The Real Issue with Eli’s Sons

As we have previously observed, the narrator of First Samuel compares Samuel with the sons of Eli. The purpose of this comparison is to establish that God is about to create a new order and Samuel represents the expectation of that new order. The period of the Judges was a dismal display of human failure to put God into the supreme position which He, as God, deserves. Instead, Judges demonstrated the fickle and flimsy fruit of sinful man’s efforts to rule his own kingdom. “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” There is nowhere that this trend is more evident than in God’s priestly family, the sons of Levi.

Exodus 19:4–6 declares the fundamental statement of the divine plan for His covenant people. Israel became the first step in the progression to the full, perfect, and final realization of that purpose. The question is whether this plan was limited to Israel, or if Israel’s role was to point to a far more comprehensive realization of the divine purpose. The answer to that question lies in the very nature of the priesthood as standing between the people who need God and God Himself. They were to be God’s agents to bring men to God. Israel was called to be that kingdom of priests, a light pointing all the nations of the world to the one true God. As God was holy, so must those who represent Him be holy. In other words, to represent God properly, Israel must be like God in every way possible. To promote that obligation, God instituted three offices: priest, prophet, and king.

The duty of the priest was mediation and intercession in order to promote holiness, without which Israel could not be God’s light in the world. In effect, the priests ministered in God’s sanctuary in such a way as to invoke a proper fear of God through the display of His greatness in Israel’s worship. But what do we read? These priests, the sons of Eli, did not even know the Lord (v. 12).

The very first impression of God that these men mediated was one of carnal fulfillment in excess (vv. 13-17). The offerings, designed to promote God’s holy standards of righteousness and mercy, were treated with contempt by men whose real god was their own belly (Phil. 3:19).

The next section (vv. 22-25) shows that these priests not only indulged the flesh with food but further provoked Yahweh by adopting the pagan practice of temple prostitution. The text points to an official assembly of women serving at the temple’s entrance. There is no such instruction from Moses regarding such an assembly, and that the priest’s engaged sexually with these women argues for the pagan rite adopted into their worship (Acts 7:41). Eli condemned the practice as sin, warning that God’s judgment was inevitable unless they repented and abandoned such activity. The narrator points out that Eli’s lecture fell on deaf ears because God was about to put them to death (v. 25b). Is it possible that their deafness was increased by Eli’s own self-indulgence (4:18)? However, the ultimate reason for this failure was God’s purpose to bring in His ultimate Priest (2:35).