1 Samuel 4:11-18 sits inside this longer paragraph.
4So the people sent to Shiloh, and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of Armies, who sits above the cherubim; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 5When the ark of Yahweh’s covenant came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth resounded. 6When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, “What does the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?” They understood that Yahweh’s ark had come into the camp. 7The Philistines were afraid, for they said, “God has come into the camp.” They said, “Woe to us! For there has not been such a thing before. 8Woe to us! Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness. 9Be strong and behave like men, O you Philistines, that you not be servants to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Strengthen yourselves like men, and fight!” 10The Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter; for thirty thousand footmen of Israel fell. 11God’s ark was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
12A man of Benjamin ran out of the army and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. 13When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for God’s ark. When the man came into the city and told about it, all the city cried out. 14When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, “What does the noise of this tumult mean?” The man hurried, and came and told Eli.
15Now Eli was ninety-eight years old. His eyes were set, so that he could not see. 16The man said to Eli, “I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army.” He said, “How did the matter go, my son?”
17He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”
18When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 17, 18 In token of sorrow and mourning.
In token of sorrow and mourning.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–18 1Sa 4:11 And the ark of God was taken;…
1Sa 4:11 And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
Ver. 11. And the ark of God was taken.] By the wicked Philistines, who had as little joy of it - for it plagued them - as the Israelites before had benefit by it: Ut videas quid, ant quantum res sanctae sine sancto earum usu prosint, {a} that men may see how little good is gotten by holy things if not used in a holy manner.
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And the two sons of Eli … were slain.] As had been forethreatened in 1Sa 2:34. God’s menaces will be accomplished in their time; and yet most men hear and read them as they do the predictions of an almanac, which they think may come to pass, and it may be not: they put off all, as those in the gospel did, with a "God forbid!"
{a} Bucholoc.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 16, 18 The ark of God was taken; which God justly…
The ark of God was taken; which God justly and wisely permitted; partly, to punish the Israelites for their profanation of it; partly, that by taking away the pretences of their foolish and impious confidence, he might more deeply humble them, and bring them to true repentance; partly, that the Philistines might by this means be more effectually convinced of God’s almighty power, and of their own and their gods’ impotency, and so a stop might be put to their triumphs and insultations, and to their rage against the poor Israelites, whom otherwise in human appearance they might easily have rooted out. Thus as God was no loser by this event, so the Philistines were no gainers by it; and Israel, all things considered, received more good than hurt by it, as we shall see.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v12 Tidings are here brought to Shiloh of the fatal…
Tidings are here brought to Shiloh of the fatal issue of their battle with the Philistines. Bad news flies fast. This soon spread through all Israel; every man that fled to his tent brought it, with too plain a proof of it, to his neighbours. But no place was so nearly concerned as Shiloh. Thither therefore an express posted away immediately; it was a man of Benjamin; the Jews fancy it was Saul. He rent his clothes, and put earth upon his head, by these signs to proclaim the sorrowful news to all that saw him as he ran, and to show how much he himself was affected with it, Sa1 4:12. He went straight to Shiloh with it; and here we are told,
I. How the city received it. Eli sat in the gate (Sa1 4:13, Sa1 4:18), but the messenger was loth to tell him first, and therefore passed him by, and told it in the city, with all the aggravating circumstances; and now both the ears of every one that heard it tingled, as was foretold, Sa1 3:11. Their hearts trembled, and every face gathered blackness. All the city cried out (Sa1 3:13), and well they might, for, besides that this was a calamity to all Israel, it was a particular loss to Shiloh, and the ruin of that place; for, though the ark was soon rescued out of the hands of the Philistines, yet it never returned to Shiloh again; their candlestick was removed out of its place, because they had left their first love, and their city dwindled, and sunk, and came to nothing. Now God forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, they having driven him from them; and the tribe of Ephraim, which had for 340 years been blessed with the presence of the ark in it, lost the honour (Psa 78:60, Psa 78:67), and, some time after, it was transferred to the tribe of Judah, the Mount Sion which he loved, as it follows there (Psa 78:68), because the men of Shiloh knew not the day of their visitation. This abandoning of Shiloh Jerusalem is long afterwards reminded of, and told to take warning by. Jer 7:12, "Go see what I did to Shiloh. From this day, this fatal day, let the desolations of Shiloh be dated." They had therefore reason enough to cry out when they heard that the ark was taken.
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II. What a fatal blow it was to old Eli. Let us see, 1. With what fear he expected the tidings. Though old, and blind, and heavy, yet he could not keep his chamber when he was sensible the glory of Israel lay at stake, but placed himself by the way-side, to receive the first intelligence; for his heart trembled for the ark of God, Sa1 4:13. His careful thoughts represented to him what a dishonour it would be to God, and what an irreparable loss to Israel, if the ark should fall into the Philistines' hands, with what profane triumphs the tidings would be told in Gath and published in the streets of Ashkelon. He also apprehended what imminent danger there was of it. Israel had forfeited the ark (his own sons especially) and the Philistines would aim at it; and now the threatening comes to his mind, that he should see an enemy in God's habitation (Sa1 2:32); and perhaps his own heart reproached him for not using his authority to prevent the carrying of the ark into the camp. All these things made him tremble. Note, All good men lay the interests of God's church nearer their hearts than any secular interest or concern of their own, and cannot but be in pain and fear for them if at any time they are in peril. How can we be easy if the ark be not safe? 2. With what grief he received the tidings. Though he could not see, he could hear the tumult and crying of the city, and perceived it to be the voice of lamentation, and mourning, and woe; like a careful magistrate, he asks, What means the noise of this tumult? Sa1 4:14. He is told there is an express come from the army, who relates the story to him very distinctly, and with great confidence, having himself been an eye-witness of it, Sa1 4:16, Sa1 4:17. The account of the defeat of the army, and the slaughter of a great number of the soldiers, was very grievous to him as a judge; the tidings of the death of his two sons, of whom he had been so indulgent, and who, he had reason to fear, died impenitent, touched him in a tender part as a father; yet it was not for these that his heart trembled: there is a greater concern upon his spirit, which swallows up the less; he does not interrupt the narrative with any passionate lamentations for his sons, like David for Absalom, but waits for the end of the story, not doubting but that the messenger, being an Israelite, would, without being asked, say something of the ark; and if he could but have said, "Yet the ark of God is safe, and we are bringing that home," his joy for that would have overcome his grief for all the other disasters, and have made him easy; but, when the messenger concludes his story with, The ark of God is taken, he is struck to the heart, his spirits fail, and, it should seem, he swooned away, fell off his seat, and partly with the fainting, and partly with the fall, he died immediately, and never spoke a word more. His heart was broken first, and then his neck. So fell the high priest and judge of Israel, so fell his heavy head when he had lived within two of 100 years, so fell the crown from his head when he had judged Israel about forty years: thus did his sun set under a cloud, thus were the folly and wickedness of those sons of his, whom he had indulged, his ruin at last. Thus does God sometimes set marks of his displeasure in this life upon good men who have misconducted themselves, that others may hear, and fear, and take warning. A man may die miserably and yet not die eternally, may come to an untimely end and yet the end be peace. Dr. Lightfoot observes that Eli died the death of an unredeemed ass, whose neck was to be broken, Exo 13:13. Yet we must observe, to Eli's praise, that it was the loss of the ark that was his death, not the slaughter of his sons. He does, in effect, say, "Let me fall with the ark, for what pious Israelite can live with any comfort when God's ordinances are removed?" Farewell all in this world, even life itself, if the ark be gone.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11–18 And the ark of God was taken,.... By the…
And the ark of God was taken,.... By the Philistines; which was suffered partly as a punishment to the Israelites, for fetching it from the tabernacle without the will of God, and for their vain confidence in it; and partly that the Philistines might have an experiment of the power and might of God, as Procopius Gazaeus observes, by what they would suffer through having it among them; some have thought that this was an emblem of Christ being delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, and of the Gospel being translated from the Jews to them: and the two sons of Eli:
Hophni and Phinehas, were slain; which fulfilled the prophecy of the man of God, that they should both die in one day, Sa1 2:34. It is very probable they stood fast by the ark, and chose rather to die than to give it up freely; having received a charge from their father, that if the ark was taken, not to desire life, nor ever dare to come into his presence more, as Josephus (a) relates.
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(a) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 11. sect. 2.
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John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11, 13, 18 The ark - Which God justly and wisely permitted,…
The ark - Which God justly and wisely permitted, to punish the Israelites for their profanation of it; that by taking away the pretenses of their foolish confidence, he might more deeply humble them, and bring them to true-repentance: and that the Philistines might by this means he more effectually convinced of God's almighty power, and of their own, and the impotency of their gods, and so a stop put to their triumphs and rage against the poor Israelites. Thus as God was no loser by this event, so the Philistines were no gainers by it; and Israel, all things considered, received more good than hurt by it. If Eli had done his duty, and put them from the priesthood, they might have lived, tho' in disgrace. But now God takes the work into his own hands, and chases them out of the world by the sword of the Philistines.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 17, 18 Verse 11. Hophni and Phinehas were slain.] They probably…
Verse 11. Hophni and Phinehas were slain.] They probably attempted to defend the ark, and lost their lives in the attempt.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 18 1Sa 4:11. The ark of God was taken —…
1Sa 4:11. The ark of God was taken — Which God justly and wisely permitted, to punish the Israelites for their profanation of it; that, by taking away the pretences of their foolish confidence, he might more deeply humble them, and bring them to true repentance: and that the Philistines might by this means be more effectually convinced of God’s almighty power, and of their own impotency, and of that of their gods, and so a stop might be put to their triumphs and rage against the poor Israelites. Thus, as God was no loser by this event, so the Philistines were no gainers by it; and Israel, all things considered, received more good than hurt by it. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain — If Eli had done his duty, and put them from the priesthood, they might have lived, though in disgrace. But now God takes the work into his own hands, and chases them out of the world by the sword of the Philistines.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv12, 15, 18 Runners who were swift of foot, and could go…
Runners who were swift of foot, and could go long distances were important and well-known persons (compare 2Sa 18:19-31). There seem to have been always professional runners to act as messengers with armies in the field (2Ki 11:4, 2Ki 11:6,2Ki 11:19, the King James Version “guards”).
Earth upon his head - In token of bitter grief. Compare the marginal references.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 17, 18 Slain. Abulensis (q. 17,) thinks they were fighting in…
Slain. Abulensis (q. 17,) thinks they were fighting in defence of the ark, when they might have saved themselves by flight; so that he does not despair of their salvation. God permitted them to lose their lives in the exercise of a holy ministry, which they had so scandalously profaned. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v12 II. The Judgment on the House of Eli. 1Sa_4:12-22
II. The Judgment on the House of Eli. 1Sa_4:12-22
12And there ran a man of Benjamin20 out of the army, and came to Shiloh the 13same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. And when [om. when] he came [ins. and] lo, Eli sat upon a [his21] seat by the wayside22 watching; for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when [om. when] the man came into the city and told it [came, in order to tell it in the city] [ins. and] all the city 14cried out. And when [om. when] Eli heard the noise of the crying, he [om. he, ins. and] said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in 15hastily [hasted and came] and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight23 years old, 16and his eyes were dim [set] that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, 17What is there done, my son? And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, 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 18is taken. And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side24 of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died; for he was an old man [the man was old], and heavy. And he had judged 19Israel forty25 years. And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered;26 and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and travailed, 20for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said, Fear not; for thou hast borne a son. But she answered 21not, neither did she regard it. And she named the child Ichabod, saying “ The glory is departed from Israel,” because the ark of God was taken, and because of 22her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken.
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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Sa_4:12 sq. The persons and events of the following narrative are described with peculiar vividness, so that we may here without doubt suppose the narration to rest on the direct account of an eye-witness. A man of Benjamin.—Thenius: “ This exact statement vouches for a faithful tradition.” That he comes with mournful tidings is shown by his rent garment and the earth strown on his head, as signs of sudden deep grief, in which the heart is rent with sorrow. Comp. Gen_37:29; Gen_37:34; Num_16:6; Jos_7:6; 2Sa_15:32; Eze_27:30.27—To Shiloh the man came straight from the army (מַעֲרָכָה, Vulg. ex acie). According to the Jewish tradition28 this man was Saul, who snatched from Goliath the Tables of the Law, taken out of the ark, in order to save them. Instead of the יַךְ (he slew) of the text, which is unintelligible, we must read יַד (side)1 Samuel 29 : He sat by the side of the way, watching. Thenius remarks: “ What a strange expression !” But the sitting in the way, or on the side of the way by which the first message must come, answers precisely to the intense expectation in which Eli, though blind, had taken this position, so as, if not with the eyes (which, however, had perhaps still a glimmer of light), yet with the sense of hearing to learn straightway the arrival of the first messenger. Eli sits, as in 1Sa_1:9 at the inner, so here at the outer gate of the Sanctuary, on his seat,30 and, as appears from 1Sa_4:18, on the side of the gate, which was also, therefore, the side of the adjacent way.—His heart was heavy, not merely “ from anxiety and care for the ark, which without divine command he had let go from its dwelling-place into the camp” (Berl. Bib.), but also in respect to the issue of the battle itself for the people of Israel.—Eli’s blindness explains the fact that he failed to observe the messenger, who ran hurriedly by31 without noticing him. It is the cry of lamentation, raised by the people of Shiloh at his news, that directs Eli’s attention to the announcement. His question concerning the loud outcry around him, on which the messenger came to inform him, is explained in 1Sa_4:15 by reference to his blindness, the result of old age.—Eli was 98 years old, and his eyes were set. (The Fem. Sing. קמה with עיניו is explained, according to Ewald, § 317 a, by the abstract conception which connects itself with the Plu. of the Subst. by the combination into an abstract idea of the individuals embraced in it, “especially in lifeless objects, beasts, or in co-operating members of one body, in which the action of the individuals is not so prominent—and so in the Dual,” as here). For “were set” comp. 1Ki_16:4, where occurs the same expression for blindness caused by old age. It is the vivid description of the lifeless, motionless appearance of the eye quenched by senile weakness, “a description of the so-called black cataract, amaurosis, which usually ensues in great old age from the feebleness of the optic nerves” (Keil, in loco). In 1Sa_3:2 the process of this blinding is indicated by the word כהה as “waxing dim.”
1Sa_4:16 sq. The sorrowful tidings. The remark in 1Sa_4:15 concerning Eli’s senile weakness and blindness explains both the preceding 1Sa_4:14 and the statement in 1Sa_4:16 as to the way in which the messenger personally announces and introduces himself with the words: I am he that came out of the army.—But he says, “ I am he that came” not merely on account of Eli’s blindness, but also on account of the importance of the announcement with which he approaches the head of the whole people. It is not allowable, therefore, to translate: “I come” (De Wette). At the same time the messenger declares himself a fugitive, and so intimates that the army is completely broken up. Eli’s question refers not to the How (how stood the affair? De Wette, Bunsen), but to the What: “What was the affair?” (Thenius), Vulg.: quid actum est?—The answer of the messenger to Eli’s question (1Sa_4:17) contains nothing but facts in a fourfold grade, each statement more dreadful than the preceding. There is a power in these words which comes out in four sharp sentences, with blow after blow, till its force is crushing: Israel fleeing before the Philistines, a great slaughter among the people, Eli’s sons dead, the ark taken. The double “and also” (וגם) is to be observed here as characteristic of the lapidary style of the words, and the excitement with which they were spoken.—The narrator remarks expressly that the fourth blow, the news of the capture of the ark by the heathen, led to Eli’s death. This is again a sign of the fear of God, which was deeply rooted in his heart; the ark represented the honor and glory of the God who dwelt in His people; the people’s honor and power might perish; the destruction of his house might be irretardable, unavoidable; prepared beforehand for it, he had said: “ It is the Lord, let him do as seemeth him good !” But the loss of the ark to the heathen was his death-blow the more surely, the firmer had been his hope that, as of old in the time of Moses and Joshua, the host of Israel would win the victory over the Philistines under the lead of the ark which he, a weak guardian of the Sacred Vessel, had sent off to the battle without Divine command, weakly yielding to the elders of the people whose trust was not in the living God. His judicial and high-priestly office, lacking as it was in honor and renown, he closed with honor; though the manner of his death was terrible, and bore the mark of a divine judgment, he nevertheless died in the fear of God. Berl. Bib.: “It is besides an honorable and glorious death to die from care for God’s honor.” His judgeship had lasted 40 years. The Sept. reading, 20 years for 40, results, according to Thenius, from the confusion of the numeral letters מ and כ, as the reading 78 (Syr., Arab.) for 98 in 1Sa_4:15, according to the same critic, may be due to the confusion of צ and ע. Further, our text “ is sustained by the fact that Eli hardly became Judge in his 78th year" (Thenius).
1Sa_4:19 sq. Here follows the pathetic narrative of Eli’s daughter-in-law, in which is shown how the judgment on Eli’s house is still farther fulfilled in his family.32 The wife of Phinehas was so violently affected by the horror and sorrow that her pains came prematurely on her. Literally it reads: “ her pains turned upon her,” or “ began to turn themselves within her.” This expression is suggested by the ground-meaning of the word (צִירִים), “something turning, winding, circling.”
1Sa_4:20. The comforting word of the women who stood by: “ thou hast borne a son ” does not rouse the mother’s joy in her heart, and cannot overcome or soften its sorrow at the loss of the ark, which is more to her than the loss of husband and father-in-law—and this is set forth by two expressions in the narration: “ she gave no answer, and laid it not to heart,” did not set her mind on it. Comp. Psa_62:11 שׂוּם לֵב. What is commonly for a mother’s heart at such a time the greatest joy (Joh_16:21), was for her as if it were not; so is her soul occupied and taken up with sorrow for the lost ark. This shows the earnest, sincere piety, in which she is like her father-in-law. Eli’s house, made ripe by his weakness for so frightful a judgment, was not in all its members personally a partaker of the godlessness and immorality of those who certainly, before the Lord and the whole nation, stamped it as ripe for God’s righteous punishment. “ The wife of this deeply corrupt man shows how penetrated the whole people then was with the sense of the value of its covenant with God ” (O. v. Gerlach).33
1Sa_4:21. She gives expression to what fills her heart by naming the child Ichabod. This name is not ” where is glory?” (אֵי כ׳) that is, nowhere, but it = “not glory.”34 She explains the name Not-glory, Un-glory by saying (לֵאמֹר): “the glory of Israel is carried into captivity.” (The אֵל, as in verse 19, is “ in reference to,” “ having regard to,” and belongs to לֵאמֹר as the continuation of the words of the narrator, not of the dying woman). The narrator has in mind her words, on which she based that ejaculation, but does not state them as hers till afterwards; here he states beforehand the fact contained in them as a historical explanation. We must note, however, the difference between his explanation and her reason for that exclamation in 1Sa_4:22. While he mentions the reference (אֶל) to the two dead, she bases the name (כִּי) on the one thing only, the capture of the ark. The honor or glory is the divine majesty, the glory of God, which is enthroned above the ark. Grotius: “ The ark above which God was accustomed to appear in glory.” With the capture of the ark “Israel’s glory is carried into captivity;” “with the abandonment of the earthly throne of His glory, the Lord seemed to have annulled His covenant of grace with Israel; for the ark, with the tables of the law and the kapporeth [mercy-seat], was the visible pledge of the covenant of grace which Jehovah had made with Israel” (Keil). Eli’s son’s wife dies, as Eli himself, in consuming sorrow over what was the core of this national and domestic misfortune, over the judgment of the turning away of the almighty living God from the covenant-people, the outward sign of which was the removal of the ark, on which, in accordance with His promise given in the law, He would sit as Israel’s God and dwell in the midst of His people. Comp. Exo_25:22; Exo_30:6; Exo_30:36; Exo_40:35 (“the glory of the Lord filled the dwelling”), 1Ki_8:10-11. [Bib. Comm. refers to Psa_78:61; Psa_78:64 as containing allusions to this incident. Wordsworth: “With God there is no Ichabod.”—Tr.] “The necessary result of this national view of the ark is that there was only one sanctuary, so that all those passages which affirm it may be cited as direct testimony to the fact that there was only one sanctuary.” (Hengst. Beit. [Contrib.] 3:55.)
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. In the history of His kingdom on earth God the Lord often permits times to come, when it seems as if the victory had been forever borne away from His people by the hostile world, and the holy ordinances of His kingdom, and its gracious benefits forever abandoned to the power of unbelief. Such times are times of judgment on the house of the Lord, the purpose of which is to make manifest all who truly belong to the Lord’s people, to put an end to the hypocrisy of dead belief and of the unbelief which is concealed under outward forms and the appearance of godliness, to lead to earnest, honest repentance, and bring men to seek again God’s mercy in true living faith.
2. Outcry over inbreaking outward and inward corruption, in which God’s judgments are inflicted, is nothing but an expression of the sorrow which flesh and blood feels, a sign of the distance and alienation of the fleshly heart from God, unless therein the cry is heard: “It is the Lord, this the Lord hath done,” and the confession is made: “We have deserved it by our sins,” and unless recourse is had in penitence and faith to God’s grace and mercy. And all this was lacking in the outcry of that whole city and its loud tumult.
3. “Being in God”—that is, the union of the heart with Him in the deepest foundation of its being, reveals itself in times of great misfortune and suffering in this, that the sorrow and mourning is not restricted to the loss of earthly-human possessions, but directs itself chiefly to the loss and lack of God’s gracious presence, and thus shows that for the inner life the glory of God and blessedness in communion with Him is become the highest good. So here in this refraining from grief over the loss of what to the flesh was the nearest and dearest, and in the outspoken sorrow only over the violence done to God’s honor and the contempt cast on His name, is verified the Lord’s word: “He who forsaketh not father or mother, or brother, etc., is not worthy of me.”
4. Eli and his son’s wife are shining examples of true heartfelt piety in the gloom of the corruption that reigned in the high-priestly family and the judgments that came on it, in that they are not taken up with their own interests, but bewail the violation of the sanctuary, the contempt put on God’s honor as the highest misfortune; and so in times of universal confusion and degradation which God the Lord lets befall His kingdom in this world, He has always His people in secret, who look not on their own need and tribulation as most to be lamented, but sorrow most deeply and heavily that the ends of His grace are thwarted, the honor of His name violated, and the affairs of His kingdom in confusion.
5. Even a sudden terrible death under the stroke of a merited judgment of God may be a blessed death in the living God, if the heart breaks with the cry: “To God alone the glory!”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1Sa_4:12. The outward signs of mourning, such as were usual among the people of Israel—rending the garments and putting ashes or dust on the head—ought to be a symbolical representation of godly sorrow for sin, in which the heart is broken to pieces by the word of the holy and righteous God, and the whole man casts himself humbly and penitently into the dust before his God. [Very fanciful.—Tr.] But, as then under the oppression of Philistine rule in Israel, there is nowhere a trace to be found of such repentance, when the misfortune over which men mourn and lament is not regarded and felt as a punishment of God for sin, and the smiling hand of the righteous and holy God is not therein recognized.
1Sa_4:13. S. Schmid: We must take care not to do any thing with a doubtful conscience, that we may not have always to stand in fear, Rom_16:23.—Those who will not cry out over their sins in true repentance must at last cry out over the punishment and their misfortune.
1Sa_4:17-18. Starke: When men sin without distinction, God also punishes without distinction, and regards no person, dignity, age, nor condition, Wis_6:7.—S. Schmid: The honor of God and the true service of God must lie more on our hearts than our own children and parents.—Berl. Bible: It is a wonderful thing that whereas the people were so powerful and had gained so many victories, as long as God protected them, they now fly and let themselves be overcome almost without a struggle, as soon as ever God ceases to be on their side. If God protects us in a special way, we are a match for our enemies; but if He leaves us only for a little to ourselves, into what weaknesses do we not then fall! So that we unite with our enemies in contributing much to our downfall.—We must, however, regard it as an effect of God’s compassion when He permits us to be smitten. For if this did not happen, we should not sufficiently recognize our weakness, and our great need of His assistance.—It is an honorable and glorious death to die from concern for the honor of God.
1Sa_4:21-22. Berleb. Bible: As soon as we lose this presence (God’s), we fall into the utmost weakness and into powerlessness, so that we can no more do what we have done before. We also cease to be a terror to our enemies; for these, on the contrary, now rejoice over our defeat.—Wunderlich (in Daechsel): So prevalent in Israel was a regard for the glory of God, which streamed down upon the people, so deeply implanted was the theocratic national consciousness that a woman in travail forgot her pains, and a dying woman the terrors of death, a mother did not comfort herself in her new-born son, and sorrow for the lost jewel of the nation outweighed even sorrow for the death of a father and of a husband, and this in a family and in a period which must be regarded as degenerate.
1Sa_4:12-22. A terrible and yet an honorable end—if 1) With the humble confession “ It is the Lord ” the hand of God as it smites down is held back; 2) In complete unselfishness one’s own misfortune and ruin is quite forgotten over the shame brought upon the honor and the name of God; and 3) The hidden man of the heart, with all his striving, turns himself alone towards the honor and glory of God as his supreme good.—The defeats of God’s people in the conflict with the world which is hostile to His kingdom. 1) Their causes: a) on their side: unfaithfulness towards the Lord, arbitrary, self-willed entrance into the strife without God, cowardice and flight; b) on God’s side: punitive justice, abandonment to the hands of their enemies. 2 Their necessary consequences: deep hurt to the yet remaining life of faith, injury to the honor of God, and shame brought upon His glorious name. 3) The results contemplated by God in permitting them, or their design: sincere repentance, all the more zealous care for the Lord’s honor, glorifying His name so much the more.—Without honor to God no honor to the people: 1) In the inner life of the people—error and heterodoxy, where the light of His revealed truth does not shine, sin and unrighteousness, where there is a lack of faithful obedience to His holy will, spiritual-moral wretchedness and ruin, where God must withdraw His gracious presence; 2) In the outer life of the people in relation to other peoples, oppression and subjection, introduction from without of godlessness and immorality, loss of their good name.—The cry, Ichabod, the glory is departed from Israel, is a cry which 1) as a lamenting cry, is grounded in the proper recognition of the cause, greatness and significance of the ruin and wretchedness which come from being abandoned by God, and 2) as an awakening cry is designed to admonish to earnest repentance and returning to the Lord, that the light of His glory may again break forth out of the gloom.
[1Sa_4:19-22. The pious wife of Phinehas. 1) Pious, though living in an age of general corruption. 2) Deeply pious, though the wife of a grossly wicked husband. 3) So pious, that in her devout grief all other strongest feelings were swallowed up: a) maternal feeling, b) conjugal and filial feeling, c) patriotic feeling.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[20][1Sa_4:12. Instead of the Gen. construction, as here, the Heb..has more commonly the tribal name as Adj. (gentilie), as in Jdg_3:15; 2Sa_20:1; but for ex. of this form see Jdg_10:1.—Tr.]
[21][1Sa_4:13. The Art. here points to some well-known or accustomed seat.—Tr.]
[22][1Sa_4:13. It is generally agreed that we must here read, with the Qeri and Syr., יד instead of יך, but the absence of the Art. in דרך makes a difficulty, and the Sept. and Chald. seem to hare rendered from a slightly different text. Sept. has: “Eli was near the gate, watching the way,” and Chald.: “Eli sat in the path of the way of the gate watching.” So in 1Sa_4:18 the Heb. text “side of the gate.” It would seem probable, therefore, that הַשַּעַר “the gate” has fallen out here.—Tr.]
[23][1Sa_4:15. Sept. here gives 90 years, and Syr. (followed by Arab.) 78.—Tr.]
[24][1Sa_4:18. Wellhausen objects to בעד יד, rejects the עד as repetition by error, and reads ביד. But this is unnecessary; comp. the אֵל in 2Sa_18:4, and the force of בעד in Job_2:4.—Tr.]
[25][1Sa_4:18. Sept. gives 20 years, other verss. 40.—Tr.]
[26][1Sa_4:19. לַת for לֶדֶת, the only place where this contraction occurs (so Rashi).—Tr.]
[27][On the importance of “runners” see note in Bib. Comm. on this verse, which remarks also, that as the messenger came from Ebenezer within the day (1Sa_4:16) it must have been near.—Tr.]
[28][See Talmudical Tract Sota, and the Midrash of Samuel, and comms. of Rashi and Abarbanel.—Tr.]
[29][See “Textual and Grammatical” note on this word.—Tr.]
[30][This word (כסא) everywhere else clearly means “throne” (unless perhaps in 1Ki_2:19; Psa_9:14), and comp. Zec_6:13. Yet, in the infrequent occurrence of any word for an ordinary seat (and see Eze_28:2, מוֹשַׁב א׳ “seat of God”), though the word seems to imply something of official dignity, the rendering throne (Josephus: ἐφ’ ὑψηλο͂υ θρόνου) would here be not so good as “seat.”—Tr.]
[31][The messenger probably entered the city by the gate where Eli was sitting.—Tr.]
[32]The לְ before לֶדֶת=לַת is that of time, our towards, on, about; comp. Jos_2:3, “the gate was for closing,” that is, was to be closed immediately; Ew. Gr. 217, 2 b. So here: towards bearing, near to bearing. On the contraction of לֶדֶת into לַת comp. Ew. Gr. § 236,1 b, and § 80.—אֵל is often used, as here, to point out the object to which the narration relates—with the verbs “say, relate.” Comp. Gen_20:2; Psa_2:7; Psa_69:27; Isa_38:19; Jer_27:19; Job_42:7. It is explained by the fact that, in narrating or speaking, the mind is directed to the object, stands in relation to it. Comp. לִ Isa_5:1. That it here depends on a subst., and not, as usually, on a verb, does not affect the principle, since a verbal conception lies in this subst.
[33][We can hardly draw a conclusion concerning the whole nation from the example of one person, and Gerlach’s inference is, for other reasons, doubtful.—Tr.]
[34] אִי is not אָבִי contracted, as in אִיעֶזֶר, Num_26:30; Ew. § 84 c, but = “not,” “without,” Ew. § 273 b, A. 1, p. 667, comp. § 209 c, to which the context points.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v13 ELI HEARING THE TIDINGS. (Sa1 4:12-22)
ELI HEARING THE TIDINGS. (Sa1 4:12-22)
Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside--The aged priest, as a public magistrate, used, in dispensing justice, to seat himself daily in a spacious recess at the entrance gate of the city. In his intense anxiety to learn the issue of the battle, he took up his usual place as the most convenient for meeting with passers-by. His seat was an official chair, similar to those of the ancient Egyptian judges, richly carved, superbly ornamented, high, and without a back. The calamities announced to Samuel as about to fall upon the family of Eli [Sa1 2:34] were now inflicted in the death of his two sons, and after his death, by that of his daughter-in-law, whose infant son received a name that perpetuated the fallen glory of the church and nation [Sa1 4:19-22]. The public disaster was completed by the capture of the ark. Poor Eli! He was a good man, in spite of his unhappy weaknesses. So strongly were his sensibilities enlisted on the side of religion, that the news of the capture of the ark proved to him a knell of death; and yet his overindulgence, or sad neglect of his family--the main cause of all the evils that led to its fall--has been recorded, as a beacon to warn all heads of Christian families against making shipwreck on the same rock.
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Next: 1 Samuel Chapter 5
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 17 THE BITTER TIDINGS, 1Sa_4:12-22.
THE BITTER TIDINGS, 1Sa_4:12-22.
We might search the fields of literature in vain to find a more touching picture of human calamity and distress than these ten verses give us. The aged Eli, feeble and decrepit under the weight of eight and ninety years, goes forth from his place in the tabernacle and sits down by the wayside, where he may catch the first message from the battle. All the city is waiting the result in breathless expectation, and his heart is trembling for the safety of the ark. Perhaps it was taken away from Shiloh without his counsel or against his will. But though his anxiety to hear the first message leads him out by the wayside, the messenger seems to have rushed by him, intentionally, perhaps, knowing that the awful tidings would break the old man’s heart. But he soon hears the bitter wail of lamentation that rises from the city, and the messenger, coming into his presence, rapidly but impressively tells his woful tale. Eli’s trembling bosom throbs with wild intensity, but he still bears up until he hears it said, “The ark of God is taken!” Then burst the heart that had so long been sorrow-stricken, and, falling backwards from his seat, the venerable priest and Judge expired.
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Then followed in another part of Shiloh another scene of woe. It was the mournful death of the wife of Phinehas. The bitter tidings brought on her travail pains, and these ended in death. No comforting words of surrounding friends could inspirit her, and with her dying breath she gave her child a name that would forever suggest to the memory of the living the bitter losses of that dreadful day.
12. His clothes rent, and… earth upon his head — Usual signs of calamity and grief. Compare Jos_7:6; 2Sa_13:19; 2Sa_15:32.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–18 11. Hophni and Phinehas were slain] The “sign” given…
11. Hophni and Phinehas were slain] The “sign” given by the man of God that the whole doom pronounced against Eli’s house would be executed (ch. 1Sa_2:34).
The Psalmist’s account of the catastrophe should be compared, Psa_78:56-64.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 (11) And the ark of God was taken.—The bare…
(11) And the ark of God was taken.—The bare fact, without comment or note, is given of this, the greatest calamity that had yet happened to Israel. All the people would know by this terrible sign that their invisible King had withdrawn His countenance from them; but the loss of the Ark to the heathen taught another lesson, not merely for the Israel of the days of Eli and Samuel—the eternal truth that “the living God does not bind His presence to a dead thing” (Erdmann). But though it was a dead thing, it was inexpressibly precious to the patriot Israelite. Was it not the ark “which Moses had made by God’s command at Sinai, and on which the Divine presence was enshrined in the Holy of Holies; and which had accompanied Israel in their marches through the wilderness, and before which the waters of Jordan had fled backward, and the walls of Jericho had fallen down?—that ark was taken by idolaters.”—Bishop Wordsworth.
The two sons of Eli . . . were slain.—This was in strict accordance with the saying of the man of God. (See 1Sa_2:34.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 Moreover, the ark of God was taken, and the…
Moreover, the ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain, according to the prediction of the man of God. Probably the last resistance was made round the ark, and the sons of Eli at least died "as men". (1Sa_2:33)
Symbol and spiritual truth.
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the ark of God was taken." The ark was a Divinely appointed symbol or material sign of spiritual truth, and especially of the presence and majesty, the holiness, mercy, and protection, of the invisible King of Israel. It was a part of a system of symbolical worship which was adapted to an early stage of human culture, and formed an important element in a dispensation introductory and preparatory to "the ministration of the Spirit". (2Co_3:8) But even under the new dispensation symbolism is not absolutely done away, for Baptism and the Lord"s Supper are both symbolic. With special, though not exclusive, reference to the ancient symbol, notice that
I THE SYMBOL SERVES IMPORTANT PURPOSES IN RELATION TO THE TRUTH OR SPIRITUAL REALITY WHICH IT REPRESENTS. Its need arises from our being constituted of body and soul, the dependence of thought and feeling on sensible impressions, and the necessary influence of imagination in religion; and it serves
1. To make its nature more conceivable. "In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the infinite; the infinite is made to blend itself with the finite, to stand visible and, as it were, attainable there" (Sartor Resartus).
2. To make its presence more certain; not, indeed, in itself, but in the convictions of the soul.
3. To make its influence more powerful, constant, and universal. It should, however, be observed that only the symbols which have been appointed by God may be authoritatively used in his worship; that these should be regarded with due reverence; not improperly exalted, not altered, not despised, not handled by unworthy hands; and that no others should be introduced, or only such as do not inculcate error, and do not conduce to superstition or formalism.
II THE SYMBOL MAY BE POSSESSED WHILST THE TRUTH IS PARTIALLY OR WHOLLY LOST. This comes to pass
1. When the symbol receives an undue share of attention in comparison with the truth, which is distinct from it and incomparably more important;
2. when it centres thought upon itself, and hinders rather than helps the soul in its spiritual aspirations.
3. When there is a moral indisposition and dislike, on the part of those who possess the symbol, toward the truth.
4. When, in consequence of such dislike, and the lowering of the idea ofthe truth, the sign is confounded with the thing signified, identified with it, and substituted for it. This is ever the chief danger attending the use of symbols in Divine worship.
III THE RETENTION OF THE SYMBOL WITHOUT THE TRUTH IS WORTHLESS AND INJURIOUS.
1. It fails of its purpose; is a means of grace no more; an empty cistern; ameaningless, unreal, and hollow form. Nehushtan (a piece of brass . (2Ki_18:4)
2. It fills men with false confidence, and increases their error, formality,and corruption.
3. It woefully disappoints the trust which is reposed in it, and often leavesthem to despair. (Gal_5:1, Gal_5:2)
IV THE REMOVAL OF THE SYMBOL IS SOMETIMES NECESSARY TO THE RECOVERY OF THE TRUTH. And this effect is accomplished by
1. Its correction of fatal error. In the case of Israel, teaching that the ark was not the same as the Divine presence, and did not necessarily insure it.
2. Causing deep humiliation.
3. Leading to earnest inquiry and prayer. "They lamented after the Lord", (1Sa_7:2) not after the ark, which had long been restored, and lay in a private dwelling without public honour, and appears to have exerted no influence whatever in the revival of spiritual truth and life that followed.
Conclusion:
1. Symbols are useful when rightly used and held in subordination to spiritual truth.
2. The course of the Divine dealings with men (like that of men withchildren) is less and less symbolical, more and more spiritual. "They shall say no more, The ark of the covenant," etc. (Jer_3:16; Col_2:17:. Heb_9:23)
3. Symbols will completely vanish away in the light of perfect knowledge. D. (1Co_13:10-12)
HOMILIES BY D. FRASER Ver. 11.
The ark misplaced and lost.
The elders of Israel were chagrined at the defeat suffered by the national army in its attempt to throw off the yoke of the Philistines. But, instead of seeking the Lord by repentance, they fell on a device to compel him, as they supposed, to give them a victory. Had not the ark been carried round the walls of Jericho, when Israel had no engines of siege to bring against a fortified city; and had not the walls fallen flat to the ground? Why not try its power again? "Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of Jehovah unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.
I A SACRED SYMBOL MISUSED. Forthwith the ark was brought into the camp, and the people in their foolish confidence shouted till the earth rang again. A superstitious fear ran through the ranks of the Philistines, but it did not unnerve them for the battle. They gained a signal victory, "and the ark of God was taken." At such a cost had Israel to learn that the ark ought not to be used as a charm or talisman, and that, if so regarded and employed, it could not save them, could not save itself, while the face of God was turned away from the wicked priests and the degenerate nation. It is a lesson for all times. Men are often tempted to rely on religious symbols and appointments, not so much to glorify God therewith as to protect themselves. It is much easier to shout over these than to break off sins by righteousness. So the cross has been worn in many an evil enterprise, and carried into many battles, to defend cruel and rapacious men. So, also, men shout over their Church, their English Bible, their prayer book, or their sabbath, in a vain confidence that their relation to one of them, or to all of them, will secure the Divine favour, or, at all events, Divine defence, though in character and life they be no better than others who boast of none of these things. But it is all delusion, and they who go into some hard battle of life with no better security are destined to a thorough defeat. The ark of God itself could do nothing for men who by their sins had driven away the God of the ark. What a selfish man wants in religion is to have God bound to take his part and fight on his side, instead of his studying to be on God"s side, which is the side of righteousness. Such was the thought of the heathen nations of the East. Each of them had its guardian deity or deities, who were worshipped and propitiated at any cost, in order that they might befriend that particular nation or tribe, and injure its enemies. The gods were expected to give strength and victory to their own people, taking their part whether their cause were just or unjust. The Hebrews sometimes fell into the same way of thinking of Jehovah. He was their national God, and bound as such to fight for them. He was to be praised if they succeeded, to be reproached if they failed in whatever enterprise they undertook. Have not many Christians similar thoughts of God? Almost every great act of rapine has been perpetrated, and every war, however unjust, has been waged, with grave appeal to heaven, and gross usurpers and tyrants have had "Te Deum" sung for their infamous victories. But in vain do unrighteous men claim religious sanctions. God defends the right, and his face is against the wrong doer. The ark of his covenant, brought into the din and dust of battle by those who were full of sin unrepented of, went into the enemy"s hand, and the priests who stood beside it were slain.
II FOREBODING OF EVIL. The aged Eli sat in his chair of office by the gate of Shiloh, watching the road, eager for early tidings from the army, his heart trembling for the ark of God. The natural fearfulness of old age was aggravated in this case by a reproaching conscience, which told Eli that he ought not to have permitted the ark to be taken without any warrant from the Lord into the turmoil of battle. So he sat foreboding calamity; and when the heavy tidings came to him of the discomfiture of Israel, the death of his sons, and the capture of the ark by the Philistines, Eli fell to the earth without a word, and died. We do not present the pathetic figure of the old priest trembling for the ark as a model for servants of God. The right and noble thing for Eli to have done would have been to resist the desecration of the sacred ark, and to call the people to repentance, that so they might be strong in God before they encountered the Philistines. But he had governed so weakly that he had no moral influence or authority; and his great age, which ought to have brought him reverence, only brought him feebleness; so Eli could but tremble and die. We have seen such feeble saints in our own time; they are always foreboding evil; they are in great alarm about the dangers which beset Christian truth; they sit trembling for the ark. Popery is about to swallow us up! Or, Infidelity is carrying all before it! Alas for the ark of God! So they wail and lament, and spread misgivings among all who listen to them. But they do little else; they have no vigour in counsel or action to prevent or to remedy spiritual disaster. It is a poor spirited, ineffective style of Christian character. We want something much firmer and bolder for the defence and propagation of the gospel. We want repentance insisted on, righteousness preached and practised, wrongs redressed, abuses cast out of the Church, and then we need not fear the Philistines. Granted that the times are perilous; there is cause of anxiety, and there is need of prayer. But prayer itself will not gain any victory for those whose hearts and lives are not right with God. Hophni and Phinehas went to the battle field reeking from their sins. How could God fight by or for them? And the people of Israel, following the bad example in high places, were quite demoralised. Why should they have a victory? Let repentance begin at the house of God. Let iniquity be abhorred and forsaken. So God will be with us, and we need not fear the foe. We shall tremble at his word, but we shall not tremble because of the Philistines. "Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. F.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And the Ark of God was taken (compare 1Sa_5:7.
1Sa_4:11
And the Ark of God was taken (compare 1Sa_5:7.
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and 2Sa_6:15).
The ark taken and retaken
The whole of this history which gathers round the capture of the ark, and its return to the land of Israel till it found a home in Jerusalem, is of very great interest.
I. Let us first, then, look at this connection between declension and defeat. At the root of the calamity which befell the nation and the dishonour to the cause of God, there was a deep moral apostasy. The spiritual condition of the people had never sunk lower, from their abasement in Egypt to their captivity in Babylon, than at this time. The character of the priesthood had become thoroughly corrupt, and this is one of the most ominous signs that can appear in any society. The priests have the heaviest responsibility, no doubt, but sins of priests and people generally go hand-in-hand. Then, if there is to be recovery at all, convulsion is not far away. Churches and ministers with a very decent exterior may be standing in the same relative position as the people and priesthood in this olden time. We may be as far beneath the Sermon on the Mount as they were beneath the commandments of Sinai. We must never forget that the great test of all religion is its moral results. Is it making men lead higher, purer, more self-denying lives? Is our Christianity presenting itself in the spirit of Christ? Are ministers following the example of the apostle who could truly say, I seek not yours, but you? To have Church and land safe, is not enough to be free from the profanations which led to the capture of the ark; we must be in some conformity with the Christian standard. There was another feature of the declension of the people of Israel connected with this. They had changed their religion into a formal superstition. After their first defeat by the Philistines they began to think of higher help. But it was not of God they thought, the living God, but only of His ark. Let us fetch the ark of the covenant, that it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. And like all men when reality begins to fail, they are great in lofty phrases--The ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts which dwelleth between the cherubim. When religion comes to this it sinks into a hideous idol, and the petrified shell must be broken in pieces if the spirit is to be saved. It is the natural result of the corruption of the word of life. So it was with the Pharisees in the time of our Lord. They made broad phylacteries with texts on them, and washed cups and plates, and made much of tithing little things, and then religion ascended a cross and hid itself in a grave. How deep it is in human nature to put the letter for the life! And when we take the Bible into our hand and call ourselves evangelical Christians we are not safe from this same danger. It is quite possible to possess an orthodox creed and put it in place of a true, unselfish life, to hold fast by our Bibles, and make the having them and reading them a charm, as truly as the Israelites, with the ark of Shiloh. There comes to the Church of Christ an evangelical revival. But in time it loses its efficacy. The same truth is preached, the very same words are used, but they have passed into a formula which glides over the tongue of the speaker, and falls on the ears of the hearers without any movement of the heart, or perhaps any distinct significance to the mind. The revival of Christian doctrine will ere long lose its power, unless it lead to a corresponding revival of Christian life. Now, there is a further stage in the arks history before it reaches its lowest fall. It has been dissociated from the living God, and has become not merely a common but a desecrated thing. To redeem the Israelites from their error, they must learn that the ark is powerless if God forsakes them, and that the symbol cannot save without the living presence. The Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and the ark of God was taken. Natural human courage proved itself stronger than corrupted religion, and hypocrisy was broken and scattered. No doubt the Philistines imagined they had vanquished Israels God, and some of his sincere but short-sighted friends thought the cause of religion lost, but the victory was for God and truth. The corruption of the best thing becomes the worst, and life, in some lower form, rises and overthrows what has lost its spirit, though it may still bear a higher name. We may think that catastrophes like these are very far from our own country, and from the churches of God among us, but there may be a slow decay which brings about the same end. Unless we can raise our Christian life in some measure up to our profession, and make it higher than the natural virtues which are found outside the Church, we shall suffer defeat in point after point, which shall bring on us serious detriment. If, for example, dishonesty and faithlessness to engagements be permitted amongst us, which would not be suffered in the common walks of life, we cannot maintain our place as the guardians of righteousness. If men of science show an unwearied love in the study of nature, an enthusiasm in gathering stores of knowledge from earth and sea and sky, and a skilfulness in applying them to practical use while we are indifferent and inert in the pursuit of spiritual truths. Careless about the hidden treasures of wisdom which cast light on the ways of God and meet the wants of souls, we shall not inspire confidence in our sincerity, or give men much interest in the contents of Gods Word and the work of Christs Church. The world is ready to judge a cause by the spirit it creates and thy fruit it produces, and if we do not surround the ark of God with all the things that have virtue and praise of which the apostle speaks, man will not believe in us, and may come to treat it with contempt.
II. We come to the other side of the subject, Gods victory. The Philistines carry the captive ark in triumph to Ashdod, their capital, and set it up as a trophy in the house of Dagon, their god. But the ark, which could not be defended by great armies, and round which thirty thousand men fell in vain, showed the power of the God of Israel when it was left alone and in exile. Dagon fell prostrate before it and when the priests set up their idol again it brought on it a heavier ruin. Disease spread through their coasts, and they began to feel that they were in conflict with a mysterious power, though they were slow to admit their weakness. What to do with God is the worlds great trial, as what to do with Jesus was the difficulty of Pilate. For the world cannot make God to its mind, and in the end the world cannot do without Him. It carries His ark hither and thither, seeks to bring Him to the level of its own conceptions, to subject Him to its own idols, but finds in all its efforts no true rest till it suffers Him to take His own way to His throne, from which in His own time He shall make good His word by still higher victories--Over Philistia will I triumph. We are still in the midst of this history, but we have reached a wider phase of it. We see it now more frequently, not in the attempt to put Dagon above the God of heaven, but to put man above Him. This brings us to the last remark, that if the ark of God is to find its true place it must be committed to the hands of men who love it. Men who have no real faith in it may be made instruments in Gods Providence of showing its powers, even by their extorted acknowledgments; but if it is to reach its throne it must be set within the border of its own land, and be borne from house to house and village to village till it gains Jerusalem. Even the God of the ark will not carry it to its end without human agency. That cross is our ark of the covenant, and in the joy that welcomed it to Jerusalem, when David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet, we seem to catch far off the anticipation of that time when the temple of God shall be opened in heaven, and there is seen in it the ark of His testament: and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The Kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever (Rev_11:1-19). And so let us, in closing, gather up the spirit of the history as it applies to ourselves. We need never despair of the cause of God; it has had its defeats where all seemed lost, but every defeat has been the herald of a new victory and of a higher rise. From Shiloh to the house of Dagon; but thence to Jerusalem to put on more spiritual beauty, and to be surrounded with those songs which go deep into Christian hearts. Let us not faint at its many vicissitudes. (J. Ker, D. D.)
The Ark of God taken
I. The text exhibits the terrible consequences to which ungodliness in the church and the weak or sympathetic toleration of it will lead. No one can fail to perceive that this was a most crushing catastrophe. The ark of God was taken. Looked at merely as a military reverse it presents a very gloomy aspect. Overwhelming must be the defeat inflicted when it reaches even to the capture of the generals tent or the pavilion over which fleets the royal standard; and this was what happened. On some of the sculptured tablets which adorn the walls of the British Museum you may see representations of triumphal processions, in which the gods of the congregated people are being carried into captivity. Something like this happened, I suppose, after this battle of Aphek. With jubilant, and it may be mocking shouts, a procession was formed, and the sacred prize was borne to the temple of their chief idol. To Dagon they owe their success, and Jehovah is now the prisoner of Dagon, and must own the superior Deity. And in this way, of course, their own spiritual nature was injured. The inevitable and irresistible tendency of sin, wherever it exists, is to bring calamity upon the individual, upon the family, upon the nation; but when wickedness lifts up its head in the Church there is, if I may use the expression, a cancer of the heart; the very centre of life and vigour is stricken. Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? If the light that is in the world be darkness, how great is that darkness! And the end of it will be that Gods name will be discredited, souls injured most desperately, the Lords own people plunged in gloom, and the cause of truth and righteousness smitten with a staggering blow, if not covered with disgrace. Hence the folly and guilt of an easy toleration of open sin anywhere, but especially in the Church. The command to leave the Sates never means that I am to let alone those who are manifestly thorns and weeds and poisonous herbs. No, no. Persecution, of course, we must not allow, but discipline we dare not neglect.
II. The text exhibits the outrageous folly of attempting to compensate for the absence of godliness by superficial excitement and superstitious attention to religious forms.
1. It indicates that they had not consulted the Lord before they commenced the campaign. You remember the time when the earlier generations of those redeemed out of Egypt came to the borders of Canaan, and the command was given to go up and possess the land? Spies were sent to explore the country, and they brought back an evil report. The people lost heart and began to murmur bitterly. The Lord in His righteous anger said, These people shall not go in at all; their children shall go in, but as for them, they shall die in the wilderness. Then their murmuring changed into penitential mourning, and they said, We will go. Moses retorted, It is now too late, the Lord will not be with you. Nevertheless they presumed to advance, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord and Moses moved not out of the camp. It was a superficial, undisciplined, unconsecrated impulse, and it met with defeat. They anticipated Providence. They precipitated an immature crisis and produced abortion.
2. They showed very shallow conceptions in regard to the principles of the kingdom to which they belonged, and the first conditions of success. Why had the Lord smitten them! Surely there was little need to ask that. Was not gross iniquity tolerated in high places? Were not the services of the sanctuary steeped in defilement?
3. Their language shows that they were utterly blinded in regard to the true nature of religion, and had no glimmer of that faith in the power of which their fathers had conquered, and which is evermore the victory that overcometh the world. They said, Let us take unto us the ark, as if the ark were everything. The grand old war cry, Arise, O Lord, Thou and the ark of Thy strength, had become dwarfed and dried up into confidence in what was nothing better than a wooden chest, as if, having that, they had all they needed, or could at least compel God to go with them. There is a tendency of the soul in all ages which may be thus expressed--little religion, much religiousness; little purity, much ritual; indifferent morals, the most polished manners. When people neglect the weightier matters of the law, all the more devoutly do they tithe mint and anise and cumin. Herod cannot atone for Herodianism, by building a splendid temple. You cannot atone for doing a wicked deed, or cherishing a wicked thought, by ejaculating in a parenthesis, The Lord forgive me. You cannot make up for betraying the cross by bowing to the crucifix. You cannot make up for living sour skim milk, or putrid water, by serving it up in a silver cream jug. You cannot hide the ghastliness of death by beautifying its shroud, or stay the corruption of Hades by adorning its sepulchre. You cannot cover hypocrisy or avert the consequences of formalism by running to the ark for shelter.
III. The text shows us how God in defeat and disaster sows the seed of ultimate deliverance and victory, The ark of God was taken. Yes; but the ark was taken and Hophni and Phinehas were slain; that is, the material prop upon which they were weakly and vainly leaning was removed, and the main causes of their national deterioration were destroyed. There are some successes which are worse than any defeats. If a builder is raising a house upon a rotten or weak foundation, the higher he is enabled to raise it without a check, the more overwhelming is the collapse which he is preparing in the long run. A student who is relying on luck and succeeding by a cram, has met with a misfortune which might well make him tremble. There are victories which, confirming a false principle and strengthening a vain self-confidence, do but lure the triumphant conqueror forward into the heart of a more tangled mass of difficulties, and land him in a more utter overthrow. God can afford to let His ark be taken; for, although the ark of God be captured, the God of the ark is never outwitted nor overreached. (R. H. Roberts, B. A.)
The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
Clerical warriors
It ill becomes the minister of peace to mix in the clang of arms. It was an evil day for Hophni and Phinehas when they took the ark of the covenant from Shiloh, and sought to work on the fanaticism of the people by unveiling the Holiest of all. Unprepared to die, and guilty of profaning holy things, they provoked the judgment which shed their blood. It was an evil day for Zuingle when he left his chaplains post to wear a helmet, a sword, and a battle axe covered with wounds, insulted, killed, he lay under a tree at Cappel--not yet forty-eight years of age, his body cut and burned, and his ashes driven to the winds. He had wielded an arm that God had forbidden, says the historian; the helmet had covered his head, and he had grasped the halberd. His more devoted friends were themselves astonished, and exclaimed, We knew not what to say--a bishop in arms! The bolt had furrowed the cloud, the blow had reached the reformer, and his body was no more than a handful of dust in the palm of a soldier! It was an evil day for Walker--that noble-hearted clergyman, who in the memorable siege of Derry attained such eminence, and did such service to his country by his patriotic and Christian discourses, for which he received the thanks of Parliament, the mitre of a bishop, and a monument in the city where his words and example kept up the courage of his famished fellow citizens for many weary days--it was an evil day for Walker when he rushed unbidden and unnecessarily to the battle of the Boyne. He ought to have remembered that the peculiar circumstances which had justified him in becoming a combatant had ceased to exist, and that in a disciplined army, led by generals of long experience and great fame, a fighting divine was likely to give less help than scandal. The bishop-elect was determined to be wherever danger was, and the way in which he exposed himself excited the extreme disgust of the royal patron, who hated a meddler almost as much as a coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle, and a townsman who pushed himself into a battle, were the two objects which most excited Williams spleen . . . While exhorting the colonists of Ulster to play the man, Walker was shot dead . . . William thought him a busybody who had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of duty, and expressed that feeling with characteristic bluntness on the field of battle. Sire, said an attendant, the Bishop of Derry has been killed by a shot at the ford. What took him there? growled the king. Godly men may make mistakes, enter suspicious circles, and endanger their sacred calling and their influence for good; but when the wicked rush into sin, and die under the chastisement of God, the calamity involves the ruin of their immortal souls--Ichabod is then written upon their eternity. (R. Steel.)
Elis death
I. The utter destruction of the grossly wicked. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas, were slain. The greed and lust and irreverence of the sons of Eli met with swift punishment. It was no accident which sent them together to their bloody death. So sometimes sudden destruction comes upon the enemies of God. We may not tell when or how, but its coming is sure. Here or beyond, there shall be a day of righteous retribution. But we do not come to half the evil of the lives of these wicked priests if we only look at their deaths as the outcome. For they were leaders of the people. No bad man is alone in his destruction. If the final judgment is to be deferred to a one last day, which shall be the end of probation for all, is it not in order that the results of good and evil may be worked out to the end?
II. The implication in evil of the weakly good. Eli stands out in the gallery of Old Testament characters as the most conspicuous example of weak goodness. Influence is not measured by the correctness or the intensity of the emotions, but by strength and direction of the will. We shall be judged, not by our feelings of sympathy or kindness, but by the deeds which express our earnest purpose. It was here that Eli was lacking. There was just force enough in his convictions to control his emotions; when that was done, their force was spent, and his speech was weak and his conduct wavering. It is not only open sin, positive disobedience, violent breaking of Gods law, which comes within the scope of sure retributions. III the safety of Gods cause. That the Lord is able to take care of His own cause is no reason why we should be careless of it, or lightly imperil its interests. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v12 1Sa_4:13. “Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside.”…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1Sa_4:13. “Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside.” “This sitting on the side of the way by which the first message must come answers precisely to the intense expectation in which Eli, though blind, had taken this position, so as, if not with the eyes, yet with the sense of hearing, to learn straightway the arrival of the first messenger. He sits, as in 1Sa_1:9, at the inner, so here at the outer, gate of the sanctuary, on his seat, and, as appears from 1Sa_4:18, on the side of the gate, which was also, therefore, the side of the adjacent way.” (Erdmann.)
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1Sa_4:14. “When Eli heard the noise of the crying.” “His blindness explains the fact that he failed to observe the messenger who ran hurriedly by without noticing him.” (Erdmann.)
1Sa_4:15. “His eyes were dim,” literally, “his eyes stood.” “This is a description of the so-called black cataract (amaurosis), which generally occurs at a very great age from paralysis of the optic nerve.” (Keil.)
1Sa_4:21. “Ichabod,” i.e., Not-glory. The narrator has in mind her words upon which she based that ejaculation, but does not state them as hers till afterward; here he states beforehand the fact contained in them as a historical explanation. We must note, however, the difference between his explanation and her reason for that exclamation in 1Sa_4:22. While he mentions the reference to the two dead, she bases the name on the one thing only, the capture of the ark.” (Erdmann.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Sa_4:12-22
THE DEATH OF ELI
I. All God’s promises become histories. In the natural world there is promise of what shall be, and in due time there is the history of its having been. The green blade of spring is a promise of the harvest that is by and by a fact in the history of the world. The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand upon the horizon is the promise of the storm that may be presently set down in the catalogue of destructive visitations that have devastated the earth. In the days of Noah a promise of judgment hung over the people of his day for one hundred and twenty years. So long was it before the cloud burst that the terror which was perhaps aroused at the first announcement of its appearance passed away long before the storm burst. But it came, and the flood is now a fact in the history of the world. God had foretold the judgment which is described in this chapter some years before. If the message which had been sent to the house of Eli had ever caused the hearts of Hophni and Phinehas to quake, the delay in the execution of the sentence had probably only hardened them in their sin, and perhaps even Eli himself might have begun to hope that it would not be so terrible as it had seemed to him at first. But on this memorable day God gave a demonstration to all coming ages that all His promises, whether of judgment or mercy, will one day become facts in the history of the universe. A promise was made to Isaiah concerning the deliverance of his nation from Babylon long before it went into captivity, but both captivity and deliverance, with all the circumstances foretold concerning the latter in Isaiah 45, have long ago become well-known historic facts. The great fact in which all history centres—the incarnation of the Son of God—was for ages only a promise. The dim outline given to our first parents in Eden was like the tiny germ bursting from the seed which grew into the blade and ear as the ages rolled, until the promise became the great historic event of the world. And there are promises now waiting to become histories, and they will as surely have their fulfilment as those that have gone before. What has been is a pledge of what will be. Men say, concerning Christ’s second advent, “Where is the promise of His coming?” But that promise of the Lord will one day as surely be a fact of past history as those that have gone before.
II. The effects produced by the fulfilment of this promise of judgment. There was not a family in the land who was not smitten with a sense of national calamity. A stab at the heart sends a pain through all the frame, the extremities of the body feel a blow aimed at the seat of life. In countries where the army is drawn from the fields and workshops of the people, the strength of the nation is often found gathered upon the battle-field, and a defeat there is a blow at its very heart and sends a thrill of anguish into every home. Such was the—nature of the blow which Israel had now sustained, and the entire body of the nation felt the shock. Wherever there was a child of Abraham the news of the defeat pierced him through like a stab of cold steel. But the calamity was more intensely felt by some households than by others. In any time of national calamity the leaders of the nation have to bear a larger portion of the sorrow than the masses. They lose more in every way. They have more to lose—more in substance—more in honour; as their position has been higher, their fall is greater, and as more responsibility has rested upon them, so their disgrace is heavier. Although all the families of Israel suffered on this day none suffered so much as the house of Eli. Even if it had not been the execution of a special judgment upon them, their position would have made them the greatest sufferers, but the consciousness that the calamity was mainly due to the sins of their house intensified a thousand-fold the severity of the blow. The effect that the news had upon the aged high-priest shows how severely he felt it. In felling an aged oak many a stroke of the hatchet may be dealt before there is any sign of its fall, but at length the woodman gathers all his strength for a final stroke, which, following upon all that have gone before, lays it even with the ground. So it is with men and the strokes of adverse providence—they stand upright after having received many a heavy blow, but one may come at last which, finding their courage and patience weakened by the trials of the past, crushes them altogether. Job bore up manfully against repeated and heavy blows, but at last a stroke fell which laid even this brave and patient man prostrate like a fallen tree. Eli had seen many a sad day in the course of a life which covered nearly a century, but he had never seen a day like this. Even now he bore calmly the news of Israel’s defeat, and even that of the death of his sons, but the tidings that the ark of God was taken was too much to bear and live—this stroke killed him.
III. Calamity often reveals excellencies which are hidden in prosperity. There are many men in the Church of God living in ease and comfort who do not seem to possess any extraordinary heroism. But very often such men, under circumstances of special trial, reveal a nobility of character that men never knew before that they possessed. Like spices, they must be crushed before they yield their fragrance. What is recorded of the life of Eli does not leave the impression that he was a very exalted character; but the fact that it was the loss of the ark of God that killed him, and not the news of his own personal bereavement, shows that there was much latent patriotism in him, notwithstanding his grave shortcomings. We should never have known how much he really prized the hallowed tokens of God’s covenant-relation to Israel if this calamity had not befallen him. The thought that God had departed from his people broke his heart before he fell and broke his neck. It is the same with his daughter-in-law. We should never have known of this woman’s piety if this blow had not fallen upon her. It was not the death of her father, or of her husband, that made her refuse to be comforted and to go down to the grave with Ichabod upon her lips, but “she said, The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken.”
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
1Sa_4:13. There be four reasons why the people of God are so much troubled when the ark of God is in danger.
I. Because of the great love they bear to it. As “God loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Psa_87:2), so the people of God love the ordinances of God, and the faithful ministers of Christ. “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth” (Psa_26:8). Now love stirreth up the affections, as young Cresus, though he were dumb, yet seeing his father like to be killed, cried out “Do not kill my father!” Such is the love of the saints of God to the ark; they cannot but tremble when they see the ark in danger, and for Sion’s sake they cannot hold their peace, and they cannot be silent until the Lord make the righteousness thereof go out like brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
II. Because of the interest they have in the ark of God. Interest stirreth up affection as when another man’s house is on fire; as you had a lamentable and sad providence this last week, and it is not to be forgotten how suddenly in all our feastings may God dash all our mirth. Now consider, how were they affected that had an interest in those that were burned; so the people of God have an interest in the ark. God is the haven of a child of God, his portion and inheritance, and when God begins to forsake them they cannot but be troubled. The ordinances of God are the jewels of a Christian and the treasure of a Christian, and the loss of them cannot but trouble them.
III. Because of the mischiefs that come upon a nation when the ark is lost. Woe be to that nation when the ark is gone. For when the ark of God is taken then the ways of Zion mourn, and none come to her solemn assemblies. That is matter of sadness. Then the ministers of Christ are driven into corners. This is matter of heart-trembling. Then the souls of men are in danger. There is cause of sadness. Then do the enemies of God blaspheme, and then is Jesus Christ trampled under foot.
IV. Because of their accessariness to the losing of the ark. And this was that which made Eli so much troubled, because he knew that for his sin God suffered the ark to be taken. And there is none of us so holy but our consciences must accuse us. We have done something that might cause God to take the ark from us.—E. Calamy, 1662.
1Sa_4:22. With the surrender of the earthly throne of His glory the Lord appeared to have abolished His covenant of grace with Israel; for the ark, with the tables of the law and the capporeth, was the visible pledge of the covenant of grace which Jehovah had made with Israel.—Keil.
The glory is departed from Israel—so it seemed in the eyes of men. But with God there is “no variableness or shadow of turning” (Jas_1:17); and in that dark night of sorrow to the Hebrew Church and nation His glory shone forth most brightly. There is no Ichabod to God. His sovereign power and Divine independence were seen to work more gloriously and graciously even when the visible Church appeared to be overthrown.… He inaugurated a new era in Samuel, and prepared the way for the Gospel. He showed that the Aaronical priesthood was only parenthetical and provisional; that the Levitical ordinances were not necessary to God’s gracious dealings with His people; that they were shadows which would one day pass away; that they were like a scaffold for building up a house—the Church of Christ.… God thus gave a prophetic foreshadowing of what was more fully displayed to the world when the material temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the universal Church of Christ was raised up in its stead.—Wordsworth.
The union of the heart with God in the deepest foundation of its being reveals itself in times of great misfortune and suffering in this, that the sorrow and mourning is not restricted to the loss of earthly human possessions, but directs itself chiefly to the loss and lack of God’s gracious presence, and thus shows that for the inner life the glory of God and blessedness in communion with Him is become the highest good. So here, in this refraining from grief over the loss of what to the flesh was the nearest and dearest, and in the outspoken sorrow only over the violence done to God’s honour and the contempt cast on His name, is verified the Lord’s word, “He who forsaketh not father or mother, or brother, etc., is not worthy of me.” Lange’s Commentary.
What cares she for a posterity which should want the ark? What cares she for a son come into the world of Israel, when God was gone from it? And how willingly doth she depart from them, from whom God was departed! Bishop Hall.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v12 Death of Eli and of his Daughter-In-Law
Death of Eli and of his Daughter-In-Law
v. 12. And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, which was now in utter rout, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent and with earth upon his head, as signs of a sudden deep grief, in which the heart is rent with sorrow.
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v. 13. And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching, straining his feeble eyes as much as their remaining strength permitted; for his heart trembled for the ark of God, especially since it had been taken without divine permission, and he was its real guardian, responsible for it. And when the man came into the city and told it, brought the news of the defeat of Israel’s army, all the city cried out, in sorrow, fear, and dread.
v. 14. And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? The very sound of the cries filled him with grave forebodings. And the man came in hastily and told Eli.
v. 15. Now, Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim that he could not see; they were set in the lifeless, motionless appearance found in the extremely old, just before total blindness ensues.
v. 16. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. He was in a position to give authentic news. And he said, What is there done, my son? What news is there? What happened?
v. 17. And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, 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. The fugitive poured forth his news in four sharp sentences, every succeeding blow being harder, until the force of the message reached its climax in the crushing report that the ark was lost to the enemies.
v. 18. And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, all the other blows having been expected by Eli, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, evidently at the entrance to the court of the Tabernacle, and his neck brake, and he died; for he was an old man and heavy. It was the beginning of the divine judgment upon Eli and his family, although he himself seems to have died in the fear of God. And he had judged Israel forty years.
v. 19. And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered; and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and travailed; for her pains came upon her, literally, "turned upon her in a sudden attack," came upon her prematurely.
v. 20. And about the time of her death, for her strength was not able to bear the blow, the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast born a son, the message being intended to comfort and strengthen her. But she answered not, neither did she regard it; she entirely ignored this information, since her mind was occupied with the more serious matter of the ark.
v. 21. And she named the child Ichabod (not-glory), saying, The glory is departed from Israel, is carried into captivity, because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.
v. 22. And she said, repeating her complaint in a dull repetition, as though unable to grasp the magnitude of the horror which had come upon Israel, The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken. "With the abandonment of the earthly throne of His glory the Lord seemed to have annulled His covenant of grace with Israel; for the ark, with the tables of the Law and the mercy-seat, was the visible pledge of the covenant of grace which Jehovah had made with Israel. " (Keil. ) The account of this death contains a great deal of comfort for poor sinners. He who in the hour of death clings to the Word of God and the covenant of His mercy dies a blessed death. God’s Word is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 14, 16, 18 clothes torn and earth on his head
clothes torn and earth on his head
This is a way to express deep mourning in Israelite culture.
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his heart trembled with concern
This is an idiom which means he was very fearful or terribly concerned about something. (See: Idiom)
the whole city
This is a metonym for "all the people in the city." (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Benjamin
Shiloh
earth
heart
ark of the covenant
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 12, 15, 18 4:11 That the Ark . . . was captured…
4:11 That the Ark . . . was captured was devastating to the Israelites (4:12-22). • The deaths of Hophni and Phinehas fulfilled the Lord’s word to Eli (2:34). Although they are the only casualties named, they were not the only Israelites who had sinned (see 7:3-6).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.