God’s Creative Battle Plans – Samuel and the Thunder from Heaven

God’s Creative Battle Plans – Samuel and the Thunder from Heaven.

Yahweh is a warrior! Yahweh is His Name! (Exodus 15:3).

Moses and Miriam in their famous Song at the Red Sea, were the first ones to describe the Lord as a warrior. And throughout Scripture, God was identified as a warrior ever since. The Hebrew word for warrior in this passage is “ish milhamah,” which means man of war, warrior, champion, hero, fighter, mighty man. God’s stature as a fighter was taken up by the prophets, like David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zephaniah.

The Fierce Warrior with a Vivid Imagination. Lord Yahweh, as we would expect, was not just any common fighter. He was a warrior with the divine imagination that created completely unpredictable battle plans for every conflict between an enemy of God and His Chosen People. In Scripture, the Warrior-King was the master of unconventional warfare, unexpected schemes that would leave people scratching their heads in surprise or shaking their heads in amazement. God’s strategies were so diverse that they might appear to be random, but of course they were divinely orchestrated. His battle strategies to victory were well outside the human imagination, in such a way that the faith of His fighters on the ground was tested.  It became obvious to His fighting men, though, that God was going about this battle in a completely different way than they would, and they were wise when they trusted in Him.

The Voice of Thunder. “When the Philistine rulers heard that Israel had gathered at Mizpah, they mobilized their army and advanced. The Israelites were badly frightened when they learned that the Philistines were approaching. ‘Don’t stop pleading with the Lord our God to save us from the Philistines!’ they begged Samuel. So Samuel took a young lamb and offered it to Lord Yahweh as a whole burnt offering. He pleaded with the Lord to help Israel, and the Lord answered him. Just as Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines arrived to attack Israel. But the Lord spoke with a violent, mighty voice of thunder from heaven that day, and the Philistines were thrown into such a panic and confusion that the Israelites defeated them.” (1 Samuel 7:7-10).

Yes, the prophet Samuel prepared a sin offering for atonement on behalf of the sinful Israelites, and while he was offering the sacrifice, the Philistines chose that time to attack the army of Israel. And yes, God once again used His imagination to create a winning strategy to defeat the Philistines as Israel was shaking in fear. And yes, God chose to bellow out what some translations called a loud voice from heaven in the form of thunder. It was a violent and extremely ear-shattering sound that the Philistines heard from out of nowhere. So they became utterly confused and they panicked, which gave the Israelites the opportunity to demolish them and completely defeat their arch enemy. But what led up to this strange scenario?

The Backstory.  As the powerful prophet at that time with a long history of faithfully and effectively serving the Lord in Israel, Samuel charged the Israelites to turn to the Lord from their worship of the gods of Canaan. These were fertility deities that were worshipped everywhere by the Canaanites, and the Israelites were foolish enough to compromise their faith in Yahweh by mixing into their lives the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth. Samuel told them that if they wanted to be rescued from the Philistines, they needed to turn to the Lord with their whole heart without compromise in any way. The people indeed repented and admitted they had sinned against the Lord and would change their ways. In this purification process, they pleaded with Samuel to ask for the Lord to rescue them, at which time Samuel prepared the atonement sacrifice for their idolatry. (refer to 1 Samuel 7:3-6).  And then we see another imaginative way that God chose to use His voice in this battle.

The Voice of Thunder. It’s not a surprise that the dramatic thunders from the sky in the Bible were often described in poetic and sometimes literal terms as being God’s voice. Time and again in Scripture, thunder is considered God’s voice from heaven, and God used His thunderous voice many times in His battleplans to signal His presence, to reveal His judgment, to terrorize and confuse the enemy. In the 1 Samuel 7:10 passage above, when we read that the Lord thundered with a loud voice, or that the Lord thundered violently with a mighty voice, the Hebrew word for thunder, ‘bat-kol,’ in fact means “voice.” There are many passages that describe God’s voice as thunder from the sky:

• On Mt. Sinai, it was reported that, “As the trumpet blast grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with thunder.” (Ex. 19:19);
• David celebrated God’s power on the battlefield in a great military victory in Psalm 68, including this description, “Sing praises to the One who rides across the ancient heavens, His mighty voice thundering from the sky!” (Ps. 68:33);
• Savor the beautiful poetry of David again in Psalm 29, in which he envisions God’s presence as a storm. He mentions ‘the voice of the Lord” seven times, which has been historically called “the seven thunders.” One memorable line is, “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.” (Ps. 29:3-4);
• Once again, the poetic David rejoices after being delivered from Saul and his enemies, “The Lord thundered from the heavens, and the Most High spoke with his voice of thunder from the skies.” (Ps. 18:13);
• One wonders if God’s voice really does sound like thunder to humans as we read in the Gospel of John 12:28-29, “So, Father, bring glory to your Name!’ Then suddenly a booming voice was heard from the sky, ‘I have glorified my Name! And I will glorify it again through you!” It was reported in this passage that, “The audible voice of God startled the crowd standing nearby, and some thought it was thunder.”

God’s voice is definitely a mystery, of course, and has been compared in Scripture to loud thunder, an angel, harps, a waterfall and trumpets. In Elijah’s case, God’s still, small voice in the cave in 1 Kings 19:11-13 has been translated as a gentle whisper, a light murmuring sound, the sound of a gentle breeze, and “the sound of a slender silence.” (Rabbi Sacks). Since God is a Spirit, then it follows that He has a spiritual voice, but of course can make His voice sound any way He wants as He communicates with us on earth. So, God’s voice to us earthlings remain a mystery… sometimes clear, sometimes unclear, sometimes unmistakably loud, and sometimes soft and gentle. We all pray that we can discern God’s voice when He speaks to us, for those who know Jesus know His voice. “I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep listen to My voice. I call My own sheep by name and lead them out to pasture. I go ahead of My sheep, and My sheep follow Me because they recognize the sound of My voice.” (adapted from John 10:1-5).