When we study the Scriptures we have to keep in mind how the time period impacts their story.
Read 1 Samuel 13:19-22 and journal why you think they had this problem
Have you ever read this piece of Scripture and asked yourself why didn’t they have any blacksmith’s? You would think in that culture, under constant threat of invasion, that a blacksmith would be a pretty important piece to your society. This raises the question, why didn’t they have one?
When we take a step back and look at the timeline of events we discover the events in 1 Samuel are happening as the world begins to transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The ability to work and manipulate iron was something totally new to them, and so some people groups had the ability and others didn’t. We see the same sort of thing today with the use of nuclear weapons, so countries have the technology and others don’t. In today’s Scripture, the Philistines had the technology and Israel didn’t.
Ask yourself this question; how does this change the way you view their battle? How does this change the way that they were dependent on God? All of a sudden we see the story in a whole new light, on one side we see this massive army with full armor and swords and on the other side farmers with nothing but their tools to fight with. Now we can see how dramatically the odds were against Israel, and yet God was faithful and fought with them and defeats the Philistines.
Today as you are reading Scripture, take a step back and ask how does the time period help define what’s happening.
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