In a context which accentuates the contrasts between Eli’s household and Samuel, Eli, having just blessed Samuel’s family, now rebukes his sons (1 Samuel 2:22-25). Prior to this we have been told:
This sin of the young men was very great in the LORD’s sight, for they were treating the LORD’s offering with contempt (v17).
It is intriguing to see what it is that causes Eli to rebuke his sons. What is it that looms large in his mind? The narrator helps us out here with a lead-in to Eli’s rebuke:
Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting (v22).
We need to know this in order to capture the force and tenor of Eli’s rebuke, as he castigates his sons, saying;
Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the LORD’s people (vv23-24).
What is it then that moves Eli to rebuke his sons? It is not his own observation of his son’s behaviour. In 1:10 Eli the priest was sitting in the chair by the doorpost of the LORD’s temple in Shiloh, as the priest responsible to ensure that all that was done in the sanctuary area was done properly. Indeed, in the ancient world priests were guardians, it being their role to guard the sanctity of the shrine. Eli has singularly failed here. His rebuke does not spring from his own personal knowledge of what has been going on in the sanctuary precincts. Nor does it emanate from his own personal relationship with and knowledge of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas.
What about Eli’s relationship with God? Might we not expect that God himself would reveal to Eli what he has failed to observe in the lives of his sons? But here there is silence. Indeed, there is an implicit rebuke of Eli when God’s judgment is pronounced upon him and his household via an anonymous “man of God” (2:27f). And in the very next chapter God again refuses to speak directly to Eli but does so again through Samuel.
It is only as more and more people in the community complain and protest against Hophni and Phinehas, only when they become, as it were, a “front-page news scandal”, that Eli is moved to rebuke his sons. But by this stage it is way too late, hence the introductory comment that when Eli did this he “was very old”.
At one level we might applaud Eli that at last he is prepared to “take on” his sons and confront them. Yet there is no hint of approbation in the way the narrator deals with this. On the contrary, the narrator gives us another reason why Eli’s rebuke only serves to strengthen the contextual stress on his own incompetence to serve as a priest. Why does Eli rebuke his sons, apart from feeling compelled to do so because of the sheer weight of contrary public opinion? Because, we are told, he had heard his sons were having sex with women who served at the sanctuary entrance.
Yes, this was indeed a terrible thing that they were doing. No doubt about it. Yes, it is yet another piece of damning evidence convicting Hophni and Phinehas of gross crimes. BUT. Yes, BUT. Even when Eli rebukes his sons, the thing that is making his blood boil and which brings things to a head for him and forces him to confront his sons, is NOT the thing that has incurred God’s wrath. We have already been informed in verse 17 that it was the way these young priests treated the sacrifices that constituted the very great sin in God’s sight. So even as Eli rebukes his sons he still has failed to see what it is about his sons’ behaviour which is most heinous.
There are all sorts of applications that flow from these reflections. For example, parents can be blind to serious failings in the lives of their children and fail to confront them, only to do so for the wrong reasons and, even then, only to deal with symptoms rather than with the underlying cause of the problem. But, more than anything, Eli stands as a warning of the dire consequences of failing to have a close and intimate knowledge of God.
Posted July 30, 2008
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