1 Samuel 4:10 Commentary and Bible Study

Needless to say, ‘Israel was smitten’, a very great slaughter, ‘thirty thousand footmen, and the ark was taken and the sons of Eli were slain.’ Something rather tragic then happens. ‘There And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head’ – he was in mourning; he felt so ashamed; he had abased himself. Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside, watching in all likelihood by the temple structure. But the man ignores him. He goes right past him to tell the town, to tell the people; perhaps he did not want to give Eli such dreadful news. Eli is now ninety-eight years old, we are told, and he is blind, but he can still hear the noise of crying as the news fills the city, and he calls for the messenger to come to him. Finally the man comes in to speak to him. Eli is the last person to hear; he has become an irrelevance.Eli hears the report and questions the man, though he is probably expecting what he is about to hear. He cannot forget the prophecy given by the prophet in chapter 2 and confirmed by the message given to Samuel, that God will judge his family and make an end of them. That was inevitable: God would do what he said he was going to do. He is aged and Israel has just faced their arch foe in battle. When is this judgment from God more likely to fall on him? The messenger tells him: ‘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.’ This was terrible news indeed.But the heaviest news comes last. We are told that the fate of the ark was deeply troubling Eli: ‘Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God’. He knew he should never have allowed it to go on the battlefield, and yet it must have happened only by his permission. But surely God would not allow any harm to come to the ark; his honour was too much bound up with it. He would be forced to protect it. ‘It came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell off the seat backward by the gate, and is neck break, and he died, for he was an old man and heavy, and he had judged Israel forty years.’ So Eli’s life came to an end. He was a judge over Israel for many years. He was saved by grace himself, but he experienced great loss through his irresolute leadership.