Here I raise my Ebenezer

“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us.” (1 Samuel 7:12)

When I say “Ebenezer,” you say… Scrooge?

There is a passage in Joshua 4 where Joshua is leading the Israelites across the Jordan River, which God has miraculously stopped, and into the Promised Land. On their way across, God instructs Joshua to have twelve men - one from each of the twelve tribes of Israel – each take a rock from the middle of the river. He then has those twelve men use those twelve stones to form a monument at the place where they camp as a reminder to the nation and to future generations of God’s power and deliverance in their lives.

The Joshua account is one of many times throughout the Old Testament where piles of rocks show up as reminders to what God has done. For example, in 1 Samuel 7:12, Samuel sets up a stone as a reminder of how God delivered the Israelites from the attacking Philistines. Samuel calls it “Ebenezer,” which translates from Hebrew as “stone of help,” and he says “thus far has the Lord helped us.”

I love this picture of an Ebenezer, and how critical it is to commemorate the times that God has worked in our lives, so that we do not forget and so that future generations would know about the power and reality of God. As a quick aside – the Bible is full of significant words like Ebenezer that are not a part of our everyday language, words like justification, propitiation, sanctification, ascension, redemption, regeneration (not to mention more common but misunderstood words like sin, holiness, and salvation). When it comes to my preaching, every time I come across these words, there are two extremes I try to avoid. The first extreme is to avoid using these words, with the rationale that they are unfamiliar or antiquated words. The second extreme would be to use these words without defining them, leaving many people scratching their heads in bewilderment. I believe that the best approach is to use these words, because they carry such a rich meaning, but to do my best to define them clearly, in a way that brings out their significance to our lives.

Which brings me back to Ebenezer. There is a popular hymn, “Come thou fount of every blessing,” written by Robert Robinson way back in 1758. The second verse begins, “Here I raise my Ebenezer/ Hither by thy help I’ve come / And I hope by thy good pleasure / Safely to arrive at home.” Many modern versions of the song have changed the first line of that verse to read “Here I find my greatest treasure” or “Hitherto thy love has blessed me.” While the desire of these modern songwriters is undoubtedly to use more familiar language, there is something important that is lost by removing the name Ebenezer. What if, instead of replacing the word or singing it without explaining it, we helped people to understand what the term means and why it is so meaningful?

There is something that can be profoundly moving about remembering the times that God showed up in power to help or deliver us from trouble. And yes, we could just say “I remember when God helped me through a difficult time.” But better yet to expand our vocabulary to include a term like Ebenezer that comes imbued with timeless significance. What are the Ebenezers in your life, where have you used a journal, or picture, or found some other way of remembering God’s help in your life? Or, if you have never taken the time to commemorate God’s working in your life, how can you construct at Ebenezer today?