How about a little more English? Our English teacher, Mrs. Cheney, drummed grammar and good writin' into our heads unmercifully. It paid off, as I got to skip a semester of English in college, and more important, was a semester ahead of the crowd. So when they were all rushing to finish their first college term paper in the second semester, I was taking another required subject in a small, off track class.
One of the things Mrs. Cheney pointed out time and time again in my high school writing was an unclear antecedent to a preposition. (uap) "Who does this ‘he' refer to?" (Oops, just about made another one: "To whom does this ‘he' refer?")
Here is an example. 1 Samuel 1: 27 finds Hannah explaining to Eli the "offering" she made.
"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord." And he worshiped the Lord there.
Hannah just presented Samuel to the priest, Eli, to serve in the Lord's presence. And the last sentence is where we run into the uap. Was the "he" Samuel, who was now serving the Lord and being committed to this for life? Or was it Eli, the priest?
Both could be right and good, but bear with me. (Or is it bare? That one is missed quite often. And to much consternation and embarrassment.) But one might think that Samuel, as a young man might not be too inclined to worship as his mother leaves him. It would be quite a precocious child to do that.
What about Eli? Here is a spiritual leader, who we will find was betrayed by his own sons in the service of the Lord. Hannah rekindled his awe at God's provision, both of a son for the woman, and as a successor for the judge. And her commitment led to his worship in turn.
We may not always know how God will use our testimony or witness. That is even more reason for being faithful in every opportunity that we face.
You might guess that I am reading 1 Samuel. There is another question answered in 1 Samuel 9. I have been asked on several occasions if the prophets knew that they were prophesying and what it meant? One answer is here. 1 Peter 1:10
10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, 11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.
This seems to indicate that they may not have been fully aware of this. Many times the prophesy had a dual or even three-fold fulfillment. They may have understood part of it, but not all. When Isaiah prophesied this, he was probably perplexed. Isaiah 44:28
"It is I who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd! And he will perform all My desire.' And he declares of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built,' And of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.'"
He probably understood that Jerusalem would be destroyed, since he prophesied that, but who is this Cyrus? This prophesy was made about 150 years before Cyrus was born. That is a pretty remarkable bit of foretelling. And the prophesy did not simply predict the leader, by name. It was of a foreign country, no less, and one that, at the time, was a mere blip on world history.
But 1 Samuel 9 gives a different insight to our question. Saul was looking for his father's donkeys. The chapter gives a remarkable tale of Samuel's understanding of his prophesy and acting on it. Follow this with me.
Verse 16 reports that the Lord spoke to Samuel the day before, describing his visitor and informing the seer* ahead of time of the events to transpire. In verse 17 the Lord identified the man. Verse 22 starts to get interesting.
22 Then Samuel took Saul and his servant and brought them into the hall and gave them a place at the head of those who were invited, who were about thirty men.
Saul was not even there yet, and Samuel had a banquet prepared. Notice the term, "of those who were invited." Samuel both believed that Saul was coming, and he had a celebration prepared. About thirty guys were hoping that Saul made it on time. Keep reading.
23 Samuel said to the cook, "Bring the portion that I gave you, concerning which I said to you, ‘Set it aside.'"
Samuel was not content with merely preparing a meal, he had an honored portion prepared for the honored guest. The next day he sent Saul on his way with more prophesies. Clearly Samuel did, indeed, know and understand his role and what he said.
It appears that the answer to our "did they know" question is, "Yes and no." Simple, huh? The key item that we take away from here, is that Samuel acted on what he knew. That is a good lesson for us. We may not understand everything, but we can be faithful to what we have been shown. Keep looking.
*I tried to find the etymology of seer, but since I was looking in English, the original Hebrew was not clarified. Here is what I think. "Seer" is "one who sees." Or we could say he was a see-er. And that is pretty cumbersome, so it was contracted into seer. Think what you choose. I like that.
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