“Sha’ul was — years old when he began his reign, and he had ruled Isra’el for two years, when he chose three thousand of Isra’el’s men. Two thousand of them were with Sha’ul in Mikhmas and in the hills of Beit-El, and a thousand were with Y’honatan in Giv‘at-Binyamin. The rest of the people he sent back to their respective tents.”-1 Samuel 13:1-2
Let me remind you that while Saul was king over all of Israel, all of Israel was NOT behind him.
Let’s not forget that he and his tribe of Benjamin were part of the 8-tribe Northern alliance of Israelite tribes.
If you pay close attention, you’ll notice Saul’s activities took place mainly north of Judah.
The north and south may have been geographically separated by mountains.
But it was mostly for political reasons that Judah was never a big fan of Saul being their king.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
The southern tribes of Judah and Simeon didn’t openly defy Saul…
But they didn’t wholeheartedly support him either.
If some misfortune caused Saul to lose his throne, there wouldn’t be much love lost between him and the southern tribes.
To that point, take a look at verse 2 where we’re told that 3,000 men were divided into a group of 1000 and another group of 2000.
It shouldn’t surprise us that the 2000 men who were with Saul were mainly members from Benjamin and the other northern tribes.
Now, one interesting takeaway I’m getting here is how divided Israel has been ever since they entered the Promised Land.
In the beginning, there were minor tribal skirmishes, but now the whole nation was politically divided into the Northern and Southern confederations.
The lesson here is this is how things have been ever since the history of mankind.
Whenever you have a group of people who live and work together, they always end up dividing themselves into opposing groups and fighting each other for no good reason.
Why does this happen?
That’s a good question.
And I think the Bible gives us a solid answer.
It’s the sinful and insecure nature of man’s heart that’s the root cause of all of the conflict in the world.
The Scripture tells us…
“The heart is deceitful
above all things,
and desperately wicked:
who can know it?”
-Jeremiah 17:9
It is an evil heart that harbors petty jealousies and takes perverse delight in the downfall of others.
It is an evil heart that causes us to install a huge swimming pool in our backyard so we can arrogantly show our neighbors how much better we are than them.
It is an evil heart that causes us to commit adultery with another man’s wife and not give a damn about the destruction caused to that man’s family.
It is an evil heart that causes us to not provide for our elderly parents’ needs because we’d rather spend our money on booze and whores.
It is an evil heart that causes us to not share a life-changing business opportunity with someone who we know could benefit from it because deep down inside we don’t want them to succeed and would prefer to see them struggle financially through life.
And, it’s the evil in our hearts that causes one nation to war against another.
The Scripture tells us this will be the way of the world until Messiah returns…
And when he does, not only will he establish peace among all the 12 tribes of Israel…
But the whole world will be at peace.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Why do you fight and quarrel?
It is because your feelings are
fighting inside of you.
That is why you fight.
You want something
but you cannot get it.
Then you kill. You want
something very much and
cannot get it. So you quarrel
and fight. You do not get it
because you do not ask
God for it. You ask for it,
but you do not get it, because
you ask in a wrong way. You
want to use it for yourselves
and not for others.”
-James 4:1-3
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