Lectionary Calendar
Sunday, December 22nd, 2024
the Fourth Week of Advent
the Fourth Week of Advent
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Bible Commentaries
Layman's Bible Commentary Layman's Bible Commentary
Copyright Statement
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Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliographical Information
"Commentary on 1 Samuel 2". "Layman's Bible Commentary". https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/lbc/1-samuel-2.html.
"Commentary on 1 Samuel 2". "Layman's Bible Commentary". https://www.studylight.org/
Whole Bible (49)Old Testament (1)Individual Books (1)
Verses 1-10
SAMUEL, JUDGE AND PROPHET
1 Samuel 1:1 to 1 Samuel 8:22
Samuel’s Early Years (1:1-3:21)
The Birth of Samuel (1:1-2:10)
Samuel’s parentage indicates that he was of Ephraimite stock and that his mother was one of two wives. The practice of bigamy seems to have been widespread in these early days, chiefly because of fear that there would be no offspring (see the comment on Judges 11:34-40).
The family of Samuel was deeply religious, and attended annually the sanctuary at Shiloh, probably immediately after harvest, to offer thanks in the form of sacrifice for the Lord’s blessing. Although the visit may have been associated with some annual festival, it was apparently a private one and was linked with a vow (vs. 21). The sacrifice was a corporate family act, with the wives and family participating with Elkanah in the presentation of gifts. In verse 3 the title "the Lord of hosts" is used of God for the first time in Old Testament literature. It is usually assumed to be a reference to the armies of Israel rather than to the host of heavenly bodies, since the noun "host" when used for the latter is only in the singular. The title is indeed in keeping with the concept of the "holy war" which dominated this period, and in which the Lord was regarded as the war leader of his people. In 1 Samuel 17:45, we have an actual definition in these terms: "the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel." Later usage simply took over the title as a proper name for God with little or no remembrance of the original significance.
Eli the priest, with his two sons, is introduced somewhat abruptly. We know little about this priestly family and it soon dropped out of religious history, but the distinction of ministering at the important shrine of Shiloh is indicative of Eli’s standing. Hannah, the favorite wife of Elkanah, had no children. Taunted by her rival, Hannah seized the opportunity of the visit to Shiloh to express to the Lord her own private needs. She prayed for a child and made her vows. Her agitated behavior conveyed to Eli the impression of drunkenness, a condition not unknown in those early shrines, when naturalistic ideas and fertility-rite practices were often present in the religious consciousness of the ordinary worshiper. She apparently added to this impression by the fact that she prayed in her heart, that is, prayed silently; normally prayer was made aloud, and the movement of her lips was misinterpreted. Rebuked by the old priest, Hannah laid bare her problem and received his sympathy and encouragement. The vow she made was that the child should be dedicated wholly to the service of God, and that he should go with head unshaven all of his life. The law that everything which first opens the womb belongs to God and has to be redeemed appears to make this vow unnecessary, although it has been suggested that Hannah’s vow implies that she did not intend to exercise the right of redemption. In due time the promise was fulfilled. Hannah bore a son whom she named Samuel, which means "name of God." The relation of this name to the explanation "asked ... of the Lord" (vs. 20), actually descriptive of the name Saul, has caused considerable perplexity and remains a matter of speculation.
Once more the time for the annual visit arrived, but Hannah refrained from participation until the child had been weaned. At that time the vow was fulfilled, and Samuel was returned permanently to God who had given him. With him, Samuel’s parents presented provisions for his sustenance, bullocks, meal, and wine. His mother also kept him in clothing (1 Samuel 2:19).
A break in the narrative comes in 2:1-10, indicating the multiplicity of sources and traditions on which the Hebrew historians drew. The song of Hannah in these verses is manifestly quite early, but in its present form it seems to be a national song celebrating the triumph of a king in battle (vs. 10). The reference to a "king" dates it later than Hannah since it was not until after her time that a king came to the throne of Israel. It celebrates God’s providence and speaks of God as the special friend of the poor, the humble, and the needy. The reference to the barren who bears seven (vs. 5) may well have been the occasion for the association of Hannah with the psalm, although it has a different setting from her special need. The exaltation of the meek and the striking down of the mighty find a worthy echo in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), whose author seems consciously to have had this psalm as a model.
Certain phrases need to be noted. First, there are expressions like "my strength is exalted," literally, "my horn is exalted," and "my mouth derides," literally, "my mouth is enlarged" (1 Samuel 2:1). The first expression is a poetic reference to the animal which lifts up its horned head in triumph, sure of its power. The second expression carries the memory that a gaping mouth was, for the Hebrew, a sign of contempt. Secondly, the emphasis on God’s holiness carries with it the sense of his uniqueness and otherness. There is none beside him, and he is especially marked by his rocklike stability. For the Hebrew this holiness of God signifies God’s character, and since he is the living God, his holiness is a dynamic quality. It does not mean a withdrawn otherness. Holiness is an otherness of God that is also manifested in his action within Israel’s history. He is a source of strength to his people, and the psalmist sees this as the exaltation of the weak and the bringing down of the mighty in battle (vs. 4). Because of his utter dependence on God’s holy power, a man may not boast of his exploits (vs. 3), an insight which in the New Testament is brought out in Paul’s condemnation of justification by works.
Thirdly, the primitive view of the world appears in the suggestion that God has set the world on "the pillars of the earth" (vs. 8). This is a reference to the Hebrew picture of the universe as set upon pillars in the midst of the deep, the primordial sea which embraces the disclike earth and domelike heaven.
Fourthly, we find an emphasis on the deliverance of God’s people. The adversaries of God will be broken in pieces, but "his faithful ones," the saints, will be delivered (vs. 9). The word is derived from the same root as the word translated "loving kindness," or "covenant love." It is a covenant word, emphasizing the steadfast loyalty to one another to which the parties of a covenant are mutually bound. So God is bound to his Covenant people, and his faithful ones are those who respond to his steadfast loyalty with a corresponding faithfulness in the Covenant. True piety is manifested in loyalty and steadfastness, and for such as manifest it, God’s Covenant love never fails. It is interesting to note that in the Book of Psalms, the same term has become a technical description of the pious Jew, who is often identified with the poor, the oppressed, and the humble, an idea also present in this poem.
Fifthly, the reference to the king as the "anointed" (vs. 10), the Messiah, may point to the ideal king yet to come. Yet every Davidic king was regarded as "anointed," and the psalm may refer to the actual monarchy. This certainly dates the psalm in the time of the monarchy, and thus much later than Hannah.
Verses 11-36
Eli’s Sons and Samuel (2:11-36)
The sons of Eli are described as worthless men who knew not the Lord. The term "have regard" here, and in the Old Testament generally, although sometimes translated "know," refers to a personal encounter in which God meets us directly and confronts us with his will. Thus it is synonymous with personal commitment. It means more than awareness that God exists, or having some speculative idea of God in the mind. The latter is more in keeping with the Greek understanding of knowledge. The Old Testament term means living decisively within the Covenant which God has established; seeking to do his will; walking before him in faithfulness, obedience, and humility.
The condemnation of Eli’s sons is based also on their practice in the sanctuary. The phrase "custom of the priests" suggests a precedent established by long practice and thus regarded as binding. The law books of the Pentateuch contain many such customs which were regarded as given under divine authority. We need to remember that God has various ways of manifesting his moral law to men, and that one way is through the development of habitual lines of conduct within the give-and-take of social relationship and the commerce of wills. So here the shrine at Shiloh had developed certain rules with regard to the ordering of its sacrifices, and these rules were regarded as morally binding upon priest and worshiper. They were ritual rules with moral implications because they were under divine sanction. The sacrifices were offered to God, and thus the rules governing them were under his authority. The worshiper or priest who broke the rules would be treating God with contempt.
The crime of Eli’s sons was that they took for their own use parts of the sacrifice other than that which was their rightful due. As the law codes developed, there seems to have been a universal ruling on this matter (Deuteronomy 18:3; Leviticus 7:31-34), but, even at this early stage, Phinehas and Hophni were familiar with the rule for their own shrine and contravened it. Their crime was twofold. They claimed their meat raw instead of taking it from the boiling pot by a three-toothed fork. But, further, they claimed it prior to the burning of the fat. To understand this we have to remember that the sacrifice here thought of was the "peace" or communion meal offering. In this type of sacrifice, the beast was slain; the blood, as the element containing the life principle, was drained off and poured out at the foot of the altar; the fat and entrails were burned up on the altar; and the remaining flesh was eaten by the worshipers, the priests claiming their part. Until the fat had been burned, the sacrifice was totally holy; it was available to the worshiper only after the burning. The terrible crime of Eli’s sons was that they disregarded the holiness of the sacrifice and claimed their portion before it had become profane or available for human participation.
In God’s eyes the sacrifice thereby became abhorrent. Its end was not to give God glory but to satisfy gluttonous priests. Are not many of our more modern sacrifices tainted in a similar way?
Samuel is described in verse 18 as wearing an ephod, here clearly not an image but a priestly garment (see Judges 17:5). This is one of the enigmatic words of the Old Testament, the usage of which may have changed in the course of Israel’s history and may have varied locally from shrine to shrine. Samuel’s mother still kept the boy clothed, and the annual visit of his family to the sanctuary continued.
In his indictment of Eli’s sons, the historian now adds to their crime of gluttonous disregard of sacrificial rules the sin of adultery (vss. 22-25). The reference to "the tent of meeting" may indicate that prior to the erection of the sanctuary at Shiloh, there was a sacred tent to house the Ark of the Covenant and that this still existed. Be that as it may, the sins were serious enough, and their full significance is drawn out in verse 25 — they were sins against the Lord directly. In the Hebrew mind, God would be more concerned here than in the case of a crime between man and man. In the case of Eli’s sons there was no one to intercede, for God himself was offended and vengeance must descend from heaven. We miss the emphasis that even to sin against one’s fellow men is to sin against God. The distinction introduced here into the problem of moral evil finds no parallel in the full development of the biblical revelation. God’s inevitable judgment is clearly implied by Eli, and the historian declares that it was the will of the Lord to slay Eli’s sons. We need, at this point, to remember that the devout Hebrew, unlike the speculative Greek, had no interest in intermediary causes. For the Hebrew, God is active in, with, and under all nature and history. Thus the processes of history or nature were not the final causes of events in the created order. God was the final cause, and his judgments as well as his saving activity directed and sustained natural and historical processes, working in accord with natural and moral law, in which they were fulfilled. Thus the historical processes might bring about the deaths of Hophni and Phinehas, but it could be said that the Lord would slay them.
Verses 27-36 form an editorial addition, concerned to explain the replacement of Eli’s family in the priesthood by the Zadokite group of priests. The actual supersedure is recorded in 1 Kings 2:27, where we are told that Solomon ousted Abiathar from being priest in fulfillment of the prophetic word spoken at Shiloh. This story is significant as introducing an authentic prophet who declares the doom of Eli’s house. The prophetic oracle links Eli with the house of Aaron; the only evidence for this would be the usage of the Aaronic family name, Phinehas, for Eli’s son.
The prophet declared that the crime of Eli’s sons would surely lead to the divine judgment. The implied references in verses 33-34 are various. Verse 33 probably refers to the massacre of the priests at Nob from which Abiathar alone survived (1 Samuel 22:18; 1 Samuel 22:20). Verse 34 probably has a double reference to the death of Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, in battle, and also to the final ousting of Abiathar in the time of Solomon. The mention of "a faithful priest" who should be raised up in the place of this corrupt priesthood (vs. 35) would then be a reference to Zadok, but it might also refer to Samuel. We need to remember that though a prophetic word was spoken to a contemporary historical situation, the principles enunciated in it and the prophetic insight into the divine will meant that its fulfillment might be extended down history and be manifested in more than one event. Apparently this passage was written down long after the unknown prophet gave his oracle; but looking back along the stream of events, the historian saw the outcome of that oracle of judgment in successive incidents such as those in the battle with the Philistines, in the affair at Nob, and in the fall of Abiathar.
This familiar story is a reminder of how God often works in history. Weak leadership by an old man, whose worthless sons were using the priestly office for their own ends, had brought the people to the verge of disaster. The opening verse of this chapter expresses this situation in the declaration that the word of God, the prophetic oracle, was "rare." Authentic insight into God’s counsels, such as he gave to his genuine prophets, had become a rare occurrence, and therefore was greatly treasured. At such a moment God acts to raise the man for the hour, and often it is the weak and lowly who are so exalted in order that the power may manifestly be God’s and not man’s.
Samuel’s task was apparently to serve as attendant to the Ark, near which he slept in the Temple. The Ark itself has been a matter of considerable debate. It is described as a rectangular box, with two poles attached for transportation, containing, according to tradition, the two tablets of the Law (Exodus 25, 37). The lid of the box was termed "the mercy seat," and two cherubim, possibly early representations of angels, were set above this lid. The Ark was the center of God’s presence among his people. It was his throne, and here he dwelt in the midst of his people (Exodus 25:8-22). Thus to come before the Ark meant to come before the Lord, and to take the Ark to battle meant that God himself would come among his people and save them from their enemies (1 Samuel 4:4). When the Ark was lifted and moved forward before the people in their wilderness wanderings, it was equivalent to God’s arising that his enemies might flee before him (Numbers 10:35-36). Thus we may say that the Ark was a tangible sign of God’s presence among his people. It brought the divine presence to a focus and could be described as his "throne." As the Ark was in some sense an extension of God’s personal being into the visible realm, it was to a degree an anticipation of the Incarnation. Of the Ark it could be said, "Immanuel" — "God with us."
Since messages from God were infrequent in those days, we can understand Eli’s reaction to the experiences of Samuel recorded in 1 Samuel 3:1-9. By its threefold repetition the experience was proved to be real and not hallucinatory, and Eli was convinced that Samuel was being called by the Lord himself. Samuel, whose training hitherto had been for the priesthood, was now called of God to be a prophet, and the content of his first prophetic message was disclosed to him — the divine judgment on Eli’s house. This inaugural vision or audition initiated Samuel into both the reality of the Hebrew faith and his prophetic task. Like the other prophetic figures of Israel, Samuel had an initiatory experience in which the burden of his message was made plain. Eli’s greatness is disclosed in his recognition that God was working out his purpose in Samuel’s life, and still more so in his resigned acceptance of the prophetic message when his young attendant declared it to him. The sin of Eli’s house had become so deep that sacrifice would not avail to cover it and final destruction was God’s only way of dealing with it.
Samuel’s prophetic status was increasingly recognized (1 Samuel 3:19-21). Hebrew realism appears in the declaration that the Lord would not let Samuel’s words "fall to the ground." Because the word of a man was a concrete thing, with his essential character in it, one’s dynamic intentions towards another could be made effective in the other’s life by words. This was the secret of the prophetic belief that if a prophet spoke God’s word, that dynamic word was full of divine content, with the divine purpose of judgment and mercy in it. It’s very utterance into a situation would set to work those forces which would accomplish the divine plan. Through his servant Samuel, the Lord’s oracular presence was recognized at Shiloh as "the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord." The true prophet was marked uniquely by his possession of the divine word, a distinction to cause much trouble later in the differentiation of true from false prophets (see Jeremiah 14:14; Jeremiah 23:30-32).