“So make models of your tumors and models of your rats that are infesting your land, and show respect to the God of Israel. Maybe he will stop oppressing you, your gods and your land. Why be obstinate like the Egyptians and Pharaoh were? When he had done his work among them, didn’t they let the people go? — and they left.” -1 Samuel 6:5-6
So the religious professionals of Philistia make it clear the God of Israel is not only attacking their people and their land…
He’s also attacking their gods…
This reminds me of the exodus in Egypt…
That was also a time when YEHOVAH waged war against the pagan gods of a gentile nation.
And speaking of Egypt, the diviners and priests actually bring up Egypt as a perfect case in point.
They warn the Philistine leaders to not be stubborn like Pharaoh was…
Lest they wanna see their country destroyed as Egypt was.
We get the impression the priests had been pleading with their leadership for quite some time.
This makes sense because the two plagues (tumors & rodents) had persisted for close to 7 months.
Now here’s what’s interesting.
By this point in Scriptural history, approximately 400 years had passed since the Exodus occurred.
My point is a lot of people will try to paint the Exodus from Egypt as pure mythology…
Like it never happened.
Well, here’s some surefire documentary evidence that it DID occur.
Keep in mind the Philistines were in no way connected with what went down in Egypt.
Yet we can see here they were quite aware of what happened.
The Lord literally destroyed Egypt’s economy and livelihood…
And it remained that way for close to 150 years.
So the Philistines knew Israel’s history…
And the dangers of getting on the wrong side of their God…
Which leads us to our takeaway for today.
The promise God made to Abraham still holds to this very day.
“I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will
be blessed through you.”
-Genesis 12:3
Bottomline, the future (or lack of a future) of any nation is DIRECTLY correlated to their treatment of Israel.
If their treatment is good, blessings will abound.
If their treatment is bad, they will end up like Egypt.
Amen!
God’s promises to Abraham- in fact, to anyone- are never reneged on.
God promised Abraham the world would be blessed by his descendants, and when he gave the Torah to Abraham’s descendants, which taught them how to worship God and treat each other, he promised blessings galore for obedience (Deut. 28). He told Moses that he chose the Jews to be his nation of priests (Exodus 19:6), which clearly means (since priests teach the people how God wants us to worship him and treat each other) the Jews were to learn the Torah and then teach it to the world, so that the Gentiles could also learn how they should worship God , find salvation and receive blessings.
The ultimate blessing to the world from Abraham’s descendants is Yeshua, the Messiah, who, despite the loss of the only means of having our sins forgiven (i.e., the destruction of the temple, which was the only place God said we could go to sacrifice for forgiveness of sin) made salvation possible for anyone, anywhere, any time.
I mean, c’mon! How much more of a blessings could one have than eternal peace and joy in the presence of the Lord, God, Almighty?