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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 1 Samuel 2:13 - 2:13
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the priests’ custom with the people - When persons wished to present a sacrifice of peace offering on the altar, the offering was brought in the first instance to the priest, and as the Lord’s part was burnt, the parts appropriated respectively to the priests and offerers were to be sodden. But Eli’s sons, unsatisfied with the breast and shoulder, which were the perquisites appointed to them by the divine law (Exo 29:27; Lev 7:31, Lev 7:32), not only claimed part of the offerer’s share, but rapaciously seized them previous to the sacred ceremony of heaving or waving (see on Lev 7:29); and moreover they committed the additional injustice of taking up with their fork those portions which they preferred, while still raw. Pious people revolted at such rapacious and profane encroachments on the dues of the altar, as well as what should have gone to constitute the family and social feast of the offerer. The truth is, the priests having become haughty and unwilling in many instances to accept invitations to those feasts, presents of meat were sent to them; and this, though done in courtesy at first, being, in course of time, established into a right, gave rise to all the rapacious keenness of Eli’s sons.