Following Samuel – 1 Sam 2:27-34 – Taking Responsibility

Prophecy Against the House of Eli

27 Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Did I not clearly reveal myself to your father’s house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh? 28 I chose your father out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod in my presence. I also gave your father’s house all the offerings made with fire by the Israelites. 29 Why do you ^[f] scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?’30 “Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and your father’s house would minister before me forever.’ But now the LORD declares: ‘Far be it from me! Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained. 31 The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your family line 32 and you will see distress in my dwelling. Although good will be done to Israel, in your family line there will never be an old man. 33 Every one of you that I do not cut off from my altar will be spared only to blind your eyes with tears and to grieve your heart, and all your descendants will die in the prime of life.

34 ” ‘And what happens to your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will be a sign to you—they will both die on the same day. 35 I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind. I will firmly establish his house, and he will minister before my anointed one always. 36 Then everyone left in your family line will come and bow down before him for a piece of silver and a crust of bread and plead, “Appoint me to some priestly office so I can have food to eat.” ‘ “

It’s one of those things, that when you take on an Old Testament book, you’re always going to get some good old fashioned retribution thrown into the mix. And maybe I’ll tackle the punishment of God some other time. But I’ve been angry enough myself today, so we’ll let that part fly.

The big kick in the teeth (wow, that could almost be a bit harsh) in this passage is the part where Eli is being foced to take responsibility for the actions of his children. Just a weekend ago we heard that Eli had given the boys a bit of a tongue lashing about the whole stealing from the altar thing, but that’s clearly not enough for God. Eli had been weak. Spineless. He’d had a quiet word and left it at that. “Not my problem, I’ve had a go at them” you can hear Eli plead (yep, the voices have come back). But maybe what this passage hits hardest, is that if you’re in leadership there’s a call to stand up against the behaviour of your lead-ees. “Why do you honor your sons more than me…?” Those are hard words to hear, and hardest to hear from God. Cause there’s no doubt that as someone who is not very good at being confrontational, I let stuff fly, figuring that they know it’s wrong, so it’s their problem. Maybe that’s why it hit me so hard when I heard Pete say that stuff about being responsible for the lives of the people we lead. Ow. Certainly got me thinking.

Hopefully we’ll be able to bite off slightly larger chunks at a time, or else we could be on Samuel for the rest of the year. We’ll see how we go. Next on Following Samuel – “Samuel gets the gig!”