I spent a whole blog last week describing the plight of the Israelites in their constant dismal confrontations with the Philistines. The Israelites worked out of the home base town of Ebenezer. That was the place, but I also mentioned that Ebenezer was a thing.

So let’s get to the thing—what is an Ebenezer? 

The word means “stone of help.”

We last left the Israelites confessing their sin, ridding themselves of  foreign idols, fasting, and praying. They had moved up to Mizpah.  When the Philistines learned they were in Mizpah, this enemy came once again to overpower them.

The Israelites were afraid, but Samuel said,

“Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines.” I Samuel 7:8 

Samuel offered up a lamb on the alter to the Lord, crying out on behalf of the people. As he was sacrificing, the Philistines drew near.

But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them [the Philistines] into such a panic that they were routed against the Israelites. I Samuel 7:10

Overwhelmed and confused, the Philistines ran out of Mizpah. The men of Israel pursued them and slaughtered them along the way.

So often, after great miracles of God, the leader would mark the place, as a remembrance, with a pile of stones or in this case, one big stone. Get ready. Here it comes!

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the lord helped us.” I Samuel 7:12

Through out Samuel’s lifetime, the Philistines did not invade Israel again. Certainly, this stone of help was a fitting remembrance of how God intervened on their behalf.

If you erected a stone of help, what would it signify? Overcoming an enemy? Or something else? For Robert Robinson, it meant overcoming Satan’s hold on his life by Jesus’ precious sacrifice. Listen to his testimony in the second verse text of “Come, Thou Fount.”

Here I raise mine Ebenezer; Hither by thy help I’m come;

And I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home:

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wan’dring from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

In his last verse, Robert Robinson looks at the grace of his stone of help, pleading with God to bind him as with handcuffs so he will stay firm in his faith and to seal his heart with dedication to the Lord. Like all of us, he was prone to wandering away from true commitment. 

O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wand’ring heart to thee:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love:

Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for the courts above.

May you see Him as your stone of help today, your Ebenezer.

~ Joyce ~