EBENEZER

A well known name and I believe, often used by the Lord’s people, after the example of Samuel, upon numberless occasions in life. If the reader will consult 1 Sam. 7: he will be enabled to enter into the Spirit of the expression, if so be the Lord be his teacher. And should the Lord give him also a right view of the subject, he will discover that the mercy was not confined to the days of Samuel, but in all ages of the church, the faithful can, and do, find causes daily to set up their Ebenezers, to the praise of the glory of his grace, who maketh them accepted in the Beloved." Even in the moment of writing do I find cause to set up the Ebenezer of the morning, "hitherto hath the Lord helped! And, reader, what a sweet additional thought is it, in the full assurance of faith, to refresh the soul, that he who hath hitherto helped, and doth help, will help, through grace, in life, and in glory, to all eternity. I only add, under this article, that there is a great strength of expression in the word Ebenezer. It is a compound meaning Eben, or Aben, a stone, JEHOVAH laid in Zion, in whom whosoever believeth, shall never be confounded? (Compare Isa. 28. 16. with 1 Pet. 2: 6 - 8.)

the name of that field wherein the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines, when the ark of the Lord was taken, 1Sa 4:1; also a memorial stone set up by Samuel to commemorate a victory over the Philistines. The word signifies the stone of help; and it was erected by the prophet, saying, “Hitherto the Lord hath helped us.”

Stone of help, the place where Samuel erected a monument, in grateful remembrance of the divine help, given in answer to prayer, in a great battle with the Philistines. The same place had before witnessed the defeat of Israel and the capture of the ark, 1Sa 4:1 ; 5:1; 7:5-12.\par

(Hebrew with the art. E’ben ha-E’ezer, אֶבֶן הָעֵזֶרstone of the help; Sept. Α᾿βενέζερ; Josephus translates λίθος ἰσχυρός), the name given to a place marked by a monumental stone which Samuel set up as a memorial of the divine assistance in battle obtained against the Philistines (1Sa 7:12). — SEE PILLAR. ’Twenty years before this, the same spot (mentioned in the history under the same name by anticipation of its subsequent designation) witnessed the discomfiture of the Hebrew hosts, the death of the high-priest’s sons, and the capture of the sacred ark by the Philistines (1Sa 4:1; 1Sa 5:1). Its position is carefully defined (1Sa 7:12) as between Mizpeh "the watch-tower," one of the conspicuous eminences a few miles north of Jerusalem and Shen, "the tooth" or "crag," apparently some isolated landmark. Neither of these points, however, has been identified with certainty-at least not the latter. According to Josephus’s record of the transaction (Ant. 6:2, 2), the stone was erected to mark the limit of the victory, a spot which he calls Corrhaea, but in the Hebrew BETH-CAR SEE BETH-CAR (q.v.). Eusebius and Jerome affirm (Onomast. a.v. Α᾿βενετέρ, Abenezes) that it lay between Jerusalem and Ashkelon, near (πλησίον, juxta) Bethshemesh. Now Bethshemesh stands on a low ridge on the south side of the rich valley of Sorar. On the opposite side of this valley, on a rising ground, about three miles north-west of Bethshemesh, are the ruins of an old village called Beit-far. The situation answers in every respect to that assigned to Beth-car; and the name may possibly be an Arab corruption of the latter. It lies in the direct route from Mizpeh to the plain of Philistia, and is just on the borders of the latter province, where a pursuing army would halt (Porter, Handbook for Syr. and Pal. page 283). But, as this is very far from the probable site of Mizpeh (Neby-Samwil), it is hardly possible to fix the position of Ebenezer at that of Beth-car. The monumental stone in question may rather have been set up at the point where the enemy began to flee, and we may therefore seek its locality nearer the Israelitish metropolis, possibly at the modern village Biddu, a short distance west of Neby-Samwil (Robinson, Researches, 2:133, note). SEE SHEN.

[E’ben-e’zer]

A stone thus called, signifying ’stone of help,’ set up by Samuel, after obtaining victory over the Philistines, as a memorial of the help received from God. 1Sa 4:1; 1Sa 5:1; 1Sa 7:12. It would appear in the texts as if the stone had had the name prior to Samuel’s thus designating it; but this may be accounted for by the whole account having been written after the stone was so named. The word has become symbolical for the expression "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."