're alert to things that we who look with our eyes may actually miss ourselves.

There may be something of that there. He was watching, and he was at the same time, we're told, trembling. And he was trembling for the ark of God. Now, there is more in this than we're going to unpack at the moment, but if you think about it, you realize that he had been on the receiving end of the request for the ark to be taken to the battlefield.

Back in the earlier part of the chapter, their first defeat was significant. They figured if we use the ark as a kind of magic box, then maybe that will work for us. Eli knew better than to respond to that. Eli knew better than to dispatch the ark, and certainly in the custody of his two worthless sons, as we have had them described. And he knew that in doing what he had done, it was actually contrary to the purposes of God. God wanted the ark in a place with the people coming to the ark rather than the people using the ark as if it was a talisman.

So it's not a surprise that we're told that he was trembling in this way. Incidentally, when you read a text like this for yourself on your own, when you're seeking to study the Bible, one of the ways in which we can understand where the emphasis lies, one of the ways in which we can make sure that we don't go wrong in our exposition of the text, is to consider where there is repetition. And the repetition in these verses is focused entirely on the ark. And if you read it out loud, you'll be struck by how many times you're saying the ark.

It's in verse 11, verse 17, verse 19, verse 21, verse 22. So what do we know? We know that the writer wants us to think significantly about this matter of the ark of God—what has happened to it, what is represented by it, and what it means. Now, the arrival of this man, the messenger, has caused an uproar in the city. The uproar in the city has spread out, and Eli now, who couldn't determine from seeing the man as he ran past what was going on, inquires about the uproar. And we're told in verse 14 that then the man hurried and came and told Eli. As I thought about it, I thought, well, if the uproar was so great and people had found out, surely anybody could have told Eli what was going on.

And that, I think, would be absolutely accurate. But nevertheless, he hears it, as it were, from the horse's mouth. And then the man hurried, and he came to Eli. And he introduced himself.

But before he introduces himself, the narrator, the writer, tells us that Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were set so that he could not see—presumably just to remind us in the story, as it unfolds, that the man coming up to Eli would not steal his own thunder by virtue of his torn clothes and the dirt in his hair, because Eli couldn't see either of that. Therefore, what he was now about to tell him was going to be news. And so he introduces himself. Verse 16, he says, I imagine him saying, just by way of introduction, I am he who has come from the battle.

In fact, I fled from the battle today. To which Eli says, How did it go, my son? I guess when you're ninety-eight years old, you can call everybody's son.

Right? I don't think this is a term of endearment. In fact, if we put it in more common parlance, it goes something like this. Well, just by way of introduction, I am the man who was at the battlefield. I have fled from the battlefield. To which Eli replied, Get on with it, boy.

Tell me what you're here to report. Now, notice that in the telling of the story, the pace slows. This is important in telling a story. If you do creative writing at school, and you're writing a story, you can't use your best line in the first paragraph.

You don't have a story. All you've got's a paragraph. Therefore, if you're seeking to build suspense, one of the ways in which you build suspense is by delay. Now, you will notice, He who brought the news answered and said.

Well, we know it was he who brought the news. But the writer is just slowing the pace, purposefully. The writer writes it in such a way that there is an enjoyment in getting to the point. And the Bible is not a boring book. People tell me, The Bible is so boring.

I'll tell you one thing. You've never read it. You've never read it on your knees, that's for sure. For the Bible is magnificent, all inspired for our correction, for our reproof, for our training in righteousness, and we're expected to read the narrative of 1 Samuel 4 in a different way than we read, for example, Ephesians chapter 2.

Why? Because it's written differently in order to present this truth. So he presented the news. Israel has fled before the Philistines. That's number one. There has also been a great defeat among the people.

It's a slaughter. That's number two. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas. Now, he's not telling Eli his sons' names. He's reminding us so that we make sure that we're not talking about any other sons that there might have been.

Still these same two worthless characters. Your two sons are dead, but he's still not at the punchline. Let's stop there for a moment. Can there be a greater grief for a father than to be informed that his two impenitent sons are lost? That would be enough to induce a heart attack in most fathers. Look at Eli sitting there.

Squeeze your eyes together and say under your breath, that's not normal. Because notice that it is the punchline, and the ark of God has been captured. You see how it builds up to it? The pace slows, the information is provided. What is the significant thing?

Where does the focus lie? What is the writer telling us? He's telling us that this is the most significant thing of all. And the mention of the ark, which had caused Eli's heart to tremble, is now the occasion of his death. He's old, he's heavy, he's blind, he's sad, he's dead.

A forty-year career comes to a crashing end in a moment. Now, here's something that ought to give us pause when we read this. We have to say, I'm not sure I remember many places in the Bible where somebody's weight is mentioned or where their girth is described. So therefore, it must be a significant thing.

Well, you could say, yes, in sheer terms of the physicality of it, that would explain why, if he was heavy in that way, a fall would be sufficient to bring about his death. But actually, we know that it's more than that. Because what was the problem early on with the three-pronged fork and the digging in the meat? It was that they despised the place that God had appointed, decided that the preoccupations of themselves and their father took precedence over their own earthly longings, over their own needs. Hey, you give us this stuff, or we'll take it from you forcibly. Yeah, but you're supposed to allow the fat to burn off as an aroma, as a sacrifice of praise to Almighty God. Don't you worry about Almighty God. We're the custodians of Almighty God. Just do what we're telling you. We'll take the fat.

So what do you have? Where's the glory? In one sense wrapped around Eli's belly. For his girth is in itself a physical expression of the spiritual chaos represented in the priestly function of Shiloh.

And let me tell you why I know this. Because in Hebrew, the word for heavy, transliterated, is kabed. K-a-b-e-d. It is the verbal form of a word which is translated glory, which is k-a-b-o-d. And the writer is making a play on words throughout this saga, showing how when those who are fastened on themselves and their own significance seek to rob God of his glory, they treat him as if he is light and may be manipulated.

And so they themselves, regarding themselves as heavy, take precedence in everything. This little scene here is a sad scene, isn't it? The Son is setting on Eli's life. He dies miserably. But I want to believe that he didn't die eternally. The Lord knows these things. I say that because even in his death it's actually clear that his deepest concern is not what is happening to him or even what happened to his sons but the news that God had forsaken his dwelling in Shiloh, the news that the ark had now been captured, the news that the glory, if you like, had departed. Eli is one of a number of individuals in the Bible, particularly in the realm of religious profession and in religious exercise in terms of priestly or pastoral function, if you like, who stands as a huge warning—a warning that is encapsulated in Paul's words, remember, in 1 Corinthians 10.

Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed, lest he falls. I want to believe that Eli died of a broken heart rather than of a broken neck. I want to believe that the former preceded the latter. I don't know.

What is main and plain? Eli died. No one tries to rob God of his glory and gets away with it. You're listening to Truth for Life. That's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled, That's Not Normal. We hope you're enjoying these powerful stories and relatable warnings that come to us from the book of 1 Samuel. This is the first time this series has been heard on Truth for Life. The series is titled, Give Us a King, and for $5 you can own all 54 messages through the entire book of 1 Samuel.

The study is available on a USB drive. You can purchase it through our mobile app or online at truthforlife.org. Now you often hear me talking about truth partners on this program. Truth partners are people who give to Truth for Life each month.

They provide the ministry with the resources needed to produce this daily program. If you have benefited from Alistair's teaching and are strengthened in your relationship with Jesus by listening to these messages, we'd like to ask you to consider becoming a truth partner today. When you do, we will say thank you by inviting you to request both of our monthly book offers.

You'll love today's recommendation. It's a study of the person and work of Jesus written by Alistair along with his friend Sinclair Ferguson. The book is titled, Name Above All Names. You can request the book when you sign up to become a truth partner. Go online to truthforlife.org slash truth partner or call 888-588-7884. You can also request the book with a one-time donation. Just visit our website at truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us today. What could be worse news for a pregnant mother than learning her husband had been killed in battle? Find out tomorrow when we'll hear the conclusion of today's message. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.