SAMUEL AND ELI. AFTER the birth of Samuel, when he had attained a competent age, his mother brought him to Shiloh, and having made a vow to devote him to the service of that God who had removed her barrenness and blessed her with a son, she presented him to Eli the high priest, in order that he might be instructed in the service of the tabernacle. The old man immediately received him, and girded him with a linen ephod, which was not a sacred garment, but one of mere honorary distinction, and worn by the subaltern ministers. It was a short tunic that hung loose from the shoulders without a girdle. As Samuel was too young to be admitted to the sacred office, it was a very distinguished honour to be so clothed. Now it happened that the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were great profligates, ill-using the men who frequented the tabernacle, violating the women, and profaning the sacrifices. The father, though aware of their licentiousness, instead of chastising them, suffered their gross offences to pass with merely a slight rebuke. The Almighty was so incensed at this weakness on the part of his holy delegate, that after having warned him of the misery that should befal his house in consequence of the depravity of his two sons, called Samuel to the prophetic office, and made him the instrument of more fully communicating to the unhappy Eli the doom with which he was about to visit him. Perceiving that Samuel had received a divine communication, the venerable man, suspecting, probably, that he himself was the subject of it, charged the young prophet, in the most solemn form of adjuration, to reveal to him what the Lord had declared, "And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good." The death of his sons and his own almost immediately followed. |