Writings: It Is The Lord!

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

Eli is a tragic character in Bible: he was a weak leader and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were a couple of jerks. And yet, they were central and important in carrying out the sacrificial religious system of the Hebrew people for the decades prior to the rise of the monarchy.

In ancient Judaism it was customary to offer sacrifices to God for a multitude of reasons: to make restitution – or payment – for sin; to either ask for blessings or to thank God for those blessings; to commemorate important rituals and rites of passage, like the birth of a child or the circumcision of a son; to ask for spiritual cleansing or a physical healing; and to celebrate the Passover or any of the other religious feasts of the religious community. There were a lot of reasons for making animal sacrifices, and one of the products of those sacrifices was often a supply of cooked meat. The Priest didn’t just slaughter an offering and sprinkle its blood on the altar, the meat from the sacrifice was also frequently roasted in order to transfer it from the earthly realm to the divine realm. That cooked meat was a valuable asset for the priestly class because they were landless, with few other means of financial support. According to Scripture Eli’s sons, who assisted their father as priests in the tabernacle, would steal some of the most favored portions of offered meat — meat that had a good marbling of fat and was supposed to be reserved for complete burnt-offerings to God! While entitled to a portion of the meat in payment for their priestly duties, Hophni and Phinehas frequently took the very best of it for themselves! And, as if this weren’t bad enough, Scripture tells us that they also enjoyed committing adultery with the women who were tasked with serving at the entrance to the Sanctuary! They really were a couple of scoundrels! And Eli, although he knew about what his sons were doing and he had rebuked them for it, nevertheless failed to take any substantive action to stop them from their corrupt ways.

“I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.” (1 Samuel 3:11-14)

This is what God tells the young Samuel, late one night, at the very beginning of his ministry. Think about it for just a minute: this is the very first message that Samuel receives from God, and it’s not something that’s going to ingratiate him to his mentor. What God tells him is bad news for Eli, and it’s the very first message that Samuel receives as a prophet! No wonder the scripture says that he lay there all night, until morning. He was worried about giving Eli this message. I would have been terrified!

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” (1 Samuel 3:15-18a)

Samuel is caught between the proverbial “hard place and a rock!” What’s he going to do? He’s got to tell Eli! Scripture says that he told Eli all that God had said to him and, surprisingly, Eli takes the bad news quite well:

“It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.” (1 Samuel 1:18b)

We’ve got to hand it to Eli: it was bad news, and from the context it seems clear that he knew it was going to be bad news, but he accepted God’s judgement anyway without punishing the messenger for bringing bad tidings.

Many years later, after Samuel had grown up and become a great prophet in Israel, the Philistines attacked Eben-Ezer and captured the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites had taken into battle with them. The Ark of the Covenant was more than just that golden box in which the Israelites kept the Ten Commandments and that Indiana Jones found in the movie of the same name – the one that melts Nazis and the US government boxed up and hid in a warehouse. The real Ark of the Covenant was a portable Altar used by the Israelites in their sacrificial system. The “mercy seat” – the gold lid of the ark that had two cherubim molded on it – was where the Israelites, on the annual Day of Atonement, made sacrificial payment to God for the sins of the people. It was the principal symbol of God’s abiding presence with God’s people, and so the fact that the Philistines managed to steal it was very bad news, indeed!

Eli, who by that time was nearly blind and 98 years old, wasn’t able to go to war along with the army of Israel. Instead, he sent his sons to take care of the Ark and to carry it at the forefront of Israel’s army as they went into battle. As a result, both Hophni and Phinehas were killed. Granted, their death wasn’t that much of a tragedy; they were horrible men. Unfortunately, their deaths also resulted in the loss of the Ark, and that was a true tragedy. Following the battle, a solder came back with word of what had happened, and in shock at this disastrous news Eli fell backwards out of his chair, broke his neck, and died.

I actually feel sorry for Eli. Yes, he was a seriously flawed human being. Yes, his sons were a couple of jerks. Yes, he didn’t always do the right thing. However, Eli served God for many decades, leading the people in sacrificial worship while fulfilling his calling as High Priest. When it came to his sons, he failed … but he did try. Before we judge him too harshly, perhaps we should pause for a moment to ask ourselves: how have we failed God?

When I think of all the ways that I have failed God, I truly am amazed that God hasn’t already struck me dead! When I was ordained, I remember how nervous I was, how inadequate I felt, how “not up to the task” I knew myself to be. I knew that I didn’t deserve to have the Bishop’s hands on my head, ordaining me into the ministry, and the very thought that I could be chosen by God to stand in a pulpit, Sunday after Sunday, and preach about God was simply absurd! God needs a much better instrument than me to do this important work. From very early-on in my ministry, I felt a lot like Samuel: I began in ministry at a very young age and was very inexperienced and unsure of myself. It also didn’t help that I had someone in one of my early appointments continually remindeding me of my youth and inexperience by calling me “the Kid” in front of everybody. Yes, I was inexperienced; yes, I often felt like I didn’t know what I was doing; and, yet, in the midst of all that I knew that I God was calling me to proclaim the Gospel. I’m reminded of Moses, begging God to choose someone else to deliver the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, making excuses to God for why he was the wrong choice. I understand the fear of failure. Indeed, one of my greatest fears is that I might end up like Eli: old, blind, fat, and a failure … falling over and breaking my neck.

How have we failed God? Sadly, there are lots of folk who enjoy making long lists of how others have failed; it's always easier to observe and catalog the missteps of others, but it's another thing to give a discerning, critical eye to one's own failings. The amazing good news of the Scriptures is that, even though we fail, God still uses us ... God still works through us. God still used Eli; even though he repeatedly failed God, God still used him. And Eli, to his own credit, recognized that God is God and God will do what God will do.

“It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.”

The word we’re looking for here is "submission." Now, to be honest, we don’t really like that word. We don’t like thinking
about submitting ourselves to anything other than our own interests and desires. Not even to God. But, in the end, God is the one to whom we truly must submit. To submit means to “accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person.” Do we truly accept the authority of God? The amazing message of the Bible, from beginning end, is that even despite our faults and failures God still uses us, still loves us, and still forgives us. And, in Christ Jesus, we know that God wants to change us.

The doctrines of God’s grace – prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying – teach us that God accepts us as we are, where we are, however we are, but that God doesn’t leave us there. God will take us and, over time and with our cooperation, will change us and make us better. The change that happens may not be according to what other people might think it should be, but it’s always what God wants us to be ... if we will simply let go and let God act on us.

Samuel let go and let God act upon him, and he grew up to become one of the most important prophets in Israel. Eli, on the other hand, struggled and tried to keep control, and in the end he failed. While God continued to use him, Eli didn’t achieve God’s full will for him. What are we going to do? Will we keep resisting God? Will we keep thinking we know best? Or will we let go and let God in?

© 2021 Dr. Gregory S. Neal
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