1 Samuelchapter 3
21 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 1 Samuel Overview.
Tradition gives this book to Samuel, and this is the night his own work begins. The first hearers had grown up in a generation when God seemed silent, and the chapter was told to people who knew that silence from the inside. It is a call narrative, the kind of account Scripture gives for Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Much of it takes place in the dark, and much of it is a misunderstanding. Listen for the repeated call and for the old priest who slowly grasps what is happening. Then weigh what it cost a boy to repeat what he heard.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had grown up without hearing a prophetic word and knew the silence from the inside
- What
- The LORD calls the boy Samuel by night, gives him a word of judgment on Eli's house and establishes him as a prophet.
- Where
- The sanctuary at Shiloh, where Samuel slept near the ark of God.
- When
- About 1090 BC, while Samuel was still a boy in service under Eli.
- Why
- To show that the LORD spoke again in Israel, and that He chose a boy at the sanctuary to carry His word.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Samuel, a boy in service at Shiloh under Eli, and to Eli himself, now old and nearly blind. Samuel holds no office in this chapter and ends it as a prophet the whole country knows.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The opening line is a status report on a generation. The word of the LORD was rare in those days and there was no frequent vision. In a nation whose identity rested on God having spoken, that silence was a deeper crisis than the Philistines on the border.
The lamp of God is the seven-branched lampstand, which the priests tended so that it burned from evening until morning. Saying that it had not yet gone out fixes the hour at the last watch of the night, when the oil was nearly spent, and a first hearer read the hour without being told it.
Samuel sleeps in the sanctuary precinct near the ark. Servants of a sanctuary commonly slept on site, and a boy whose morning task was to open the doors would sleep where he could be called. His running to Eli three times is not slowness. The narrator explains at verse 7 that Samuel did not yet know the LORD. The word had not been revealed to him, so a voice in the night could only be the old priest.
The formula at verse 11 says that both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. It stands in only two other places in Scripture, at 2 Kings 21:12 and Jeremiah 19:3, and each one introduces judgment on a sanctuary.
Significance
The chapter closes by saying that all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew Samuel was established as a prophet, and that the LORD let none of his words fall to the ground. For hearers living inside a silence, that sentence was the turn of an age.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
Where the new word came from mattered as much as that it came. It came through a boy who was not sure who was speaking to him, and not through the high priest at the altar.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi is the only commentator the corpus carries with text on this chapter, in the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., under CC-BY. He glosses the term for the rare word as withheld, and compares it to the man of understanding who speaks sparingly (Rashi on I Samuel 3:1:1). On the second half of the verse he says "Prophecy was not revealed", and reads the verb for spreading from the promise at Bethel (Rashi on I Samuel 3:1:2). On where the boy lay he follows Targum Yonoson and places him "in the court of the Levites" (Rashi on I Samuel 3:3:1). The Temple named in the same verse he reads as the place "Where the Ark of God was" (Rashi on I Samuel 3:3:2). The call itself he reads as a voice going out from the Holy of Holies, and he draws out who it passed over (Rashi on I Samuel 3:4:1). Eli was a priest watching within and Samuel a Levite lying without, and Rashi says the voice "jumped over Eili to Shmuel" (same ref). On the boy's failure to know the voice he says he "had not yet recognized the nature of the prophetic voice" (Rashi on I Samuel 3:7:1). He adds a rule of language, that the word in question always means not yet rather than before, and gives two proofs from the Torah (same ref). On the answer Samuel finally gives he notes what the boy left out (Rashi on I Samuel 3:10:1). He withheld the Name that Eli had told him to use, thinking "Perhaps it is another voice", and Rashi points to Maseches Shabbos 113b (same ref). The word given to Samuel he reads as the capture of the Ark by the Philistines (Rashi on I Samuel 3:11:1). On the decree against Eli's house he says it begins that day with the death of Chofni and Pinchas (Rashi on I Samuel 3:12:1). From then it runs on from generation to generation, and the men of the house die young, at the age of eighteen (same ref). On the charge against the sons he says Scripture used a euphemism where the plain statement would have named God (Rashi on I Samuel 3:13:1). He records Ralbag's different reading of the same verse, that the people cursed the sons of Eli (same ref). On Eli's oath he draws the rule that "A curse of a wise man, even though pronounced on condition, will be realized", citing Maseches Makos 11a (Rashi on I Samuel 3:17:1). On Eli's answer he gives five words, that God "is the Master and everything is His" (Rashi on I Samuel 3:18:2). On the close of the chapter he sets it against the opening, since the word had been rare and now the LORD revealed Himself repeatedly (Rashi on I Samuel 3:21:1). Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across the chapter and the corpus holds no English version of any of them, so they stand as citations. They are Radak on I Samuel 3:2:1, 3:8:1, 3:14:1, 3:15:1 and 3:19:1, Metzudat David on I Samuel 3:2:1, 3:5:1, 3:9:1 and 3:20:1, and Malbim on I Samuel 3:6:1 and 3:16:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus records forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty-five of them Midrash and five Talmud, each a locator without text. The rare word and the scarce vision draw Aggadat Bereshit 29:3, Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin 5:1:4, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 1:2:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 1:2:1 and Midrash Shmuel 8:6. Verse 2 draws Aggadat Bereshit 41:3 and Midrash Shmuel 8:8. The boy lying where the Ark of God was draws Bereshit Rabbah 58:2, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Kiddushin 4:14, Ein Yaakov, Kiddushin 4:12, Kiddushin 72b:2 and Kiddushin 78b:2. The first call draws Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 6:9. Eli's instruction and Samuel's answer draw Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 15:2, Bamidbar Rabbah 14:21, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:33, Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 15:2 and Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:39. The thing the LORD was about to do draws Eikhah Rabbah 1:57, Midrash Shmuel 10:1, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 828:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 938:18. The charge against the sons draws Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 6:3, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:21:18, Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 16:2 and Sifrei Zuta 12:12:2. Verse 14 draws Devarim Rabbah 3:2, Devarim Rabbah 11:10, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Rosh Hashanah 1:17 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yevamot 12:1. Verse 15 draws Midrash Shmuel 10:2. Eli's oath to Samuel draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Makkot 2:8, Ein Yaakov, Makkot 2:12, Kohelet Rabbah 10:5:1 and Makkot 11a:21. Verse 19 draws Aggadat Bereshit 64:2. Verse 20 draws Jerusalem Talmud Chagigah 2:1:4, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 8:2:4, Midrash Shmuel 24:5 and Otzar Midrashim, Chuppah of Eliyahu, Seven Chupot or Eliyahu's Chuppah 10. The rabbis teach in these places, and this site reports them as their teaching rather than as a rule of the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Samuel 3:1:1, 3:1:2, 3:3:1, 3:3:2, 3:4:1, 3:7:1, 3:10:1, 3:11:1, 3:12:1, 3:13:1, 3:17:1, 3:18:2 and 3:21:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Radak, Radak on I Samuel 3:2:1, 3:8:1, 3:14:1, 3:15:1 and 3:19:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Samuel 3:2:1, 3:5:1, 3:9:1 and 3:20:1, cited only; Malbim, Malbim on I Samuel 3:6:1 and 3:16:1, cited only.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Speak, for thy servant heareth
1 Samuel 3:1-2
The chapter opens on a famine of revelation, “the word of the LORD was rare and visions were scarce”, and its last verses answer it. Eli's eyesight has “grown so dim that he could not see” in the next sentence, so the old priest's failing sight pictures Israel's failing sight of God.
1 Samuel 3:1
“See the margin reference note. Josephus says that Samuel’s call to the prophetic office happened when he had just completed his twelfth year (compare Luk 2:42). Was precious - (or rare) The song of Hannah, and the prophecy of the “man of God” (1Sa 2:27 note), are the only instances of prophecy since Deborah. Samuel is mentioned as the first of the series of prophets Act 3:24. No open vision - Better rendered, “There was no vision promulgated or published.” (Compare 2Ch 31:5.)”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Samuel 3:1
“Perhaps the impiety and impurity that prevailed in the tabernacle, and no doubt corrupted the whole nation, had provoked God, as a token of his displeasure, to withdraw the Spirit of prophecy, till the decree had gone forth for the raising up of a more faithful priest, and then, as an earnest of that, this faithful prophet was raised up.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Albert Barnes reads Eli's failing eyes as the reason Samuel ran to him at each call, for a blind old priest would need the boy at night. Adam Clarke places their rooms near each other by the tabernacle. The boy slept within earshot.
1 Samuel 3:2
“Eli was laid down in his place - It is very likely that as the ark was a long time at Shiloh, they had built near to it certain apartments for the high priest and others more immediately employed about the tabernacle. In one of these, near to that of Eli, perhaps under the same roof, Samuel lay when he was called by the Lord.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The lamp of God has not yet gone out when the LORD calls, a detail from the nightly care of the lampstand that pictures a light about to fail. The ark the Philistines will carry off within two chapters still rests at Shiloh, and Samuel sleeps “in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was located”. The narrator records the placement without comment.
1 Samuel 3:3
“And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord,.... The tabernacle so called; lamp is put for the lamps in the candlestick in the tabernacle, which were lighted every evening, and burnt till morning; by which time some of them at least usually went out, only it is said the western lamp never went out.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:3
“Ere the lamp of God went out - Before sunrise; for it is likely that the lamps were extinguished before the rising of the sun. See Exo 27:21; Lev 24:3.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 3:4-6
The LORD calls Samuel by name, and each time the boy runs to Eli, saying “Here I am, for you have called me”. He obeys the only master he has known, at the hour that master's house stands under judgment. Eli sends him back with “Go back and lie down” before his own perception catches up with what the boy has heard.
1 Samuel 3:4
“Samuel lay awake in his bed, his thoughts, no doubt, well employed (as David's Ps. lxiii. 6 ), when the Lord called to him, bishop Patrick thinks out of the most holy place, and so the Chaldee paraphrase reads it, A voice was heard out of the temple of the Lord; but Eli, though it is likely he lay nearer, heard it not; yet possibly it might come some other way.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:4
“SAMUEL was a model child. He was the son of a prayerful mother. Hannah is one of the most notable pietists mentioned in the Scriptures. She possessed a truly original mind, but she was yet more famous for her piety—a woman who knew how to take her griefs to the Mercy Seat and cast them upon her God. So Samuel came of good stock but, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," and he would have been none the better for his godly parentage unless the Spirit of God had early in life renewed his heart.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3082: “'Here I Am!'” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Samuel ran to Eli because he was used to the old priest calling him in the night, as Jamieson, Fausset & Brown explain. Matthew Henry notes that Eli, lying down nearer the voice, heard nothing of the LORD's call. Verse 7 tells why Samuel took it for Eli.
The LORD calls a second time and Samuel runs again, still thinking it is Eli. Matthew Henry sees his readiness to answer even an old man's call as the quality God chose to employ, and the repeated trips led Eli to understand at verse 8. Eli answers gently again.
Now Samuel 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 3:7
“Did not know - He was not acquainted with God in that extraordinary or prophetical way. And this ignorance of Samuel's served God's design, that his simplicity might give Eli the better assurance of the truth of God's call, and message to Samuel.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 3:8-9
On the third call Eli sees “that it was the LORD who was calling the boy”, and his discernment answers what his eyes can no longer do. He teaches Samuel the words, “Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening”, and sends him back to a message that falls hardest on Eli's house. The older commentators read Eli's readiness as the one act of faith left in a failing priesthood.
1 Samuel 3:8
“Thus even the infirmities and mistakes of those whom God employs are overruled by infinite Wisdom, and made serviceable to his purposes. At length Samuel was put into a posture to receive a message from God, not to be lodged with himself and go no further, but, that he might be a complete prophet, to be published and made an open vision.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry notes that Eli could have sent the boy back to sleep, and he taught him instead how to answer God. Charles Spurgeon observes that Eli gave Samuel the listening ear he had failed to teach his own sons. The old priest trains his successor.
1 Samuel 3:9
“Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth - This was the usual way in which the prophets spoke, when they had intimations that the Lord was about to make some especial revelation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:9
“IN the days of Eli the Word of the Lord was precious and there was no open vision. It was well, when the Word did come, that one chosen individual had the hearing ear to receive it and the obedient heart to perform it. Eli failed to tutor his sons to be the willing servants and the attentive hearers of the Lord's Word. In this he was without the excuse of inability since he successfully trained the child Samuel in reverent attention to the Divine will.”
The LORD comes and stands, calling the boy by name twice as before, and this time Samuel answers with the words Eli gave him: “Speak, for Your servant is listening”. The famine of verse 1 lifts for one boy in one room. Israel has heard the word of the LORD from Hannah and an unnamed man of God, and from this verse it has a prophet who hears for himself.
1 Samuel 3:10
“The Lord came, and stood - He heard the voice as if it was approaching nearer and nearer; till at last, from the sameness of the tone, he could imagine that it ceased to approach: and this is what appears to be represented under the notion of God standing and calling.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:10
“The child Samuel was favored above all the family in which he dwelt. The Lord did not speak by night to Eli, or to any of Eli's sons. In all that house, in all the rows of rooms that were round about the Tabernacle where the Ark of the Lord was kept, there was not one except Samuel to whom Jehovah spoke!”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2526: “"Speak, Lord!"” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
A word that makes both ears tingle
1 Samuel 3:11-14
The LORD announces judgment with a formula found three times in Scripture, here and at 2 Kings 21:12 and Jeremiah 19:3: “the ears of all who hear it will tingle”. The sentence follows, “The iniquity of Eli’s house shall never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering”. The charge is that “his sons blasphemed God and he did not restrain them”, a fault of doing nothing once he knew.
1 Samuel 3:11
“More accurately, “the which whosoever heareth both his ears shall tingle.” This expressive phrase occurs again twice (marginal references) with reference to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. It is remarkable that Jeremiah repeatedly compares the destruction of Jerusalem with the destruction of Shiloh (Jer 7:12, Jer 7:14; Jer 26:6, Jer 26:9; Compare Psa 78:60-64).”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:11
“Lord, how terrible art thou in thy judgments! If this be done in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Note, God's judgments upon others should affect us with a holy fear, Ps. cxix.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The LORD tells Samuel that everything He spoke against Eli's house by the man of God in 2:27 to 36 will now be done, as Adam Clarke notes. John Wesley reckons the day some twenty or thirty years away, and Matthew Henry warns that when God begins, He finishes. Every word will stand.
1 Samuel 3:12
“I will perform - all things which I have spoken - That is, what He had declared by the prophet, whose message is related 1Sa 2:27, etc. When I begin, I will also make an end - I will not delay the execution of my purpose: when I begin, nothing shall deter me from bringing all my judgments to a conclusion.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:12
“In that day - In that time which I have appointed for this work, which was about twenty or thirty years after this threatning. So long space of repentance God allows to this wicked generation.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Eli knew, and he let it stand. Albert Barnes reads the failure to restrain as a failure to remove his sons from office, and John Wesley calls Eli's words in 2:23 to 25 a cold reproof. Those who can restrain sin and do nothing share its guilt, Wesley adds.
1 Samuel 3:13
“O what a great deal of guilt and corruption is there in us concerning which we may say, "It is the iniquity which our own heart knoweth, we are conscious to ourselves of it!" In short, the iniquity was this: His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. Or, as it is in the Hebrew, he frowned not upon them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
1 Samuel 3:13
“Made themselves vile - Rather, “have cursed themselves,” i. e. brought curses upon themselves. He restrained them not - In the sense of punishing. He did not remove them from their office, which he ought to have done.”
1 Samuel 3:13
“Benevolence to such persons is like that mistaken kindness of Eli which he was accused of showing his sons, contrary to the good pleasure of God. A feigned kindness to the wicked is a betrayal of the truth, an act of treachery to the community and a means of habituating oneself to indifference to evil.”
Basil of Caesarea · written before 379 · THE LONG RULES 28patristic
The LORD swears that no sacrifice or offering will atone for the iniquity of Eli's house, and Adam Clarke limits the oath to the violent death of Eli's sons. Matthew Henry sets it beside 1 John 1:7, where the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. The sons had sinned at the altar itself.
1 Samuel 3:14
“Shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering - That is, God was determined that they should be removed by a violent death. They had committed the sin unto death; and no offering or sacrifice could prevent this. What is spoken here relates to their temporal death only.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:14
“Have sworn - Or, I do swear: the past tense being commonly put for the present in the Hebrew tongue. Unto - Or, concerning it. Purged - That is, the punishment threatened against Eli and his family, shall not he prevented by all their sacrifices, but shall infallibly be executed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 3:15-18
Samuel opens the doors of the house of the LORD, afraid to tell Eli what he has heard. Eli draws it out with an oath, and Samuel “told him everything and did not hide a thing from him”. Eli answers “He is the LORD” and “Let Him do what is good in His eyes”, a resignation the older writers read as genuine though his discipline came too late.
1 Samuel 3:15
“Opened the doors - We learn thus incidentally the nature of some of Samuel’s duties. This duty was quite Levitical in its character. In the interval between Josh and David, when the tabernacle was stationary for the most part, it may have lost something of its “tent” character, and among other changes have had doors instead of the hanging. Samuel feared to show Eli the vision - Here was Samuel’s first experience of the prophet’s cross: the having unwelcome truth to divulge to those he loved, honored, and feared. Compare the case of Jeremiah Jer 15:10; Jer 17:15-18; Jer 20:7-18.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Samuel 3:15
“Our secret communion with God is not to be proclaimed upon the house-tops. (3.) He feared to show Eli the vision. If he was afraid Eli would be angry with him and chide him, then we have cause to suspect that Eli used to be as severe with this towardly child as he was indulgent to his own wicked sons, and this will bear hard upon him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 3:15
“Doors - Altho' the tabernacle, whilst it was to be removed from place to place in the wilderness, had no doors, but consisted only of curtains, and had hangings before the entrance, instead of doors; yet when it was settled in one place, as now it was in Shiloh, it was enclosed within some solid building, which had doors and posts, and other parts belonging to it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Samuel feared to tell the vision, so Eli speaks first. The boy answers with the words he gave the LORD in verse 4. Charles Spurgeon observes that the LORD now spoke to the high priest only through another.
Adam Clarke explains the oath as a curse Eli lays on Samuel should he hold anything back, and he thinks Eli already suspected judgment, knowing his house. Matthew Henry hears in it the doom of a watchman who hides the warning. Samuel must tell all.
1 Samuel 3:17
“God do so to thee, and more also - This was a very solemn adjuration: he suspected that God had threatened severe judgments, for he knew that his house was very criminal; and he wished to know what God had spoken. The words imply thus much: If thou do not tell me fully what God has threatened, may the same and greater curses fall on thyself.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:17
“THE Lord would not speak directly to Eli, although he was the High Priest. In ordinary circumstances it would have been so, but Eli had grieved the Lord, and thus had lost his honorable standing. God had not cast him off, but He viewed him with such displeasure that He would only speak to him through another person—even as great kings, if they are offended with their courtiers—send them messages by other hands. The Lord sent, first, a man of God to warn Eli of what would be the sure result of his lack of firmness with his sons.”
Eli hears the whole message and says, He is the LORD, as Aaron held his peace at Leviticus 10:3 when his sons died. Albert Barnes sets the answer beside that verse, and Adam Clarke hears godly submission in it. Like Aaron, Eli would lose two sons in one day.
1 Samuel 3:18
“Samuel told him every whit - Our word whit, or wid, comes from the Anglo-Saxon, which signifies person, thing, etc.; every whit is every thing. The Hebrew את כל הדברים et col haddebarim, “all these words.” It is the Lord - He is Sovereign, and will do what he pleases; he is righteous, and will do nothing but what is just. Let him do what seemeth him good - There is much of a godly submission, as well as a deep sense of his own unworthiness, found in these words.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
All Israel knows a prophet is established
1 Samuel 3:19-21
And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him: Samuel grows and the LORD lets “none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground”, the test Deuteronomy sets for a true prophet. All Israel “from Dan to Beersheba”, the whole length of the land, knows that Samuel is “confirmed as a prophet of the LORD”. The famine of verse 1 closes on its opposite, for the LORD reveals Himself to Samuel at Shiloh “by His word”.
1 Samuel 3:19
“Samuel grew - Increased to manhood. The Lord was with him - Teaching him, and filling him with grace and holiness. None of his words fall - Whatever prediction he uttered, God fulfilled it; and his counsels were received as coming from the Lord.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke notes that Dan stood at the northern edge of the land and Beersheba at the southern, so the whole nation knew. He reads the word confirmed as faithful: Samuel was a faithful prophet of the LORD. The rejected priest gave way to the young prophet.
1 Samuel 3:20
“All Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba - Through the whole extent of Palestine; Dan being at the northern, Beer-sheba at the southern extremity. Was established to be a prophet - The word נאמן neeman, which we translate established, signifies faithful: The faithful Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:20
“He that began betimes to be good soon came to do good. His established commission from God, and established reputation with the people, gave him a great opportunity of shining as a light in Israel. When old Eli was rejected, young Samuel was established; for God will never leave himself without a witness nor his church without a guide.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The chapter opened with the LORD's word rare at 3:1, and it closes with the LORD appearing again at Shiloh. Albert Barnes notes that verse 7 is now reversed, for Samuel knows the LORD. Adam Clarke reads the Hebrew as the LORD adding to appear.
1 Samuel 3:21
“And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh,.... In the tabernacle there; he had appeared before to Samuel, when he called him, and declared to him what he designed and resolved to do to Eli and his family, and now appeared again to him in the same place before the battle of the Israelites with the Philistines, of which there is an account in the following chapter.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Samuel 3:21
“The state described in 1Sa 3:7 was henceforth reversed. Samuel now knew the Lord, and the Word of the Lord was revealed unto him.”
How this psalm is built
The form: A call narrative, told in a single night and closed by a public notice of the prophet's standing, as guide classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The call, three times refused and once answered | The LORD calls Samuel at verse 4, at verse 6 and at verse 8, and each time the boy runs to Eli. Eli sends him back twice with the same four words, lie down again. On the fourth call at verse 10 the LORD comes and stands and calls twice by name, and Samuel answers with the words Eli has given him.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 1 Samuel 3:4 to 10. | 1 Samuel 3:4, 1 Samuel 3:6, 1 Samuel 3:8, 1 Samuel 3:10 |
| The silence at the start and the speaking at the close | Verse 1 says the word of the LORD was precious in those days and there was no open vision. Verse 21 says the LORD appeared again in Shiloh and revealed Himself to Samuel by the word of the LORD. The chapter shuts on the reversal of the sentence it opened with.W. G. Blaikie, The First Book of Samuel, Expositor's Bible, 1887, on 1 Samuel 3:21. | 1 Samuel 3:1, 1 Samuel 3:21 |
| The failing eyes and the failing sight of God | Verse 1 reports that there was no open vision in the land. Verse 2 reports in the same breath that Eli's eyes had begun to wax dim so that he could not see. The two clauses stand together and the narrator draws no moral from them. Henry and Barnes both read the old priest's blindness as the picture of the nation's.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1834, on 1 Samuel 3:2. | 1 Samuel 3:1, 1 Samuel 3:2 |
| The formula that marks a sanctuary under sentence | Verse 11 says that both the ears of everyone who hears it shall tingle. The same clause stands in only two other places in Scripture, at 2 Kings 21:12 against Jerusalem and at Jeremiah 19:3 against the same city. Each of the three introduces judgment on a place of worship, and this is its first use.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, 1875, on 1 Samuel 3:11. | 1 Samuel 3:11 |
What the chapter is built on
10 more paragraphs on the patterns
The closing verses measure a prophet by the test Deuteronomy sets. Verse 19 says the LORD let none of his words fall to the ground, and Deuteronomy 18:21 to 22 makes a word that comes to pass the mark of a true prophet. The chapter does not cite the law and it applies it.
The phrase from Dan to Beersheba at verse 20 is the standard way the earlier books name the whole length of the land, used at Judges 20:1 and again at 2 Samuel 3:10. Its use here says that Samuel's standing was national rather than local.
The New Testament's use
This chapter is not quoted in the New Testament. Its place in the later record is indirect. Acts 3:24 speaks of all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, and Acts 13:20 names Samuel as the prophet God gave Israel before the kings. Hebrews 11:32 lists Samuel with the judges and the prophets among those who obtained a good report.
Those three places treat Samuel as the head of the prophetic line, and this chapter is where the line begins.
The reading the chapter has drawn argument over
Eli's answer at verse 18 has been weighed two ways, and the difference is a judgment about the man rather than about the text.
Matthew Henry and John Gill read it as real submission and the best thing left in a failing priesthood, since Eli demands the whole message under oath and then accepts the sentence without argument. W. G. Blaikie reads it as resignation that costs nothing, since the one action the sentence called for was the discipline Eli had already declined to give. Both readings are drawn from the same verse and the text adds no comment of its own.
The thing the chapter states before its time
Verse 14 says that the iniquity of Eli's house will not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever. It is an absolute statement about the limit of the sacrificial system, made by God about His own priesthood, centuries before the argument of Hebrews. The chapter states it and does not explain it.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, 1875, on 1 Samuel 3:11 to 14; This site's published book guide, src/components/book/guides/1-samuel/Book1SamuelGuide.tsx, which sets act I under the heading taken from this chapter, that the word of the LORD was rare and visions were scarce and W. G. Blaikie, The First Book of Samuel, Expositor's Bible, 1887, on 1 Samuel 3:19 to 21.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. G. Blaikie, The First Book of Samuel (Expositor's Bible).