Not just a hill of beans
8 These are the names of the mighty men whom David had:…
11 And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of lentils. So the people fled from the Philistines. 12 But he stationed himself in the middle of the field, defended it, and killed the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great victory. 2 Samuel 23
Who doesn’t love a story about a hero? This man Shammah was an amazing warrior who won a great victory even when everyone else had fled! He was brave and valiant, he fought hard for the king, and he won a hill of beans! 🙂 I can still hear my dad’s voice in my head from when I was a kid, saying that something was just a hill of beans. It meant that something was insignificant. I don’t really know about the significance of the field that Shammah acquired for his people, but it’s food at the very least!
Jump on over to Ezekiel 48:35, and you see a name of God (which they named a city)
YHWH Shammah / Jehovah Shammah – which means THE LORD IS THERE!
I remembered this from my Bible reading, and I just thought it was so awesome!
Shammah, if you take off the name of YHWH, would just mean ‘there’ or ‘is there’. In our story of the field of lentils, Shammah was the one who was present, the one who was there, the one who stayed to fight. Do you ever feel like there is a hard job that you have been given to do, and feel like you are all alone doing it? It’s a good reminder that my job is to say to the Lord, ‘Here I am! Send me. Even if I am all alone, I’m going to stand strong and fight the battle for the King! Even if the job is far too hard for me – like conquering a whole army.’ (I’m not a Mighty Man!)
But, because of the Mighty God that I serve, I never stand alone! I have an ever present Jehovah-Shammah. A God who is always there, who will never leave me to fight alone! That, to me, is amazing!
And, no matter what He asks me to do – there’s no job that’s just a ‘hill of beans’.
