My God and My Country

My Daily Meditation

Today’s Reading

The First Book of Samuel

Chapter 5:2-5

Chapter 6:6

Chapter 7:3

Friends;

The first commandment by God is for us to remember that He is God and to put no other gods before Him. This means that in all our ways acknowledge Him. Worship no other god or gods, that is to say, put nothing in front of you that will distract you from the knowledge and wisdom of God.  When we allow God to be first in our lives we reap the blessings of His wisdom. Conversely, when we harden our hearts, and turn away from Him we only reap the wisdom of man, which not only pales as comparatively, but usually leaves us wallowing in the misery and mire of our own making by excluding Him. 

2 Even the Philistines took the Ark of God, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. (a)

3 And when they of Ashdod rose the next day in the morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord, and they took up Dagon, and set him in his place again.

4 Also they rose up early in the morning the next day, and behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and the two palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold: only the stump of Dagon was left to him.

5 Therefore the Priests of Dagon, and all that come into Dagon’s house, tread not on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod, unto this day.

6 Wherefore then should ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts, when he wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let them go, and they departed?

3 Then Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye be come again unto the Lord with all your heart, put away the strange gods from among you, and Ashtoreth, and direct your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and he shall deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

(a) Editor’s notation - Source Wikipedia - Dagon was originally an East Semitic Mesopotamian (Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian) fertility god who evolved into a major Northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain (as symbol of fertility) and fish and/or fishing (as symbol of multiplying). He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh, Syria) and Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria) (which was an ancient city near the Mediterranean containing a large variety of ancient writings and pre-Judeo-Christian shrines). He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Biblical Philistines.