Is God to blame for the times life goes wrong? – 1st Samuel 4:1b-7:17, Part 1

Did you have a spiritual crisis and turn to God in grief, “Why Lord?” when a container ship hit the Key Bridge in Baltimore, and six people lost their lives? You were likely saddened and even appalled. My guess is that the disaster was like the many, many other disasters that happen so frequently; they don’t affect us, so we lose interest. But when our body is the one being affected, when our loved one is lost, it is quite natural for us to wonder if and how God might be involved.

This week on the blog we are going to study a longer passage, 1st Samuel chapters 4 through 7, and in today’s post, we’re going to meet some people who have a very bad experience, and they blame God for the disaster.

Let’s review what we’ve learned so far in 1st Samuel chapters 1 through 3. We are in the period of Israel’s history where Judges ruled the nation. We met Samuel, who grew up serving the Lord at the tabernacle, under the leadership of the judge-priest, Eli. We learned that the Lord is with Samuel, and that all Israel is recognizing that Samuel is a prophet of the Lord.

So far our story has focused nearly entirely on Samuel’s immediate family and the happenings at God’s tabernacle in Shiloh. We’ve learned that while the Lord is with Samuel, there are two other priests at the tabernacle, Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s wicked sons, who do not respect the Lord.

Now in 1st Samuel chapter 4, midway through verse 1, the writer of the story widens his angle of focus. These first few verses of chapter 4 are critical for understanding the story that unfolds in chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7. Here are 1st Samuel chapter 4, verses 1 through 3,

“Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines at Aphek. The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield. When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, ‘Why did the Lord bring defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh, so that he may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.’”

At first glance, this seems like a fairly straightforward recounting of Israel’s loss in battle, and Israel’s solution to win the next battle. But there is so much more in these few verses.

There is an interesting question in verse 3, and it should sound familiar. After the battle, in which Israel lost 4000 soldiers, the elders ask, “Why did the Lord bring defeat?” I say that is a familiar question because it is very natural to question God when things are not going in our favor. “Why, Lord?” we ask when we hear about a sickness, a death, a broken relationship, an accident, a job loss. We are very quick to turn to the Lord as if he did this to us. As if we have no influence on our lives. As if the world is not a broken, fallen world where things go wrong all the time.

If we were to turn to God and ask, “Why Lord?” every time that something goes wrong in the world, that questioning of God is all that we would have time for. There is so much that goes wrong with the world. So we don’t ask “Why Lord?” every time something goes wrong. Typically, we only turn to God when we feel that the difficult, painful situation affects us or people close to us.

It is a good thing to turn to God. He can handle it. In fact, he invites us to bring our whole selves to him, the good, the bad the ugly. All of it. The Psalms of Lament are examples of that. People hurting, crying out to God, complaining to God. See more about lament here and how to lament here.

But notice here in 1 Samuel 4, verse 3, the people don’t do any of that. No lament. No indication that they even go to God. No prayer. No inquiry. Nothing of what would have been typical in their day, going to the prophet and asking the prophet to inquire of God for them.

Instead it seems that they quickly blame God for the defeat, and then they take matters into their own hands. Notice the difference between going to God and blaming God. Going to God is looking for help, comfort and answers, based on a humble heart posture. Blame is a very different heart posture, isn’t it? Blame assumes the person doing the blaming has everything figured out, and it is another person’s fault.

How about you? Are you quick to go to God? Or are you quick to blame?

But could it be said that the Israelites are faithfully trying to involve God? Maybe what I’ve written above is an unfair caricature of their behavior? We’ll keep investigating in the next post.

Photo by Julien L on Unsplash