ICHABOD
A. Wellershaus
When the ark of the covenant fell into the hands of the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4 it was the darkest day in the history of Israel. In the present time also God allows such dark days to come upon His testimony in order to bring to light what is really in our hearts. Then it becomes manifest what has been wrought by Him and what is not of Him. In the first few chapters of Samuel, Samuel himself is prominent, but in chapter 4 Samuel is not mentioned after verse 1, although of course he was there. God had His prophet in readiness, yet in 1
Samuel 4 to 6 he is not prominent. For us that means that every believer who is in fellowship should take to heart the sorrowful state of things, and not rely on a ‘Samuel’. God is already holding His ‘Samuel’ in readiness—we can thank Him for that.* Perhaps he is not yet known to most, nevertheless he is there. But before he can take matters up, believers must come to have right feelings concerning the sorrowful state of things, and this state must affect them at heart. God desires that every believer, even the youngest, should recognise and feel the state rightly, before He gives a powerful prophetic ministry.
Eli’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, reached the point under God’s hand in discipline where she rightly felt and named the sorrowful state of things. It is a very sorrowful history; she died in giving birth to her son, when the news reached her that the ark had been captured by the
* This is evidently a reference to the prophetic element among the saints—Ed.
Philistines. Yet in dying she gave expression to the fact that the state of things in which she had lived had been displeasing to God. Many had been content with that state, but God had not. God had made known through Samuel, His prophet, what He thought about it, and it is only what God thinks that is of any value. As a boy Samuel had received God’s thoughts about the old man Eli. God revealed His thoughts before the calamity in 1 Samuel 4 came on; and when it came on, there was the man to whom God made His thoughts known and who was capable of prophesying. Yet before God intervened, He was expecting right feelings from His people about the sorrowful state of things. Before He gave a deliverer, He allowed the people to feel the need of being delivered.
The wife of Phinehas the priest died, and it is recorded solemnly that she died in travail. In her death she exhibited to the people the sad state they had got into. Sometimes we too have to realize death in order to bring home to believers the dreadful state they are in. God requires reality from us, and in these last days He desires to direct the attention of all believers to what He is doing. But though the priest’s wife died, yet she bore a son who lived on and represented the fruit of her travail. She gave him the name Ichabod. There was no blessing in that, yet that name shed light on the dreadful state, for Ichabod means ‘No glory’. That was a very serious and humbling thing. Yet it corresponded to the real state of things, for the glory had departed and was no longer there. What are our meetings worth if there is no glory in them? It is God’s thought that there should be glory in our Lord’s day morning meetings, as we call them, in our readings, in our prayer meetings, in all our service, in the preaching of the gospel. God is “the God of glory” (Acts 7: 2), and the assembly is the dwelling-place
of glory. So every meeting ought to have glory in it.
We see that this matter comes very close home to us. We ought to perceive the glory of God in our meetings. In 1 Samuel 4 the wife of the priest, in dying, said that the glory was no longer there, for that is the meaning of Ichabod; she said, “The glory is departed”. It had been there before. There are meetings of believers that have never had the glory. How could believers who go on with unrighteousness have the glory of God? We have it among us only if we pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Timothy 2: 22). If, however, we are diverted from this path, then we lose the glory, and can only be recovered if we say, like the dying wife of the priest, “The glory is departed”.
She had a right judgment of the state, and her son bore the stamp of it on him. Everyone who pronounced his name was reminded of the change that had taken place. The glory that had previously been there had departed.
Yet it is precious to see that Ichabod was the secret of recovery. In 1 Samuel 7 Samuel came on to the scene, and the Philistines were smitten. Yet that did not take place until “Ichabod”
had been pronounced. God showed that He took notice of the confession of the dying mother, who had right feelings about the dreadful state of things; for after that He intervened. We read in Psalm 78: 61–66 that Jehovah awoke “as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth aloud by reason of wine; and he smote his adversaries in the hinder part, and put them to everlasting reproach”. He brought back the ark of the covenant, which was His strength and His glory, and which in 1 Samuel 4 He had given into captivity, into the hand of the oppressor (Psalm 78: 61). He
brought it back Himself, without a priest, without a Levite. That shows what God can do for us. Yet He gave this recovery in answer to the, confession of the dying wife of Phinehas who confessed that the shameful state of the people had given occasion for the glory to depart.
And the Lord not only intervened and smote His enemies, but He also rejected the tent of Joseph, “the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men” (Psalm 78: 60), and He chose Zion and David (Psalm 78: 68–72). Thus God not only restored everything, but He also, through David, gave fresh evidence of His grace.
1939 (Translated from German)