From: 1 Samuel 4:1-11
The Ark is Captured by the Philistines. Death of Eli and His Sons
[5] When the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel
gave a mighty shout, so that the earth resounded. [6] And when the Philistines
heard the noise of the shouting, they said, “What does this great shouting in the
camp of the Hebrews mean?” And when they learned that the ark of the LORD
had come to the camp, [7] the Philistines were afraid; for they said, “A god has
come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has hap-
pened before. [8] Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty
gods? These are the gods who smote the Egyptians with every sort of plague in
the wilderness. [9] Take courage, and acquit yourselves like men, O Philistines,
lest you become slaves to the Hebrews as they have been to you; acquit your-
selves like men and fight.”
[10] So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man
to his home; and there was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty
thousand foot soldiers. [11] And the ark of God was captured; and the two sons
of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
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Commentary:
4:1-7:1. The vicissitudes of the ark will mark a change in the history of the people:
when the ark leaves its ancient home, Shiloh, the shrine of the era of the judges,
will disappear for ever and a new stage will begin, with a new shrine at the house
of Abinadab, and a new priesthood (7:1). These accounts contain important tea-
ching; God protects his peoples but the people are not identified with their God.
In ancient times in the East, the victory of one people over another proved the do-
mination of the god of the victor over the god of the defeated; this is not the case
in Israel: though the people may be overpowered by the Philistines, the Lord God
of Israel continues to be the one, supreme God; he can never be vanquished by
false gods. The accounts included in this section contain anecdotes full of irony
and pieces of popular folklore such as the golden tumors and the golden mice
(cf. the note on 6:1-7:1), but basically the message is that the Lord is ruling over
his people and he protects them even at times of great misfortune: even pagan
peoples, such as the Philistines acknowledge that this is the case.
4:1-22. The ark’s disappearance happens in the context of wars against the Phi-
listines. Here we see that the death of Eli and his sons, the capture of the ark,
and the defeat of the people — all this is due to the sins of the sons of Eli. God
just could not let their sin go unpunished, and he imposed a punishment so se-
vere that Phinehas’ wife had good reason to exclaim, “The glory has departed
from Israel” (v. 21). These misfortunes pile one on the other, to make it clear
that the worst punishment of all was the loss of the ark: its capture involved the
death of Hophni and Phinehas (v. 11); when Eli hears of his Sons’ death, he
falls down dead (v. 18); and Phinehas’ wife, when she is told of these three mis-
fortunes, gives birth prematurely and dies (v. 20). It would be a mistake to think
that the Philistines have gained the victory: it is rather, God who has defeated
the Israelites because they have ceased to trust in him and instead have put
their faith in institutions and objects which have no enduring value, such as the
shrine and its priests.
The Philistines (in Hebrew, “pelestim”) were one of the “sea peoples” (that is,
they were not Semites; cf. Gen 10:14), who had established themselves along
the southern coast of Canaan, Their five most important cities were: (Gaza, Ash-
kelon, Ashdod, Oath and Ekron. By extension, the Greek word “Palaistine (”land
of the ‘pelestim’”) came to describe the entire land of Canaan, giving rise to the
name of Palestine. However, the Israelites never managed to control the entire
Palestine zone, with the result that all along, from the accounts to do with the
patriarchs (Gen 21:32, 34) up to the books of the Kings, the Philistines are de-
picted as irreconcilable enemies of the Israelites.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Mark 1:40-45
The Curing of a Leper
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Commentary:
40-44. Leprosy was seen as a punishment from God (cf. Numbers 12:10-15).
The disappearance of the disease was regarded as one of the blessings of the
messianic times (Isaiah 35:8; cf. Matthew 11:5; Luke 7:22). Because leprosy
was contagious, the Law declared that lepers were impure and that they trans-
mitted impurity to those who touched them and to places they entered. There-
fore, they had to live apart (Numbers 5:2; 12:14ff) and to show that they were
lepers by certain external signs. On the rite of purification, see the note on
Matthew 8:4.
[The note on Matthew 8:4 states:
4. According to the Law of Moses (Leviticus 14), if a leper is cured of his di-
sease, he should present himself to a priest, who will register the cure and give
him a certificate which he needs to be reintegrated into the civil and religious life
of Israel. Leviticus also prescribes the purifications and sacrifice he should offer.
Jesus’ instruction to the leper is, then, in keeping with the normal way of fulfilling
what the laws laid down.]
The passage shows us the faithful and confident prayer of a man needing Jesus’
help and begging Him for it, confident that, if Our Lord wishes, He can free him
from the disease (cf. Matthew 8:2). “This man prostrated himself on the ground,
as a sign of humility and shame, to teach each of us to be ashamed of the stains
of his life. But shame should not prevent us from confessing: the leper showed
his wound and begged for healing. If You will, he says, You can make me clean;
that is, he recognized that the Lord had the power to cure him” (St. Bede, “In
Marci Evangelium Expositio, in loc.”).
On the discretion and prudence Jesus required regarding His person, see the
note on Mark 1:34 and Matthew 9:30.
[The note on Mark 1:34 states:
34. Demons possess a supernatural type of knowledge and therefore they re-
cognize Jesus as the Messiah (Mark 1:24). Through the people they possess
they are able to publish this fact. But Our Lord, using His divine powers, orders
them to be silent. On other occasions He also silences His disciples (Mark 8:
30; 9:9), and He instructs people whom He has cured not to talk about their
cure (Mark 1:4; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26). He may have acted in this way to educate the
people away from a too human and political idea of the Messiah (Matthew 9:30).
Therefore, He first awakens their interest by performing miracles and gradually,
through His preaching, gives them a clearer understanding of the kind of Mes-
siah He is.
Some Fathers of the Church point out that Jesus does not want to accept, in
support of the truth, the testimony of him who is the father of lies.]
[The note on Matthew 9:30 states:
30. Why did our Lord not want them to publicize the miracle? Because His plan
was to gradually manifest Himself as the Messiah, the Son of God. He did not
want to anticipate events which would occur in their own good time; nor did He
want the crowd to start hailing Him as Messiah King, because their notion of
messiah was nationalistic, not a spiritual one. However, the crowd did in fact pro-
claim Him when he worked the miracles of the loaves and the fish (John 6:14-15):
“When the people saw the sign which He had done, they said, ‘This is indeed
the prophet who is to come into the world!’ Perceiving then that they were about
to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the
hills by Himself.”]
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.