Eli And His Sons 1 Samuel 2:12–36, 4:10-22 (ESV)
This is a story about a father and his two sons. Eli’s wife, the mother of
Hophni and Phineas, does not appear in this story. This does not mean that
she is not important. To the contrary, she is essential. Parenting is a team
sport. However, she is not in the story because Eli, the Father, is the one
accountable to God for his children.
Thesis: God judged Eli and his descendants because he despised God.
Three points. 1st A review of the Facts. 2nd God’s analysis of the facts.
3rd Gods’ response to the facts.
A. THE FACTS
1. Increased Privilege brings increased accountability
The Bible continually reminds us that God will hold us accountable on
the basis of our privileges. This story took place in front of the Tent of
Meeting. The glory of God dwelt in the Tent of Meeting.
God is Holy. Eli knew this. In previous generations, the glory of God had
flamed forth from this very tent and struck down Aaron’s two oldest sons,
Nadab and Abihu. Why? They offered “strange fire” (Lev. 10).
2. Adultery and Contempt for God
Hophni & Phineas were the two grown sons of the High Priest, Eli. They
habitually abused the Sacrificial System. The law gave them a breast and a
thigh from each animal offered. The Fat was burned for the Lord, and the
priest could not legally take his breast and thigh until the fat had been
burned.
Despite the law, Hophni and Phineas were helping themselves to as
much meat as their forks could stab. In addition, they took the meat before
the fat was burned, and then they even pressured the worshipper for more.
Despite the fact that they were married, they also slept with the women
who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. They were adulterers.
By itself, adultery is very serious. The penalty was death by stoning.
With this in mind, verses 12 and 17 lay down God’s verdict on Eli’s sons.
(1 Samuel 2:12) "12 Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the
LORD."
(1 Samuel 2:17) "17 Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of
the LORD, for the men treated the offering of the LORD with contempt."
“Sin very great in the sight of the Lord.” Obviously it was not serious in
the sight of either Eli or his boys. This was the problem. Neither Eli, not his
sons, had a sense of the sinfulness of sin or its eternal consequences.
They did not see sin as God saw it. God saw this as the sin of showing him
contempt. Verse 17 says, “They treated the offering of the Lord with
contempt.”
The offering was part of the sacrificial system. The Israelites brought
animals to the Tent of Meeting for the High Priest and his family in order to
atone for their sin. These sacrifices foreshadowed the cross. Later, the
cross would reveal the seriousness of sin and the need for atonement.
However, neither Eli nor his boys needed the cross to see this. Israel’s
history made the holiness of God clear. However, Hophni and Phineas
lacked any sense of this. Eli, and by extension Hophi and Phineas, treated
“the Offerings of with Lord with contempt.” This meant that they also treated
God, who commanded the sacrifices, with contempt.
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3. Eli’s idolatry
Eli was the High Priest. He was descended from Aaron’s fourth son,
Ithamar.
He had some love for God. We know this because he was so concerned
about God’s glory that he fell off his stool, broke his neck and died when he
heard that the Philistines had captured the Ark. Maybe Eli had saving faith.
We just don’t know.
However, we do know that he loved his boys more than God. He was a
permissive father. In contradiction to Eph. 6:4, he did not instruct them or
discipline them. This was his great sin.
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord.(Ephesians 6:4)
Hearing about their adultery, he rebuked them verbally, when at the very
least, he should have removed them from the Priesthood. He talked when
he should have acted. That was his great sin.
(1 Samuel 2:24–25) “24 No, my sons; it is no good report that I hear the people of
the LORD spreading abroad. 25 If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for
him, but if someone sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?” But they
would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the LORD to put them
to death."
Dr. Blaikie comments,
“Eli “spoke against [his boys sin], but he did not act against it. He showed that he
knew of it, he owned it to be very wicked; but he contented himself with words of
remonstrance…[This] evil began before he was old and decrepit, and his fault was
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that he did not restrain his sons at the time when he ought and might have
restrained them.”1
In other words, the rebuke was well-intended, but it was way too mild. It
was too little too late. This sin demanded vigorous action. Eli talked when
he should have acted. The old saying is true, “talk is cheap.”
God commands us to love him more than our children. He commands
believing parents to prove this by their impartiality. For example, under the
Old Covenant if a child cursed his parent, struck his parent, or persisted in
disobedience, death by stoning was the penalty, and God commanded the
child’s parent to be the one who informed the authorities of the offense.
(Deuteronomy 21:18–21) "18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will
not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they
discipline him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take
hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where
he lives, 20 and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and
rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the
men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from
your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear."
In fact, if Eli had been faithful to the law, because Hophni and Phineas
were adulterers, he would have already indicted and tried them. He was the
High Priest. That was his duty.
In addition, by dishonoring the sacrificial offering, the boys dishonored
God. As we have already mentioned, God consumed Nadab and Abihu
with fire for offering “strange fire” in Lev 10.
1
Dr. W.G. Blaikie, D.D., The Expositors Bible, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids: Baker 1982, reprinted from the original
version 1903) pg 16
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B. GOD’S ANALYSIS OF THE FACTS
God is slow to anger. The boys are adults. God has waited several
decades for Eli to change, but he has remained obstinate. So, God sent a
prophet to Eli.
(1 Samuel 2:29–30) "29 Why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I
commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves
on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?’ 30 Therefore the LORD,
the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father
should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the LORD declares: ‘Far be it from
me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly
esteemed."
This text reveals two reasons why he failed to act. First, he was passive.
Second, he feared his boy’s rejection more than he feared God. Behind
both failures is the sin of unbelief. These are the same reasons most
parents fail to discipline their children today.
1. Eli Honored his sons more than he honored God.
The prophet said that Eli Honored his sons more than God. 29 “Why
then do you… honor your sons above me?” When did Eli do this? Eli
“honored” his sons more than God when he failed to discipline them. His
boys had become idols. Their acceptance had become more important to
Eli than God’s acceptance. In other words, he feared his sons more than he
feared God. Whomever, or whatever, we fear is our real god. We will fear
whomever we think is in control of our happiness. i.e. whomever we think
possesses sovereignty over our future.
Eli practiced the sin of partiality. He had one set of rules for his sons and
another set for Israel. Jesus warned us against this sin.
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“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone
comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children
and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple”
(Luke 14:25–27).
We honor God when we fear him more than our children. We fear him
more than our children when we are more interested in God’s approval
than that of our children.
We fear God when we impartially relate to our children the way God
commands us to relate to them. Faith motivates this. We love and discipline
our children to the degree that we believe that God will bless our parenting
if we do it his way. Faith will motivate biblical parenting no matter how
counter-cultural that might be.
2. Eli Despised God
Verse 30 reads, “For those who honor me I will honor, and those who
despise me shall be lightly esteemed." Brothers and sisters, can we think of
a worse sin than “despising God?” Yet that is how God sees parental
passivity and partiality. When we show partiality to our children, or fail to
discipline them, God sees it as “despising” him. In other words, we treat
him lightly. We don’t take him seriously. We brush off his warnings and
commandments. He don’t really BELIEVE either his threats or promises.
The word translated to despise in this passage is the Hebrew word,
Bazah. It means "to look down upon, be contemptuous or disdainful of, to
scorn" Often translated to curse, scorn, or despise.
Goliath despised Dave (1 Sam 17:42).
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When David sinned with Bathsheba, the Holy Spirit said he committed
the sin of Despising God (2 Sam 12:9).
After Job received his vision of God he despised himself and repented in
dust and ashes (Job 42:6). This is our goal. We want to be parents that
despise ourselves, not God. We want to be parents that fear God, not our
children.
The opposite of despising God is fearing God.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and
instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).
“Whoever walks in uprightness fears the LORD, but he who is devious in his ways
despises him” (Proverbs 14:2).
In other words, the opposite of despising God is trembling at his word. It
is fearin
“This is he to whom I will look, he that is humble, contrite, and trembles at my word”
(Is 66:2).
C. GOD’S RESPONSE TO THE FACTS
God struck down Hophni and Phineas. Notice the patience of God. He is
slow to anger. Eli is an old man before God acts. He gave Eli every
opportunity to repent. But finally God’s patience reached its limit. God
disciplined Eli’s sons because Eli failed to.
In addition, in God’s eyes Eli’s sin was so serious that he permanently
stripped the priesthood from Eli and his descendants. In addition, God put
all of Eli’s descendants but Abiathar to death.
(1 Samuel 2:31–33) "31 Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your
strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man
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in your house. 32 Then in distress you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity
that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house
forever. 33 The only one of you whom I shall not cut off from my altar shall be
spared to weep his eyes out to grieve his heart, and all the descendants of your
house shall die by the sword of men."
This prophecy came to pass. Several decades later, when Eli’s
descendants still occupied the priesthood, they protected David. Motivated
by jealousy King Saul murdered all of the priests at Nob and their families.
It was the fulfillment of this prophecy of judgment on Eli.
“Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the
Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five
persons who wore the linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the
sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the
sword. But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar,
escaped and fled after David” (1 Samuel 22:18–20).
When David ascended to power he made Abiathar priest. Later,
Solomon removed Abiathar and installed Zadok. At this time the rights and
privileges of the priesthood permanently transferred from the house of Eli to
the house of Zadok.
“So Solomon expelled Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, thus fulfilling the
word of the LORD that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh” (1 Kings
2:27).
This concept of family, which views us much more as a people than
solitary individuals, is at the heart of God’s essential glory.
“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful
and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
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but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”(Exodus
34:6–7)
Important Caveat: When children get punished it is for their sins not their
fathers. However, their father’s sins twist and distort their own behavior so
that they imitate their parents and then receive the just punishment that
both they and their father’s deserve. In addition, God often makes
sovereign exceptions to this principle, and that is why most of us are saved.
D. APPLICATION (SO WHAT?)
1. Fathers: You are the Man!
2. Set Godly Expectations
Because Eli did not sense or see God’s holiness, he did not set biblical
standards for his boys.
In addition, he did not discipline them to those standards.
3. Fear God not your children
Your children do not control your happiness––God does.
Make it your goal to please God not your children.
4. Set a Godly Example
Like Father like Son. Eli despised the Lord by loving his sons more than
God. His boys went further. They despised the Lord by treating the offering
with contempt and abusing the women who worked at the tent of meeting.
Even little Samuel followed Eli’s example 1 Sam 8:1ff
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5. Never forget that Parenting has consequences
Eli’s passivity and failure to fear God radically affected the generations
descended from him. Because Eli failed to discipline them, Hophni and
Phineas committed the unforgiveable sin.
(1 Samuel 2:25) "25b But they [Hophni and Phineas] would not listen to the voice of
their father, for it was the will of the LORD to put them to death."
Parents that do not see sin and evil as God sees it will not fear God.
They will be lenient with their children because they do not see and fear the
consequences of evil. They will not teach their children to rejoice in
discipline, because they don’t rejoice in God’s discipline.
Your children will imitate your example. If you despise God by not
disciplining them, they will despise God. In addition, your children will
ultimately despise you.
(Pr 15:20) “A foolish man despises his mother.”
(Pr 23:22) “Listen to your father who gave you life and do not despise your mother
when she is old.”
6. Run to the Gospel for Grace
None of us parent perfectly. The best of us are a mixed bag. We need
grace, and there is a boatload in the gospel for us.
In the gospel, particularly the cross, we see the reason to fear God.
Jesus went to the cross and was despised in our place. s
In the gospel, particularly the cross, we obtain grace, mercy, and love to
cover our failures. And, our failures will always be many.
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