Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - 1 Samuel 2:32 - 2:32
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
So the sense is,
Thou shalt see, not in thy person, but in thy posterity, (it being most frequent in Scripture to attribute that to parents which properly belongs to their posterity only; as Gen_17:8 Gen_27:29,40)
an enemy, i.e. thy competitor, or him who shall possess that place of high trust and honour which now thou enjoyest, (such persons being through man’s corrupt nature esteemed as a man’s worst enemy,) in my habitation, i.e. in the sanctuary. And then he adds by way of aggravation, that this sad accident should happen in all the wealth when God shall give Israel, i.e. in a time when God should eminently bless Israel, and make good all his promises to them, which was in Solomon’s days, when Abiathar of Eli’s race was put out of the high priesthood, and Zadok was put in his place, 1Ki_2:27,35, when the priesthood was most glorious, and most profitable, and comfortable, and therefore the loss of it more deplorable. But the words may be otherwise rendered, as is noted in the margin of our English Bibles: Thou shalt see, to wit, in thy own person, the affliction, or oppression, or calamity of my habitation, i.e. either of the land of Israel, wherein I dwell; or of the sanctuary, called the habitation by way of eminency, whose greatest glory the ark was, 1Sa_4:21,22, and consequently, whose greatest calamity the loss of the ark was; for, or instead of all that good wherewith God would have blessed Israel, or was about to bless Israel; having raised up a young prophet, Samuel, and thereby given good grounds of hope that he intended to bless Israel, if thou and thy sons had not hindered it by your sins, which God was resolved severely to punish. So this clause of the threatening concerns Eli’s person, as the following concerns his posterity. And this best agrees with the most proper and usual signification of that phrase, Thou shalt see. For ever, i.e. as long as the priesthood continues in thy family, or as long as the Levitical priesthood lasts.