So as I mentioned yesterday, every year Elkanah and his family would travel up to Shiloh to attend some sort of worship service to God.
Recall Shiloh was the current dwelling place of the Wilderness Tabernacle and was located about 20 miles north of Jerusalem.
It was also the location of Israel’s tent shrine since the days of Joshua.
Since this was the location of Israel’s holiest object, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Eli the High Priest and his 2 sons lived there.
Now what stands out here is that the names of Eli’s two sons are Egyptian and not Hebrew.
Phinehas and Hophni…
You can tell by saying these names out loud that they aren’t Hebrew.
This isn’t the first time we’ve come across this phenomenon.
Recall back in the wilderness wandering days, there was the Levite who speared a Hebrew man and Midianite woman to death for fornicating in the camp of Adonai.
He was also called Phinehas.
We shouldn’t make too big a deal out of Hebrews having Egyptian names though.
Because it was common to carry over the same names from one generation to another…
It’s not like this was pointing out some sort of loyalty to Egypt or something…
Heck, even Moses isn’t a Hebrew name.
That’s right.
It was a common Egyptian name.
In Hebrew, Moses’ name is actually MOSHEH and it means “to draw out”…
…because Moses was drawn out of the Nile River.
In Egyptian, “Moses” actually means “born of”.
Now there is a huge difference between the Phinehas from the Exodus era and the Phinehas who was one of Elkanah’s sons…
The Phinehas from the Exodus era was declared righteous by God for what he had done…
His act of spearing the couple put an instant end to the plague God had cursed the Israelites with.
The behavior of the other Phinehas however was condemned by God and as we shall see he would meet a sorry fate as a result.
The takeaway I’m getting from this is at the end of the day, it’s not what NAME is attached to you but your ACTIONS that count…
And whether or not you’re obedient to God.
This same idea could be directly applied to one who attends a house of worship.
Just because you attend a congregation regularly, that affiliation in and of itself doesn’t necessarily make you holy and righteous before God.
A lot of folks who attend congregations couldn’t care less about God…
It’s just a weekly social club for them.
It’s what’s in your heart and whether or not you’re obedient to the commands of the Lord that count.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“’Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the Law?’”
Yeshua replied: ‘Love the Lord
your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and
with all your mind.’
This is the first and
greatest commandment.'”
-Matthew 22:36-38
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