Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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.

12. Eben-ezer ] i.e. “ The Stone of Help,” a memorial set up between Mizpah and Shen, (in Heb. with the definite article) = “ The Tooth,” probably some conspicuous “tooth” or spire of rock. Cp. 1Sa 14:4. The exact place is unknown, but “exactly at the spot where twenty years before they had obtained their great victory, the Philistines were totally routed.” [See however Add. Note IX. p. 245.]

Hitherto, &c.] i.e. Up to this time. The deliverances of the past are a pledge of continued help for the future.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Shen was a tooth-pointed or sharp-pointed rock (see 1Sa 14:4), nowhere else mentioned and not identified.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

1Sa 7:12

And Samuel took a stone.

The everlasting memorial

How few of Egypts modern inhabitants know who built those works of wonder that still draw crowds of travellers! It might be said, in the words of one who longed for posthumous fame, and had done much to merit it, but who knew what had been the experience of departed greatness–it might be said with Solomon: There is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool forever: seeing that which now is, in the days to come shall all be forgotten. (Ecc 2:16.) But there is a memorial which shall never be erased–a monument that shall never crumble into dust, and persons who shall never be forgotten. The events connected with the life everlasting have all their stones of remembrance, and the righteous shall ever shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Father. The providences which ministered to the children of God are all recorded in the heart, and will ever be recalled with thanksgiving to the God of grace who ordered them. In the history of His Church God has commemorated the interpositions and providences of His hand. Many a monumental stone stands in the chronicles of Israel. Ararat is ever associated with Noahs thank offering after the Deluge. Mount Moriah has been embalmed in believing hearts since Abraham built there his altar and called it Jehovah-jireh–The Lord will provide. Since Jacob set up the stone which had been his pillow on that memorable night when he saw the ladder, Bethel has been fondly cherished by all who love the House of God. When Jordan was crossed by the pilgrim Church twelve stones marked out the spot where the priests feet had stood; and Bochim became associated with the record of a nations tears. So when Samuel and the children of Israel received such a token of the Lords love and help in their victory at Mizpeh in answer to prayer they erected a stone and called it Ebenezer, to perpetuate their gratitude. Thus has the Church of God advanced. Constituted a pilgrim through this wilderness to the land of promise, every step of progress marks her gratitude. Commissioned to war against sin, every conquest becomes a spiritual march in music. Sent to evangelise, every convert is a trophy and Hitherto hath the Lord helped us is the chorus of every stanza in her progressive song. Thus David set to music the history of Divine mercy to His people, and recalled the past in their daily praises, while the experience of his own soul became the Hitherto of the common chorus. The perils to which the children of Israel were exposed were beyond their own strength to overcome. They were weakened by oppression. They were faint by backsliding. They needed help from the hand of God. They had met together at Mizpeh, and, amidst general weeping, had confessed their sins, and renewed their covenant with God. But as they were paying their vows, and joining in a religious service, they were wantonly attacked. Their newborn zeal was put to an early test; but as their penitence was sincere, their vow hearty, their prayer believing, so was the faithfulness of God availing in their need. How many hearts were that day restored to God, confirmed in faith, and revived to prayer! Temporal deliverance and spiritual restoration went hand in hand, and a common Ebenezer marked the rare experience. The Church was blessed with a revival, and the State with liberty; souls were awakened, and citizens restored to patriotism. The spiritual man became the truest patriot, the best subject of the laws, and the most courageous defender of the State. Thus they had reason for this stone of remembrance and this eucharistic inscription. But they teach us a lesson–both in temporal and spiritual things to recognise the answer to our prayer, and to give thanks. Have you experienced the providential mercies of God? They demand recognition–a stone of memorial, and an Ebenezer–a psalm of thanksgiving. Have you been brought onward in life to this day, finding daily bread and watchful care? But there are other blessings of greater importance to the soul, and which call for special notice and unceasing gratitude–the helps vouchsafed in grace. The deliverance of the soul from sin is a Divine interposition of the grandest kind. The recovery of the soul from backsliding is an appropriate occasion for an Ebenezer. It was this especially which was Israels national blessing. Their deliverance from the Philistines followed their restoration from the backsliding of twenty years. It was a touching token of the Lords acceptance of their tears and of their prayers. It was a manifest pledge of His unchanging love. After a season of carelessness, spiritual sloth, and coldness in prayer, have you been revived? Has your first love returned? Then, have you returned to give God thanks, and in a more consistent devotedness inscribed the Ebenezer of your soul? These Ebenezers are useful to the believerse They remind him of dependence, and recall his confidence in the strength of God. They encourage him by the past, to trust and not be afraid in all future trials. (R. Steel.)

Ebenezer

It is certainly a very delightful thing to mark the hand of God in the lives of ancient saints. But would it not be even more interesting and profitable for us to remark the hand of God in our own lives? Ought we not to look upon our own history as being at least as full of God, as full of His goodness and of His truth, as much a proof of His faithfulness and veracity as the lives of any of the saints who have gone before? Have you had no deliverances? Have you passed through no rivers, supported by the Divine presence? Have you walked through no fires unharmed? Have you had no manifestations? Again, it is a very delightful exercise to remember the various ways in which the grateful saints recorded their thankfulness. Who can look without pleasure upon the altar which Noah reared after his preservation from the universal deluge? Would it not be quite as pleasant, and more profitable for us to record the mighty acts of the Lord as we have seen them? Should not we set up the altar unto His name, or weave His mercies into a song?

I. The spot where the stone of ebenezer was set up.

1. Twenty years before on that field Israel was routed. Twenty years before, Hophni and Phineas, the priests of the Lord, were slain upon that ground, and the ark of the Lord was taken, and the Philistines triumphed. It was well that they should remember the defeat they had sustained and that amidst the joyous victory they should recollect that the battle had been turned into a defeat unless the Lord had been upon their side. Let us remember our defeats.

2. The field between Mizpeh and Shen would also refresh their memories concerning their sins, for it was sin that conquered them. Had not their hearts been captured by sin, their land had never been captured by Philistia. Had they not turned their hacks upon their God, they would not have turned their backs in the day of conflict. Let us recollect our sins; they will serve as a black foil on which the mercy of God shall glisten the more brightly.

3. Again, that spot would remind them of their sorrows. What a mournful chapter in Israels history is that which follows their defeat by the Philistines.

4. While dwelling upon the peculiarity of the locality, we must remark that, as it had been the spot of their defeat, their sin, their sorrow, so now before the victory, it was the place of their repentance. You see, they came together to repent, to confess their sins, to put away their false gods, to cast Ashtaroth from their houses and from their hearts. It was there that they saw Gods band and were led to say, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. When you and I are most diligent in hunting sin, then God will be most valiant in routing out foes.

5. You must remember, too, that Ebenezer was the place of lamentation after the Lord. They came together to pray God to return to them. We shall surely see God when we long after Him.

6. On that day, too, Mizpeh was the place of renewed covenant, and its name signifies the watchtower, These people, I say, came together to renew their covenant with God, and wait for Him as upon a watchtower. Whenever Gods people look back upon the past they should renew their covenant with God. Put your hand into the hand of Christ anew, thou saint of the Most High, and give thyself to Him again.

II. The occasion of the erection of this memorial. The tribes had assembled unarmed to worship. The Philistines, hearing of their gathering, suspected a revolt. A rising was not at that time contemplated, though no doubt there was lurking in the hearts of the people a hope that they would somehow or other be delivered. The Philistines being as a nation far inferior in numbers to the children of Israel, they had the natural suspiciousness of weak oppressors. If we must have tyrants let them be strong ones, for they are never so jealous or cruel as those little despots who are always afraid of rebellion.

1. The victory obtained was by the lamb. As soon as the lamb was slaughtered, and the smoke went up to heaves, the blessing began to descend upon the Israelites, and the curse upon the foes. They smote them–note the words–they smote them until they came under Bethcar, which, being interpreted, signifies the house of the Lamb. At the offering of the lamb the Israelites began to fight the Philistines, and slew them even to the house of the lamb. If we have done anything for Christ, bear witness that it has been all through the Lamb.

2. As in this occurrence the sacrifice was exalted, so also was the power of prayer acknowledged. The Philistines were not routed except by prayer. Samuel prayed unto the Lord. They said, Cease not to cry unto the Lord for us. Let us bear our witness that if aught of good has been accomplished it has been the result of prayer.

3. Again, as there was prayer and sacrifice, you must remember that in answer to the sweet savour of the lamb and the sweet perfume of Samuels intercession, Jehovah came forth to rout his foes.

III. The inscription upon the memorial. Ebenezer, hitherto the Lord hath helped us. The inscription may be read in three ways. You must read first of all its central word, the word on which all the sense depends, where the fulness of it gathers. Hitherto the Lord hath helped us. Note that they did not stand still and refuse to use their weapons, but while God was thundering they were fighting, and while the lightnings were flashing in the icemans eyes they were making them feel the potency of their steel. So that while we glorify God we are not to deny or to discard human agency. We must fight because God fighteth for us. I said this text might be read three ways. We have read it ones by laying stress upon the centre word. Now it ought to be read looking backward. The word hitherto seems like a hand pointing in that direction. Look back, look back. Then the text may be read a third way–looking forward. For when a man gets up to a certain mark and writes hitherto, he looks back upon much that is past, but hitherto is not the end, there: is yet a distance to be traversed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A New Years Sermon

That battle was won before a single blow was struck. That victory was achieved at the Throne of Grace, where many a glorious triumph has been gained which never could have been secured elsewhere. Prayer was the mighty weapon which Israel wielded to the utter discomfiture of the Philistine hosts. The power of prayer lies in the power which prayer commands: the power of God.

I. The principles of the text, as they enter deeply into religious experience. We are taught:

1. That we all need help from God. Christians need assistance from a power superior to their own as certainly as did Israel at this crisis. Sin, which has robbed man of his original rectitude, has also deprived him of strength. Unrescued by Divine grace, he is utterly powerless. Nor does the most matured Christian possess the least spiritual energy but as he receives it from on high. There is no equality between the power of the Christians enemies and his own unaided efforts. There are times when the Christian becomes so painfully conscious of this that he is almost ready to quit the field, but this, instead of driving us to despair, should operate powerfully in leading us to God for help, so as to feel with the Apostle: When I am weak, then am I strong.

2. The help of God is bestowed in connection with the use of the means appointed by God, and it is only in their employment that we can reasonably expect Divine aid. Neither the fact of our weakness nor the promise of Divine assistance has been revealed to lead to the exclusion of human exertion. The text implies that it is help that is promised, not the performance of the work for us, but assistance by which we shall be enabled to do our duty.

3. The actual bestowment of this help. The text records a fact: Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. It was not help promised or provided merely, but help actually bestrewed. Help implies just that amount of assistance which the case requires, and by which the Christian shall be sustained under every trial, and delivered out of the last.

II. The character of the help which God supplies.

1. Suitable and efficient. Without adaptation in the remedy the case must remain unrelieved. The source of the Christians help stamps its character. It is Divine.

2. Divine help is certain. Human aid, feeble as it is, is very uncertain in its bestowment. By a sad perversity of human nature, there is a disposition to confer favours with a liberal hand on those who are already affluent, while the indigent are sometimes allowed to drag out a miserable existence and pine away in penury. If a man once opulent should be ruined by misfortunes, persons who proudly recognised him when on the height of prosperity pass him by as if the mans calamities had so altered every feature of his countenance that they cannot recognise him. Should an individual fall a prey to his own folly, pride and extravagance, he must struggle with his self-caused miseries alone. And not infrequently a cold, inactive, good-for-nothing sympathy is all that is manifested toward the most deserving. But the causes which render human aid so uncertain cannot affect God. The relation which He sustains to His Church renders it impossible for Him to regard the interests of any of its members with indifference: God is in the midst of her; . . . God shall help her and that right early.

3. This help is seasonable, it comes at the right time to a moment. It may not be given just when it is expected, nor when to human eyes it would seem most desirable. But are the Divine plans and arrangements to be precipitated and thrown into confusion just to meet human fretfulness and patience? The God by Whom help is bestowed knows the most opportune season for its bestowment. God is attentive to times end seasons; and the Divine slowness has never been opposed to the Divine punctuality.

4. The help of God is constant and unfailing. Hitherto, wrote Samuel, the Lord hath helped us. This was at a protracted period in the history of Gods people, and up to that time there had nothing failed of all that the Lord had spoken. Whenever they were defeated it was not the result of failure in the Source of their supplies, but of their own unfaithfulness and sins. The promise of Divine help is conditional; and only let the conditions of the promise be fulfilled, and the help shall be continued. The last soldier on the field of Christian warfare; the last labourer in the vineyard of the Lord; the last pilgrim in the toilsome way to heaven, will need help from God as we do at this moment; and all shall have it.

III. This conduct to which this help should lead on our part.

1. Grateful acknowledgment of past favours. The expression of gratitude was public and monumental. There is a way of making the expression of our gratitude monumental and lasting by making it practical. Seize every opportunity of testifying to the goodness and faithfulness of God. Let the world know what a wise and almighty Helper ours is. Strive to spread the truth of God; and labour to perpetuate the institutions and auxiliaries of the Christian Church.

2. Past help should lead to confidence in God at the present moment. The words of Samuel were retrospective; but this recognition of past help was designed to teach the practical lesson: Have faith in God now. When friends meet who have a past to look back upon they soon talk over the difficulties and trials with which they have had to struggle, memory generally recalls them first. At a deeply afflictive crisis in Davids life, when our harps would have been unstrung and mute, the Psalmist swept his and pealed forth: I will sing of mercy and judgment. He saw that the two were blended, and he would sing of both; but as mercy greatly predominated, he placed that first in his song.

3. Inspire hope as to the future. (Samuel Wesley.)

Ebenezer

God must be acknowledged in all our mercies, and it is delightful to be able to see in them the answer of believing and fervent supplication. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory.

I. Let us consider what we have to record.

II. Let us now consider with what views and feelings our stone of memorial should be set up, and this expressive word, Ebenezer, inscribed upon it.

1. With sincere piety. To ascribe the honour and power of a work of grace to ministers instead of God the Spirit, is about as irrational as it would be to give praise and glory to the pen with which Milton wrote his immortal poem, instead of giving it to the sublime genius of the bard himself. O let me be forgotten as far as possible, and Christ only thought of.

2. This expression, Ebenezer, must be uttered by us, as it was by Samuel and the Jews, with adoring wonder.

3. Can joy be absent or unsuitable on this occasion? Impossible!

4. A sense of unworthiness should make our gratitude the more intensely fervent. (J. A. James.)

Ebenezer

Monuments generally have two objects They are intended to ornament a country or town, and to celebrate the glories of the hero to whose memory they are raised. A monument is erected after a successful battle, in order to glorify the leader under whose auspices the battle was fought and the victory won. The cathedral of St. Pauls is, by the inscription above the doorway, a perpetual proof how even a great man may be thinking rather too prominently about himself when he is rearing a temple to the Most High God. But Samuel, though he has been instrumental in achieving very much more than a triumph in battle–for he has effected a great moral revolution and revival–never thinks about himself. Two thoughts and purposes vividly occupy and fill his mind. One is to magnify Jehovah, to exalt His name, to keep Him before the people; and the other is to be useful to the people. He wants to assist them to be trustful and brave, because relying on God.

I. Ebenezer is the landmark of work accomplished. There are some people, as you know, or perhaps I ought to say that it is a peculiarity which characterises all people more or less, that they have a very keen sense of evils and disadvantages which belong to the present, and a very dull perception of the privileges secured and the progress which has been made. Of this we have a familiar illustration in the Israelites themselves. Men are constantly looking with affectionate regret upon the past–

That past which always wins a glory from its being far,

And orbs into the perfect star we saw not when we moved therein.

Whatever millennium there may be is there in the good old times. Hence, the world is always standing still or going back. Now against such tendencies as these Ebenezer is a needed and useful protest. There may be other hills to climb, and they may be hills which will try our strength to the very utmost; but let not this prevent our acknowledging with joy and thankfulness that one hill has, at least, been climbed. The Church is a long, long way from perfection, I know. The grey dawn is not breaking at this very moment into the golden tints of the millennial morning; nay, the clouds may be as thick as they were in Israel under Ahab and Jezebel. Nevertheless, let Elijah remember that that glorious scene did take place on Carmel, the fire did come down from heaven, and the king of darkness did receive a staggering blow. Say what you will, the Lord did thunder in the heavens with a great thunder, and the Philistines were discomfited by it, therefore set up a stone and call it Ebenezer. The world is bad enough, God knows, but thank God it is not without its Ebenezers. In those good old times to which you are looking back there were not so many cases of drunkenness recorded; but neither were there so many people to get drunk nor so many newspapers to bring the sin to light. In those good old times the English artisan and the English yeoman were little better than serfs; and though the day of emancipation is bringing out a generation as demoralised (or so they say) as that which followed Moses out of Egypt, and is marked by excesses as wild as those which raged at Meribah and Massah and under the mount, still the day of emancipation has dawned, and my firm expectation is that the womb of the future is bearing within it a race of Israelites indeed, who will enter into the promised land. In those good old times the traffic in human souls, which degrades man to the level of goods and chattels, was not only tolerated, but defended on Christian principles. In the good old times war was an expedient to which any tyrant who felt himself strong enough would resort without compunction, and without exciting any deep indignation. Now a moral sense in regard to war has grown up, which can compel even the most powerful of tyrants to pause ere he wantonly draws the sword. Yes; the Philistines may not be driven out of the country; they may not be utterly annihilated; but their grip, which was at our throat for more than twenty years, has been shaken off. They have been heavily smitten; they are at least quiet. Raise then a stone, and call it Ebenezer, for hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

II. This stone is a monumental memorial of the secret of success. Come near to it and read what is written thereon, and you will find–not some inflated bombast extolling the valour of the Israelites, but–a very simple sentence, giving glory to Jehovah of Hosts. And see how the future which is briefly epitomised in the next verse confirms this hitherto. The hand of the Lord was against them all the days of Samuel. And what was Samuel?–a mighty man of valour? a Moltke among generals? a Bismarck among statesmen? Nay; but a judge who built up a kingdom of righteousness, and preeminently a man who could pray. Praying, as his very name implies, was his forte. It was as one who called upon the Lord that he was distinguished. And it was under the regime of prayer that the Philistines were held in such complete subjugation. The truth which is thus condensed in the word Ebenezer is of the utmost practical importance. There is a Divine Ruler who providentially governs and personally superintends the lives of individuals and the histories of nations. We are not living under a reign of abstract law or inexorable fate; we are not moved round by a mechanism of wheels, revolving in predestined cycles, and grinding out an unalterable sequence of causes and effects. Let devout faith set up then a stone and write upon it, Ebenezer, and with what awful and yet rapturous solemnities life becomes invested. I have often stood with a feeling of almost reverence upon me, high up on some mountainside, looking at vast mysterious boulders, once deposited there by forces which it is hardly possible to conceive, but to the existence of which these mighty masses of rock are the indisputable testimony. But when I come upon Ebenezer, I come upon a stone which says to me, The mighty God, even Jehovah Himself, has been here. Here the sword of the Lord has been flashing unsheathed, and here the banner of the Lord has been waving unfurled. Let devout faith set up a stone and write upon it Ebenezer and with what calm, persistent, uncompromising steadiness we are inspired to advance, just living and working out the everlasting will of righteousness, and simply do that which is just and true and acceptable to God. The only peril you have really to fear is the extinction of Samuel as a reigning influence; for then you will be on the same footing as the other nations of the earth, and the question will be: Can you send as many battalions as they can into the field? So long as Samuel, the man of righteousness and the man of prayer, is influential, you will come safe out of every crisis, under the banner of the God of battles. Remember Ebenezer, and let that keep you from meddling, hasty tactics, as well as from despondency or dismay; and let the believer come and rest his soul upon this stone. (R. H. Roberts, M. A.)

Gods past mercies the encouragement to future trust

In forming our opinion of certain actions, and in pronouncing them to be either good or bad, useful or injurious, their character must be ascertained from the principle on which they are wrought A splendid deed, which mankind would applaud, may, in the sight of God, be almost as strong an indication of a corrupt heart, as a foul transaction, which all would unite in condemning. The fact is, man regards the outward appearance only, the Lord looks on the heart. A simple stone set up in the name of the Lord may as effectually denote the overflowings of gratitude, as a costly magnificent temple, dedicated with all the pomp and solemnity of modern architecture. Such was the case in the instance recorded in the text. The prophet Samuel, though dead still speaks to us; he seems to afford a practical illustration of Solomons admonition, In all thy ways acknowledge God, and He shall direct thy path. This is the duty inculcated, which we would earnestly desire to see transcribed in your lives If, then, we add our wonderful preservation from seen and unseen dangers; the way in which the Lord hath helped us over our mountains of difficulty, or out of the depths of tribulation, smoothing our path when it was rugged to our step, or straightening it when it was crooked; if we have experienced that a blessing hath rested on the operation of our hands, or on the meditation of our hearts; if, in the domestic relations of life, we have been favoured with any special tokens of Gods superintending providence and fostering protection (and who has not had them?), what gratitude ought to be ours; what abundant occasion have we to adopt–what demons of darkness should we be if we did not adopt–the sentiment of Samuel, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. But this may be a mere empty expression of the lips, or, at least, a mere transitory ebullition of feeling, evaporating with the event which has called forth the sentiment. We would wish that the impression should be permanent, such as would only terminate with our lives; we would wish to see erected some standing memorial of the loving kindness of the Lord, which should declare his goodness, and bespeak our gratitude. How is this to be effected in the present day, since such a rude memorial of Divine mercy would be inconsistent with the notions of modern refinement? It may be accomplished in two ways. Those who have omitted to do so, may lay the foundation stone of a domestic altar, and rear a structure in their houses, on which may be placed the morning and evening sacrifice of prayer and praise. But the conduct of Samuel may be imitated in another point of view, by the reception of Christ Jesus in our hearts; thus to erect a spiritual edifies in our souls, and to make our bodies the temple of the Holy Ghost. Christ is indeed that living stone, which we would see the tenant of every bosom testifying in a lively way of providential and redeeming mercies: a stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious; a tried stone, a sure foundation; but to some a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence: a stone, which the builders, in their impiety and folly, rejected, which is now become the head of the corner; yes, it is indeed this Rock of Ages, which we desire to see set up in all our hearts, at all times, and upon all occasions, as the stable basis on which to erect; a structure of temporal or eternal blessedness; as the sure refuge and hiding place from the storm of adversity, or the gale of prosperity. Here, then, we have the line of conduct we earnestly recommend for your adoption, strongly enforced by the patriarch of old: receive Him into your hearts, whom we preach unto you as the author and finisher of your salvation. Let the idol altar be thrown down, and the name of Jesus Christ be inscribed thereon; may that natural, dead, indurated heart yield its place to the living stone, which will impart new life and vigour to all its energies and emotions, and gratefully record the achievements of Divine grace to the glory of God the Father. (H. S. Plumptre, M. A.)

Memorials of Divine Mercy

There is a distinct recognition, here, of the hand of God in providence; and there is a marking of the event of Gods interference in their behalf by some visible outward sign which would serve to bring it back to them. For no man, after the battle and the victory, returning that way, and beholding this stone, would forget it. They would cherish it in their memory, and tell their children of it. And if their occasions or needs ever took any of them again through the region of their old captivity, their old fear, the old battle and the old victory, that outside memorial would stand to remind them, not merely of each external event but also of the interior moral truth that it was of the Lords mercies that they were preserved, and that it was of Gods interposing providence that they were victorious. Now, we are in many respects like the Israelites. There are, in the history of every man, certain remarkable events that are worthy to be remembered. The gracious and providential interference of God in our behalf deserves to be noted. The memory of all His mercies ought to be perpetuated. Every critical period, as the turning of the year; every point of success in any enterprise of life; every point where we gain a higher joy, whether it be secular, or social, or spiritual; every new relation which promises great; blessedness to us; every business achievement which seems to lift us out of darkness and out of difficulties; every great mischief that impended as a threatening sky, but; that is rolled away–every such event or experience ought to have a distinct recognition. We should think of them in their individuality, and in their sequences; and it would be well for us if we could set up some memorial, and be able to say to one and another, Hitherto the Lord hath helped me. It is the Lord–not my skill, not my wisdom, not my prowess–that hath helped me hitherto. Our true life is the inward life. It deserves, therefore, to be specially watched and recorded. No other thing deserves such celebrations as a mans inward victory–his inward deliverance. A blessing that comes from God should be recognised by us, though it comes in no visible form. No one who has a constant succession of good fortune, keeps any ideal in his mind of the number of Divine mercies of which he is the recipient. If God were to recount what He has done for us, it would seem as though our life were a golden chain, in which one golden link clasped another, every hour being a link, and every day lengthening the chain. I sometimes think, of a night, that it is a sin to go into the house and leave Gods glory flashing abroad in the Northern Lights, or in the stellar exhibitions in all the broad expanse above, without a witness–certainly without my witnessing them. I feel as though it were a stupidity to retire to sleep with all this amazing display going on. For, what are mens inventions and ingenuities compared with those astonishing developments which every summers day shows us in the clouds, in the storms, and in frescoes of light and beauty? Every single day there is enough in the silence of nature, and in the might of nature, enough to fill the soul with joy and gratitude. But, while day tells it to day, and night repeats it to night, man sees but little of it. There may he kept a calendar of dates. It is astonishing how much one can preserve in this way with very little trouble. When travelling in Europe, I was so full of excitement end enjoyment that I had not time to keep a journal; so I just put down under each date one single word–the name of the city; or the name of the picture; or the name of the mountain; or the name of the pass; or the name of some person whom I had met; and now I can go back ever a months travels, and, though there are but these single words, that whole history starts up when I look at them. If you regularly take a memorandum book, at night, and think back through the day, and bring up before you what God has done for you, what He has shown you, what significant thing has happened, and put down the caption of it under the proper date, you will be surprised to find what a calendar your book will become at the end of every year. In some of the German houses there is a charming habit of this sort. Instead of papering their rooms, or frescoing them in the ordinary way, they employ the ablest artists of their times to paint their walls with the most exquisite landscapes, which are to stand there for ages. And in these landscapes are representations of their own family here and there. Here, for instance, are the grandparents; there are the children; and here are the friends and neighbours. And so, one has in his house, a kind of memorial of his social relationships, and of everything significant in his family history. It is a most charming idea if it, be executed fitly. But I would not recommend to you any such custom as this, which is very expensive, and unfitted to our habits and manners And yet, it is quite possible for one to have objects on his wall, which shall answer very much the same purpose: A leaf here, an anchor there, or a little flower, plucked, dried, and hung in its proper place, may mark some significant passage in ones history This may be seen in castles. The man of the castle says, Do you see those antlers? Do you see that frontal? I will give you a history of that hunting expedition. They are memorials which he has preserved of various experiences in hunting. Why should not every dawning mercy have a star blazing from the wall, and saying to every one that looks upon it, Hitherto the Lord hath helped me? Why should our houses be so barren of our own history? Why should we leave our eyes so entirely without the aid of interpreting symbols? I know not why a persons house should not become a kind of memorial of personal history. Or, a journal might be made of the Bible. If you keep a kind of register, so that the text refers to and is associated with the event, your Bible becomes a memorial. You are setting up all the way through it stones of remembrance, as it were. You are providing a record for your old age. And by and by, when you take down your Bible, and put on your glasses, and look back upon your past life, not only will it be the word of God, but you will find bow the word of God fed you in the wilderness, strengthened you in sickness, and comforted you in circumstances of discouragement. How many things a man can record on the fly leaves of his Bible which will afford him pleasure and profit in after life! And how precious that Bible will become to him when he has woven it into his experience as a kind of epitomising of his life. Or, one might, if blessed with means, take the occasions of Gods hopefulness to him, and make them also occasions of charity. There are what are called memorial windows in churches Such windows are put in often, by affection, to be the memorial of a wife, or sister, or parent, or child, or friend. In the old country there are a great many of them. One of the most affecting things I ever saw in my life was in the church of the Succouring Virgin–that is, of Mary, the Succourer. It was, I believe, in one of the French cities. The whole church was filled with tablets. Here was one of an officer, for three days deliverance, on such, and such and such dates. It was a little marble slab let into the wall, inscribed with letters of gold. On inquiring and comparing dates, I found it was during the battle of Inkerman, at a time when the French army were in great danger. The man had been preserved; and when he came back, he put up in this church this tablet, recalling the mercy of God in sparing his life. Another inscription was, My babe was sick; I called to the Virgin; she heard me; and my child lives. There was the tablet that celebrated that event. And I could not read these inscriptions without having tears fall from my eyes like drops from a spice bush when shaken in a dewy morning, blow, everybody ought to have a church somewhere for himself–not a literal church; but someplace where he can celebrate Gods special goodness to him. (H. W. Beecher.)

The place of memorials in the Christian life

I. What the memorial commemorated. It was erected on a battle field where they had been twice defeated. Thus it reminded them of their own

1. Helplessness. But it was also erected on a spot where they had witnessed a great victory, won by Gods help. It therefore also reminded them

2. God was their Helper. The stone also commemorated–

3. The extent of their victory. Hitherto hath the Lord helped them, as far as this place. It was a kind of border stone marking their advance on a former position.

II. How it helped them. They called it Help Stone. In commemorating past help it proved a present help.

1. By keeping them from self-trust.

2. By stimulating their activity. The sight of this stone aroused their patriotism and religious fervour. It was like the flag which stirs the soldiers martial spirit.

3. It deepened their sense of obligation. To retreat from the position marked by this memorial would have been as disgraceful as for an army to lose its standard.

III. The place of memorial is a Christian life. A written pledge or a spoken vow is for us what Help Stone was for Israel. By that act we warn the enemy that he has no more claim upon the territory of our hearts. And each subsequent communion is a gazing afresh upon the memorial of victory won by Christ. (R. C. Ford, M. A.)

Gods help

1. Observe, the language here of the writer is retrospective. It takes in the wide sweep of the Jewish history.

2. Thus it becomes the language of gratitude.

3. Then, too, consider how the inscription on the stone set up by Samuel, lays a good foundation for hope and trust. And it is upon this help we ground too our faith. The true Christian must always feel deeply humbled at the remembrance of his transgressions, but in the effort of a true repentance he is conscious of Gods merciful aid and compassion. The text furnishes a motive for future perseverance.

5. The text indicates that those who are Divinely assisted in their undertaking, will find in the end that their life of labour and of uprightness, as regards both character and conduct, has not been in vain. No. In some matters of an outward kind, at first sight, it may seem that even the most exemplary career has ended in disappointment, in perfect uselessness.

6. Hence arises the duty of cooperation with the help of the Almighty. The builder when furnished with proper materials must use them. It would be downright folly for him to fold his hands, to make no exertion, and only to call aloud for help. The Christian too must take his place in the Church, as in a city, and although he knows that without Gods help his watchfulness will be of no use, still he must not sleep at his post. (W. G. Horwood.)

The Lords Helping His people

doctrine.

It is the duty of the Lords people to keep the memorial of the experience which they have of the Lords helping them. I shall discuss this point under two general heads.

I. The Lords helping His people.

1. How doth the Lord help His people?

(1) Sometimes the Lord helps His people, by working all for them, they themselves contributing nothing to their deliverance. Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more foreverse The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.

(2) Sometimes the Lord assists His people in working. They endeavour their own deliverance in Gods way, and He fits them to act, and blesseth their exertions, crowning them with success.

(3) Sometimes God helps His people by appointing means. Thus in the case of Hezekiah, Isaiah said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover. If He intends having His people brought out of Babylon, He raiseth up Cyrus for that purpose. If Elijah must be fed in his hiding place, the ravens shall be employed rather than he suffer want.

(4) Sometimes without means. Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.

(5) Sometimes by contrary means, as our Lord cured the blind man by laying clay upon his eyes.

2. Let us inquire why the Lord helpeth His people.

(1) Because they are in covenant with Him.

(2) Because of their special relation to Him. Christ is the believers head. Hence if the foot be hurt, the Head in heaven cries out (Act 9:4).

(3) Because they look to Him and trust in Him for their help. The 91st psalm has in it a great many blessed promises, but see to whom they belong.

(4) Because the Lord brings His people into straits for this very end, that He may have the glory of helping them; and that they may get the greater experience of His kindness.

II. To speak of the keeping up of the memorial of the experiences which they have had of the Lords helping them.

1. What it is to keep up the memorial of the Lords helping us.

(1) It implies an observing of the dispensations we meet with, for our help in the course of our life. If the thing itself be not observed, we cannot keep up the memorial of it.

(2) A discerning of the Lords hand in the help we receive.

(3) Laying up these experiences add recording them, if not in a book yet in a faithful memory. And all they that heard them (the things said of John the Baptist at his birth) laid them up in their hearts, saying, what manner of child shall this be! And the hand of the Lord was with him. Many instead of laying such things up, lay them down in the grave of forgetfulness, and instead of setting up a stone, lay a stone upon them, burying them out of sight.

2. Inquire what of these experiences of the Lords helping should be recorded and kept in memory.

(1) We should record the timing or seasonableness of them. There is often a weight lies on this very circumstance, that the help came at such a time and not another is worthy to be remembered.

(2) The effects of them on our spirits How we are affected with them when they come. Then, says the Church, was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. Many times the Lord helps His people in such a manner that the experience of His goodness fills them with shame, looks their doubts and fears ova of countenance, proves their unbelief to be a false prophet, and makes them resolve never to distrust God again and fills them with thankfulness. (Isa 38:10; Isa 38:12, Psa 73:22-23; Psa 116:11-12.) O how useful would this he afterwards to the Christian.

(3) Their harmony and agreement with the promise

(4) Their agreement with their prayers. (Gen 24:45.) What are the Christians experiences but returns of prayers. Such was that in the text. This seems to be the ground of that conclusion; By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me. Even the very place of our experiences should be recorded. I will remember thee, says David, from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. (Gen 28:11-19.) And the Lord loves to have His people remember these blessed places, (Gen 31:13; Gen 35:1). Let us now,

3. Inquire why we should keep up the memorial of these things

(1) We owe this to God: In point, of obedience, when we meet with experiences of His goodness He calls us to set up our Ebenezer. O monstrous ingratitude to forget experiences. We owe it to Him also, in point of compliance with His design in giving experience of His help to His people God intends His people more comfort by a mercy, than the mercy itself singly considered He intends it as a ground to hope for more He gives the valley of Achor for a door of hope.

(2) We owe this to ourselves in point of interest. If we would consult our own advantage, we would not let them slip For former experiences of the Lords help are very supporting to the soul in a dark night These experiences are pledges of further mercies. Some promises have their day of payment here, others after this life. The performing of the former, is an earnest given to faith to look for the other. (T. Boston, D. D.)

The Lord our Help

From this passage we are forcibly taught, in the first place:–

I. that it is our especial duty, under the apprehension of any impending calamity, to seek unto God for deliverance by fervent believing prayer.

II. We are taught by this portion of sacred history, that God will hear the relieving prayers of His servants. We are far from affirming that prayers, offered up in faith, and for things agreeable to Gods will, will always be granted in the season or in the manner that the supplicants might either desire, or in their fallible judgment might deem most proper No! This would be to usurp Gods prerogative, and to substitute our own erring judgments in the place of His wise and all disposing sovereignty. All that God permits us to do, is to approach Him in importunate, believing prayer, leaving the result to His own unerring disposal.

III. It is our duty to recognise the hand of God in every deliverance.

IV. A public acknowledgment of gratitude is due to almighty God for mercies received and for deliverance from impending evils. In perusing the history of the heathen world, we are particularly struck with the practice of perpetuating the memory of great events to future generations. When nations were delivered from impending calamities or favoured with unlooked for blessings, they raised the song of gratitude to those whom they esteemed their preserverses The praises of their deliverers were sung by the poet, and extolled by the historian; their statues adorned the cities which gave them birth; and other striking memorials were instituted to convey to future generations an abiding sense of the value of their services. If, from the heathen, we turn to the enlightened world, we shall find that the memorials which, in the one, were erected to the statesman or the conqueror, were, in the other, expressly instituted in token of gratitude to God–the great and only Deliverer.

V. Let your recollection of Gods past mercies inspire you with the feelings of future, unreserved confidence.

VI. Let me call upon you to testify your sense of the Divine mercies, by an increasing devotedness to the service of your God. (Robert Cook.)

Retrospection and Gratitude

The character of Christian gratitude, etc. Hitherto the Lord hath helped us.

1. Christian gratitude is retrospective.

2. Christian gratitude is devout. It connects the thought of God with the travelled past. There may have been second causes: gracious interpositions and friendly agencies; but above and beyond all, the good man recognises the hand of God, and in real devotion says, Hitherto the Lord hath helped me.

3. Christian gratitude is joyful. Every event in the providence of God has a message of mercy in it to the good man. Day unto day is saying to him, Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, and shout aloud for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

4. Christian gratitude is ever trustful. It speaks thankfully of the past, and looks forward hopefully to the future; hitherto sounds the keynote of hereafter. (W. G. Barrett.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. Called the name of it Eben-ezer] Eben haezer, “The Stone of Help; ” perhaps a pillar is meant by the word stone.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

A stone; a rude, unpolished stone, which was not prohibited by that law, Lev 26:1, there being no danger of worshipping such a stone, and this being set up only as a monument of the victory.

Eben-ezer; by which, compared with 1Sa 4:1, it appears that this victory was gained in or near the very same place where the Israelites received their former fatal loss.

Hitherto hath the Lord helped us; He hath begun to help us in some measure, though not completely to deliver us; by which wary expression he exciteth both their thankfulness for their mercy received, and their holy fear and care to please and serve the Lord, that he might proceed to help and deliver them more effectually.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. Samuel took a stone, and set itbetween Mizpeh and Shenon an open spot between the town and”the crag” (some well-known rock in the neighborhood). Ahuge stone pillar was erected as a monument of their victory (Le26:1). The nameEben-ezeris thought to have been written onthe face of it.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And Samuel took a stone, and set it,…. Not for worship, but as a monument of the victory obtained by the help of God: and this he placed

between Mizpeh and Shen; which latter signifies a tooth, and designs the precipice of a rock which juts out, and hangs over in the form of one:

and called the name of it Ebenezer; which signifies “the stone of help”; and is the same place which by anticipation has this name, 1Sa 4:1, so that in the selfsame place where the Israelites were twice beaten by the Philistines, and the ark taken, was this salvation wrought for them:

saying, hitherto hath the Lord helped us; this was but the beginning of their deliverance from the Philistines, and which was owing to the help of the Lord; and as he had begun to help them, they might hope and encourage themselves that he would go on to help them until their deliverance was completed: however, they with Samuel thought it their duty, which was right, to acknowledge what the Lord had done for them, and perpetuate the memory of it, though they could not be sure what he would do for them hereafter; yet as they were sensible of, and thankful for this instance of his goodness, they hoped for more, and had their dependence on him for future success against their enemies.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

MEMORIALS OF GODS MERCY

A Thanksgiving Sermon

1Sa 7:12

I WANT to speak, this morning, on Memorials of Gods mercy. The Old Testament history from which I bring our text presents to us Samuel, who was priest and practically king; and who had just called back the people of Israel from their wicked ways; had harmonized their dissenting spirits, and around the recovered Ark, had established afresh the worship of the Father Jehovah.

This revival of the national spirit in-Israel, and of Israels worship of Jehovah, so angered the neighboring Philistines that the text tells us they drew near to battle against Israel.

The devout priest knew the source of infinite assistance; and seeing the enemy made his appeal to God, and the further record is,

The Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel.

And the men of Israel went out of Mispeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Bethcar.

Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mispeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us (1Sa 7:10-12).

That stone, like the twelve stones brought up from the bed of the Jordan, and builded into a monument on its bank, was a memorial, and was set to speak to all passers-by of Gods deliverance; to mark the place where Israel had known Divine favor. It was an emphatic recognition of the intervention of Providence on behalf of this people. It was an example worthy the imitation of favored men in all generations.

We build monuments to the memory of great events. They more often commemorate Samuel than Samuels God; more often bring renown to Bethcar, the battlefield, than to the Holy One who gave the victory.

It is my purpose this morning to plead for memorials of Divine mercy; for the proper recognition of that Providence which points out the way and administers to each advantage.

No other day in the year is more suitable to such thought than this Thanksgiving morning, and I ask you to join with me in building out of our thoughts memorials to the intervention of that God whose mercies have characterized another twelve month.

First of all in

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Life has not been a dead level these twelve long months. Since last Thanksgiving variations in trial, temptation, fear and suffering; in victory, steadfastness, courage and conquest, have characterized the life of each; and those victories and conquests have come from God.

No greater thing can happen to men than to have a visit from the Holy One, and the event is worthy of memorial. Shall we not think back this morning to see what has happened, and wherein He has helped? Can any one of us recall the multitude of His mercies?

Mark Guy Pierce was walking home from church one night. His little daughter, holding his hand, trudged at his side and tried desperately to keep up. Looking up into his face she said, Papa, I want to count the stars. All right, darling, replied Mr. Pierce; so she began. One, two, three, four, five, and after a while the father heard her say, 213, 214, 215, and then she let out a great sigh, Oh, papa, they are too many. I cant count em.

Is it not so of the mercies of my God in the past twelve months? But some of them are stars of such magnitude that we can plainly see them.

The spared life! Surely we will not forget this mercy. The dread archerDeath, has drawn his bow on a multitude, but every arrow has missed you and me.

He has even singled out some from our social circles and struck down some from the sweet family and church circles, and yet we have stood unharmed, save for our sorrow. The arrow in this incident, or that, has passed very near to us and put us in jeopardy for a moment, but we escaped unscathed; or, if it has wounded us and left us on beds of suffering for weeks, yet by Gods grace we have been restored and stand up to-day in a new lease of life. Is there not occasion here for a memorial of Divine mercy?

Doubtless some in this house have fared better than did the servant of Job, and need not to say, I only am escaped alone, but have brought through this past year person, family and friends, without the loss of one, and hence are saying, God has been good. It is well-nigh a pity that we cant appreciate our own preservation until somebody else is stricken at our very side.

Many seasons ago, an aunt came from Cincinnati to visit at our Kentucky home. The train she left at the little station was wrecked ten minutes later and there was a great loss of life. When she heard of the sad circumstance, she poured out her very soul in expression of gratitude to the God who had taken her from the train before it plunged to destruction; and yet, the preservation of that day was no greater than she enjoyed every time she ever travelled on a railroad train. Every day you spend, every hour I spend in health and prosperity, as the special object of Gods favor, is occasion for this mornings text, and with the down-going of the sun, we are ingrates indeed, if we say not from a heart full to over-flowing, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Personal preservation! That is the occasion for a memorial of Divine mercy.

THE FAMILY CIRCLE

What is its message this morning? If there is anything in this world that is more precious to a man than personal existence, it is the house to which he belongsthe blood of his bloodthe bone of his bonethe kinships into which God has bound him. That is especially true of the husband and father; and in most instances, still more true of the wife and mother. Everything that affects that strange, sweet, little circle for weal or woe, stirs him or stirs her to song or sob. What has come to it in the past year? With some of you an increase has come. A little one has been added to the house, and some of us have seen our children saved this year. God never gives better occasion for gratitude, for memorials of Divine mercy, than when that same immortal is born again, born from above, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

In Israel of old, when a child was given, they brought it unto the Lord and offered it in dedication, and the parents laid on the altar of God some gift by which to express their gratitude. When Hannah found her little Samuel come as Gods message of mercy, she offered three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, as a memorial of the same. There was occasion for even greater gift occasion for such gratitude as that mother in Israel knew. It is a great thing when an immortal life is launched on the sea of time, and started toward the haven of eternity. It is a great day when life is enriched by the new relation of father or mother, or brother or sister.

You know the Cunarders are perhaps the most noted line of steamers that sail the high seas. Some reckon their success to business skill and sagacity, but I will opine a truer secret is in the circumstances that Mrs. Cunard used to spend a day in prayer for Gods blessing upon every new vessel that went off the ways to the ocean wave, and christened it with her tears.

Oh, young mothers and fathers, have you done less for the immortal crafts who have started this year on the long voyage? And when you have seen them set out in health and happiness, have you not hastened back to the beginningto the birthday and set up there a memorial of Gods mercy?

Then this year, how has the family fared? Have they had food, and clothing, and comfortable home? Has health inhabited the house and touched one little blossom into richer beauty, and matured another into the fragrance of fuller life, flowering him or her into youth? Or, if sickness has visited the home, has the Son of God come to rebuke the same and raise up those Satan thought to destroy; or, if death itself has been there to do his destructive work, has his visit caused you to call for Christ, as did Mary and Martha, and have Him come to say, I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die, and with His word of promise sweep out the sorrow, and start in your bosom a song of hope and joy by showing you that the loved one was not dead, but evermore alive?

A friend of mine attended a funeral some time ago, and at its close he said to the father, You have just three children left, have you? To which the man of faith replied, Oh, no, I still have four. We have not lost our child. He is even more our own in the arms of Christ than if he were here in his cradle.

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to Thee!

Een though it be a cross

That raiseth me;

Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear,

Steps unto heaven;

All that Thou sendest me,

In mercy given;

Angels to beckon me,

Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee!

Then, with my waking thoughts

Bright with Thy praise,

Out of my stony griefs

Bethel Ill raise;

So by my woes to be

Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee!

THE SPHERE OF BUSINESS!

What can be said of that, in the light of the times and from the lesson of the text? It is said that the times upon which we have fallen are hard and full of trial, and there are few who care to question the statement. Yet I do declare that a man reviewing his experience in the marts of trade for the past twelve months, ought to find here and there a place and an experience calling for memorials of Gods mercy. For some, that is not difficult.

The man whose business has been prosperous, or who in professional attainments has made progress, or before whom higher position has opened, readily consents to the erection of memorials of mercy. He sees that all about him are his fellows in lesser favormen who have known hard knocks, who have cut in twain their personal privileges, who have curtailed all possible expenses, who have put living at lower points and strained credit almost to a crash, and many of them altogether to bankruptcy. It ought not be difficult, then, for the man who has prospered, when prosperity was the exception, to remember God and* say, Hitherto hath He led me; to be moved to the erection of monuments in memory of His mercies; to be willing to lay in them his silver and his gold that God thereby might be honored.

I have noticed, in my own denomination, that the richer have borne a larger share in all the missionary and benevolent enterprises of the church these last few years, than ever before since I can remember. That means that they have some sense of Gods great mercy to them, and are willing to lay down their silver and gold in evidence of their gratitude. The Lord pity him who does otherwise. The Lord spare the successful man, whose soul is being reduced and whose spirit is subsidized by his very success, until he shall see his mistake and be saved through sacrifice.

The man who has been able to hold his own in the business world this year has occasion for memorials of mercy when such a multitude are sliding backward in business interests and prospects. The man who cannot go forward, but is holding his ground, ought to be grateful. I appreciate the difficulty, in this money-mad Western world, of our accepting such a statement, but really it has excellent occasion. There are 200,000 people today in this city who would be rendered happy indeed if they could be assured that twelve months hence they would still be in possession of what they now have. All men having that confidence should fall upon the philosophy of the old colored man, who managed to keep himself happy in every time of trouble by saying, Bless de Lawd, it am no wus.

A favorite story of my teacher, Dr. John A. Broadus, related to President Madison, who, it seems, was subject to many diseases in his later years, and suffered many things from many physicians, but was nothing bettered. Among these physicians was an old friend of the Ex-President, who sent Mr. Madison some vegetable pills, and begged that he try them and let him know the result. In due time the Doctor received a most carefully written and felicitous note, in which Mr. Madison said, My dear friend, I thank you very much for that box of pills. I have taken them every one, and while I cannot say that I am any better since taking them, it is quite possible I might have been worse if I had not; and so I beg you to accept my gratitude. Really, argued Dr. Broadus, that is not a mere pleasantry. There is always something known or unknown but for which our condition would have been worse, and that something constitutes an occasion for gratitude. Look back over the year! Recall the trials of this time and tell me, would not your affairs and mine have fallen lower, but for one fact, namely, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Then a stone in memory of His mercy!

But there are those who have gone into bankruptcy this year. Is there any comfort for them, or occasion for making, this day, memorials of mercy? Certainly, there may be!

In a multitude of instances, there is the greatest occasion. The men who have failed in business are by no means the worst off among us. A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. The loss of earthly gains often means the gain of Heavenly graces. I have known men in whom bankruptcy wrought humility; for whom business failure produced a greater sweetness of spirit, a broader sympathy with the poor and suffering, a truer sense of Providence in all our affairs.

In Louisville, Ky., in New Albany, Ind., in Lafayette, Ind., in Bloomington, Ill., in Chicago and in Minneapolis, wherever God has set me down to speak the Gospel, I have come to know men who discovered their purest riches in consequence of having lost something of the wealth of this world. Some of the best men in my church today are men on whose character business misfortunes have wrought with beauty. Financial reverses quite often produce spiritual recoveries for which we ought to thank God.

A man who takes inventory at the end of a year and finds his bank account in the First National of his city flat, but his credit with God fuller than ever before, is the most prosperous man to be found. Ah, it is better to be a good man than a millionaire; better to grow in grace, than to accumulate gold; better to know and yield to a Divine guidance, than discover acres of diamonds; better to feel the Fathers love, than to fill the coffers with earthly treasure.

It is said that Cyrus gave to one of his generals a cup of gold, and to another a kiss. The former complained that he had received the lesser favor, and indeed he was right. And if, this past year, your gold has gone and your silver has been swept away, but you have felt the kiss of the everlasting God upon your brow, stand up today with the Samuels of the land and set up the stone to mark the spot of the Fathers visit and sing in joyful note, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

What matters it how much we lose of earths treasures, if only we know the favor of the Father whose wealth is the worlds?

Sometime since, when a certain business man was in hard straits and some acquaintances were expressing their sympathy for him, and fear regarding his future, one who knew him and his, answered, Oh, hes in no danger, for he has a rich father and that father will come to his relief whenever he is called. But, beloved, those words were not half so true as he employed them, as they are when we who are Gods children use them.

My Father is rich in houses and lands.

He holdeth the wealth of the world, in His hands!

Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,

His coffers are full, He has riches untold.

It is said that during the famine in Canaan, Joseph ordered his officers to throw wheat and chaff on the waters of the Nile that the people below might see that there was plenty above.

What if your finances are short, Eternity will not exhaust the riches of your Fathers grace.

A tent or a cottage, why should I care?

Theyre building a palace for me over there!

Though exiled from home, yet still I may sing:

All glory to God, Im a child of the King.

SPIRITUAL PROGRESS

What of that, in the light of this text? Are we any stronger in Christ than twelve months since? Is the Holy Spirit any more to us today than then? Are the fruits of the Spirit more apparent in our lives, or more abundant? If not, weeping becomes us; but if so, stones of memorial and songs of joy! Many here have been saved since last Thanksgiving. Surely you have occasion of gratitude to God. This past year you will never forget in time or in eternity. So long as I am sane, I shall remember the day my father set down in the Family Bible, to mark my first birth; and so long as eternity runs, I shall rejoice in the hour recorded in the Lambs Book of Life to mark the second birth.

In the city of Chicago, I baptized into my church one winter three men who came out of the deepest darkness and the most damnable lives. But their regeneration was truly the work of the Holy Ghost, and after it, they were as godly as before it they had been godless. Sometimes I introduced them about to this Christian and that as new converts, and had occasion to say, Kenna or Sullivan, how long have you been a Christian now? and invariably they answered by telling me the number of months, days and hours since they were born of the Spirit; and if you could have seen the shining of their faces when they referred to that wonderful work, you could have understood something of their joy.

Oh, beloved, born of God this year, yours is occasion of gratitude, indeed, and whatever others do, you can set up today a stone in memory of His mercy, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

Then some have grown in grace, in the knowledge of the Word. This year you have offered yourself in consecration; your progress is perceptible. The Holy Ghost has called you to higher ground and you have answered. He has taken the things of Christ and showed them unto you as you never saw them before. He has revealed unto you the affection of the Father and you have felt it in all its sweetness. The very mountains that seemed obstacles a year since He has helped you to scale, and they have been turned into points of elevation on which you stand to survey a larger horizon of the Christ-life. He has led you out into personal work. He has taught you the great truth that God loveth a cheerful giver. He has given you the joy of seeing souls surrender to your appeal.

And for some He has said, Come into the Gospel ministry and dispense blessing to others while I put threefold mercies upon you. Shall ye not then erect memorials to our God?

As teachers in our Sunday School classes; as many whose testimony is needed in prayer-meeting; as the saved who watch for the souls of others; as children of the Father, privileged to put up our petitions to Him; as agents of redemption called to preach the Gospel at home or abroad; as members of the church of the redeemed led into experiences richer and sweeter than ever known to any save the saints of Godshall we not remember mercy and establish our memorials by offering labor, love and life?

Henry Ward Beecher tells of visiting the church of the Succoring Virgin, in one of the cities of France. He found the whole church filled with tablets. Here was one erected by an officer who had been in the battle of Inkerman and came out of those three terrible days unscathed. He hastened to erect this tablet To the memory of the Virgins mercy in preserving my life. Here is another which reads, My child was sick. I called to Mary, the Mother of God. She helped me, and my child is alive. Everywhere he found tablets telling what Mary had done. It was a beautiful thing, and Beecher says, As I read those inscriptions, tears came from my eyes like drops from a spice-bush when shaken on a dewy morning. But, beloved, shall the children of superstition set up to the saints more memorials of mercy than we raise to the everlasting God, who is our Father, and the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and who has proven Himself precious to us in our person, in our homes, in the marts of trade and in our spiritual experiences? Shall we not recall today what He hath wrought and make this Thanksgiving time tell of His mercies; and shall we not say that having received, we will give, and will offer ourselves, and every possession put into our power, to the end of annihilating earths sorrows, staunching her wounds, destroying her sins and bringing her to the salvation of the everlasting God?

In memory of the unspeakable mercies of the past, is it not in our hearts to sing,

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,Im fixed upon it!

Mount of Gods unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer,

Hither by Thy help Ive 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.

O, to grace how great a debtor

Daily Im 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;

Heres my heart; oh, take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

(12) Between Mizpeh and Shen.The situation of Ha-Shen, The Tooth, has not yet been identified. It probably denotes a peak or crag, a prominent rock formation, so named, like the modern French denta favourite name for a peak in some districts of the Alps and Pyrenees: e.g., Dent du Midi.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. Shen This word signifies a tooth, and seems to have been the name of some projecting eminence or rock having the form of a tooth. Its situation is now unknown.

Eben-ezer Stone of help; a monument to remind Israel that their victories were of the Lord. At this very spot the ark was captured twenty years before, and here it is notable that God now gives them such a wondrous triumph. The contrast between the two events is full of rich suggestions.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

DISCOURSE: 289
MEMORIALS OF GODS GOODNESS

1Sa 7:12. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

THERE is in the generality of men a very culpable inattention to the ways of Providence. A variety of dispensations succeed each other without ever attracting their notice. Hence they are unconscious of any kindness exercised towards them; and are ready to ascribe their success to themselves, or even to chance, rather than to God. But, if they would observe the many strange and unforeseen events which arise, and notice how they concur to promote their welfare, they would understand the loving-kindness of the Lord, and be constrained to acknowledge his wise and gracious agency.
The veil with which modern occurrences are covered, is, in the Scriptures, removed; and we see the holy arm of the Lord made bare. We at this day should regard a storm as a mere accidental thing, common perhaps at the time of year; and think little of God, who maketh the clouds his chariots, and his ministers a flame of fire. But, in the passage before us, the victory gained by means of a storm is ascribed to the merciful interposition of Jehovah. By means of thunder which terrified the Philistine army, the unprepared Israelites were enabled to destroy them, and to break the power of those who for twenty years had grievously oppressed them: nor was it a little remarkable, that this victory was gained upon the very spot where, twenty years before, God had delivered both them and the ark in which they vainly trusted, into the hands of the Philistines. To commemorate the goodness of the Lord, Samuel set up a stone, which he called Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.
From these words we shall take occasion to shew,

I.

What reason we have to erect similar memorials

Whether the agency of God be more or less visible, it is certain that not so much as a sparrow falls to the ground without his special direction. Let us then take a view of the mercies he has vouchsafed to us. These have been,

1.

Public

[These have been exceeding great [Note: Those specified at the close of the year 1804, were, our long-continued preservation from foreign invasion, or domestic tumults, or even the sound of war; as also our freedom from pestilences, earthquakes, and hurricanes, which had recently committed dreadful ravages in Spain, America, and the West Indies. But these things must of course be varied, according to the occasion on which the subject is used, whether it be Victory, or Peace, or any other signal mercy.] and they demand our devoutest acknowledgments.]

2.

Private

[We shall find abundant cause of thankfulness, if we survey our temporal mercies. How are we indebted to God for life, when multitudes have been taken into the eternal world; and for health, when many have been pining away with sickness; or racked with acute disorders! What an unspeakable mercy is it that our reason is continued to us, when many are bereft of this noble faculty, and thereby reduced, like Nebuchadnezzar, to a level with the beasts! What do we owe to God, if we have found comfort in our relatives and connexions, (for it is God that maketh men to be of one mind in a house,) and if death has not been permitted to rob us of those, in whose welfare we are deeply interested! Perhaps during the preceding year we have entered into new connexions, or had our families enlarged. Perhaps our business has prospered; or the difficulties with which we have contended, have been overcome. In all these things we ought to acknowledge the hand of God, and to think how highly favoured we have been above myriads of our fellow-creatures.

But if we turn our thoughts to the contemplation of our spiritual mercies, what ground shall we find for the liveliest gratitude, and the profoundest adoration! That the ordinances of the Gospel are continued to us, when, for our misimprovement of them our candlestick might so justly have been removed; what a blessing is this! If we only consider that the preached Gospel is, though not the only, yet the principal mean which God makes use of for the salvation of men, we never can be sufficiently thankful that its sound has reached our ears, and its light been exhibited before our eyes; for many prophets and kings have in vain desired to see and hear these things, which we so richly enjoy.

We have all, more or less, been made the subjects of restraining grace: and O, what a tribute of praise does that demand! How many of our fellow-creatures have brought themselves to an untimely end, either by their excesses, or by the hands of the public executioner! How many unhappy females protract a miserable existence by the wages of prostitution! How many, either to conceal their shame, or to avenge a quarrel, have committed murder! How many, to rid themselves of their present troubles, have madly rushed on suicide! Whence is it, I would ask, that we have not fallen into one or other of these evils? Are we made of better materials than they? Have we not all one father? Did they, previous to the commission of their evil deeds, imagine themselves more likely to fall than we? Let us acknowledge the good hand of God upon us; it is God who alone has made us to differ: and if he had not preserved us by his restraining grace, we should at this moment have been numbered with the most miserable and abandoned of the human race.

Some amongst us, we trust, have been made to experience converting grace. And what cause for thankfulness have they! Look around, and see how few even of those who statedly hear the Gospel are savingly converted by it! What then do they owe to God, who have been quickened from the dead; who have had their sins blotted out by the blood of Jesus; who have been made partakers of a divine nature, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven! Should not they raise an Eben-ezer to the Lord?

Nor have they less cause for thankfulness who have received establishing grace. Consider how many have begun to run well, and afterwards been hindered: some waxing cold in their regard to religion; others turning aside to vain jangling; some drawn into infidelity; and others making religion itself hateful and abominable, by their hypocrisy or open impiety. Never does a year pass, but some instances of grievous backsliding occur, to the great dishonour of God, and the grief of all his people. And why are not we the persons that have been left to fall? Have we felt no secret inclination to sin? Have we on no occasion yielded to the suggestions of our great adversary, so that nothing but Omnipotence, snatching us like brands out of the burning, could have preserved us? Have we never inwardly backslidden, so that if God had not for his own mercys sake restored us, we must have departed for ever? Let us only examine the records of our own hearts, and call our own ways to remembrance; and there is not one of us who will not be ready to look upon himself as the greatest monument of mercy that can be found on earth.

Whether then we consider our temporal or our spiritual mercies, we cannot but find unbounded occasion to raise grateful memorials to the Lord our God.]
But it will be proper to shew,

II.

In what manner we should do it

External and visible monuments are very proper expressions of national gratitude: but, as individuals, we must erect very different memorials;

1.

We must get a sense of Gods goodness engraven on our hearts

[We need not to form inscriptions on stone or brass: we are concerned rather to have the mercies of our God written upon our hearts. But here is our great fault: we do not keep his great goodness in remembrance: we forget him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. One single calamity will call forth complaints in abundance: but ten thousand mercies are scarcely sufficient to raise the soul to God, or to excite one desire to requite his love. Sensible of this, David stirred up his soul to the performance of its duty: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless his holy name: bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. It is in this way that we must raise memorials to God: and such memorials he will not despise. One grateful and devout acknowledgment is a more pleasing sacrifice to him than the cattle upon a thousand hills: Whoso offereth him praise, glorifieth him.]

2.

We must endeavour to impress others also with a sense of it

[This is a method of perpetuating the remembrance of his goodness, which the Lord himself has prescribed [Note: Psa 78:5-7.]. And the more sensible we ourselves are of his kindness to us, the more shall we exert ourselves to preserve the knowledge of it in this way. How admirable is the example of David in this particular! He seems to have laboured with all his might, not merely to praise God with his own lips, but to interest all, whether of his own or future generations, in the same blessed employment [Note: Psa 145:1-7.]. On the contrary, how severely was Hezekiah rebuked for ostentatiously displaying his own riches, when he should have been magnifying to the Babylonish ambassadors the Lords goodness, and commending to them the knowledge of the God of Israel [Note: 2Ki 20:12-18 with 2Ch 32:24-25; 2Ch 32:31.]! It is possible enough that he might pretend to give God the glory; but God, who knew his heart, saw that he was lifted up with pride: so we are in danger of erecting memorials rather for our own honour, than for Gods: but we must be exceeding jealous upon this head, lest, instead of pleasing, we offend the Majesty of heaven; and lest, instead of bringing a blessing upon ourselves, we entail a curse. We may boast; but our boast must be of God, and not of ourselves: we may raise monuments; but they must be truly Eben-ezers, ascribing every thing to the Lords help, and not to an arm of flesh.]

3.

We must testify our sense of it by an increased devotion to his service

[If we are sincere in our acknowledgments, we shall be inquiring, What shall I render to the Lord, for all the benefits that he hath done unto me? The end for which our God vouchsafes his mercies to us, is, that we may bring forth fruit to his glory: and, if he find that all his pains and culture are without effect, he will cut us down as cumberers of the ground [Note: Isa 5:3-6; Heb 6:7-8.]. Whatever be our character then, we must make this improvement of the Lords goodness to us: if we are impenitent, it must lead us to repentance; if we are already his servants, it must constrain us to increased diligence in his service, and cause us to abound more and more in every good word and work. We must not satisfy ourselves with empty commendations, crying, Lord, Lord; but must do with cheerfulness and delight whatsoever he commands us.]

4.

We must trust him in all future difficulties and dangers

[This is a very principal end of raising memorials of any kind: it is, not merely to remind us of what God has done, but of what he is ever ready to do, if we call upon him. Here again we are called to admire the conduct of David, who regarded the deliverances which he had experienced from the paws of the lion, and of the bear, as arguments for trusting in God, and for expecting a similar deliverance from the sword of Goliath [Note: 1Sa 17:37.]. St. Paul also made a similar improvement of the mercies vouchsafed to him; saying, God hath delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us [Note: 2Co 1:10.]. Trials will succeed each other, as clouds coming after rain: we are not to expect a termination of them, till we are called to our rest above. Yet while on this account we can only say, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us, we may safely commit ourselves into his hands, knowing, that whoso trusteth in the Lord, shall be even as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but standeth fast for ever [Note: Psa 125:1.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

DISCOURSE: 290
THE DUTY OF COMMEMORATING GODS MERCIES

1Sa 7:12. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

The Jews lived under a Theocracy, and received from God a greater number of visible interpositions in their favour than any other nation under heaven. In remembrance of these, many different memorials were erected, and many rites instituted; that so the people might be kept in a steadfast adherence to him as their rightful Sovereign, and in a constant dependence on him as their almighty Protector. But they were ever prone to depart from him, and to transfer their allegiance to the gods of the heathen that were no gods, but idols of wood and stone. For these iniquities that were frequently given up into the hands of their enemies, and left to feel the bitter consequences of their impiety. But, when they were made sensible of their guilt, and brought to humble themselves before God, he returned in mercy to them, and effected for them the deliverance they implored. Such an interposition was obtained for them by the prayers of Samuel; and in remembrance of it was the stone erected, to which my text refers.
But, as God is the Governor of all the earth, and interposes still for his people as really, though not so visibly, as in the days of old, we will not confine our views of this transaction to the particular deliverance to which it primarily refers, but will extend them generally to the Church at large; and consider it as,

I.

A commemorative act

The Jews at this time were grievously oppressed by the Philistines. Samuel called them to repentance, and promised, that, if they would put away their false gods, and return with penitential sorrow to the Lord their God, they should be delivered out of the hands of their enemies. That their return to Jehovah might be the more solemn and universal, Samuel appointed all the heads of the nation to meet him at Mizpeh. But the Philistines, jealous of so large an assemblage of Israelites on the borders of their country, came forth to attack them: and God, in answer to the prayers of Samuel, rescued his people from their hands, and utterly discomfited the Philistine armies. To commemorate this deliverance, Samuel put up the stone, which he called Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. But, to understand the precise scope of this memorial, we must advert to the means by which the deliverance was obtained. Then we shall see that the stone thus raised, proclaimed, to the whole nation,

1.

That God is a hearer of prayer

[This the people could not but acknowledge, since they all had applied to Samuel to entreat the Lord in their behalf [Note: ver. 8.]. And this was a truth which it was of the utmost importance to commemorate, since it demonstrated Jehovah to be the only true God. To this truth the whole Scriptures bear witness. It was in answer to the cries of Israel that God had formerly delivered them from Egypt, and brought them in safety through the Red Sea. When Amalek came forth against them to destroy them in the wilderness, it was not by the sword of Joshua, but by the prayers of Moses, that Israel obtained the victory: for, when the hands of Moses hanged down, Amalek prevailed; but, in consequence of their being held up until the evening, Israel prevailed, and gained at last a complete triumph. In every part of their history the same truth was manifested [Note: See Psa 106:43-44 and Psalms 107 throughout.] And to this hour are the memorials of it the greatest possible encouragements to seek for mercy at his hands.]

2.

That he will deliver his penitent and believing people

[Here we must have an especial eye to the occasion before us. The people, in compliance with the exhortations of Samuel, prayed, and fasted, and confessed their sins, and put away their strange gods, and gave themselves up to Jehovah, to serve him only [Note: ver. 6.]. This shewed the sincerity of their repentance, without which they could not hope for mercy at Gods hands.

But, as humiliation alone could be of no avail, Samuel offered a sucking lamb as a burnt-offering to God, thereby acknowledging the peoples desert to be utterly consumed, and their hope of acceptance only through a vicarious sacrifice. And it is remarkable, that, as Samuel was in the very act of offering this sacrifice, God thundered with a great thunder upon the Philistines, and, by the terror which those thunders inspired, caused them to fall an easy prey to the sword of Israel [Note: ver. 911. A still more glorious testimony he gave to Peters exhibition of this Lamb of God as crucified for the sins of men. See Act 10:43-44.].

Thus the people were reminded, that in all their approaches to the throne of grace there must be an union of penitence and faith: and that, whenever they so approached God, they should assuredly be delivered, however great might be the difficulties in which they were involved, or imminent the dangers to which they were exposed.]
But to all future ages also was this memorial intended to convey,

II.

An instructive lesson

It plainly teaches us,

1.

That we should often review our past mercies

[All have received mercies in abundance, which they ought from time to time to review, in order to impress a sense of them the more deeply on their minds. For want of this, how many mercies are forgotten! and what a loss do we sustain by means of our forgetfulness! Blessings that are unnoticed are no more to us than they are to the brute creation: but if we bring them frequently to our remembrance, we have frequently in the retrospect a sweeter taste of them than we had in the actual possession. From this act of Samuels then let us learn to pass over no mercy without labouring to imprint it on our minds, and to retain the remembrance of it to our dying hour.]

2.

That we should especially view the hand of God in them

[It is this which gives the chief zest to all our mercies. And to whom can we trace them but to God? Look at your temporal mercies; the time, and place of your birth, when the light of the Gospel was shining all around youyour preservation during the helpless state of infancy, which so many myriads of human beings never survivethe many deliverances, seen, and unseen, which you have experienced sincethe blessings of health and abundance, whilst so many have spent their days in sickness and want. View but the last year, and see how many have been plunged into deep distress, from which you are exempt; or been called away into the eternal world, whilst you are left with protracted opportunities of working out your salvation Think of your spiritual mercies. Have you any measure of light in your minds, of softness in your hearts, of holiness in your lives? Have you any hopes in Christ as your Saviour; any experience of the Spirit as your Comforter; any prospects of heaven, as your inheritance? Think of multitudes around you, or look at those who are gone beyond redemption, and say, whether it is within the power of language to express your obligations to your God. For who is it that has made you to differ? Will you, or can you, trace these blessings to your own superior wisdom, or goodness, or strength? Must you not of necessity acknowledge the hand of God in them, and say, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us? Surely in reference to every blessing, whether temporal or spiritual, you must say with David, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise.]

3.

That we should make our experience of past mercies the ground of expecting all that we can need from God in future

[Doubtless the memorial raised by Samuel was particularly intended to answer this end. And so should the memorials that are raised in our hearts: Thou hast been my help; therefore under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice [Note: Psa 63:7.]: Because the Lord hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live [Note: Psa 116:2.]. This was St. Pauls mode of improving past mercies: God, says he, delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us [Note: 2Co 1:10.]. From what we have received hitherto, we know what to expect henceforth. O blessed effect of preserving memorials of past mercies in our minds! What holy confidence will it introduce into the soul, and what a happy anticipation even of eternal blessedness! Only let the Eben-ezer which Samuel erected teach us this, and we shall ourselves raise in due time a similar memorial in the realms of bliss.]

Application
1.

Take now a review of all that God has done for you in times past

[Let those who are yet living as without God in the world contemplate Gods forbearance towards them Let those who have been brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel survey the riches of divine grace displayed towards them Let believers bring to their remembrance their manifold temptations, their grievous back-slidings, their repeated falls; or, if they have been kept from falling, the almost miraculous succours by which they have been upheld Then will the example before us have its due effect; and God will receive the glory due unto his name.]

2.

Look forward now to all that you can need from God in times to come

[Nothing but a sense of our necessities will keep us properly dependent on God. Let your minds then be continually intent on this subject. Think of all you need for body or for soul for time or for eternity And then see what need you have for help from God in future. Yet be not disheartened by the sight of all your necessities; but remember, that however great they be, God is able to supply all your need out of his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Call to mind the promises of help which God has given you in his word [Note: Isa 41:10-16.]; see how ample they are; how repeated; how strong! Though thou art but a worm, yet through him thou shalt thresh the mountains. In a full persuasion of this, commit your every concern to him, and expect that he will be a very present help to you in every time of need. Only trust in him with your whole hearts, and you shall not be ashamed or confounded world without end.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

(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.

This spot between Mizpeh and Shen, was rendered the more memorable because this was the very spot where 20 years before the Philistines had defeated Israel. See 1Sa 4:1-2 . Reader! how many Ebenezers have you and I erected of deliverances and mercies? Alas! if we cannot point to very, very many, it is not because our gracious God hath afforded no remarkable occasions for them; but because they have passed by unnoticed and disregarded from our ungrateful and unworthy minds. How much owest thou unto my Lord? is a question, I would pray for grace to put to my soul in the close of every day and night.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

1Sa 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.

Ver. 12. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it. ] As a trophy or lasting monument of that day’s victory. So when the Spanish armada was defeated here in 1588, money was coined with a navy flying away at full sail, and this inscription, Venit, Vidit, Fugit. It came, it saw, it fled.

Between Mizpeh and Shen. ] Where, before, the Israelites had been beaten, and the ark taken. 1Sa 4:1

And called the name of it Ebenezer, ] i.e., The stone of help. So the place where Charles the Great vanquished his enemies was called Mons adiutorii, the hill of help a Alexander the Great called the mountain where he overcame Darius, Nicatorium, or the place of conquest. b

Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. ] And we trust he will do so still; for every former mercy is a pledge of a future.

a Crantz., Har., lib. ii. cap. 4.

b Strabo.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Ebenezer

i.e. The stone of help.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

The Stone of Help

Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.1Sa 7:12.

1. The Israelites had rejected the Lord as their God before the prophet Samuel was raised to teach them and to deliver them from their enemies, and consequently they were severely oppressed by the Philistines. Samuel assured Israel that if they would return unto the Lord with all their hearts He would deliver them out of the hands of the Philistines. They turned to the Lord; they put away their idols; they renounced their evil habits; and they asked the prophet to pray to the Lord for them. Their enemies, the Philistines, came against Israel when they were actually engaged in renewing their covenant with the Lord under the guidance of the prophet. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten down before Israel. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

Are we not all guests of Allah? says the Arab of the desert, as he welcomes the stranger to his tent and showers upon him all that hospitality can suggest. The simple words well indicate the situation. Guests of Allah are we all on our very entrance into the world, and Guests of Allah we remain to the close of our sojourn. We are partakers of a store we have not prepared, spectators of a beauty we have not conceived or executed, and sharers of a glory we only dimly understand.1 [Note: M. C. Albright, The Common Heritage, 135.]

2. Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. The characteristic feature of the inscription lies in the word hitherto. It was no doubt a testimony to special help obtained in that time of trouble; it was a grateful recognition of that help; and it was an enduring monument to perpetuate the memory of it. But it was more, much more. The word hitherto denotes a series, a chain of similar mercies, an unbroken succession of Divine interpositions and Divine deliverances. The special purpose of this inscription was to link on the present deliverance to all the past, and to form a testimony to the enduring faithfulness and mercy of a covenant-keeping God.

The name Ebenezer has become a Christian name. The English Puritans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who loved the Old Testament, were fond of giving Hebrew names to their children. They called their girls by such names as Hagar, Leah, Dinah, Kezia; and they might name their boys Abraham, Phinehas, Habakkuk, Ebenezer. Not only so, but a sailors chapel in England is often called a Bethel; so among the small and simple meeting-houses which used to serve for the Free Churches in country districts there was one here and there that went by the name of the Ebenezer.1 [Note: C. Jerdan.]

3. But was there not something strange in this inscription, considering the circumstances? Could Samuel have forgotten that tragic day at Shilohthe bewildered, terrified look of the messenger that came from the army to bring the news, the consternation caused by his message, the ghastly horror of Eli and his tragic death, the touching death of the wife of Phinehas, and the sad name which she had, with such seeming propriety, given to her babe. Was that like God remembering them? Had Samuel forgotten how the victorious Philistines soon after dashed upon Shiloh like beasts of prey, plundering, destroying, massacring till nothing more remained to be done to justify the name of Ichabod? How could Samuel blot that chapter out of the history? Or how could he say, with that chapter fresh in his recollection, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us?

All that had Samuel considered well. Even amidst the desolations of Shiloh the Lord was helping them. He was helping them to know themselves, helping them to know their sins, and helping them to know the bitter fruit and woeful punishment of sin. He was helping them to achieve the great end for which He had called themto keep alive the knowledge of the true God and the practice of His worship, onward to the time when the great promise should be realizedwhen He should come in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed.

That hitherto is the word of a mighty faith. It includes as parts of one whole the disaster no less than the victory. The Lord was helping Israel no less by sorrow and oppression than by joy and deliverance. The defeat which guided them back to Him was tender kindness and precious help. He helps us by griefs and losses, by disappointments and defeats; for whatever brings us closer to Him, and makes us feel that all our bliss and well-being lie in knowing and loving Him, is helpful beyond all other aid, and strength-giving above all other gifts.

I see the wrong that round me lies,

I feel the guilt within;

I hear, with groan and travail-cries,

The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,

And tossed by storm and flood,

To one fixed trust my spirit clings;

I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim

And seraphs may not see,

But nothing can be good in Him

Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below

I dare not throne above:

I know not of His hate,I know

His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known

Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own

His judgments too are right.1 [Note: J. G. Whittier.]

I

The Help of the Lord

Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

1. We need the help of the Lord.Samuel seems to suggest that the Israelites had done their part. They had fulfilled the national expectation that every man should do his duty. Yet the achievement and glory of the deliverance which the Israelites had experienced, and the mercy which they had received, he ascribes entirely to Jehovah. It was His right arm that had gotten them the victory. He thundered from the heavens, sent panic into the hosts of the Philistines, and made them an easy prey to the Israelites.

Every man who understands his own heart, and who knows his own weakness, will readily assent to the proposition that we daily need in the soul the help of God in Christ. What light and warmth are to the animal world, what a mother is to her young child, God is to our religious life. Our spiritual life is born of God, and we need His grace to overcome the sin that is within, and the temptation that is without. To stand up against all forms of social evil uninjured in soul is to stand in the strength of One who only can make us dwell in safety.

The stone was a Te Deum: it bore no mans name, not even Samuels; it said, We praise thee, O God. Throughout Europe there is no lack of monuments, streets, and bridges which are named after battles; but only some of the inscriptions on them give God the glory. Even Lord Macaulays lines are not to be commended which he puts into the mouth of the Huguenots about the battle of Ivry

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!

And glory to our sovereign liege, King Henry of Navarre!

Surely the Huguenot prince had no glory at all, by reason of the glory that excelleth.1 [Note: C. Jerdan.]

2. The help of the Lord is always equal to our need.In the old world, kings and warriors acknowledged the impossibility of standing up against those whom God helps. Moses was more than equal to the King of Egypt because God was with him. And the Christian man can say to-day, without fear of failure, He that is for us is more than all the forces that are against us.

Tired! Well, what of that?

Didst fancy life was spent on beds of ease,

Fluttering the rose-leaves scattered by the breeze?

Come! rouse thee, work while it is calld to-day!

Coward, arisego forth upon the way!

Lonely! And what of that?

Some must be lonely; tis not given to all

To feel a heart responsive rise and fall,

To blend another life into its own;

Work may be done in loneliness; work on.

Dark! Well, what of that?

Didst fondly dream the sun would never set?

Dost fear to lose thy way? Take courage yet,

Learn thou to walk by faith and not by sight,

Thy steps will guided be, and guided right.

Hard! Well, what of that?

Didst fancy life one summer holiday

With lessons none to learn, and naught but play?

Go, get thee to thy task; conquer or die!

It must be learned,learn it, then, patiently.

No help! Nay, tis not so;

Though human help be far, thy God is nigh,

Who feeds the ravens hears His children cry.

Hes near thee wheresoeer thy footsteps roam,

And He will guide thee, light thee, help thee home.

3. Gods help is conditioned on our co-operation in faith and love.He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him. Jesus answered and said, If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

(1) Divine help is conditioned on prayer. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it for a whole burnt offering unto the Lord; and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.

O Thou who dwellst between the cherubim,

Bow down Thine ear, and hear my sad complaint,

Bow down Thine eye, and see my deep distress;

Save, Father, that Thy children and the world

May know that Thou and only Thou art God.

In every gone-by trouble Thou hast heard,

Thou hast upheld, till now! Across the waste,

The dreary wilderness of trodden years,

Faith can full many an Ebenezer see,

Pillars erected to commemorate

The answered prayer, the great deliverance known.

I plead no merit, Lord; no worthiness;

I plead Thy Name, Thy promise; yea, I look

To Thee in Thy true temple, confident

That while the prayer of faith is lisped without,

Our great Melchizedek will incense give

From His gold censer in the sanctuary,

Perfumed by which my prayer acceptably

Will reach the presence of the Lord of Hosts.1 [Note: Ebenezer Palmer.]

(2) Divine help is further conditioned on self-help. God helps those who help themselves. He works in living men and women. We must use the grace we have if we want more. We must walk in the light that shines to-day if we want more light to-morrow. Our Lord healed the withered hand after the man had stretched it forth. The blind man had to wash in the pool of Siloam before he received his sight. If there is one man God cannot help it is the man who sits with folded arms waiting for something to turn up. Things work together for good. God works in us, and we are to work out our own salvation.

(3) Divine help is also conditioned on whole-hearted consecration to God. And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your heart, then put away the strange gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

Lord, oft I come unto Thy door,

But when Thou openest it to me,

Back to the dark I shrink once more,

Away from light and Thee.

Lord, oft some gift of Thee I pray;

Thou givest bread of finest wheat;

Empty I turn upon my way,

Counting a stone more sweet.

Thou bidst me speed; then sit I still;

Thou bidst me stay; then do I go;

Lord, make me Thine in deed and will,

And ever keep me so!1 [Note: Lizette Woodworth Reese.]

II

Memorials of Help

Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shen.

1. This stone in Celtic would be called a cromlech. From the earliest times men have reared stones; for instance, the stones of Stonehenge, and the great and lonely cromlechs that you meet with, both in the far East and in the far West. These stones reared by men in the distant past indicate their littleness and their greatness. They indicate their littleness, because they are conscious that their time on earth is brief, and that they will soon be forgotten; and they, therefore, desire to link the memory of their life, their joy, their victory, or their devotion, with some permanent memorial which in after years will record where they suffered and conquered and prayed. Thus man, knowing that he has but a short time to live, tries to defy the ravages of time, and, in erecting the cromlech, confesses his transience. Yet the cromlech witnesses to the greatness of manthat man is able to invest with such associations a stone that was before uninteresting. A mere block of granite or limestone becomes ever after interesting, because one man sinned, suffered, repented, conquered, prayed.

What do I think of souvenirs? I like them much, provided they are not costly. Yet I know not whether I do not like even more to dispense with symbols altogether. For they gather round them, by constant use, new associations, by which the old are obliterated, the precious and hallowed first ones. All things worn or often seen are liable to this. The old habit of erecting an altar of stones to commemorate any signal event was different. It was revisited only at the interval of years, and infallibly brought back the old feeling with which it had stood in connection once. But ornaments, and such things, collect accretions of daily incidents which they suggest, and the symbol does not naturally, but only arbitrarily, recall the person or idea intended to be consecrated by it. I have an insuperable objection to presentsalmost a monomania; I am happier without receiving.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 172.]

What a wonderful tribute it is to the greatness of human life that it can associate with a stone undying memories. It is the power of associating human life with Nature that makes these lands in which we live so fascinating. Why is it that Americans cross the Atlantic, and come again and again, and spend months and almost years, in our country? They have broader and richer territories yonder, nobler rivers, more magnificent and splendid ranges of mountains than they ever find in Great Britain. But here the race was cradled, and as the train rushes through our tiny island there is hardly a single point of view anywhere which is not interesting because of associations of human life that cluster around the mouldering walls of the ancient abbeys and cathedrals.2 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]

Last summer I sojourned for a few days in a village situated on the northern slopes of the Ochils. While there I heard frequent reference made to a curious stone called the Ebenezer Stone, said to exist in a lonely spot far up among the hills. I resolved to see it, and set off one beautiful day, along with some friends, to look for it. After a long climb, and considerable search, we found ita plain stone like a small gravestone, two feet six inches in height, and two feet broad. On the upper edge was deeply cut the word Ebenezer. On one side was an inscription in Latin, which I translated thus: Here out of darkness light shone forth, therefore glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, my God; and the name of this place is Light. On the other side were the well-known words of Isaiah: Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. What was the meaning of it all? That stone with its inscriptions is a monumental record of a souls history. More than a hundred years ago, a stranger came to these parts and set up as a sheep-farmer. He was reserved, moody, and distant. He had been trained for the ministry, but, owing to theological doubts, had never taken orders. He was long under the cloud. He walked in darkness and agony, until one blessed and ever-memorable day, on that lone hillside, the light shone upon his troubled soul, and he found God and peace. And so, like the patriarchs of old, he set up his stone of Ebenezer, of thankfulness to God, and there it stands to-day after a hundred years, an encouragement to every troubled and benighted soul.1 [Note: D. Watson, In Lifes School, 177.]

I wonder if there ever was an old homestead in America which did not have its Ebenezer stone in the front yard; the old stone that was allowed to remain, the survivor of the rocky field of one hundred years ago, before the house was built, and all the rest were cleaned out, while this old rock was left. Its hard surface scooped out here and there to hold a little water for the robins and the sparrows that come to bathe and drink in the morning; its old sides embossed and bronzed with lichens and mosses, altogether worn with the feet of the children of three generations, embowered in wild vines and flowing honeysuckleit stands there the sign of Gods blessing from the wilderness of the past!2 [Note: E. J. Haynes.]

2. But in order that a memorial may have its value for the spiritual life, it has to be erected on a battlefield of the past, and it has to be the sign of our consecration to Gods service in the future.

(1) Our memorials are erected on the battlefields of the past. Samuels Ebenezer was placed on the site of an old battlefield. Twenty years before, a battle had been fought and lost upon that very site. Then the fields, which were now waving with corn, had been drenched with the blood of 30,000 men. There the corpses had been heaped highest, for there the last terrific conflict took place around the ark, where Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, with desperate vigour, gathered the people of Israel to preserve the sacred ark which, against the best judgment of Eli, had been brought into the van of the battle.

But it was not only the scene of defeat, it was the scene of victory; for, during the twenty years that had intervened, Samuel had been building up, had been reconstructing, the Hebrew State, until that great meeting at Mizpah. There he had rallied the whole nation round him, and there he had revived the national unity; there he had brought the people back to allegiance to God; they had swept down the mountain-side in irresistible onslaught, and when the Philistines attacked they overcame and drove them down to Bethcar. And so the stones reared up in a field which had been the scene of the most disastrous defeat, became twenty years after, because of moral and spiritual work that Samuel had done, the scene of the most stupendous victory.

Now and again in the history of the world it has happened that the same spot has witnessed first a defeat and then a victory. During the Middle Ages the republic of Genoa, in Italy, was often at war with the republic of Pisa. On one occasion the Genoese were badly beaten in a sea-fight near the little island of Meloria; but the time came afterwards, in the year 1284, when the Genoese admiral, Oberto Doria by name, directed his warships to the same spot, and said, Here is that rock; a Genoese defeat made it famous,a victory would make it immortal. The result of the second battle was a great victory for Genoa. Half the Pisan fleet, of seventy-two galleys, was destroyed. The power of Pisa was crushed. So great was the number of prisoners taken by the Genoese that it was said, To see Pisa, you must now go to Genoa. And Pisa was compelled to give up to Genoa the whole of Corsica and part of Sardinia, and to pay a fine of 160,000 gold pieces.

Are there not battlefields in our life which have been the scenes of our disgraceful defeat? Are there not stones in the walls of our houses which have looked on and beheld our abominable and shameless sin, our irritability, our jealousy, our hot unkind and cruel words, things which, as we remember them to-day, fill our heart with horror that ever we could have had aught to do with them? But these same stones and bricks and walls are to look down upon victory where there was defeat, upon might where there was weakness, upon purity where there was defilement, upon the sweet and holy temper where there was the ungovernable passion, upon standing erect with Gods light upon our brow, where we were prostrate beneath the heel of the enemy.1 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]

(2) The stone of help erected by the Israelites was a witness to the consecration of the people to Gods service. First Samuel made them put away their gods; and they vowed they would, and cast them from their pedestals, and the licentious impurities and usages were disavowed. Then the prophet of God took a ewer of water, whilst all the people watched him narrowly, and he poured out the water upon the ground. How it flashed in the Oriental sunlight! And as he did so he set forth the desire of himself and the people to pour out their hearts in confession before God, a most significant and beautiful sign. It was often referred to afterwards, as when some one said, Ye people pour out your hearts before him. So, as he poured out the water, they poured out their tears, their sighs, their repentance, their yearning after a better life. But that was not all. The Philistines began to steal up the passes, and the people cried out with alarm. Samuel took a sucking lamb and sacrificed it whole upon the altar, to indicate the entire surrender of the people to God.

The Odin Stone in the Orkneys had a hole through which men passed their hands, and, thus holding them, swore fealty to each other,a practice recognized by the law of the islands down to a very recent period. Even as late as 1781 the elders were specially severe on a young man whose character was held in evil repute because he had broken the oath of Woden. This stone was eighteen feet high, and stood outside the circle of Stennis.1 [Note: G. H. Dick.]

III

The Past, the Present, and the Future

Hitherto.

Thou hast not suffered me to see the Hereafter, but Thou hast allowed me to behold the Hitherto, and verily the Hitherto is glorious.2 [Note: G. Matheson.]

Happiness is the shadow of things past,

Which fools still take for that which is to be!

And not all foolishly:

For all the past, read true, is prophecy,

And all the firsts are hauntings of some Last,

And all the springs are flash-lights of one Spring.3 [Note: Francis Thompson.]

1. The Past.The Ebenezer was set up by Samuel just after an ungrateful and sinning people had repented. God was merciful. The storm of lightning and the crash of thunder that had scattered the Philistines might have scattered them. But under the divinely-wise leadership of Samuel the great convention at Mizpah was closed by the erection of this stone; and it meant gratitude to Jehovah who both pardoned them and fought for them. There is an important sense in which we do not or ought not to forget the things which are behind. It is true we must be progressive as Christians and as Churches in all Christian excellences; we are not to become fossils; we are not to become mummies, standing erect but dead; we are to press on towards perfection. But a great impulse to progress comes from the retrospect of mercies received and victories won for us; so that we are not to forget the way by which God has led His Israel; with David we say, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

We delight to look down a long avenue of trees. It is delightful to gaze from end to end of the long vista, a sort of verdant temple, with its branching pillars and its arches of leaves; even so should we look down the long aisles of our years, at the green boughs of mercy overhead, and the strong pillars of loving-kindness and faithfulness which bear up our joys. Are there no birds in yonder branches singing? Surely there must be many, and they all sing of mercy received hitherto.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

Oh, to go back across the years long vanished,

To have the words unsaid, the deeds undone,

The errors cancelled, the deep shadows banished,

In the glad sense of a new world begun;

To be a little child, whose page of story

Is yet undimmed, unblotted by a stain,

And in the sunrise of primeval glory

To know that life has had its start again!

I may go back across the years long vanished,

I may resume my childhood, Lord, in Thee,

When in the shadow of Thy cross are banished

All other shadows that encompass me;

And oer the road that now is dark and dreary,

This soul, made buoyant by the strength of rest,

Shall walk untired, shall run and not be weary,

To bear the blessing that has made it blest.

2. The Present.Those pillars, the sacraments, the songs of praise to which past mercies prompted, are scenes or means of present fellowship with God. We cannot live upon a vanished vision, or a good impression twenty or twenty-five years old. God is always new and fresh and bright as the dawn. The light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun. Have we a fellowship with God as we see Him in Christ, sweet and restful and refreshing, every day as we read a chapter of the Holy Book, as we kneel or walk about with Him in heart-easing conversation?

3. The Future.Hitherto means more than it says. It looks forward as well as backward, and sees the future in the past. Memory passes into hope, and the radiance in the sky behind throws light upon our forward path. Gods hitherto carries henceforward wrapped up in it. His past reveals the eternal principles which will mould His future acts. He has helped, therefore He will help is no good argument concerning men; but it is valid concerning God.

We may reason from the past to the future, but our confidence for the future must be based on the help of Him who in the past has not suffered us to be overthrown. The Christians life is bound up in God, and only he can say of the past, the present, and the future: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.

When a man gets up to a certain mark and writes hitherto, he is not yet at the end, there is still a distance to be traversed. More trials, more joys; more temptations, more triumphs; more prayers, more answers; more toils, more strength; more fights, more victories; and then come sickness, old age, disease, and death. Is it over now? No! there is more yetawakening in Jesus likeness, thrones, harps, songs, psalms, white raiment, the face of Jesus, the society of saints, the glory of God, the fulness of eternity, the infinity of bliss. O be of good courage, believer, and with grateful confidence raise thy Ebenezer, for

He who hath helped thee hitherto

Will help thee all thy journey through.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

Before us lie the hills, sunlit with promise,

Fairer fulfilments than the past could know,

New growths of soul, new leadings of the Spirit.

And all the glad surprises God will show.

Literature

Davies (J. LI.), Spiritual Apprehension, 329.

Dick (G. H.), The Yoke and the Anointing, 187.

Humberstone (W. J.), The Cure of Care, 83.

James (J. A.), Sermons, iii. 189.

Jerdan (C.), Gospel Milk and Honey, 89.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Deuteronomy1 Samuel, 283.

Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 201.

Meyer (F. B.), Samuel the Prophet, 53.

Pentecost (G. F.), Bible Studies: Mark and Jewish History, 221.

Salmond (C. A.), For Days of Youth, 364.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, ix. (1863), No. 500.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Morning by Morning, 365.

Williams (T. M.), Sermons of the Age, 85.

Christian World Pulpit, xlii. 22 (Hall); lxi. 244 (Meyer).

Expository Times, vii. 86 (Ford).

Homiletic Review, l. 386 (Haynes).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

took a stone: Gen 28:18, Gen 28:19, Gen 31:45-52, Gen 35:14, Jos 4:9, Jos 4:20-24, Jos 24:26, Jos 24:27, Isa 19:19

Ebenezer: that is, The stone of help, 1Sa 4:1, 1Sa 5:1, Gen 22:14, Exo 17:15

Hitherto: Psa 71:6, Psa 71:17, Isa 46:3, Isa 46:4, Act 26:22, 2Co 1:10

Reciprocal: Deu 12:10 – ye dwell Deu 26:9 – he hath Jos 4:3 – twelve stones Jos 22:27 – a witness 1Sa 7:5 – Mizpeh 1Sa 15:12 – he set him 1Sa 17:37 – The Lord 1Ch 5:20 – And they 1Ch 15:26 – God 1Ch 17:16 – that thou hast 2Ch 20:26 – the name Psa 27:9 – thou Phi 4:6 – thanksgiving

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE STONE OF HELP

Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

1Sa 7:12

Ebenezer, the help-stone. It was the custom of the Jews to commemorate their victories by erecting stone pillars to the glory of God. It was one way of writing history. One of the first of these help-stones was erected at Bethel, as recorded in Gen 28:18. This Ebenezer-stone was set up between Mizpeh and Shen, to commemorate the triumph of Israel over the Philistines. Inspired by the thunder-voice of Jehovah, they rushed down the hill upon their foes, and the result was a defeata routea dbcle. God fights for those who fight for the right. The battle is never too strong for him who hath the Almighty for his comrade. They that trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved. A God-fearing army is practically irresistiblethe Ironsides, for example.

I. Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.It was no formal thought or transient word of mouth; but a solid, substantial pillar of stone. They gave a visible and tangible proof of their gratitude to God for the victory. Their thanksgivings were embodied in durable stone, for without the aid of the stone mental impressions too often fade away. The Lord loves to be helped by man, strange as this may seem; and man also loves to be helped by God, and he is never so triumphant as when he has the Omnipotent for his Helper. We went through fire and through water; but Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.

II. And yet myriads of us forget to rear our pillars!Thousands of favours received, and yet not a single Ebenezer erected! This non-recognition of the Divine help is practical atheism. Too many of us are crying out with Nebuchadnezzar, Is not this great Babylon which I have built? This Christian land ought to be covered with Ebenezers; but, alas, how few they are! What heartless ingrates the great majority of us are in reality! If we only considered seriously what the Lord has done for us individually and collectively, our help-stones would cover the land and our psalms of praise would rend the sky.

III. Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.It was not Israels military prowess that achieved the victory; but Jehovahs help. God is in history, deny it who will. He is at the very heart of the ages, keeping them sweet, and pure, and harmonious. He is not the Great Absentee; but a God who is immanent in all the centuries, directing their onward and upward movement. It was the Lord that nerved Israel for the fray; and His glory must not be handed over to secondary causes. Woe unto the man who insults the Almighty by offering Him less than His due. Ebenezerhitherto hath the Lord helped us. His arm brings salvation, and on no account must we give His glory to another. The Ebenezers are His by Divine right.

Illustrations

(1) We delight to look down a long avenue of trees. It is delightful to gaze from end to end of the long vista, a sort of verdant temple, with its branching pillars and its arches of leaves; even so look down the long aisles of your years, at the green boughs of mercy overhead, and the strong pillars of lovingkindness and faithfulness which bear up your joys. Are there no birds in yonder branches singing? Surely there must be many, and they all sing of mercy received hitherto.

(2) The stone of Ebenezer was set up to commemorate that glorious deliverance; and it is interesting to notice that it stood upon the very spot where Israel met with the great defeat that led to the capture of the ark. How wonderful that the story of victory should be recorded on the plain which had witnessed so crushing a defeat! (1Sa 4:1; 1Sa 7:12.) At the very place where you have fallen, you shall stand, for God is able to make you stand. Where you have been overthrown, you shall be more than conqueror. The rocks which were strewn with the autumn leaves shall be festooned with the flowers of another spring. Where you have sown the seed in tears, you shall come again, bringing your sheaves.

(3) There were two fights on this one field. In the first, Israel were disastrously defeated, yet, in spite of all disadvantages, the victory this time is with Israel. This reversal of the defeat of the past may also be applied to our sorrows and disappointments. There are no irrevocable defeats nor any losses that cannot be more than made up. There are infinite stores in the purposes and in the sweetness of God to fill all emptiness, and make up for all losses. Divine joy is often struck out, like a spark from a flint, by the hard blow of a sharp sorrow on the heart. Our sorrows and pains cut deep letters on our hearts, which often bleed in the process; but they are cut so deep that, as lapidaries sometimes do, He may fill them with gold.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

1Sa 7:12. Then Samuel took a stone A rude, unpolished stone, which was not prohibited by that law, Lev 26:1, there being no danger of worshipping such a stone, and this being set up only as a monument of the victory. Eben-ezer That is, the stone of help. And this victory was gained in the very same place where the Israelites received their former fatal loss. Helped us He hath begun to help us, though not completely to deliver us. By which wary expression, he excited both their thankfulness for the mercy received, and their holy fear and care to please and serve the Lord, that he might help and deliver them effectually.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

7:12 Then Samuel took a stone, and set [it] between Mizpeh and {g} Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.

(g) Which was a great rock over against Mizpeh.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes