Daily Reading: 1 Samuel 2–5
Text: 1 Samuel 7:12 – “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”
Click here to listen to Alexander Scourby reading the King James Bible
This devotion reaches a little beyond today’s reading into tomorrow’s, because the word Ebenezer shows up first in 1 Samuel 4:1 as a place of defeat, and later in 1 Samuel 7:12 as a memorial of deliverance. That contrast fits beautifully with the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. One Ebenezer reminds us what happens when men trust religion without repentance. The other reminds us what God can do when a people get right and can honestly say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”
Verse 1: God’s help remembered.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the Mount! I’m fixed upon it, Mount of God’s unchanging love.
The first verse fits the Ebenezer of 1 Samuel 7. It is the language of a heart tuned to grace, a soul stopping long enough to say, “God has brought me this far.” That is what Samuel’s stone was: a marker of divine help. In 1 Samuel 4, Israel stood beside Ebenezer and lost because they had a religious object without a right heart. In 1 Samuel 7, Samuel raised Ebenezer because the people had turned to the Lord, and now they had His help instead of just His furniture.
Verse 2: God’s grace in bringing wanderers back.
Here I raise my Ebenezer; Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His Precious Blood.
The second verse brings in the testimony of a sinner sought and brought back. That fits the whole drift of 1 Samuel 2–5, because the chapters are loaded with corruption, presumption, judgment, and loss. Eli’s sons are wicked, the priesthood is polluted, and Israel imagines that carrying the ark into battle will force God to bless their mess. But the Lord is not a rabbit’s foot and the ark is not a magic box. The only reason anybody ever gets to raise an Ebenezer is because God, in mercy, seeks wandering people and brings them back to Himself.
Verse 3: God’s grace needed to keep us from wandering again.
O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above.
The third verse is where the hymn gets painfully honest, and that honesty matches these chapters. “Prone to wander” might as well be written over the whole nation in 1 Samuel 2–5. The priests wander, the people wander, and everybody seems to think that having sacred things nearby is the same as walking with God. It is not. The first Ebenezer is tied to defeat because men presumed on outward religion. That is why this verse matters so much: if God does not keep your heart, you can be standing next to holy things while your soul is miles away.
The lesson of the two Ebenezers will preach. In 1 Samuel 4, Israel had religion without repentance, form without power, and a sacred object without the favor of God. In 1 Samuel 7, after repentance and prayer, Samuel could raise a stone and say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” So the old hymn is not just pretty poetry. It is the cry of a heart that knows the difference between dead religion and divine help.
The first Ebenezer is a WARNING, and the second Ebenezer is a WITNESS. One says you can stand near holy things and still be defeated if your heart is wrong. The other says that when the Lord helps you, you ought to mark it down and never forget it. That is why this hymn means so much to God’s people. It gives us words to praise, words to remember, and words to confess our wandering hearts while thanking God for helping us this far.
Continue reading because tomorrow’s reading from 1 SAMUEL 6–8 will show the ark returning, Samuel calling Israel to repentance, the Lord thundering against the Philistines, and that great memorial stone called Ebenezer being raised as a testimony that God’s help is better than religious machinery and stronger than Israel’s enemies.
Tomorrow’s Reading: 1 Samuel 6–8
Until tomorrow, Stay in the Book. 📖
Brother Tony