| 1 Samuel 3:22 "Now
Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how
they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation." NOW I DON'T HAVE A GOOGLE IMAGE OF THIS PARTICULAR
VERSE, BUT USE YOUR IMAGINATION! 23 "And he said unto them, Why do ye
do such thinghs? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people."
24 "Nay, my sons; for
it is no good report that I hear: ye make the Lord's people to transgress."
25 "If one man sin
against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the
Lord, who shall intreat for him? Not withstanding they hearkened not unto
the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them." PEOPLE
HAD A BAD HABIT BACK THEN OF BLAMING THE LORD FOR EVEYTHING THAT WAS
HAPPENING BAD, BECAUSE GOD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BAD CHILDREN BEING BORN, JUST
LIKE NOW WE BLAME HIM FOR CREATING THE DEVIL. IT'S ALL, SOMEHOW OR
OTHER, A PART OF HIS "PLAN".
Well, what God,
through His Holy Spirit wanted Samuel to do was remind Old Eli what was
going to happen to Eli, his wicked sons, and indeed Israel for permitting
these outrages a few feet from God's Golden Ark, which Samuel did, but as
usual with humans, the Lord's sanctuary remained a part of the "Red Light
District".
1 Samuel 4:2
"And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they
joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of
the army in the field about four thousand men." So in the next few
verses we read that Israel in an ill-advised plan to use the Ark of the
Covenant as their "secret weapon" by allowing Hophni and Phinehas, Eli's
sons, whose second jobs besides being priests was to be libertine studs, to
carry the Ark into battle. Where, guite predictably, the two sons were
killed by the Philistines and the Ark carried off and placed by the
Philistines in their own temple of Dagon, the Corn God, patron of Fertility.
Eli, when he heard the news, fell over backwards in his chair, broke his
neck, and died on the spot.
God, spending part
of His time in those days resting above the cherubim on His holy ark, became
uncomfortable with His new location in a heathen temple, caused the image of
Dagon to bow down and worship him, causing major damage to that stone and
metal idol, and more than a little distress among Dagon's usual worshippers.
About then,
the Philistines decided they didn't want to possess the Ark of the Covenant
any more, so they returned it to the Israelites in a novel fashion.
They decided to pay some attention to the preferences of the Holy Spirit
(something Hophni and Phinehas were not doing before their untimely
deaths) and assumed that the Holy Spirit could exercise control over
animals as easily as it could cause a very heavy idol to fall over in that
idol's own temple. So they placed the Ark, very carefully and
respectfully I assume, with several of their best, most righteous priests
affecting the transfer, onto a wooden cart pulled by two cows who had just
had calves born to them. The Philistines, as I said, were big into
fertility, as was their idol god Dagon.
If the cows ignored
the crying of their calves for milk, and carried the Ark across the border
to Israel, they reasoned, that's where Israel's God wanted it to be.
And lo and behold, soon the Ark was back in Israel,
this time resting for a while in Beth-shemesh. (Shown on map above)
At first the
Israelites at Beth-shemesh were happy to have the Ark of
the Covenant as their main tourist attraction, but
their continued disrespect caused a lot of Israelite deaths also.
1 Samuel 6:19
"And he (God) smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into
the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty
thousand and threescore and ten men; and the people lamented, because the
Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." THESE
PEOPLE WERE A BIT SLOWER THAN THE PHILISTINES TO CATCH ON, BUT THEY FINALLY
DECIDED ALSO THAT IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR THEM IF THE ARK WAS SOMEWHERE ELSE.
1 Samuel 6:20 "And
the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord
God? and to whom shall he go up from us? 21 "And they sent messengers
to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought
back the ark of the Lord; come ye down, and fetch it
up to you."
1 Samuel 7:1
"And the men of Kirjath-jearim came, and brought it into the house of
Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the
ark of the Lord. 2 "And it came to ,pass, while
the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty
years; and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord."
By now Samuel the Child Prophet was Samuel the grown man,
with a wife and family of his own, and he took over the job of judging
Israel until they demanded a king. Samuel helped them find that king
with the Holy Spirit's help, in a story I have provided also on this web
site.
King Saul
never had much to do with the Ark of the Covenant, and it was not
until his successor, King David of Bethlehem, the son of Jesse became
King, and conquered Jerusalem, that this new king decided it was time
to move the ark once again, this time hopefully to his new capitol,
the ancient city of Jerusalem, now to become the City of
David.
|
The
1 Samuel 19
HOLY
GHOST
PROPHETS CLUB!
As we read on past
1 Samuel 3, in which Samuel first hears the Holy Ghost calling him by
name, and learns that he must show his willingness to listen to hear any
more --
And past 1 Samuel 9
and 10, in which Saul, the son of Kish the Benjamite, is called by the
Holy Ghost through Samuel to lead Israel as that country's very first
king --
We come to 1 Samuel
11, in which Saul demonstrates his ability to rescue the inhabitants of
Jabesh-gilead from the threat of Nahash the Ammonite, and afterwards was
truly accepted as king.
By 1 Samuel chapter
14, Saul's son Jonathan, who has become an expert archer, able to shoot
arrows more effectively than any Isrealite of his generation, becomes
the hero.
And by chapter 15,
Samuel commands Saul to destroy Agag the king of the Amelekites along
with his soldiers in the city of Amelek, which Saul was able to do with
the Lord's help.
But Saul disobeys the Lord's instructions, as relayed by Samuel --
1 Samuel15:9 "And
Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the
oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and
would not utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse,
that they destroyed utterly." Samuel, after crying all night
before the Lord, personally hacked the captive King Agag to death as
Saul and his army watched. Then Samuel left Saul never again to
meet with him in public. (1 Samuel 15:35) But Saul did later meet
with a group of prophets, the companions and followers of Samuel, under
very unusual circumstances, as we will discover in chapter 19.
1 Samuel 16 --
Samuel secretly annoints David to replace Saul as king of Israel.
David introduced as an expert songwriter and harp-player. In an
odd, out of sync story, he is chosen to be Saul's harpist, because Saul
is afflicted by an evil spirit from God.
1 Samuel 17 --
The wonderful (an possibly dishonest) story of David slaying Goliath of
Gath with a few small stones and a slingshot.
1 Samuel 18 --
The friendship of David and Jonathan begins, and David marries Saul's
daughter Michal, paying Saul with 200 Philistine foreskins as dowry
(Saul had only asked for 100).
As chapter 19
begins, Saul has decided to kill David outright, many attempts to kill
him with a javalin having failed. Michal, David's new wife, warns David and persuades David to flee for his life,
while fooling her father by putting an image in David's bed, and saying
her husband was sick, and unable to move. She let David down by a
rope out of her bedroom window. David fled then to be with
Samuel in Ramah, and both Samuel and David move on to a place called Najoth.
|
Naioth, the "Paradise"
for Holy-Ghost-Filled
Prophets!
(And Inspiration for
David's almost-naked dance before
the Ark of the
Covenant!)
1 Samuel 19:19 "And it was told Saul, saying,
Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah."
20 And Saul
sent messengers to take David: and when they saw the company of the
prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as appointed over them,
the Spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul, and they also
prophesied."
1 Samuel 19:21 "And
when it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied
likewise. And Saul sent messengers again the third time,
and they prophesied also."
HERE'S THE PROPHETIC PATTERN FOR
PENTECOST 20/20, FIRST PENTECOST IN ACTS 2, SECOND PENTECOST
1900 THROUGH 1988, THIRD PENTECOST 2013-2020.
But it's also the
pattern for the account of another Saul, Saul of Tarsus, waiting 3
days for another Holy-Ghost-Filled "Samuel" named Ananias to give
him back his eyesight after a vision of Jesus blinds him on the road
to Damascus.
1 Samuel 19:22 "Then
went he also to Ramah, and came to a great well that is in Sechu:
and he asked and said, Where are Samuel and David? And one said,
Behold, they be at Naioth in Ramah."
23 "And he
went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the Spirit of
God was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied, until he came
to Naioth in Ramah."
24
"And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel
in like manner, and lay down
naked all that day and all that night."
Wherefore they say, Is Saul
also among the prophets?"
|
the Holy Ghost makes
or re-makes yet another
man!
Naked, as in the
beginning!
|
 |
As with all these
Bible stories, you, the reader, have the option to believe they are
literal or symbolic, or indeed, not to believe them at all! Those
readers who have never been overpowered by the Holy Ghost and been told
later what they actually did or said while in this temporary condition
may disbelieve that Saul was totally naked and saying and doing things
he couldn't remember afterwards. Those who have had such
experiences will have no problem believing this story. Literally!
Dr. Bob Holt, MD |
| For almost
2000 years, the Holy Ghost, angels, and other Divine Beings have left
our Western World pretty much
alone, and turned it over to Constantine the Great, and his chosen
proxies, the Roman Catholic Church and her Protestant "daughters" to
administer and control. Anyone showing signs of contact with
Divine Beings or even worse, being controlled by Divine Beings, was
either quarantined and made a "Saint" or tried by the Inquisition and
possibly burned at the stake. By the 1800s most Christians had
forgotten, if they ever knew, what such experiences and people were
like!
Such stories as King Saul's
nakedness at Naioth
and King
David dancing almost naked before the Ark of the Covenant, and thousands
of his countrymen (and women and young girls) are in the Bible to remind
those used to 2000 years of religious censorship and intolerance what
used to be in Bible times, and can be once again!
2 Samuel 6:1 "Again, David
gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2
And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from
Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God,
whose name is called by the name of the
Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims."
3
"And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the
house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Abia, the sons of
Abinadab, drave the new cart."
4 "And they
brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gibeah,
accompanying the ark of God: and Ahia went before the ark."
5 "And David and
all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of
instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on
timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals."
6 "And when they
came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah out forth his hand to the ark of
God, and took hold of it; and God smote him there for his error; and
there he died by the ark of the Lord."
8 "And David was displeased, because
the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah: and he called the name of the
place Perez-Uzzah to this day."
9 "And David was
afraid of the Lord that day, and said, How shall the ark of the Lord
come to me?"
10 "And David would not remove the ark of the Lord unto him into the
city of David: but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom
the Gittite."
11 "And the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-edom the
Gittite three months; and the Lord blessed Obed-edom, and all his
household."
12 "And it was told king David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house
of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of
God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of
Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness."
13 "And it was so,
that when they that bear the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he
sacrificed oxen and fatlings."
14 "And
David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded
with a linen ephod."
| Now "linen ephod" does not
mean much to us who are reading this verse in 2014, but it's the
article of clothing that most people wore as underwear back then,
and was making about the same social "statement" that the movie and
song starlet "Madonna" was making when she wore her feminine
lingerie outside her regular street clothing.
But note that Samuel the
child prophet was wearing a "linen ephod" in 1 Samuel 2:18, and was
living within sight of the ark in the presence of the Lord "in his
underwear". David took note of that, and so should the
people of the 21st century, who are quite comfortable in church
wearing blue jeans and blouses that show more than the usual amount
of bare skin. Some Jewish interpreters claim that David
was wearing even less! After Naioth, I'd be
inclined to agree this may be so. Anyway -- David was dancing
with all his might in less than formal attire! |
15
"So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord
with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. 16 And as the
ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter
looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before
the Lord; and she despised him in her heart."
17 "And they brought in
the ark of the Lord, and set it in his place, in the midst of the
tabernacle that David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt
offerings and peace offerings before the Lord."
18 "And as soon as
David had made an end of offering burnt offerings and peace offerings,
he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts."
19 "And he
dealt among all the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as
men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of f;esh, and a
flagon of wine. So all the people departed every one to his
house."
20 "Then David returned to bless his household (still dressed only in
his underwear, I presume, there being no "dressing rooms" spread around
Jerusalem in those days). And Michal the daughter of Saul came out
to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who
uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants,
as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself."
21 "And
David said to Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy
father, and before all his house, tro appoint me ruler over the people
of the Lord, over Israel; therefore I will play before the Lord."
22
"And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own
sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall
I be had in honour."
23 "Therefore
Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."
(There was no birth control back in those days, so you do the math!
She had a long but lonely life.)
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OTHER WEB PAGES IN SERIES:
The Book of Job was written in Persia to discuss "Why
Righteous people suffer while Evil people prosper"-- But Job's daughters may
have been the first to speak and sing in "glossilalia" angelic unknown
tongues!
For Dr. Bob Holt's account--
Click Here!
Quit and
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