April 8, 2005
Here I Raise My Ebenezer
Samuel took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer—"the stone of help"—for he said, "Up to this point the Lord has helped us!" —1 Samuel 7:12, NLT
Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm 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. —Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
After a long period of sadness and trouble, a consequence of Israel's disobedience, Israel repented under the leadership of a new priest and judge, Samuel. God restored their political security, and the people, for their part, re-committed their hearts and minds to their Lord.
Samuel placed a large stone at the place where this restoration began. He publicly dedicated it as a monument to God's help, God's faithfulness, God's eternal covenant. And as the people got on with their lives, the stone stood there, visible to all who passed that way, a reminder of judgment and repentance, mercy and restoration.
The Ebenezer stone represented a fresh beginning, a reversal of course for God's people. It also said something important about God: his mercies are everlasting; his covenant is forever.
I have friends who keep prayer journals. They record their requests to God and the answers they receive. In this way, they can go back into the past and review their walk with God; they are reminded of his faithfulness.
Prayer journals are a type of Ebenezer stone.
Members of AA can tell you how long they have been sober. They keep alive the memory of the last drink they took, and with each new day, one day at a time, they move further down the road of sobriety. AA is on to something important. Do they ask their members to count the number of years spent in drunken waste? No. They count the days spent walking in a new direction. All that went before is water over the dam.
I tend to beat myself up about mistakes I made long, long ago. I don't forgive myself, even though I accept the fact of God's forgiveness. Perhaps you can identify with me. But that's not what God desires.
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven. —Philippians 3:13b,14, NLT (The Apostle Paul writing)
I should set up an Ebenezer stone, I think, to serve as a continual reminder that I am forgiven, that I have chosen a new direction, that God has made a permanent covenant with all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
Samuel was a wise and godly man with a good idea. He recognized something that's true about human nature—we're forgetful. At Ebenezer, Israel could stand next to that big old rock and remind themselves, "Yes, we serve a living and faithful God, whose mercies are everlasting."
Update: Gary Parrett of Gordon-Conwell has written a thoughtful article for Christianity Today called Raising Ebenezer, in which he argues for preserving archaic language in Christian hymns because they inform our faith in ways that contemporary language cannot not. Some good things to think about.
• 1 Samuel 7:2-17
By Joseph Matos
Dallas Baptist University, Dallas
Gary Parrett recently lamented the changing of words and phrases in some long-favorite hymns in an attempt to update the text for modern worshippers (“Raising Ebenezer,” Christianity Today, January 2006).
As the title of his article reveals, one change to which he takes particular exception is that found in the second verse of Robert Robinson’s 1758 hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The line reads: “Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come.”
Several substitutions have appeared, but of them, few correspond to the significance—both biblical and personal—behind Robinson’s use of the term “Ebenezer.” The rationale given for the change is that “Ebenezer,” for many, means something very different from what Robinson intended.
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But what lies behind this change (and those found in other hymns) is not the phrase’s failure to remain relevant for contemporary worshippers, but a lack of Bible knowledge on the part of those worshippers. This really is unfortunate, because it is just one example among hundreds in which hymns reflect direct biblical teaching and/or occasions on which the Bible’s teaching became particularly meaningful for the writers.
This means that where there is a question about the meaning of a text, we should inquire as to the basis for the words and phrases used. In this instance, such inquiry would lead us to 1 Samuel 7, an account of Israel’s deliverance by God.
Chapters 4-6 provide the background for the crisis described in this passage. Israel has been defeated in combat by the Philistines, their perennial foe. After assessing their losses, the Israelites (wrongly) determined the reason for the defeat was waging war without the ark of the covenant.
However, in a subsequent battle, despite the presence of the ark, the Philistines again defeated Israel. In addition, they captured the ark and, as prophesied, Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were killed.
Upon hearing the bad news, not of his sons’ deaths, but of the capture of the ark, Eli himself fell over and died. While confidence in the ark did not result in victory for the Israelites, possession of the ark only provided misery for the Philistines. So they returned the ark to the Israelites.
Chapter 7 then opens with the Israelites mourning and seeking the Lord. Enter Samuel, who challenged them that if their mourning and seeking were genuine then they should act accordingly. He diagnosed their problem as divided loyalty between the Lord and foreign (Canaanite) gods and challenged them to return to singular devotion to the Lord. If they did that, God would help them defeat the Philistines. 1 Samuel 7:4 tells us they did just that.
If this pattern of sin, oppression, repentance (crying out to the Lord) and the appearance of a deliverer sounds familiar, it should. What we read in these verses is reminiscent of the plight of the Israelites described in the book of Judges, which plays itself out in the same cyclic pattern. In fact, Samuel is described as judging them (7:6, 15).
Upon the Israelites’ rededication to the Lord, Samuel gathered them at Mizpah (a significant meeting place prior to and during that time), and he interceded for them. For their part, the Israelites again expressed their repentance before the Lord in deed and word. They drew out some water, poured it on the ground and fasted. They then confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD” (v. 6).
The Philistines viewed this gathering as the perfect opportunity to attack Israel. Because of previous defeats, the Israelites again feared, but Samuel enjoined them to persistent prayer to God for deliverance. Samuel himself offered a sacrifice and “cried out to the Lord on Israel's behalf” (v. 9).
The Lord was quick to respond in defending Israel. In a manner reminiscent of past battles, God employed a form of natural catastrophic event (here, he “thundered with loud thunder” v. 10) to throw the enemy into a panic (see, for example, Judges 5:4-5). Such confusion opened the way for the Israelites to pursue and defeat the Philistines.
To commemorate the victory, Samuel set up a stone monument between the towns of Mizpah and Shen, naming it “Ebenezer” (v. 12), from two words meaning “stone” (eben) and “help” (ezer). The reason for the name is clear: “Thus far has the Lord helped us” (v. 12).
In reality, the name was a bit of an understatement. God did more then help. Before the Israelites pursued the Philistines, verse 10 reports “they (the Philistines) were routed” in front of them. Israel pursued those that remained.
Previously, Samuel faithfully proclaimed the word of the Lord, stabilizing an internal crisis (chapter 3). Here he turned the people back to God, averting an external threat. The Israelites learned once again that reliance upon the Lord only and not upon foreign gods, or even objects designed to point people to God (i.e., the ark), was the “help” they needed for deliverance.
By erecting the “stone of help,” Samuel did his part to provide Israel with a constant reminder of God’s provision. However, that God kept the Philistines at bay as long as Samuel lived (v. 13) and that Israel later asked Samuel for a king (chapter 8) suggest this was a lesson Israel soon forgot.
Recently, we sang Robinson’s hymn at church. The original line was there. What an opportunity to recall this story of deliverance. May we not follow Israel’s example and forget how God has helped us.
Discussion questions
• How often have you forgotten God's provision in your life?
• If you kept a record of God's provision and rescue in your life, what would be in there?
• What tangible thing can you do to remember what God has done for you?
We are misguided whernize hymn texts.
January 1, 2006
One of my mini-crusades recently has been trying to help raise Ebenezer. I seize every opportunity to publicly lament modern revisions of that beloved hymn, "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," written by Robert Robinson in 1758. The revisions all seem to agree on deleting "Ebenezer" from the hymn's second verse, which begins, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer." Some of the "improvements" offered through the years include: "Hitherto thy love has blest me," "Here by grace your love has brought me," and "Here I raise to thee an altar."
Why protest such efforts to make the great hymn's message more accessible to very-likely-to-miss-the-point worshipers today? After all, the word Ebenezer likely calls to mind that old curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge.
But protest I must, for several reasons.
First, I protest on artistic grounds. As a hymn writer myself, I imagine Robinson felt he had found just the right expression to say what needed to be said. His phrasing, in this case, was succinct, biblical, pointed, poignant, and poetic: "Here I raise mine Ebenezer."
Second, the revisions are, at best, inconsistent attempts to be culturally relevant. How can the revisers leave in words like hither and fetter, as they typically do, while Ebenezer is heartlessly expunged?
Third, I protest on biblical grounds. Robinson's choice of Ebenezer (which means "stone of help") is a reference to 1 Samuel 7:12. After the Lord had given a great victory to Israel, "Samuel took a stone and … named it Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far has the Lord helped us.' "
This single word ushers the worshiper into both the biblical episode and the greater narrative of God's redemptive dealings with his people. It points us, also, to Robinson's dramatic conversion three years ...
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