Lange Commentary - 1 Samuel 4:12 - 4:22

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Lange Commentary - 1 Samuel 4:12 - 4:22


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

II. The Judgment on the House of Eli. 1Sa_4:12-22

12And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the 13same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head. And when [om. when] he came [ins. and] lo, Eli sat upon a [his] seat by the wayside watching; for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when [om. when] the man came into the city and told it [came, in order to tell it in the city] [ins. and] all the city 14cried out. And when [om. when] Eli heard the noise of the crying, he [om. he, ins. and] said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in 15hastily [hasted and came] and told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight years old, 16and his eyes were dim [set] that he could not see. And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, 17What is there done, my son? And the messenger answered and said, Israel is 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 18is taken. And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died; for he was an old man [the man was old], and heavy. And he had judged 19Israel forty years. And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ 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 travailed, 20for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said, Fear not; for thou hast borne a son. But she answered 21not, 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 22her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1Sa_4:12 sq. The persons and events of the following narrative are described with peculiar vividness, so that we may here without doubt suppose the narration to rest on the direct account of an eye-witness. A man of Benjamin.—Thenius: “ This exact statement vouches for a faithful tradition.” That he comes with mournful tidings is shown by his rent garment and the earth strown on his head, as signs of sudden deep grief, in which the heart is rent with sorrow. Comp. Gen_37:29; Gen_37:34; Num_16:6; Jos_7:6; 2Sa_15:32; Eze_27:30.—To Shiloh the man came straight from the army ( îַòֲøָëָä , Vulg. ex acie). According to the Jewish tradition this man was Saul, who snatched from Goliath the Tables of the Law, taken out of the ark, in order to save them. Instead of the éַêְ (he slew) of the text, which is unintelligible, we must read éַã (side)1 Samuel 29 : He sat by the side of the way, watching. Thenius remarks: “ What a strange expression !” But the sitting in the way, or on the side of the way by which the first message must come, answers precisely to the intense expectation in which Eli, though blind, had taken this position, so as, if not with the eyes (which, however, had perhaps still a glimmer of light), yet with the sense of hearing to learn straightway the arrival of the first messenger. Eli sits, as in 1Sa_1:9 at the inner, so here at the outer gate of the Sanctuary, on his seat, and, as appears from 1Sa_4:18, on the side of the gate, which was also, therefore, the side of the adjacent way.—His heart was heavy, not merely “ from anxiety and care for the ark, which without divine command he had let go from its dwelling-place into the camp” (Berl. Bib.), but also in respect to the issue of the battle itself for the people of Israel.—Eli’s blindness explains the fact that he failed to observe the messenger, who ran hurriedly by without noticing him. It is the cry of lamentation, raised by the people of Shiloh at his news, that directs Eli’s attention to the announcement. His question concerning the loud outcry around him, on which the messenger came to inform him, is explained in 1Sa_4:15 by reference to his blindness, the result of old age.—Eli was 98 years old, and his eyes were set. (The Fem. Sing. ÷îä with òéðéå is explained, according to Ewald, § 317 a, by the abstract conception which connects itself with the Plu. of the Subst. by the combination into an abstract idea of the individuals embraced in it, “especially in lifeless objects, beasts, or in co-operating members of one body, in which the action of the individuals is not so prominent—and so in the Dual,” as here). For “were set” comp. 1Ki_16:4, where occurs the same expression for blindness caused by old age. It is the vivid description of the lifeless, motionless appearance of the eye quenched by senile weakness, “a description of the so-called black cataract, amaurosis, which usually ensues in great old age from the feebleness of the optic nerves” (Keil, in loco). In 1Sa_3:2 the process of this blinding is indicated by the word ëää as “waxing dim.”

1Sa_4:16 sq. The sorrowful tidings. The remark in 1Sa_4:15 concerning Eli’s senile weakness and blindness explains both the preceding 1Sa_4:14 and the statement in 1Sa_4:16 as to the way in which the messenger personally announces and introduces himself with the words: I am he that came out of the army.—But he says, “ I am he that came” not merely on account of Eli’s blindness, but also on account of the importance of the announcement with which he approaches the head of the whole people. It is not allowable, therefore, to translate: “I come” (De Wette). At the same time the messenger declares himself a fugitive, and so intimates that the army is completely broken up. Eli’s question refers not to the How (how stood the affair? De Wette, Bunsen), but to the What: “What was the affair?” (Thenius), Vulg.: quid actum est?—The answer of the messenger to Eli’s question (1Sa_4:17) contains nothing but facts in a fourfold grade, each statement more dreadful than the preceding. There is a power in these words which comes out in four sharp sentences, with blow after blow, till its force is crushing: Israel fleeing before the Philistines, a great slaughter among the people, Eli’s sons dead, the ark taken. The double “and also” ( åâí ) is to be observed here as characteristic of the lapidary style of the words, and the excitement with which they were spoken.—The narrator remarks expressly that the fourth blow, the news of the capture of the ark by the heathen, led to Eli’s death. This is again a sign of the fear of God, which was deeply rooted in his heart; the ark represented the honor and glory of the God who dwelt in His people; the people’s honor and power might perish; the destruction of his house might be irretardable, unavoidable; prepared beforehand for it, he had said: “ It is the Lord, let him do as seemeth him good !” But the loss of the ark to the heathen was his death-blow the more surely, the firmer had been his hope that, as of old in the time of Moses and Joshua, the host of Israel would win the victory over the Philistines under the lead of the ark which he, a weak guardian of the Sacred Vessel, had sent off to the battle without Divine command, weakly yielding to the elders of the people whose trust was not in the living God. His judicial and high-priestly office, lacking as it was in honor and renown, he closed with honor; though the manner of his death was terrible, and bore the mark of a divine judgment, he nevertheless died in the fear of God. Berl. Bib.: “It is besides an honorable and glorious death to die from care for God’s honor.” His judgeship had lasted 40 years. The Sept. reading, 20 years for 40, results, according to Thenius, from the confusion of the numeral letters î and ë , as the reading 78 (Syr., Arab.) for 98 in 1Sa_4:15, according to the same critic, may be due to the confusion of ö and ò . Further, our text “ is sustained by the fact that Eli hardly became Judge in his 78th year" (Thenius).

1Sa_4:19 sq. Here follows the pathetic narrative of Eli’s daughter-in-law, in which is shown how the judgment on Eli’s house is still farther fulfilled in his family. The wife of Phinehas was so violently affected by the horror and sorrow that her pains came prematurely on her. Literally it reads: “ her pains turned upon her,” or “ began to turn themselves within her.” This expression is suggested by the ground-meaning of the word ( öִéøִéí ), “something turning, winding, circling.”

1Sa_4:20. The comforting word of the women who stood by: “ thou hast borne a son ” does not rouse the mother’s joy in her heart, and cannot overcome or soften its sorrow at the loss of the ark, which is more to her than the loss of husband and father-in-law—and this is set forth by two expressions in the narration: “ she gave no answer, and laid it not to heart,” did not set her mind on it. Comp. Psa_62:11 ùׂåּí ìֵá . What is commonly for a mother’s heart at such a time the greatest joy (Joh_16:21), was for her as if it were not; so is her soul occupied and taken up with sorrow for the lost ark. This shows the earnest, sincere piety, in which she is like her father-in-law. Eli’s house, made ripe by his weakness for so frightful a judgment, was not in all its members personally a partaker of the godlessness and immorality of those who certainly, before the Lord and the whole nation, stamped it as ripe for God’s righteous punishment. “ The wife of this deeply corrupt man shows how penetrated the whole people then was with the sense of the value of its covenant with God ” (O. v. Gerlach).

1Sa_4:21. She gives expression to what fills her heart by naming the child Ichabod. This name is not ” where is glory?” ( àֵé ë× ) that is, nowhere, but it = “not glory.” She explains the name Not-glory, Un-glory by saying ( ìֵàîֹø ): “the glory of Israel is carried into captivity.” (The àֵì , as in verse 19, is “ in reference to,” “ having regard to,” and belongs to ìֵàîֹø as the continuation of the words of the narrator, not of the dying woman). The narrator has in mind her words, on which she based that ejaculation, but does not state them as hers till afterwards; here he states beforehand the fact contained in them as a historical explanation. We must note, however, the difference between his explanation and her reason for that exclamation in 1Sa_4:22. While he mentions the reference ( àֶì ) to the two dead, she bases the name ( ëִּé ) on the one thing only, the capture of the ark. The honor or glory is the divine majesty, the glory of God, which is enthroned above the ark. Grotius: “ The ark above which God was accustomed to appear in glory.” With the capture of the ark “Israel’s glory is carried into captivity;” “with the abandonment of the earthly throne of His glory, the Lord seemed to have annulled His covenant of grace with Israel; for the ark, with the tables of the law and the kapporeth [mercy-seat], was the visible pledge of the covenant of grace which Jehovah had made with Israel” (Keil). Eli’s son’s wife dies, as Eli himself, in consuming sorrow over what was the core of this national and domestic misfortune, over the judgment of the turning away of the almighty living God from the covenant-people, the outward sign of which was the removal of the ark, on which, in accordance with His promise given in the law, He would sit as Israel’s God and dwell in the midst of His people. Comp. Exo_25:22; Exo_30:6; Exo_30:36; Exo_40:35 (“the glory of the Lord filled the dwelling”), 1Ki_8:10-11. [Bib. Comm. refers to Psa_78:61; Psa_78:64 as containing allusions to this incident. Wordsworth: “With God there is no Ichabod.”—Tr.] “The necessary result of this national view of the ark is that there was only one sanctuary, so that all those passages which affirm it may be cited as direct testimony to the fact that there was only one sanctuary.” (Hengst. Beit. [Contrib.] 3:55.)

HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL

1. In the history of His kingdom on earth God the Lord often permits times to come, when it seems as if the victory had been forever borne away from His people by the hostile world, and the holy ordinances of His kingdom, and its gracious benefits forever abandoned to the power of unbelief. Such times are times of judgment on the house of the Lord, the purpose of which is to make manifest all who truly belong to the Lord’s people, to put an end to the hypocrisy of dead belief and of the unbelief which is concealed under outward forms and the appearance of godliness, to lead to earnest, honest repentance, and bring men to seek again God’s mercy in true living faith.

2. Outcry over inbreaking outward and inward corruption, in which God’s judgments are inflicted, is nothing but an expression of the sorrow which flesh and blood feels, a sign of the distance and alienation of the fleshly heart from God, unless therein the cry is heard: “It is the Lord, this the Lord hath done,” and the confession is made: “We have deserved it by our sins,” and unless recourse is had in penitence and faith to God’s grace and mercy. And all this was lacking in the outcry of that whole city and its loud tumult.

3. “Being in God”—that is, the union of the heart with Him in the deepest foundation of its being, reveals itself in times of great misfortune and suffering in this, that the sorrow and mourning is not restricted to the loss of earthly-human possessions, but directs itself chiefly to the loss and lack of God’s gracious presence, and thus shows that for the inner life the glory of God and blessedness in communion with Him is become the highest good. So here in this refraining from grief over the loss of what to the flesh was the nearest and dearest, and in the outspoken sorrow only over the violence done to God’s honor and the contempt cast on His name, is verified the Lord’s word: “He who forsaketh not father or mother, or brother, etc., is not worthy of me.”

4. Eli and his son’s wife are shining examples of true heartfelt piety in the gloom of the corruption that reigned in the high-priestly family and the judgments that came on it, in that they are not taken up with their own interests, but bewail the violation of the sanctuary, the contempt put on God’s honor as the highest misfortune; and so in times of universal confusion and degradation which God the Lord lets befall His kingdom in this world, He has always His people in secret, who look not on their own need and tribulation as most to be lamented, but sorrow most deeply and heavily that the ends of His grace are thwarted, the honor of His name violated, and the affairs of His kingdom in confusion.

5. Even a sudden terrible death under the stroke of a merited judgment of God may be a blessed death in the living God, if the heart breaks with the cry: “To God alone the glory!”

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1Sa_4:12. The outward signs of mourning, such as were usual among the people of Israel—rending the garments and putting ashes or dust on the head—ought to be a symbolical representation of godly sorrow for sin, in which the heart is broken to pieces by the word of the holy and righteous God, and the whole man casts himself humbly and penitently into the dust before his God. [Very fanciful.—Tr.] But, as then under the oppression of Philistine rule in Israel, there is nowhere a trace to be found of such repentance, when the misfortune over which men mourn and lament is not regarded and felt as a punishment of God for sin, and the smiling hand of the righteous and holy God is not therein recognized.

1Sa_4:13. S. Schmid: We must take care not to do any thing with a doubtful conscience, that we may not have always to stand in fear, Rom_16:23.—Those who will not cry out over their sins in true repentance must at last cry out over the punishment and their misfortune.

1Sa_4:17-18. Starke: When men sin without distinction, God also punishes without distinction, and regards no person, dignity, age, nor condition, Wis_6:7.—S. Schmid: The honor of God and the true service of God must lie more on our hearts than our own children and parents.—Berl. Bible: It is a wonderful thing that whereas the people were so powerful and had gained so many victories, as long as God protected them, they now fly and let themselves be overcome almost without a struggle, as soon as ever God ceases to be on their side. If God protects us in a special way, we are a match for our enemies; but if He leaves us only for a little to ourselves, into what weaknesses do we not then fall! So that we unite with our enemies in contributing much to our downfall.—We must, however, regard it as an effect of God’s compassion when He permits us to be smitten. For if this did not happen, we should not sufficiently recognize our weakness, and our great need of His assistance.—It is an honorable and glorious death to die from concern for the honor of God.

1Sa_4:21-22. Berleb. Bible: As soon as we lose this presence (God’s), we fall into the utmost weakness and into powerlessness, so that we can no more do what we have done before. We also cease to be a terror to our enemies; for these, on the contrary, now rejoice over our defeat.—Wunderlich (in Daechsel): So prevalent in Israel was a regard for the glory of God, which streamed down upon the people, so deeply implanted was the theocratic national consciousness that a woman in travail forgot her pains, and a dying woman the terrors of death, a mother did not comfort herself in her new-born son, and sorrow for the lost jewel of the nation outweighed even sorrow for the death of a father and of a husband, and this in a family and in a period which must be regarded as degenerate.

1Sa_4:12-22. A terrible and yet an honorable end—if 1) With the humble confession “ It is the Lord ” the hand of God as it smites down is held back; 2) In complete unselfishness one’s own misfortune and ruin is quite forgotten over the shame brought upon the honor and the name of God; and 3) The hidden man of the heart, with all his striving, turns himself alone towards the honor and glory of God as his supreme good.—The defeats of God’s people in the conflict with the world which is hostile to His kingdom. 1) Their causes: a) on their side: unfaithfulness towards the Lord, arbitrary, self-willed entrance into the strife without God, cowardice and flight; b) on God’s side: punitive justice, abandonment to the hands of their enemies. 2 Their necessary consequences: deep hurt to the yet remaining life of faith, injury to the honor of God, and shame brought upon His glorious name. 3) The results contemplated by God in permitting them, or their design: sincere repentance, all the more zealous care for the Lord’s honor, glorifying His name so much the more.—Without honor to God no honor to the people: 1) In the inner life of the people—error and heterodoxy, where the light of His revealed truth does not shine, sin and unrighteousness, where there is a lack of faithful obedience to His holy will, spiritual-moral wretchedness and ruin, where God must withdraw His gracious presence; 2) In the outer life of the people in relation to other peoples, oppression and subjection, introduction from without of godlessness and immorality, loss of their good name.—The cry, Ichabod, the glory is departed from Israel, is a cry which 1) as a lamenting cry, is grounded in the proper recognition of the cause, greatness and significance of the ruin and wretchedness which come from being abandoned by God, and 2) as an awakening cry is designed to admonish to earnest repentance and returning to the Lord, that the light of His glory may again break forth out of the gloom.

[1Sa_4:19-22. The pious wife of Phinehas. 1) Pious, though living in an age of general corruption. 2) Deeply pious, though the wife of a grossly wicked husband. 3) So pious, that in her devout grief all other strongest feelings were swallowed up: a) maternal feeling, b) conjugal and filial feeling, c) patriotic feeling.—Tr.]

Footnotes:

[1Sa_4:12. Instead of the Gen. construction, as here, the Heb..has more commonly the tribal name as Adj. (gentilie), as in Jdg_3:15; 2Sa_20:1; but for ex. of this form see Jdg_10:1.—Tr.]

[1Sa_4:13. The Art. here points to some well-known or accustomed seat.—Tr.]

[1Sa_4:13. It is generally agreed that we must here read, with the Qeri and Syr., éã instead of éê , but the absence of the Art. in ãøê makes a difficulty, and the Sept. and Chald. seem to hare rendered from a slightly different text. Sept. has: “Eli was near the gate, watching the way,” and Chald.: “Eli sat in the path of the way of the gate watching.” So in 1Sa_4:18 the Heb. text “side of the gate.” It would seem probable, therefore, that äַùַּòַø “the gate” has fallen out here.—Tr.]

[1Sa_4:15. Sept. here gives 90 years, and Syr. (followed by Arab.) 78.—Tr.]

[1Sa_4:18. Wellhausen objects to áòã éã , rejects the òã as repetition by error, and reads áéã . But this is unnecessary; comp. the àֵì in 2Sa_18:4, and the force of áòã in Job_2:4.—Tr.]

[1Sa_4:18. Sept. gives 20 years, other verss. 40.—Tr.]

[1Sa_4:19. ìַú for ìֶãֶú , the only place where this contraction occurs (so Rashi).—Tr.]

[On the importance of “runners” see note in Bib. Comm. on this verse, which remarks also, that as the messenger came from Ebenezer within the day (1Sa_4:16) it must have been near.—Tr.]

[See Talmudical Tract Sota, and the Midrash of Samuel, and comms. of Rashi and Abarbanel.—Tr.]

[See “Textual and Grammatical” note on this word.—Tr.]

[This word ( ëñà ) everywhere else clearly means “throne” (unless perhaps in 1Ki_2:19; Psa_9:14), and comp. Zec_6:13. Yet, in the infrequent occurrence of any word for an ordinary seat (and see Eze_28:2, îåֹùַׁá à× “seat of God”), though the word seems to imply something of official dignity, the rendering throne (Josephus: ἐö ’ ὑøçëï ͂ õ èñüíïõ ) would here be not so good as “seat.”—Tr.]

[The messenger probably entered the city by the gate where Eli was sitting.—Tr.]

The ìְ before ìֶãֶú=ìַú is that of time, our towards, on, about; comp. Jos_2:3, “the gate was for closing,” that is, was to be closed immediately; Ew. Gr. 217, 2 b. So here: towards bearing, near to bearing. On the contraction of ìֶãֶú into ìַú comp. Ew. Gr. § 236,1 b, and § 80.— àֵì is often used, as here, to point out the object to which the narration relates—with the verbs “say, relate.” Comp. Gen_20:2; Psa_2:7; Psa_69:27; Isa_38:19; Jer_27:19; Job_42:7. It is explained by the fact that, in narrating or speaking, the mind is directed to the object, stands in relation to it. Comp. ìִ Isa_5:1. That it here depends on a subst., and not, as usually, on a verb, does not affect the principle, since a verbal conception lies in this subst.

[We can hardly draw a conclusion concerning the whole nation from the example of one person, and Gerlach’s inference is, for other reasons, doubtful.—Tr.]

àִé is not àָáִé contracted, as in àִéòֶæֶø , Num_26:30; Ew. § 84 c, but = “not,” “without,” Ew. § 273 b, A. 1, p. 667, comp. § 209 c, to which the context points.