Scripture Daily

Context No. 1125 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 4:12-16: in context

12A man of Benjamin ran out of the army and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. 13When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for God’s ark. When the man came into the city and told about it, all the city cried out. 14When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, “What does the noise of this tumult mean?” The man hurried, and came and told Eli. 15Now Eli was ninety-eight years old. His eyes were set, so that he could not see. 16The man said to Eli, “I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army.” He said, “How did the matter go, my son?”

Israel has just been routed by the Philistines, and the ark of God captured. A messenger from the battle, clothes torn and dirt on his head, runs the whole way to Shiloh. Old Eli, ninety-eight and blind, is sitting by the road, and the text tells us why: his heart trembled for the ark of God. When the messenger's news reaches the city, the whole town cries out; Eli, hearing the uproar, asks what it means, and the man comes to tell him he has fled from the battle.

The revealing detail is where Eli's anxiety lay: his heart trembled for the ark of God. Eli was a deeply flawed old priest, who had failed to restrain his corrupt sons and let the worship of God fall into disrepute, and in a moment he will hear that those sons are dead. But notice that his deepest fear, as he sits blind by the road, is not for his sons or himself but for the ark, the symbol of God's presence among his people. Whatever else had gone wrong in Eli's long life, at the very end his heart still trembled most for the honor and presence of God, more than for his own family. When the news comes, it is the report about the ark, not the death of his sons, that will kill him. There is something worth weighing in that. A man could fail in many ways and still, underneath it all, care most about the presence of God; and the test of where our hearts truly lie is what we tremble for most when everything is on the line. Eli trembled for the ark. It is a searching question what we tremble for.

When everything is on the line, what does my heart tremble for most, and is the presence and honor of God among the things I fear to lose, as it was for old, failing Eli?

Sources