1 Samuel 2:27 - Meaning and Application

Eli reproved his sons too gently and did not warn them as he should have. So God sent a prophet to speak to him sharply and to threaten judgment. Eli had weakened their resistance to evil by tolerating their sin, and that made him partly guilty too. When good people fail in their duty and help others toward sin by their carelessness, they should expect both to hear of it and to suffer for it.

Eli’s family was especially responsible because they were close to God in privilege, more than most families on earth. That is why God dealt with them so strictly (Amos 3:2). The message came to Eli himself because God still wanted him to repent and be saved. It was not sent to his sons, because their destruction had already been decided. The warning might have stirred Eli to do his duty at last and so prevent judgment, but the text gives no sign that it had much effect.

The prophet first reminds Eli of the great kindness God had shown to his family. God appeared to Aaron in Egypt, while Israel was still in slavery (Exodus 4:27), as a sign of the favor he meant to give him. He raised Aaron to the priesthood, gave that office to his family, and made them more honored than the other tribes of Israel. He gave them holy work to do, to offer sacrifices on his altar, burn incense, and wear the ephod with the breastpiece of judgment. He also gave them a good living from the offerings made by fire (1 Samuel 2:28). What more could God have done to call for their faithfulness?

These special blessings make sin more serious, especially when they include the gift of a spiritual priesthood, that is, a sacred office of serving God and his people. Such favors will stand against us on the day of judgment if we abuse our place, disgrace our calling, and betray what was trusted to us (Deuteronomy 32:6; 2 Samuel 12:7, 2 Samuel 12:8).

Then the prophet brings a strong charge against Eli and his house. His sons acted wickedly, and he let them continue, so the guilt reached him too (1 Samuel 2:29). They had treated God’s holy things with contempt. “Why do you kick at my sacrifice,” God says, meaning they treated his worship as something low and hateful, and acted as if they hated being bound to it. They showed extreme disrespect when they robbed the offerings and took for themselves what should have belonged to God’s altar.

Eli also supported them by refusing to punish their insolence and irreverence. “You honor your sons above me,” God says, meaning Eli cared more about their standing than about God’s honor. He would rather see God’s offerings dishonored than see his sons publicly corrected and removed from office. Parents who protect their children in evil ways, instead of using their authority to restrain and punish them, put their children before God. They care more about their children’s reputation than God’s glory, and more about pleasing them than honoring him.

They had also shared in the profits of their wrongdoing. It is likely that Eli himself, though he disliked their abuse and spoke against it, still ate some of the food they had taken by sacrilege, that is, by stealing what belonged to God (1 Samuel 2:15). He was a heavy man, and the charge is laid against the whole family, even though Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s corrupt sons, were chiefly guilty. They had made themselves fat from the best parts of the offerings. God had given them enough to live on, but that was not enough for them. They used what should have been given to God to feed their own lusts.

Next comes the cutting off of the priesthood from Eli’s line (1 Samuel 2:30). The Lord God of Israel, who cares about his own honor and Israel’s good, says that Eli’s commission is now revoked. God had once said that Eli’s house, and the house of his father Ithamar, a son of Aaron, would walk before him forever. The priesthood had at some point passed from Eleazar’s line to Ithamar’s line, and Eli’s family seemed to stand in that honor for a long time. But the promise had an implied condition: they would continue only while they walked before God faithfully. Walking before God means living in his presence and under his eye, with obedience and reverence (Genesis 17:1). If they set God before them, he would set them before him; if not, the promise could not stand (Psalm 41:12).

Now the Lord says, “Far be it from me.” In other words, since you have cast me off, you can expect me to cast you off too. You will not walk before me as you should, so you will not continue in my service. God will dismiss such wicked and abusive servants. Some think this warning reaches beyond Eli’s family, and points forward to the final end of the Levitical priesthood, that is, the priesthood connected with Levi, when Christ’s priesthood would replace it completely.

The reason for this change is given in a settled rule of God’s government, a rule that all people must reckon with, like the rule that tested Cain (Genesis 4:7): “Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be treated with contempt.” God is the source of all honor and shame. He can lift up the lowly and bring down the great. And the way we treat God is the way we must expect him to treat us, though always more generously than we deserve (Psalm 18:25, Psalm 18:26).

This rule also shows the honor of true religion, or serious godliness. It gives honor to God, and God will not fail to give honor to those who serve him. By it, we seek God’s glory, and he will not let his servants come away empty. The true way to be great is to be truly good. If we humble ourselves and give up anything to honor God, with a single eye toward pleasing him, we can trust that he will give the best honor in return (John 12:26).

It should be spoken, to the lasting shame of ungodliness, that this behavior dishonors God, the greatest and best of all beings, the one angels worship. It also brings shame on people, because those who despise God will be treated with contempt. God may not be honored by them, and people will also look down on them. The honor they are so proud of will be thrown down, and their names will become a disgrace. When they are gone, their memory will decay, and when they rise again, it will be to lasting shame and contempt. The disgrace that their wickedness tried to lay on God and on his powerful justice will come back on their own heads (Psalm 79:12).

Next, God foretells the specific judgments that would come on Eli’s family and leave it in lasting shame. A curse would pass on to his descendants, and it was a terrible curse. It shows how jealous God is about his worship, and how deeply he dislikes it when those who are called to protect and promote his glory fail in their duty and betray their trust. If God’s ministers, that is, his appointed servants, are corrupt and profane, they deserve far heavier judgment, now and forever, than other sinners. Anyone in that place should read the sentence spoken here against Eli’s house and tremble.

Their power would be broken. God says, “I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father’s house” (1 Samuel 2:31). They would lose all authority, be removed from office, and no longer have influence over the people as they once did. God would make them low and despised. The sons had used their power to oppress the people and seize what was not theirs, and the father had not used his own authority, as he should have, to restrain and punish them. So it was just that the arm that had not been stretched out for duty should be cut off.

Their lives would also be shortened. Eli was already old, but instead of using the wisdom, seriousness, experience, and authority of age to serve God and support true religion, he let the weakness of old age make him slack in duty. So God threatened that none of his descendants would live to old age (1 Samuel 2:31, 1 Samuel 2:32). This is said twice: “There shall not be an old man in your house forever,” and again, “All the increase of your house, from generation to generation, shall die in the flower of their age” (1 Samuel 2:33). They would die in the middle of their work, so the family would not vanish completely, but it would never become important again, and no member of it would become notable in his time. Bishop Patrick reports, from some Jewish writers, that much later there was a family in Jerusalem where none commonly lived beyond eighteen years, and on investigation it was found that they came from Eli’s house, on which this sentence had fallen.

All their comforts would also be spoiled. Their comfort in the sanctuary, with its wealth and success, would be ruined: “You shall see an enemy in my habitation.” This came true in the Philistine invasions and the harm they brought on Israel, which impoverished the land (1 Samuel 13:19), and must have greatly reduced the priests’ income. The capture of the ark was such an attack on God’s dwelling that it broke Eli’s heart. Just as it is a blessing for a family to see peace in Israel (Psalm 128:5, Psalm 128:6), so the opposite is a painful judgment, especially for a priestly family.

Their children would also become a grief instead of a joy. The one of your family whom I do not cut off by an early death will live to bring shame and heaviness to the family. He will be a scandal and a burden to his relatives. He will consume your eyes and grieve your heart, because of his foolishness, sickness, wickedness, or poverty. Grief over a dead child is deep, but grief over a bad child is often deeper.

Their wealth would be drained away, and they would be brought to deep poverty (1 Samuel 2:36). Anyone left in your house would have little joy in life, because he would have no way to make a living. He would come and bow low to the family that came after him, just to survive. He would beg for the smallest gift, a piece of silver, or even a morsel of bread. See how this answers the sin. Eli’s sons wanted the best pieces of meat, but their sons would be glad of a bite of bread. Want is the right punishment for greed. Those who could not be content without rich food and many delights are brought, they and their children, to need even the basics, and the Lord is right to visit them so.

He would also beg for the lowest job: “Put me into something belonging to the priesthood,” as the original says, meaning, “Make me like one of the hired servants.” That is the proper place for a prodigal, a person who has wasted what he had. Plenty and authority are lost when they are abused. They would not be able to claim any honorable position, not even a place at the altar. They would have to ask for some poor task, no matter how hard the work or how small the pay, if only they could get bread. This likely came to a full end when Solomon removed Abiathar, who came from Eli’s family, for treason, and he and his house were put out of office in the temple (1 Kings 2:26, 1 Kings 2:27). It is easy to think his descendants were then reduced to the poverty described here.

God would soon begin carrying out these judgments in the deaths of Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s corrupt sons, and Eli himself would live to hear the sad news. “This shall be a sign to you” (1 Samuel 2:34). When you hear it, you should say, “Now God’s word has begun to take effect. One warning has already been fulfilled, so I can know the rest will also come in their time.” Hophni and Phinehas had often sinned together, and here it is foretold that they would die together on the same day. Like tares gathered in a bundle for the fire, they would be taken together for judgment. This was fulfilled in (1 Samuel 4:11).

In the middle of these warnings against Eli’s house, there is also mercy promised to Israel: “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest” (1 Samuel 2:35). This was fulfilled in Zadok, from the family of Eleazar. He took Abiathar’s place at the beginning of Solomon’s reign and was faithful to his duty, and the high priests came from his line as long as the Levitical priesthood, that is, the priesthood given to the tribe of Levi, continued. The wickedness of ministers may ruin themselves, but it will not destroy the ministry. However bad the officers may be, the office will remain to the end of the world. If some betray their trust, others will be raised up who will be true to it. God’s work will never fail for lack of people to carry it on.

The high priest is said here to walk before God’s anointed, that is, David and his descendants, because he wore the breastplate of judgment. He was to consult it, not in ordinary matters, but for the king in state affairs.

Note this: even though we see and grieve over decline in many families, God will preserve a line for himself. If some people become worse than those before them, others will rise higher to balance that out.

This promise is fully carried out in the priesthood of Christ, our merciful and faithful high priest. God raised him up when the Levitical priesthood, the Old Testament priestly order, was set aside. Christ did everything his Father wanted, and God will build him a sure house. He will build it on a rock, so firmly that the gates of hell cannot overcome it.