This chapter begins where the previous one ends and is probably a continuation. Our original bible was not split into chapters and verses.
We need to remember that Hannah had just handed over her only son for the rest of his life, and what did she do – she prayed and thanked God (v1,2). Her heart rejoiced in The LORD and showed her trust in Him. This was true commitment on her part. The people offered sacrifices to The LORD, but was any sacrifice like this? To give her only son to The LORD. Isn’t this what God Himself has done for us – giving His only Son to save us? How can we not commit ourselves to Him?
Hannah said that she could smile at her enemies because of God’s salvation. Perhaps she was referring to Peninnah, who treated her so cruelly. Now she rejoiced because The LORD had dealt so bountifully with her. She acknowledged that “No one is holy like the LORD, for there is none besides You, nor is there any rock like our God.”
She acknowledged her complete trust in God which overcame the arrogance of the proud for we can be sure that God knows what is going on and will deal with proud and arrogant appropriately (v3) Hannah continues with her prayer (v4-10) giving glory to God and His wonderful works. She spoke from experience of being made low and being lifted by This wonderful God – “The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory.” She was absolutely confident in her God, His power and keeping and how He will judge all. And give strength to His king, His anointed.
At that time Israel had no king, thus it is believed that this is the first mention of The Messiah, The Christ, God’s anointed. There are many references to his titles throughout the Bible and particularly around the announcement of the birth of Jesus, The Messiah and quotes from Hannah’s prayer/song – Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:69) and Mary the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:46-55).
Elkanah returned to his home in Raman but left the young child to minister before Eli (v11). One must assume that this meant the family went to home without Samuel. Even though he was very young, Samuel had a ministry for The LORD.
Never underestimate the ministry of a young child. They can serve God. In Isaiah 6:11 we read, “…. And a little child shall lead them.” It is without doubt a foreshadowing of the Messiah, who would come, not as a conquering king, but as a child in the manger; lowly and humble and would die as The Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. It is also a promise to us that all can serve God, however young.
The idea is that he became The Lord’s helper and from what we read next, how necessary it was with those wicked priests.
“Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know The LORD.” (v12) What a devastating statement! Eli did know The LORD, but he had failed to train and teach his sons. Children do not become believers (Christians) simply by being born into a Christian home. I was, but I had to come to a point where I put my faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and received Him personally.
These men were corrupt, sons of Belial, a pagan god, but they were already functioning as priests. What a disaster?
We are told of two offences – firstly (v13-17), secondly (v22). First, the priests’ custom was that when a sacrifice was offered, the servant pulled out meat with a hook from the boiling pan as it was roasting, and that was for the priest. They, however, were requesting the meat before it was put into the roasting pan, even taking it by force if the offeror objected. Thus, they stole the raw meat. God’s portion should have been given first, so it was a sin to take the meat before burning in the fat. The fat was thought to be the best bit so that was for The LORD. They were taking the best bit, which was a serious sin before The LORD. They were ignoring God’s law, and taking what was rightly God’s and using it for their own purposes. Not only that, but they were also using or threatening violence to do so. Secondly, they were committing sexual immorality with the women at the door of the tabernacle (v22).
In contrast to this, young Samuel was ministering before The LORD (v18-21). He was wearing a linen ephod. This was a priestly garment (see Exodus 39). We are not told who had given him this, after all, he was still a child, but his service must have been exceptional in the small duties he was fulfilling. Hannah made him a small robe which she brought to him each year. No doubt he was growing and needed a larger size each year. Not only did he grow physically, but he grew spiritually (v21).
God certainly blessed Hannah and Elkanah in that she had further children – three sons and two daughters. Eli blessed Hannah and Elkanah and God gave them more children in view of her gift of Samuel to The LORD.
If we give God His portion there is no doubt that He will bless us, not necessarily in the way we want, but in His way. God is no man’s debtor (see and read 1 Chronicles 29:13,14).
We can be encouraged that wicked leaders, even spiritual leaders, cannot prevent God working. It may seem that way and they may even think they can, but God raises up a Samuel, a Joseph, a Daniel and many more, even you.
Now Eli was very old (4:14 tells us that he was 98 when he died). He became a judge at the age of 58 for when he died, he had judged Israel 40 years. We are not told about his early life except that his father was a priest before him (2:30:31) nor are we told about his wife. His sons, who were also priests, must have been grown men. Eli stayed at Shiloh and faithfully ministered there for 40 years. Whilst Eli was probably a man of faith, his sons, Hophni and Phinehas were not. We have already seen in v12 that they were worthless men and did not know The LORD.
The family is important, it was God’s creation, and it is vital to the future of any generation. We are living in a day when the family is not considered to be important. More and more it is being eroded. We have only to listen to our news bulletins, look at the internet or read our newspapers, to find out that parents are being ignored by the authorities; schools are being told that children do not need the permission of parents to do certain things. Parents are being increasingly sidelined. This is Satan in his evil schemes, he is opposed to anything to do with Almighty God. He is a defeated foe, but he still uses people to carry out his schemes. I know that some parents do not carry out their responsibilities and others have to step in, but God’s plan for the family is for parents to love and guide their children and for children to honour their parents (5th Commandment, Exodus 20). The Bible is very clear about this, see, for example Ephesians 5 and 6. Sadly families are often broken, many, if not most of us may think we have come short, but make no mistake, God can repair broken relationships and families.
As Christians we are responsible for teaching our children and even our grandchildren. In Deuteronomy 6:20-25 we are told that the people were responsible for teaching their children and grandchildren about God and what He had done for them. I believe that it is still so today. Our young ones get little or no Christian teaching from School and very few are sent or taken to church or Sunday School, so, great responsibility lies with parents etc, but, sadly, they don’t do it either.
Eli was a priest and a judge, but he hadn’t taught his sons very well, but even if he had, they had gone very far away from his teaching. They may have looked like priests, but their lifestyle reflected anything but God. They were wicked and corrupt men, sons of Belial. They had no reverence for God and lived immoral lives, and it wasn’t done in secret, it was done at the door of the tabernacle. They didn’t hide their actions, they did it openly. You would think that it was amazing that a man who was a priest and a judge should have two sons like that.
But it is so up to date – it happens today. Church leaders go astray, and children of church leaders go astray. It sadly makes news headlines sometimes. One writer calls it the ‘hothouse syndrome’ in that all their lives they hear and are in touch with biblical stuff …. But if we Christians, preachers, pastors aren’t careful we can think that our children are walking with the Lord and loving him as much as we do when in fact, they’re turned off. Even worse they have developed a cynicism towards spiritual things.
Surely Eli would notice and correct them? His rebuke and discipline were, quite simply, pathetic – “Why do you do such things? …. No, my sons, the report is not good that I hear.” (v23-26) and 3:13 says that He did not rebuke them. He did tell them that God would judge them for their sin against another, but sin against God was far more serious. However, they did not take any notice of him.
He lacked authority and failed to command respect. He may have frowned a bit, but that wasn’t enough. He let it pass and implied tacit approval. He knew the words to say but they were sounding rather hollow. He told them, correctly, that God will judge them. They were making the people despise God by their evil behaviour. They should have been representing God as priests, but instead they were turning people away. Even Eli said that they were making God’s people to transgress.
Isn’t this so up to date in this twenty-first century when we hear of those who have positions in our churches disrespecting the name of our Holy Lord God by their sinful behaviour, abusing children, young people and adults, especially females, who should be in their care. The same goes for those, so-called Christian organisation leaders who fail to teach the truth of God’s Word. All these are sinning against God and are turning people away from our loving and holy Lord.
Let us ever remember that we can confess our sin to God (see 1 John 2:1) and be forgiven but let us not think that that gives us licence to sin.
Hophni and Phinehas were wicked and did not want to repent, thus God said that He would bring them to judgment. However, there was a ray of hope – amid all the wickedness, there was someone who was growing in favour with God and men – the boy Samuel. There was evidently a better side of Eli. Maybe he had given up on his sons and determined to ‘father’ Samuel to be a better person.
Make no mistake, it is possible to grow spiritually in the midst of evil. God will take the person committed to Him and cause that person to be a spiritual giant in the midst of an evil world. However deep we may have sunk, He is able to lift us from the mire and set us on a rock and cause us to shine as a bright light in this dark world.
An unknown man of God told Eli about the situation and that God was not pleased (v27-33). If Eli didn’t know for himself, which he clearly did, God sent a man to tell him. It is interesting to note the anonymous people used by God in the Bible.
This unknown man came to Eli and reminded him that God had made His ways clearly known to Aaron the first priest even when they were in captivity in Egypt (v27-33), how Aaron was chosen to be God’s priest on behalf of the people and laid down the offerings and sacrifices. In Exodus 29 God had said that the priesthood would not depart from the line of Aaron. Here God accused Eli of ‘kicking against God’s commands by honouring his sons rather than God’, and therefore, the priesthood would not continue in Eli’s line but in another branch of Aaron’s line. This came to pass in 1 Kings 2:27 when Abiathar was replaced by Zadok.
Here we have a familiar phrase uttered by God – “Those who honour Me, I will honour.” You may remember the film Chariots of Fire, in which Eric Liddell, because of his faith in God, refused to run his 100 metres race on a Sunday in the Olympics, and instead ran the 400 metres, a race for which he had not trained, and he broke the world record. He was handed a piece of paper containing those very words before the race. God’s promise still stands today. The promise went on, “Those who despise Me, shall be lightly esteemed.”
How important it is that we seek to honour God in all our ways.
This was true with Eli and God told him that He would remove his father’s house and there would be no old men in his house forever (v34-36). They would die young, and it would be grievous to him. Eli lived a long life, but it would not give him any pleasure to see his offspring die. God told Eli that his two sons would die on the same day. This was bad news for Eli. Like the Gospel, which one sense is bad news that all have sinned, but gloriously good news that God has provided the Saviour in His Own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, there was some good news for Eli – “I will raise up a faithful priest.” One who would do His will, for whom God would build a house and he would walk before His anointed forever. This was partly fulfilled in Samual, then in Zadok, but ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ (See Hebrews 7:12-17 where Jesus is described as a priest forever.)
