In striking contrast with the simplicity and innocence of the young child, who henceforth waited upon Eli, thetwo sons of that pontiff, Hophni and Phinehas were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord. By their rapacity and lust they had filled all Israel with loathing and indignation, so that men abhorred the offering of the Lord. But Eli restrained them not, and, as years went on, their wickedness seemed only to increase in spite of his expostulations. It was a dark day in Israel, and their conduct gives us a terrible glimpse into the fallen condition of the chosen people (1 Sam. ii. 12–21).
Before long the first warning came to Eli. A man of God stood before him, and after reminding him of the high honour God had conferred upon him, when He chose him to be His priest, sternly rebuked him for honouring his sons above their Maker, and announced that instead of the office remaining in his family, its high functions should be transferred to another and more faithful line. And not only did he thus denounce distant punishment but an immediate and speedy pledge of it in the death on one day of both his sons (1 Sam. ii. 27–36).
But this warning produced no effect. Eli was old and greyheaded. However fitted he might have been once for the task of ruling his family, that day was gone by now. A second warning, therefore, of coming doom was now given him, not by the mouth of any stranger, but of the child, whom Hannah had left in the Tabernacle at Shiloh a loan unto the Lord. Clad in a white linen ephod, and the little mantle[226] reaching to the feet, which his mother brought him from year to year, his long flowing hair betokening his Nazarite vow, Samuel ministered before Eli. The degraded state of the priesthood in the hands of Hophni and Phinehas had made intimations of the Divine Will rare and precious in those days, there was no open vision. But the Lord found a way to intimate the coming doom of Eli’s house.One night, when the aged priest had lain down to rest in one of the chambers hard by the Tabernacle, which was illumined only by the light of the seven-branched Golden Candlestick, in the early morning, before it was yet light, a Voice called Samuel and awoke him from his slumber. Thinking Eli had called him, he went to him, and enquired the cause. But Eli had not spoken, and bade him lie down again. He did so, and again the Voice pronounced his name. Once more he ran to the bed-side of the High-priest, who as before denied that he had called him, and told him to return to his bed. A third time the Voice pronounced his name, and then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child, and bade him, if he heard it again, reply, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Samuel returned to his bed, and when the Voice called to him for the fourth time, answered as the aged priest had bidden him, and heard the purport of the mysterious call. The Lord was about to do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of him that heard it should tingle. Eli’s sons had made themselves vile, and he had not restrained them. For this iniquity his house was now to be judged and neither sacrifice nor offering could make atonement; when the Lord began, He would also make an end.
Until the sun was up, Samuel lay still, and forbore to tell Eli what he had heard. But the High-priest, whose conscience, doubtless, only too surely whispered what it was, bade him hide nothing from him. And then the old man, whose eyes were dim that he could not see, listened, while the child told him every whit. Death awaited his sons, beggary and desolation his family. It is the Lord, was his brief reply, let Him do what seemeth Him good, and in the course of time the warning was fulfilled. As Samuel grew, the Lord began to reveal Himself more and more to him. The influence of Eli, already weakened, now dwindled from day to day.He “decreased” and Samuel “increased,” and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground, so that all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that he was established to be a Prophet, a revealer of the Divine Will (1 Sam. iii. 19–21).
Meanwhile the strength of the Philistines had recovered from the wounds it had received from the champion of Dan. Advancing their forces to Aphek, no great distance from the fortress of Jebus, they attacked the Israelites, and inflicted on them a loss of 4,000 men. Alarmed at this reverse, the Israelites resolved to fetch the Ark and take it into battle, that it might save them out of the hands of their enemies. The sacred symbol was thereupon removed from the curtains that enclosed it, and the two sons of Eli accompanied it to the field. A great shout, so that the earth rang again, greeted its arrival in the Israelite camp, and the Philistines alarmed at the proximity of the mighty Gods, that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues, resolved to sell their lives dear, rather than become subject to their enemies. Again, therefore, the battle was joined, and Israel sustained a still more disastrous defeat. Upwards of 30,000 were slain, amongst whom were Eli’s sons, and worse than all, the Ark of God was taken (1 Sam. iv. 11).
On his elevated “seat” by the wayside Eli sat to receive any tidings from the battle-field, his heart trembling for the sacred Symbol of which he was the guardian. As the day closed, a young man of the tribe of Benjamin came running into the town of Shiloh. His clothes were rent, his hair sprinkled with dust. A wail of lamentation arose from the people, who no sooner saw him thus attired, than they knew how the day had gone. Eli heard the noise of the tumult, and enquired the cause. I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army, said the young man. And whatis there done, my son? enquired the pontiff. Israel is fled before the Philistines, was the reply, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people—and thy two sons, also, Hophni and Phinehas are dead—and the Ark of God is taken. No sooner did the last part of his terrible tidings fall from his mouth, than the aged priest fell from his seat backwards, and his neck brake, and he died. Ninety-eight summers had passed over his head, and forty years he had judged Israel, and now his doom was come. But still another death was to mark that dreadful day. The wife of Phinehas was near to be delivered of her second child. The news reached her that her husband and her father-in-law were dead, that Israel had been defeated, that the Ark had been taken. She bowed her head, the pangs of childbirth came upon her, a son was born, and the women that stood by tried to cheer her fainting spirits. But in vain. The Ark of God was taken, that was all her mind could realize. With her last breath she gave the child a name that should be a memorial of that fearful day. Call him Ichabod, she said, The glory is departed from Israel[227] (1 Sam. iv. 12–22).
CHAPTER II.
SAMUEL’S JUDGESHIP.
1 Sam. v.–viii. B.C. 1141–1095.
MEANWHILE the Ark was carried by the Philistines in triumph to Ashdod[228], one of their five confederate cities, and placed in the Temple of Dagon. Butthere its sanctity was remarkably vindicated, for on the morrow that idol was found lying on its face upon the ground. In vain did its votaries set it up in its place again. The next day saw it a second time laid prostrate, and not only fallen, but broken, without head or hands. Moreover while a plague of mice destroyed their crops, “emerods,” i.e. hemorrhoids or piles, tormented their bodies. In great consternation they, thereupon, removed the Ark to Gath, but there, too, the same plague broke out, and when they were on the point of removing it to Ekron, the inhabitants of that city interfered, and declared they would not admit it within their walls.
The advice of the priests and diviners was then asked, and they suggested that the sacred Coffer should be placed in a new cart drawn by two milch kine, which had never been yoked, and with a trespass-offering of five golden mice and five golden emerods be sent back to the Israelites. If the kine of their own accord took the road to Beth-shemesh, (house of the Sun[229]), under the hills of Dan, and close to the Philistine lowlands, then it would be certain that their misfortunes were due to the hostility of the Gods of the Israelites, otherwise it might be concluded that some chance had smitten them.