1 Samuel3chapter 3

1 Samuel 3:1-2

The word of the Lord was precious in those days, and there was no open vision: revelation itself has grown rare since Deborah and the man of God of chapter two, and this famine is what the chapter's final verses answer. Eli's eyes begin to wax dim in the same sentence, so that the old priest's failing sight becomes a picture of Israel's failing sight of God. Samuel still ministers as a servant here, with no idea that he is about to become the answer to the very silence the chapter opens on.

1 Samuel 3:3

The lamp of God has not yet gone out when the Lord calls, a literal detail from the nightly care of the lampstand turned into a picture of a light about to fail and a mercy that has not let it fail yet. The ark of God still rests in the temple at Shiloh, the same ark the Philistines will carry off within two chapters, and Samuel sleeps within reach of it while Eli lies apart in his own place. The old priest's remove from the ark he serves stands beside the boy's nearness to it, and the chapter never explains the placement; it simply records it.

1 Samuel 3:4-6

The Lord calls Samuel by name three times, and three times the boy runs to Eli supposing the old man has called him. Nothing in the text says Samuel heard anything unusual in the voice; he simply obeys the only master he has ever known, at the very hour that master's own house stands under coming judgment. Eli sends him back twice with the same four words, lie down again, before his own perception catches up with what the boy has already heard.

1 Samuel 3:7

did not yet know the Lord: Samuel did not yet know the Lord, the narrator says plainly, because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The line does not mean the child was irreligious; he has slept beside the ark and ministered before Eli since chapter one. It means only that he has never yet heard God's voice for himself, and the three false starts of the previous verses are the sound of that recognition arriving.

1 Samuel 3:8-9

On the third call Eli perceives that the Lord has called the child, and the old priest's discernment answers for a moment what his eyes can no longer do. He teaches Samuel the words to say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth, and sends him back to hear a message that will fall hardest on Eli's own house. The teacher instructs the very voice that is about to pronounce judgment on him, and the older commentators read Eli's readiness to hear it as the one clear act of faith left in a failing priesthood.

1 Samuel 3:10

the Lord came, and stood: The Lord comes and stands and calls as at other times, twice by name, and this time Samuel answers with the very words Eli gave him, Speak, for thy servant heareth. It is the single most quoted line of the chapter, and it marks the moment the famine of verse one lifts for one boy in one room. Israel has had a word of the Lord from Hannah and from an unnamed man of God in these chapters; from this verse it will have a prophet who hears for himself.

1 Samuel 3:11-14

The thing the Lord will do is announced with a formula that occurs only three times in the whole of Scripture, here and at 2 Kings 21:12 and Jeremiah 19:3, and every time it introduces judgment on a sanctuary: both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. What follows is the sentence the man of God of chapter two only implied: the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever, because Eli knew what his sons were doing and restrained them not. The verb restrained sets the charge precisely; Scripture does not fault Eli for having wicked sons but for doing nothing effective once he knew.

1 Samuel 3:15-18

Samuel opens the doors of the house of the Lord as usual and says nothing, afraid to tell his master what he has just been told about him. Eli draws it out with the oath formula of the day, God do so to thee, and more also, and Samuel tells him every whit and hides nothing, the same completeness the Lord's own word to him carried. Eli's answer, It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good, submits to the sentence he could have moved to prevent by governing his sons while there was time, and the older writers read the resignation as genuine even where the discipline behind it came too late.

1 Samuel 3:19-21

Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him: Samuel grows and the Lord is with him, and the chapter measures a prophet's authority the same way Deuteronomy measures a true one: he lets none of his words fall to the ground. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba, the whole length of the land, comes to know that Samuel is established as a prophet of the Lord, the first man given that public standing since Moses' own line grew silent. The famine named at verse one closes on its opposite: the Lord appears again in Shiloh, revealing himself to Samuel there by his word, and the boy who once ran to the wrong man now hears God plainly.