1S14-17: What To Do When God Is Silent During Prayer

“Sha’ul said, ‘Let’s go after the P’lishtim by night. We’ll plunder them until dawn; we won’t leave one of them alive.’ They answered, ‘Do whatever seems good to you.’ But the cohen said, ‘Let’s approach God here.’  Sha’ul consulted God: ‘Should I go down in pursuit of the P’lishtim? Will you hand them over to Isra’el?’ But he didn’t answer him that day.“-1 Samuel 14:36-37

After the soldiers had revived themselves with meat and rest, Saul was on a serious natural high and said to his men…

“Let’s go after the P’lishtim by night.
We’ll plunder them until dawn;
we won’t leave one of them alive.”

Saul must have been thinking about Joshua’s after-dark pursuit of Israel’s enemies many centuries earlier when he made that testosterone-filled proposal.

In response, his men quickly agreed and said “Do whatever seems good to you”.

However, the priests stepped in and said “Wait a minute. Shouldn’t we consult God here?”

“Here” was referring to the altar that Saul had built where they were currently encamped.

Of course, Saul agreed to the suggestion and asked the following two questions through the High Priest.

Should I pursue the Philistines at night?

And…

Will my army be victorious?

However, God did NOT answer.

What exactly was going on here?

Although not explicitly stated, the High Priest was trying to get God to respond through the use of the sacred stones known as the Urim and Thummim.

Recall these divine stones could only provide yes/no or true/false binary-type answers.

So the questions posed to God could not be open-ended.

Now, exactly how God answered through the Urim and Thummim is lost to us.

One tradition says that God would indicate His decision by causing one stone to glow…

Or that the stones were changed in some way that gave the High Priest the answer he was seeking. 

Apparently, the stones remained unchanged in this case.

When no answer was forthcoming, it was assumed the only reason was that someone had committed a sin that was so displeasing to God He had withdrawn His presence from Israel.

Therefore, the obvious solution was to find out WHAT sin had been committed and WHO had done it…

And then bring the trespasser to justice per God’s Torah.

The bottom line is that proper atonement had to be made.

Take a look at verse 38.

 ^“Sha’ul said, ‘Come here, all you
heads of the people. Think carefully:
who has committed this sin today?'”

Isn’t it interesting that Saul didn’t think for a minute to look at himself as the possible cause for God’s silence?

He assumed it was anybody but himself who had committed “this sin” against God.

And by the way, although the verse says “this sin”, Saul didn’t necessarily know exactly which sin had been committed.

He just knew that whatever command had been broken, it was grievous enough to cause the Lord to go silent.

And since no one stepped forward to confess any wrongdoing, Saul had no other choice but to utilize another method to determine the truth.

In this case, that method was casting lots.

The takeaway here is clear.

If you are seeking an answer from God on a certain matter and He’s not answering you, it’s time to undergo some rigorous self-examination, my friend.

In light of the Torah, are you living a clean and righteous life?

Are you honoring your parents?

Are you keeping His Shabbat?

Have you touched unclean foods?

Have you wasted seed?

Only you can know since this is a private matter between YOU and God.

The next time we meet, we’ll examine the results of Saul’s trial by casting lots.

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

“Examine yourselves to see
whether you are in the faith;
test yourselves. Do you not
realize that Messiah Yeshua
is in you—unless, of course,
you fail the test?  And I
trust that you will discover
that we have not failed the test.
Now we pray to God that you
will not do anything wrong—
not so that people will see that
we have stood the test but so
that you will do what is right
even though we may seem
to have failed.”
–2 Corinthians 13:5-7