The Sons of Eli
12 Now the sons of Eli were wicked men. They didn’t know Yahweh. 13 The custom of the priests with the people was that when anyone offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant came while the meat was boiling, with a fork of three teeth in his hand; 14 and he stabbed it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot. The priest took all that the fork brought up for himself. They did this to all the Israelites who came there to Shiloh. 15 Yes, before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant came, and said to the man who sacrificed, “Give meat to roast for the priest; for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but raw.” 16 If the man said to him, “Let the fat be burned first, and then take as much as your soul desires;” then he would say, “No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force.” 17 The sin of the young men was very great before Yahweh; for the men despised Yahweh’s offering. 18 But Samuel ministered before Yahweh, being a child, clothed with a linen ephod. 19 Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. 20 Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, “May Yahweh give you offspring from this woman for the petition which was asked of Yahweh.” Then they went to their own home. 21 Yahweh visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. The child Samuel grew before Yahweh. 22 Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how that they slept with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting. 23 He said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people. 24 No, my sons; for it is not a good report that I hear! You make Yahweh’s people disobey. 25 If one man sins against another, God will judge him; but if a man sins against Yahweh, who will intercede for him?” Notwithstanding, they didn’t listen to the voice of their father, because Yahweh intended to kill them. 26 The child Samuel grew on, and increased in favor both with Yahweh and also with men.
Priests who take by fork and by force, a father's rebuke that arrives decades late — and between the indictments, a child growing in a little robe.
Now the sons of Eli were wicked men. They didn’t know Yahweh.
The verdict comes first, then the evidence, and the evidence is procedural: the three-pronged fork in the pot, the demand for raw meat before the fat was burned, the threat — if not, I will take it by force 1 Samuel 2:13–16. The law gave priests a defined portion, after God's part was offered Leviticus 7:31–34; Hophni and Phinehas rewrote the liturgy into a racket, and the narrator names the real casualty: the men despised Yahweh's offering 1 Samuel 2:17 — clergy corruption teaching the worshipers contempt for worship itself.
18 But Samuel ministered before Yahweh, being a child, clothed with a linen ephod. 19 Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.
The narrative braids the rot with its remedy — cutting from Eli's sons to the child, four times 1 Samuel 2:11 1 Samuel 2:18 1 Samuel 2:21 1 Samuel 2:26 — and gives one detail no theology requires and no reader forgets: the little robe, resized annually, a mother's vow renewed in cloth. Hannah's reward is stated in the same breath: three more sons and two daughters 1 Samuel 2:21 — the given child multiplied back, Hannah's own song arithmetic 1 Samuel 2:5.
23 He said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people. 24 No, my sons; for it is not a good report that I hear! You make Yahweh’s people disobey.
Eli's rebuke is real and useless — words without removal, from a father who was also the high priest with power to act. The oracle will name his actual sin precisely: he didn't restrain them 1 Samuel 3:13, and honored his sons above God 1 Samuel 2:29. The hard clause at the rebuke's end — they didn't listen... because Yahweh intended to kill them 1 Samuel 2:25 — follows the book's settled pattern: judicial hardening after long-settled defiance, Pharaoh's case in priestly dress Exodus 9:12; the intent to kill follows years of they didn't know Yahweh, not the reverse.
The child Samuel grew on, and increased in favor both with Yahweh and also with men.
The refrain closes the passage — and Luke will reach for this exact sentence to describe another child growing toward his calling Luke 2:52. In a collapsing institution, God's succession plan is a boy in a hand-sewn robe, growing.
settled What this mark means