Week 11 1 Samuel
It’s easy to feel sorry for Eli.
He seemed like a pretty good guy. After he’d accused Hannah of drunkenness he realized his mistake and so then he blessed her – and she was blessed. Then later Eli treated Samuel with understanding sensitivity and alert advice when the Lord had come to the unsuspecting boy in a night vision.
But Eli was flawed in a key way. His sons were ripping off people who came with their sacrifices. They were also taking sexual advantage of young women who worked at the Tabernacle. Eli gave them a mild reprimand. They disregarded him.
You’ve gotta wonder why he didn’t get more animated about correcting Hophni and Phinehas because on at least two occasions the Lord spoke to him about it.
The first time by a prophet: why do you scorn my sacrifices and offerings? Why do you honor your sons more than me?
The second time through Samuel: I have warned (Eli) continually that judgment is coming for his family, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them.
So whatever glimmers of quality shone in Eli they didn’t outshine the thing the Lord had explicitly & repeatedly told him to do, which he explicitly & repeatedly didn’t.
Eli might have been kind sympathetic understanding. But he was weak and indecisive and deaf to the voice of the Lord and unwilling to put the Lord ahead of his boys.
Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 2:29, 3:13 (NLT)