This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 12, 1997.
About this sermon
The description of Eli shifts noticeably across this passage, and that shift matters: Eli embodies God’s people at their best and their worst at once. His failure to correct his sons is, at bottom, a failure of church discipline, not just bad parenting. The consequences fall on the whole community, not on Eli alone.
Sermon transcript
Our scripture reading this morning is from 1 Samuel 4, and we are beginning at verse 10. I’ll give you attention to the word of God. 1 Samuel 4, verse 10. And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent, and there was a very great slaughter, for there fell in Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hothme and Phinehas, were slain. And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent. and with earth upon his head.
And when he came low, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city and told it, the city cried out. And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in hastily and told Eli, Now, Eli was ninety and eight years old, and his eyes were dim that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?
And the messenger answered and said, Israel has 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. And it came to pass when he made mention of the Ark of God that Eli fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck broke, and he died.
For he was a very old man and heavy, and he had judged Israel forty years. And his daughter-in-law, Phineas’ 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 prevailed, for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not, for thou hast born a son. But she answered not, 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 her father-in-law and her husband. And she said that glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken.
Father, as you would quiet our hearts, as you would bless us with your spirit and with the presence of the risen Christ, we are also thinking of our brothers and sisters around the world that we would share in this common peace that has been procured for us through the blood of our Savior.
Knowing, O God, that we have been justified by faith and that this peace is ours because of him, even the one who has been justified for us and before us. Lord, help us in our reflections on your word today. that you would bless the proclamation of that word and our reception of it. To the glory of your name. Amen.
To say the least, Eli is one of the Bible’s most intriguing figures. He interests us, and does so now in a most pressing way, because his story is about to come to an end. Israel’s double defeat at the hand of the Philistines in verses 1-11. But now, as this chapter closes with verses 12-22, we are shown the aftermath of that second defeat and the last image of the Ark of the Covenant. The story of the immediate aftermath focuses on the impact that the loss of Eli had upon Eli, a man who has been a puzzle for us since we began this series in 1 Sin.
Now, I say a puzzle advisedly. In chapter one, you may recall how Eli appeared in a very positive frame, as a very positive figure. In fact, there is even the slightest hint of any difficulty with regard to this man. His name means High or Ascension. or exalted one or exaltation. And it is difficult to place him any higher in the scale of things than the position he receives in that first chapter. The description of him as a priest to God certainly elevates him. as does the description of him as a special intermediary for Hannah in her life, this setting him in the very best possible life, one in which we are able to see nothing less than the form and pattern of Jesus Christ himself.
In the second chapter again, Eli appears quite positively as he blesses Hannah and her husband. And then we see that blessing materialized in the birth of more children for Hannah, verses 20 and 21 in that second chapter. Once more, as in the previous chapter, divinity shines forth in Eli’s service. One who blesses and then seemingly has the power to bestow upon that one blessed the very reality of the blessing.
Also in chapter 2 we find Eli as a father, in a scene in which it seems that he is genuinely rebuking his wicked sons, proven to be a proper father in the circumstance, verses 22 through 25. And then in chapter 3, verse 18, we find Eli once more, this time he is described as one who justifies God in the face of certain oncoming judgments. even a judgment that will take its toll upon him, and this in an act that calls out for imitation on the part of every true believer. It is the Lord, Eli says, let him do what seems good to him.
Christlike, a picture of God himself, a responsible parent, a model believer. We have said all of these things about Eli, this man whose name means high, ascension, exaltation, one lifted up. But at the same time, and this causing our confusion, if not our dismay, at the same Eli is lumped with his two sons, Hophni and Phileas, who are called in the twelfth verse of the second chapter, sons of Goliath.
That is, sons of lawlessness, or as the more American standard has it, worthlessness. And that particularly when it comes to God in his person. For these men not only tiltered the offerings at the altar, verses 12-17, they actually defiled the sanctuary by their rudeness, openly fornicating with the women who served at the doorway of the tabernacle, verse 22. The sin of these men is very great indeed.
But Eli, now their father, who in so many ways appears to be exemplary, is loathed with them. If you are feeling the strain in this, that strain will only be increased by taking another look at one of the truly disturbing passages in the Bible, one that caused a member of you to speak to me at the door when we grieved by it earlier in this series.
I’m talking about the end of chapter 2 from verse 22 on. For the fear you had in what seems to be inexplicable fashion Here you have back-to-back verses that appear to commend Eli on the one hand, verses 22-25, and then verses that speak unmistakably about God’s deliberate judgment upon him, verses 27-36. And then he is convicted.
Now, the story here wouldn’t be so extreme if God’s judgment wasn’t explicitly directed against Eli. In that very area, Eli seemed righteously to be engaged, mainly the rebuke of his silence. In chapter 2, verses 22-25, we find Eli consenting these boys, but then in verses 27-36, we find God judging Eli as a participant in his boys’ crimes, as if he had not rebuked them at all. verse 29 of that second chapter states the Lord’s case.
You, Eli, honor your sons more than you honor me. Now, I know what you might be thinking. In order to get this text out of trouble, You may be thinking that the Lord’s disappointment with Eli in the latter part of the 2nd chapter is not that Eli didn’t rebuke his sons, but that Eli honored them more than the Lord himself. So you’re saying to yourself, despite the fact that he’s spoken to his sons, there’s something more here.
He has not honored the Lord as he ought to. So technically, the strain between these two accounts is resolved. The word chastisement at the end of chapter 2 is matched by his further word through Samuel in chapter 3. I want you to notice the 13th verse in that third chapter.
This is what the Lord says through Samuel to Eli, “‘For I told Eli that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves, and he did not rebuke them.’” But by my reading of chapter 2, Eli did rebuke them. Yet now God is going to bring on Eli first an everlasting judgment for not dealing with the problem, for not dealing with his sons, for not rebuking them. What’s going on here? Is there an open contradiction in the Bible, or of equal seriousness, is an innocent man, Eli, being unjustly condemned by God?
Is this man who has been described in such this one who is elevated, lifted up to the heights in so many passages, and passage after passage to be brought so miserably low in what appears to be more conclusive texts yet. By answering these questions, I hope that it is obvious to you that you are being challenged at many levels by the deep and even sobering significance of this name. Above all, what I want you to keep in mind What I want you to labor at with regard to your focus is this fact.
Remember, Eli is more than a solitary figure. He is more than a singular individual. of the entirety of God’s program, the entirety of the history of salvation. In him you are able to behold the Lord’s dealings with Israel. You are able to behold in him the history of that nation as it will unfold, as it transpires. but you will be able to observe, with regard to this man, the great transition that is coming from the old epoch to the new, from the old Israel to the new, thus enabling you, as you observe this man, as you study him, to behold patterns pertaining, yes, to what is coming future for Israel, but also that which is coming future for the Church. It is by this method that Eli becomes relevant. It is by this method that he is related to you. You virtually, by taking stock of him, are now being pulled into his life. just as Israel was previously.
This is a discipline that the Word of God is bringing upon us, lest we lose our way in interpreting the Bible, and even interpreting ourselves. Eli is more than just a solitary figure. He is a corporate personality in whom you see the life of an entire people, if not the span of an entire age. This means, of course, that Eli speaks to us of things far greater than himself. That’s why we sing the Bible. It’s a very simple thing. Not everybody in the ancient world is mentioned.
Eli speaks to us about things far greater than himself, things by which we are able to see the entire life of the people of God. He is a vessel of the Lord, a servant of the Lord’s sovereignty. Eli, therefore, becomes a comprehensive figure, one in whom we witness both the positive and the negative features of God’s people as a whole. We will witness these same dynamics in a figure yet to be introduced to us in this book of 1st Samuel. This to help you. If you think Eli is enigmatic, you haven’t seen anything yet. Wait till you get to Saul.
Although our sympathies might rightly rest with Eli by comparison, and the dynamics of the positive-negative development become all the more clear in Saul, worked out more clearly still, Eli himself already confronts us with this reality. that you will have to deal with the positive and the negative in the man.
We see in him the heights, the ascension, the exaltation, even that for the people of God. At the same time, we see in him the death, the descent, the fall of the people of God. In the one man, we see both the glories, yes, reaching out to Christ. And at the same time, the consequence of a failed religious conscience, just as we see it in Saul in all of Israel, even to the point now that we observe it as it plagues the Church.
Therefore, in understanding Eli and in penetrating the confusion about him, we must acknowledge that on a closer look we have set before us a deliberate ambivalence, a deliberate ambivalence that speaks to us about the positive and the negative in the people of God as God would deal with them. When it comes, therefore, to the rebuke itself, we’ve been speaking about that. spoke of it earlier, and it was supported by a departure hymn in our message. When it comes to dealing with the rebuke that Eli has for his children, we are faced then to see that there are even two sides to the rebuke, one positive and the other negative and inadequate.
In the end, the rebuke of the type Eli delivers is not the type that the Lord demands. In the end, although it has the form, although it seems to be the kind of rebuke that the Lord enjoins, in the end it is not the kind that the Lord demands. Eli delivers his rebuke with words, while the Lord demands action. You see the Lord demands action because the Lord himself is a God of action. His words are not empty. If he says the judgment is coming, it will come. Eli delivers his rebuke with words, the Lord demands action, and according to the Lord, a rebuke without action, where in fact action is demanded, is no rebuke at all.
The Bible tells us that by his failure to act, he was the priest, he was the elder, he was a judge in Israel for forty years. By his failure to act, Eli put his sons above the Lord. How aggravated his inaction is by the fact that he bears office in the Old Testament Church. He, holding office in the Old Testament Church, refused to fulfill his office by disciplining his boy.
But in standing as a major figure now in the history of Israel, Eli anticipates the days coming for the new Israel of God and the Church of Jesus Christ. If Eli was indulgent, he anticipates the temptation coming upon the new Israel to be indulgent also. These things are given as example to us, lest we would incur to ourselves the wrath that came upon Eli and his house. The Old Testament Church exists for the sake of the New Testament Church.
That is why Eli serves us still by warning us about failures. that overtake officers and people alike in the Church of Jesus Christ when it comes to discipline in the Church today. I would dare say that by and large, for the Church of Jesus Christ, responsible discipline evaporated one hundred years ago and does not exist. I trust that one of the reasons why you are here today is because you happen to believe that discipline is a mark of a true church. But in acknowledging that, I also hope and pray that you find yourself in a position in that state of mind and soul to submit to that discipline.
May we feed the warning for there still remains that form of rebuke that comes even to us, in which we might be engaged ourselves, as Eli was. A form of rebuke that contents itself with mere words, and thus betrays an allegiance to the earth and to those who are in it, even if they are our blood relatives. Rather than that form of rebuke that glorifies God and honors him, the one who always matches his words with his actions. There is more to say about the figure of Eli and his significance, but this gets us started and certainly provides us food for thought. I hope not just food for thought, but also foundations for action.
Let’s pray. Our God, we would delight in your word. We would profit from it. we would profit from our study, our reflection upon the various figures that you have set in your Word. Lord, we would not then observe them and turn away as if we had not seen, as if we were blind. Instead, O God, we would look intently, we would meditate. And with prayer, Lord, we would proceed in directions that you have outlined for us, have set before us in your Holy Word. Father, with all diligence, may we apply ourselves. with regard to our own souls, with regard to those areas in life in which we have influence. May we do what you have commanded.
May we rejoice, O God, that you love us enough to discipline us and correct us, lest we face your final act unprepared, namely your return. We pray now, our God, that you will bless this congregation that in confessing its belief in the marks of the Church, it would live up to those marks by all of the strength which the Spirit supplies.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.