Shammah

"And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite. And the Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a piece of ground full of lentiles: and the people fled from the Philistines. But he stood in the midst of the ground, and defended it, and slew the Philistines: and the LORD wrought a great victory" (vss. 11-12).

This man valued the food of God's inheritance and did not let the enemy take it. He did not want to see the Lord's people go hungry. We may be inclined to think that just because it was only a field of "lentils," which is the cheapest of foods, it would not be worth fighting for. But that was not what he was thinking. The Lord used him to obtain a great victory and preserve the food for His people.

The food of our inheritance is the truth of God. The lesson here is that the Lord rewards those who value the truth and uphold it. It is said in Proverbs 23:23, "Buy the truth and do not sell it." I understand that the French translation says, "Do not sell a single point of it." God does not want us to give up even a small point of the truth. And this is what we see symbolically in Shammah. He first "stood" in the midst of the piece of ground where the food was, and then "defended" it. There is a moral order here. We cannot adequately defend the truth if we do not personally stand in it and make it our own.

The Lord appreciates all the effort of those who labor in word and doctrine to have His people fed. Knowing this, let us do everything we can to spread the truth to all who will receive it. Let us build one another up in the "most holy faith" (Jude 20).