Eben-Ezer
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Eben-Ezer, which means stone of help in Hebrew, is the name of a location that is mentioned by the Books of Samuel as the scene of battles between the Israelites and Philistines. It is specified as having been less than a day's journey by foot from Shiloh, near Aphek, in the neighbourhood of Mizpah, near the western entrance of the pass of Beth-horon. However, its location has not been identified in modern times with much certainty, with some identifying it with Beit Iksa, and others with Dier Aban.
It appears in the Books of Samuel in two narratives:
- in the first narrative (1 Samuel 4:1b-11), the Philistines defeat the Israelites, even though the Israelites brought the ark of the covenant onto the battlefield in hope of it bringing them a divinely assured victory. As a result of the Philistine victory and the ark's presence on the battlefield, it was captured by the Philistines, and not returned until many weeks later.
- in the second narrative (1 Samuel 7:2b-14), the Israelites defeat the Philistines, after Samuel has offered a sacrifice. Samuel puts up a stone in memorial and names it Eben-Ezer (the placename in the previous narrative resulting from this).
According to modern textual scholars, the second narrative is a redaction, added by a later editor, probably the deuteronomist[1], probably to explain away what is in reality an earlier sanctuary that featured a stone as a (non-sexual) fetish of Yahweh (such sanctuaries, where tall column-like stones feature as phallic symbols referencing a deity, are found in the Canaanite archaeological record)[2]. The first narrative is considered to come from a sanctuaries narrative (1 Samuel 4:1-7:1) that recounts the tale of the Ark's captivity, and perhaps was originally more extensive in its details about the Ark's travels (possibly including the narratives found elsewhere about Araunah's threshing floor, and the death of Uzziah). This first passage abruptly interrupts the narrative flow of the story of Samuel, which would read more naturally, in the eyes of textual scholars, if the text went straight from 1 Samuel 3:21 to 1 Samuel 7:17 [3].
[edit] References
- ^ This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
- ^ Israel Finkelstein, The Bible Unearthed
- ^ Jewish Encyclopedia, Books of Samuel
