Ichabod
by Patrick Henry Reardon
I know nobody—nor have I met anybody—named “Ichabod.” The name is rare. From history, I can count only three Ichabods, and the most recent of these, Deacon Washburn, died in 1868. From literature I recall only the schoolteacher at Sleepy Hollow. Since I started doing it almost sixty years ago, I have baptized hundreds of little boys; no parents ever requested the name Ichabod for their son. I never inquired, “Why not Ichabod?” but I feel sure they all would have answered, “His friends would just call him ‘Icky.’” That seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation.
A better, however, may be the meaning of the name itself: “the glory is exiled.” “Ichabod” (’i-kavod) was the name his mother gave to the son whose birth coincided with the Philistines’ capture of the Ark of the Covenant at the Battle of Aphek, around 1050 b.c. (1 Sam. 4). If Ichabod has been a rare name in modern times, it was rarer still in biblical times, for this is the only Ichabod in Holy Scripture. The name of this child, a grandson of the priest Eli, denoted a God-sent disaster. Because of his unique and ominous-sounding name, he would be for the Israelites a living reminder of the Lord’s judgment on the priestly family of Shiloh.
Although “Ichabod” was the name of a single biblical character, its meaning is best understood in a more ample biblical context, both literary and historical. First, there is the story’s setting within the double-book called Samuel. The exile of the Ark from Shiloh at the beginning of this work prepares for its restoration in the last chapter, when it arrives at the threshing-floor of Araunah, the site of the future temple in Jerusalem.
Second, this story of the Ark’s exile should also be considered within the general perspective of the later editors of the Bible’s historical material. Instructed by the fall of Jerusalem and Israel’s experience of the Babylonian Captivity (587-538), these editors were responsible for unifying the long narrative that runs from Deuteronomy to the end of Kings.
Within the context of this long history, the symbolism of Ichabod’s name attained a more terrible significance when the divine glory was exiled from Jerusalem itself in the tragedy of 587. In mystic vision the prophet Ezekiel described it: “The glory of the Lord (kevod ’Adonai) went out from upon the threshold of the house, and it stood on the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight. When they went out, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel (vukavod ’Elohei-Israel) was above them” (10:18-19).
Third, the narrative in 1 Samuel 4 is used in both the theme and structure of Psalm 78 (77), a lengthy historical meditation composed by Asaph, the choral master of David’s pre-temple shrine constructed on the threshing floor of Araunah (1 Chr. 15:17-19).
The long narrative of this psalm begins with the Battle of Aphek: “The sons of Ephraim, armed and bearing bows, / Turned back in the day of battle. / They kept not the covenant of God; / They refused to walk in his law, / And forgot his works / And his wonders that he had shown them” (vv. 9-11). Starting with Israel’s defeat at Aphek, Asaph works backwards through history: just as these “sons of Ephraim” forgot the things the Lord did for their fathers in the desert (vv. 12-39), so that earlier generation had already forgotten what the Lord did before and during the Exodus (vv. 40-53). Notwithstanding these sustained infidelities, however, the Lord brought the people to the Land of Promise, where they continued to offend and provoke him (vv. 54-59).
In response, the Lord then “forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, / The tent he had placed among men” (v. 60). This rejection of Shiloh, which returns the psalm to its starting point, includes the exile of the Ark: the Lord “delivered his strength into captivity, / And his honor into the enemy’s hand” (v. 61). As the next two chapters of 1 Samuel illustrate, however, the Lord was certainly not finished with the Philistines. Asaph continues: “Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, / Like a mighty man who shouts because of wine. / And he beat back his enemies; / He put them to a perpetual reproach” (vv. 65-66).
As in the story of Ichabod in Samuel 4, Asaph sees that the rejection of the northern shrine leads to the Lord’s choice of that in the south: “He rejected the tent of Joseph, / And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, / But chose the tribe of Judah, / Mount Zion which he loved. / And he built his sanctuary like the heights, / Like the earth which he established forever. / He also chose David his servant” (vv. 67-70).
It was Jerusalem and David, Asaph sees, that God had in mind all along. His psalm is an early instance of a wider historical perspective on the name of Ichabod. God’s exiled glory is certain to return.
Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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