What is the importance of Mizpah in the Bible?

1 Sam. 7. The ark was taken to Kirjath-jearim. After twenty years the people lamented after the Lord, and Samuel said they must put away their strange gods, and prepare their hearts to the Lord and serve Him only, and He would save them. They gathered at Mizpeh, poured out water before the Lord as a token of repentance (cf. 2 Sam. 14:14), and confessed their sins. On the Philistines coming to attack them they begged Samuel to cry unto the Lord for them. He offered a sucking lamb as a burnt offering, thus recognising the ground of the relationship between the people and God. The Philistines were subdued: God thundered upon them. They came no more to attack Israel, and the cities they had taken were restored. Samuel raised up a stone and called it EBEN-EZER, that is, 'the stone of help.' Samuel went on circuit and judged all Israel. He resided at Ramah, and erected an altar there. The days of Samuel were exceptional: he was not a priest, but he offered sacrifices, and had this altar without either the tabernacle or the ark. He was the man of faith in those days, being owned of God as the upholder of His people.

Samuel now is seen beginning his great national ministry. The message he brings is the message of repentance and the assurance of faith. In simple words he addressed the people, who no doubt were prepared for it by their long period of humiliation. He demands that their true return to the Lord must be practical; the strange gods and Ashtaroth must be put away. If they serve the Lord only, deliverance out of the hands of the Philistines would come. The message was at once obeyed. Every true return to the Lord must manifest itself in the same way. True repentance without self-judgment and self-surrender is impossible. The earnest appeal and whole-hearted response by the people led to the great gathering at Mizpah (the watch tower). It was a day of humiliation and prayer. Samuel said "I will pray unto the Lord for you." He was the child of prayer and the man of prayer (8:6; 12:19, 23). "Samuel among them that call upon His name; they called upon the LORD and He answered them" (Ps. 99:6). There was confession of sin and they drew water, and poured it out before Jehovah. It was a symbolical act showing the undone and helpless condition of Israel. "We must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground" (2 Sam. 14:14). When the Philistines came up against them they were afraid and acknowledged prayer as their only refuge and help. "Cease not" they appealed to Samuel, "to cry for us unto the LORD our God." And afterwards he offered a whole burnt offering unto the Lord. This offering represents Christ. Then Samuel cried unto the LORD and the LORD answered him. The elements of a true return unto the Lord and a true revival among God's people are found in this great national movement. While Samuel offered the burnt offering and interceded for Israel the Philistines drew near. Then came the interference from the LORD. It was a supernatural thundering which discomfited the Philistines, and they were smitten. Israel gains a great victory. They pursue the enemy to Beth-car (house of the lamb). Between Mizpeh and Shen the stone called by Samuel "Ebenezer" is put up as a memorial. Ebenezer means "stone of help." "Helped--but only 'hitherto'! For all Jehovah's help is only 'hitherto'--from day to day, and from place to place--not unconditionally, nor wholly, nor once for all, irrespective of our bearing." (A. Edersheim, Bible History.)

Idolatry was the besetting sin of Israel, as in a more subtle form it has been, and is, the sin of the church (1 John 5:21), and it was with this that Samuel had to contend. The Lord had put a check on the Philistines by Shamgar and Samson, but the people themselves must deal with their idols, "If ye do return unto the Lord with all your heart, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you." At such a crisis this was the first and deepest need, and must precede a true gathering to the Lord. It is idolatry in the church that hinders this now. "And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh" (Watch-tower), the place of expectation. This the enemy at once resisted; the lords of the Philistines immediately went up against them, and they were afraid. But false confidence was gone. They said not again, "Let us fetch the ark that it may save us," but they entreated Samuel, "Cease not to cry to the Lord our God for us, that He will save us out of the hand of the Philistines." They were learning Hannah's lessons and taking a true measure of everything. They were finding out, as an old Puritan minister said, that "nothing is secure that hangs at the girdle of the creature." Even the priestly family had failed them, and they asked not for one of them; but "they drew water and poured it out before the Lord" (cp. 2 Sam. 14:14), and confessed their sins. They took the true place of being without strength and ungodly.

"And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpeh, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry to Jehovah our God for us." This, to my mind, is beautiful. They had begun neither with sin-offering nor with burnt-offering. They had already taken the place of penitence before God as to their sin; they had solemnly owned their ruin in the water poured out; and Samuel prayed as they confessed. They were entitled to look to the Lord with assurance that He would appear on their behalf. There is the sign of acceptance now, as we read that "Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering wholly to Jehovah: and Samuel cried to Jehovah for Israel; and Jehovah heard him. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel." Ah, how little the foe knew what was preparing for them! Did they dare to interrupt Israel when that sweet savour was rising up to God for them? It was no longer a question between Israel and the Philistines, but between Jehovah and the Philistines. "And Jehovah thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel." And the men of Israel had the easy task of pursuing. "The children of Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto has Jehovah helped us. So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of Jehovah was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even to Gath." And it is repeated, "Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life."

They gathered together to Samuel at Mizpeh They were united in their misery, but also in their search after the Lord; they did not come blaming one another as the cause of the trouble, for that would have set them to fighting each other, but they owned in unity their common shame and sin, which was all the more heinous by the fact that they were the people of God. It was to Samuel they gathered; he was the great intercessor of that day, and is a figure of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ever lives to take up His people's cause; and Mizpeh was the place of their gathering. Now Mizpeh means the watch tower, and this reminds us of the prophet Habakkuk, who at another crisis in Israel's history said, "I will stand upon my watch, and sit in upon my tower, and see what He will say to me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved" (chap. 2:1). So with Israel, there would be deep heart-searchings among them as they listened to God's Word through the lips of Samuel, for he not only interceded on their behalf, but he judged them there, he exposed their condition and ways in the presence of the Lord, and set before them the word of the Lord.

God having dealt faithfully and fully with Saul in private and through the prophet, now manifests to the nation at large the man whom He has chosen for them. Samuel is again the honored instrument here and calls the people to meet the Lord, as he had already, so far as possible, brought the future king face to face with Jehovah. The people are to come together at Mizpah, the place where God had signally manifested His delivering hand in rescuing them from the Philistines, and also one of the stations where Samuel was accustomed to judge Israel. Its name, as we have seen, means "Watchtower," appropriate surely for those who would rightly survey the past and the future, and heed the admonitions with which God would address them. "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what He will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved" (Hab. 2:11). Good would it have been,for them and their king, had this attitude of soul truly marked them. It was that indeed to which God called them, as He ever does His people, to hearken to the admonitions and reproofs of love, and thus to be guarded from the snares into which we will otherwise surely fall. Well would it have been for Peter had he been spiritually at Mizpah to receive the warning of our Lord.

In this work the activity of Samuel, this faithful servant of God, is particularly remarkable and blessed. After having spoken to the people, he adds (v. 5): “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray Jehovah for you.” Gathering the people of God is the function of every servant of the Lord who understands his ministry. But beyond this, Samuel is an intercessor; prayer, the fruit of his intimacy with the Lord, characterizes him. Is it not said of him: “Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among them that call upon His name: they called unto Jehovah, and He answered them” (Ps. 99:6)?

Israel must be gathered at Mizpah. As Gilgal was the place of gathering under Joshua, the place of circumcision, of the judgment of the flesh, in order to obtain victory, so Mizpah is under the judges the usual place of gathering after the angel went up from Gilgal to Bochim, the place of weeping, where conclusive ruin is undeniably established. Mizpah is the place of repentance without which there is no victory. At Mizpah (1 Sam. 4:2) Israel under Eli had met only defeat, for they went there without a work of conscience which could have raised them up again. In ruin, we must remember that Mizpah is just as precious as Gilgal, although much more humiliating; there we learn anew to put our confidence in nothing of man, but only in the Lord's strength.

City of Benjamin, in the vicinity of Ramah and Gibeon. Joshua 18:26. It was the city to which Samuel gathered the people, as 'to the Lord,' and where he judged Israel, and where also he presented Saul to them as their king. 1 Sam. 7:5-16; 1 Sam. 10:17. The city was rebuilt by Asa king of Judah, and, after the destruction of Jerusalem, Gedaliah the governor established himself there. 1 Kings 15:22; 2 Kings 25:23, 25; 2 Chr. 16:6; Jer. 40:6-15; Jer. 41:1-16; Hosea 5:1. Probably the same place is alluded to in Neh. 3:7, 15, 19. Identified by some with Neby Samwil, 31 50' N, 35 10' E.

Mizpah

This place was so named because Laban had said there to Jacob, ‘Jehovah watch between me and thee’ (Gen. 31:49). It means watchtower. It represents the government of God.

It was not a sense of humiliation which filled the hearts of the poor people at Bochim: they were there, shedding tears at the sentence of judgment, and seeing no issue, for there was none. In the course of the book, we meet with times of partial deliverance, and even a beginning of real humiliation (Judges 10:15-16). But Israel's restoration is reserved for a future day. There is a sort of foretaste of it under Samuel, type of Christ, the true Judge and Prophet. In the scene at Mizpeh (1 Sam. 7), we have a picture of the day when Israel humbled, will be restored to their place of blessing as the people of God. Samuel convenes the people at Mizpeh, which is not merely the place of tears, but of humiliation. It was there that "they drew water and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, 'we have sinned against the Lord.'" It was there that they put away their strange gods, and it was the dawn of an era of blessing which shone in all its splendour under the reigns of David and Solomon.