1 Samuel 2:18-30 – “Those Who Honor Me I Will Honor”

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 19 July 2020

Introduction

• Tell the story of Eric Liddel turning down a chance for the gold medal in the 100 meter race in the 1924 Olympics and taking a preaching opportunity instead because the race was on Sunday, and how, spurred on by a note from his massage-therapist containing this verse, “Those who honor me I will honor,” he ran the 400 meter race that Friday and not only won the gold medal but set the world record for the fastest-ever time!

• The phrase “Those who honor me I will honor” comes from 1 Samuel 2 verse 30. The context, as you may remember from a couple of weeks ago, is a contrast study between the unfaithfulness of Eli and his sons and the faithfulnes of Samuel.

  • Hophni and Phineas stole from God’s people, stole from God, desecrated the offerings through their laziness and greed, and committed adultery.

  • Samuel, on the other hand, was faithful. Let’s continue to study the contrast and apply it to ourselves:

• Let’s start back in at v.18: “But as for Samuel, he was ministering before the face of Yahweh as a servant-boy with linen shoulder-gear strapped-on. And his mother made for him a little cloak and brought it up to him from holidays to holidays when she went up with her husband to sacrifice the holiday animal-sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elqanah and his wife and say, “May Yahweh set up for you offspring from this woman in place of the request­ed one which you requested for Yah­weh.” And then {the man} would go to his home. Well, Yahweh visited Hannah again, and she gave birth to three sons and two daughters! Mean­while, the boy Sam­uel grew up with Yahweh. Now, Eli was very old, and he heard all that his sons were doing to the children of Israel [- particular­ly that they were lying with the women in the ladies’ auxiliary at the entrance of the tent of meeting -], and he said to them, “Why are y’all conducting affairs like these? Indeed, I am hearing of y’all’s affairs being evil from this people! No, my sons, for the report is not good which I am hearing. {Stop doing thus, for the reports are not good which I am hearing} passed among the people of Yahweh. If a man sins against a man, then they may appeal {to Yahweh}, but if a man sins against Yahweh, who will intercede for him?” However, they would not listen to the voice of their father because Yahweh desired to put them to death. Meanwhile, the servant-boy Samuel went on and became great and was good with Yahweh and also with men. Now, a certain man of God went to Eli and said, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘I fully revealed myself to the household of your forefather during their existence in Egypt {as slaves} for the household of Pharaoh, choosing the {household of your forefather} out of all the tribes of Israel for myself to be a priest, to step up onto my altar, to send incense up in smoke, to bear an ephod, and I gave to the household of your ancestor all the burnt-offerings of the sons of Israel {for food}. Why would you push back on my sacrificial-system and on my offering-system which I commanded on-location and honor your sons instead of me to make yourselves fat off of the top of all the food-offerings of Israel for my people?’ Therefore, {thus} says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘I said that your household and the household of your forefather will conduct themselves before my face for time-out-of-mind, but now,’ this is the declaration of Yahweh, ‘Far be it from me, because those who glorify me I will glorify, but those who despise me will become insignificant.’”

• It is curious that the scripture focuses on what Samuel wore when he began his duties as a priest-in-training. The clothes are called “little” in v.19, so it indicates he was just a little boy:

I) Samuel’s faithful stewardship of priestly privilege (vs. 18-26)

A) vs. 18-19 The clothing of a priest

• Ephod/shoulder gear/apron – this was what priests wore

  • Lev. 8:7 “Then he [Moses] put on him [Aaron] the tunic and girded him with the belt and dressed him with the cloak and put the shoulder-gear on him and strapped the band of the shoulder-gear on him and invested him with it,” Lev. 16:4 “He must wear the holy linen tunic, and the linen underwear shall be over his body, and he shall be girded with the linen belt, and he shall wrap up with the linen priest-cap. They are the clothes of holiness, so he must bathe his body with water and then wear them.” (NAW)

  • “There were two kind of Ephods belonging to the service of the Tabernacle, one peculiar unto the high Priest, wrought with gold and blue silk; an other of linen only, which was common to all the Levites and Priests: as Saul is said to have slain 85 priests that did wear a linen Ephod: and of this sort was Samuel’s Ephod.” ~Andrew Willett, 1607

  • The only other person mentioned as wearing a linen ephod was David when he danced before the Lord in 2 Sam. 6:14 and 1 Chron. 15:27 (the latter of which distinguishes the ephod from the robe).

  • The ephod is never described in detail in the Bible as to what it is, but it was apparently strapped on over a robe.

• The other piece of clothing mentioned is a coat/cloak/robe/me’iyl

  • This is a whole-body covering, perhaps a special kind of tunic, put on over the underwear, and an overcoat could be put on over it. Prior to 1 Samuel, the only people in the Bible mentioned as having this garment were priests, although kings and noblemen are mentioned as wearing it later in scripture.

  • Made by his mom and brought up each Passover

• But do the clothes make the man?

  • “The priestly clothing of the youthful Samuel was in harmony with the spiritual relation in which he stood to the high priest and to Jehovah.” ~Keil & Delitzsch, 1891

B) vs. 20-21 The Blessing Upon The Parents

• Eli begins praying for God to “give children/set up offspring from this woman in place of” Samuel.

• By the way, if you want more children, just ask me and the church to pray for this. We’ve seen God heal multiple infertile couples!

• Anyway, God answers Eli’s prayer! It doesn’t seem to have been as big a deal to Hannah, so she’s no longer begging God for more children, now it’s Eli saying, “God, Israel needs more youngsters like that Samuel kid. You really ought to give Hannah and Elqanah more children. They did a good job with their first one.”

• And God answers the prayers with three more sons and two daughters – each one a gift from God who “visited” Hannah and Elqanah each time they conceived!

• “Note, What is lent to the Lord will certainly be repaid with interest, to our unspeakable advantage, and oftentimes in kind. Hannah resigns one child to God, and is recompensed with five; for Eli's blessing took effect (1Sam. 2:21): She bore three sons and two daughters. There is nothing lost by lending to God or losing for him; [as Jesus said, ‘...everyone who left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields or farm-lands for the sake of my name] shall be repaid a hundred-fold,’ Matt. 19:29.” ~Matthew Henry

C) vs. 18,21,26 The Character of the Kid Samuel

• v.18 “as for Samuel, he was ministering before the face of Yahweh as a servant-boy”

• v.21 “Samuel grew before/in the presence of/literally with Yahweh.”

• v.26 “Meanwhile, the servant-boy Samuel went on and became great and was good with Yahweh and also with men.”

  • I think this greatness was not so much in physical height but more in terms of respect with other people. That’s the gist of this phrase where it occurs everywhere else in the Bible: Genesis 26:13 "And the man [Isaac] waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great," 2 Samuel 5:10||1 Chron. 11:9 "And David went on, and grew great...," 2 Chron. 17:12 “And Jehoshaphat waxed great…,” and Esther 9:4 "... Mordecai waxed greater and greater."(KJV)

  • 18^th Century Bible Commentator John Gill expounded well on this, saying, “He improved much in the worship and service of God, both in the theory and practice of it; or became great with him, high in his esteem and favour, and was blessed with much of his presence, and with large gifts of his grace… and the more Eli's sons disgusted the people by their ill lives and conduct, the greater esteem among them did Samuel obtain by his becoming life and conversation”

  • Being “good with” God and man means maintaining good relationships with them and thus enjoying “favor” of being on good terms. With God this is done by receiving His mercy and loving Him as your savior and confirming your live to His character qualities. With God this is done by self-denial and showing lovingkindness and consideration to others. This term wasn’t used of just anybody – Saul and David are the only others in the Kings and Chronicles who are called “good.”

• The narrative is abruptly interrupted at verse 27 as an unnamed man of God enters the tabernacle with a message from the Lord. Guesses have been made over the centuries as to who this prophet was,

  • from an angel, such as the “man of God” was who prophecied Samson’s birth (Judges 13:6-8),

  • to Elqanah to Samuel himself¹,

  • but they are only guesses; whoever it was came with a genuine message from God:

II) Eli’s Accountability for his Priestly Privilege (vs. 27-30)

• “Eli reproved his sons too gently, and did not threaten them as he should, and therefore God sent a prophet to him to reprove him sharply, and to threaten him, because, by his indulgence of them, he had strengthened their hands in their wickedness.” ~Matthew Henry

A) vs. 27-28 Three priestly privileges which require responsibility:

• The message begins by recounting three priestly privileges held by Eli and his ancestors

1. “I fully/clearly/plainly/indeed revealed myself to the house of your father during their existence in Egypt {as slaves} for the house of Pharaoh.”

• The most ancient versions of this passage do not frame it as a question (as the popular Hebrew does), but the meaning is the same: Eli’s family, from the time of Aaron his forefather, had been highly privileged in relationship with God, and therefore has to meet a higher level of accountability in honoring and obeying God.

• There is some question how Eli’s family got into the high priesthood in the first place, because he is a descendant of Aaron’s youngest son Ithamar (1 Ch. 24:3), not of Eliazar who was supposed to hold the high priesthood, to whose son Phinehas the perpetual priesthood was also promised.

• Andrew Willett commented in the year 1607 that “[I]t is like[ly] then, that in those disordered times under the Judges, especially the posteritie of Phinihas beeing unfaithful in their office, they of Ithamar took occasion to usurp the Priest’s place, without any such assignment from God... here reference is had to the first election of Aaron and his seed to the Priesthood, Exod. 29.9. that his whole seed should have enjoyed that priviledge...”

• This first privilege has to do with the amount of knowledge about God which God had revealed to them in spoken and written words - as we’ll see this same wording used in chapter 3 - Particularly the first five books of the Bible: Deut. 29:29 “The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children to put into practice all the words of this Torah.” (NAW)

• The priests had full access to the few copies of God’s word that existed, and they were stewards of that precious resource of God’s written word. They had the greatest revelation of God’s word of anyone on the planet; that calls for great stewardship.

2. The second priestly privilege God reminds Eli of is in v.28: God’s choice of that particular family “out of all the tribes of Israel for myself to be a priest, to step up onto my altar, to send incense up in smoke, to wear [literally to carry] an ephod...”

• Maybe that’s more than one privilege, but I’m lumping the priestly status, symbols, and duties together here, the heart of which was to officiate animal sacrifices at the altar and in the sanctuary, administrating the renewal of relationships between humans and God. God chose the Levites for that job, particularly Eli and his forebearers.

• The person whom God allows to get close to Him and to represent Him on this earth can’t be offensive to God himself and can’t be allowed to misrepresent God by living contrary to God’s character.

• This is true of anyone in authority: I remember reading² Chuck Colson’s account of an ambassador of the United States to a foreign country (I don’t recall which one) during President Nixon’s administration saying he disagreed with Nixon’s policy on something. As I recall, President Nixon had Colson fire that ambassador and get another one who agreed with him! Can we expect God to do any less?

3. The third priestly privilege God gave to Eli’s family was that of getting to eat meat, flour, oil, and other food from all the sacrifices which the Israelites made to God. God had been sharing his food for hundreds of years with Eli’s family. Instead of having to grow food for themselves, the Levites had been able to eat the free food brought to them by everybody in their nation.

• But this too came with a responsibility. Not having to work at farming and ranching was intended to free the Levites up to work productively at praying and studying God’s word and teaching and leading worship at the tabernacle.

B) Eli’s Two offensive responses to God-given privileges (v.29)

1. “Why would you push back on my sacrificial-system and on my offering-system³ which I commanded on-location/in my dwelling...?”

• The Hebrew word ba’at, translated “kick/scorn/push back/look with a shameless eye” is only found one other place in the Old Testament, and that is Deut. 32:15 "But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, You are obese! Then he forsook God who made him, And scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation.” (NKJV) The picture is of a calf striking out at its owner with its hooves because it’s upset about something. Notice the synonyms in Deut. 32: “forsook God… scorned the Rock of salvation.” That’s what Eli had done in his heart and allowed his sons Hophni & Phineas to do openly.

• “They did the utmost despite imaginable to the offerings of the Lord when they committed all that outrage and rapine about them that we read of [in vs. 13-16], and violently plundered the pots on which, in effect, Holiness to the Lord was written (Zech. 14:20), and took that fat to themselves which God had appointed to be burnt on his altar. Eli had bolstered them up in it, by not punishing their insolence and impiety: “Thou for thy part honourest thy sons above me,” that is, “thou hadst rather see my offerings disgraced by their profanation of them than see thy sons disgraced by a legal censure upon them for so doing, which ought to have been inflicted... Those that allow and countenance their children in any evil way, and do not use their authority to restrain and punish them, do in effect honour them more than God, being more tender of their reputation than of his glory and more desirous to humour them than to honour him.” ~Matt. Henry, 1714

2. That’s the second thing: “Why would you... honor your sons instead of me to make your­selves fat off of the top/chief/choicest of all the food-offerings of Israel for my⁴ people?”

• The priest was supposed to offer the first and best portion off the top as a burnt offering to the LORD, not eat it for himself: Leviticus 2:8-10 "And you shall take the grain-offering... offer it to the priest, and he shall bring it to the altar. Then the priest shall lift out from the grain-offering a memorial portion, and he shall burn it up on the altar – a fire-offering of a soothing aroma to Jehovah. And the remainder from the grain-offering belongs to Aaron and to his sons – a most holy thing from the fire-offerings of Jehovah... 6:23 every grain-offering of a priest shall be entirely [committed]. It shall not be eaten." (NAW)

• God expects honor from His people

  • Psalm 50:23 “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God." (NKJV)

  • Prov. 3:9-10 "Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine." (NKJV)

  • Isaiah 58:13-14 "If, on the Sabbath, you make your foot turn away from doing your pleasure during my holy day and you call the Sabbath "a delight," Yahweh's holy thing "honorable" and you honor it instead of making your ways – instead of finding your pleasure, and He will speak a word, Then you will indulge yourself over Yahweh, and I will make you ride upon the high places of earth and I will cause you to eat of the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken." (NAW)

  • Malachi 1:6-8 "A son honors his father, And a servant his master. If then I am the Father, Where is My honor? And if I am a Master, Where is My reverence? Says the LORD of hosts To you priests who despise My name. Yet you say,`In what way have we despised Your name?' "You offer defiled food on My altar. But say,`In what way have we defiled You?' By saying,`The table of the LORD is contemptible.' And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you?..." (NKJV)

• But “[T]hey took the best pieces of the peace offerings... by force, having no right unto them; and this they did to indulge their luxury and sensuality, which Eli connived at; and it is highly probable took part of the roasted meat his sons provided for themselves, out of the choicest pieces of the offerings of the people; since he himself is included in this clause, ‘to make yourselves fat,’ as his sons might be, and it is certain he himself was [according to] 1Sam. 4:18.” ~John Gill, 1766

C) One verdict from God (v.30)

• Therefore, {thus} says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘I said that your household and the household of your forefather will conduct themselves before my face for time-out-of-mind, but now,’ this is the declaration of Yahweh, ‘Far be it from me, because those who glorify me I will glorify, but those who despise me will become insignificant/disdained/lightly esteemed/despised.'"

• Although this is the first time this judicial maxim has been stated this way, it has roots in Numbers 15:30-31 "But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the LORD, and he shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him." (NKJV)

• God’s verdict then is that justice will be served by the privileges of priesthood being removed from Eli’s family and given to someone who will honor God more reverently. The wording of v.30 indicates that God had given some sort of promise of perpetual priest­hood and that He was repudiating it. How can this be? There are at least two explanations:

1. That God had promised a recent ancestor of Eli the priesthood and was now going back on that promise.

• Eli was a descendant of Aaron’s youngest son Ithamar, but Aaron’s next-older son Eleazar was the one who was supposed to provide the line of high priests.

• How Eli came to be high priest is not explained in the Bible. There are different Jewish traditions⁵ but Keil & Delitzsch picked up on a hint from Josephus, in his Antiquities (v.11,5) and gave the likely explanation that there was not an eligible descendant of the family of Eleazar after the high priest Ozi died, so Eli had taken up the responsibility. They argued that “the very judgment denounced against him and his house presupposes that he had entered upon the office in a just and upright way, and that the wickedness of his sons was all that was brought against him.” Later on, Zadok, became eligible, and the priesthood was returned by Solomon to the family of Eleazar (1 Kings 2:27).

• If God did made a promise, off the record, to Eli of his sons being priests forever, it would have to be taken in a covenantal sense, as God’s covenants contained or assumed nullification clauses. (If you void this contract, the benefits of this contract will be voided too.)

• This was Andrew Willett’s position, who published a commentary on 1 Samuel in 1607: “[Of] God’s promises, some are absolute without any condition, as was the promise of the Messiah; some are propounded unto us conditionally: especially the temporal promises made unto the Israelites, depended upon the condition of their obedience, so was the Priesthood promised to this familie of Eli...”

1. However, most commentators say that since there is no record of such a promise being made to Eli’s father, and since there is a record of such a promise made by God to Aaron⁶, then God is referring to that promise in Exodus 29:9 (“...The priesthood shall be theirs for a perpetual statute. So you shall consecrate Aaron and his sons.” ~NKJV).

• God’s promise to Aaron, then, would not be nullified by a change in the priesthood between descendants of two of Aaron’s sons: both Eli and Samuel and later Zadok were all of the Levitical ancestry. What God was now distancing Himself from was Eli’s line, only one of of multiple lines of descendants of Aaron.

• But what about the end of the priestly system? What about the transferral of the high priesthood to Jesus Christ, as the book of Hebrews details? Jesus was not a descendant of Levi and Aaron but rather of Judah and David. Did God make a mistake by saying “forever”?

• No, the phrase “forever” - both as they used it in ancient Hebrew and also today as we use it in English, can be interpreted “for time out of mind.” (For instance, in English we might say, “I had to wait forever in that line to get tickets!”) We therefore have to pick up from the context whether it means “a long time” or whether it means a truly unending amount of time. In this case, the line of priests as descendants from Aaron certainly lasted a long time, a thousand years from Exodus to the Babylonian captivity, plus hundreds of years thereafter until Christ, but Christ, who was not a descendant of Levi but rather of Judah, replaced the Levitical priesthood by offering Himself on the cross as the ultimate and perfect sacrifice and rising to serve as a priest forever for us at the throne of God.

• “Observe... [t]hat God is the fountain of honour and dishonour; he can exalt the meanest and put contempt upon the greatest. As we deal with God we must expect to be dealt with by him, and yet more favourably than we deserve (Ps. 18:25-26)…. If we humble and deny ourselves in any thing to honour God, and have a single eye to him in it, we may depend upon this promise, he will put the best honour upon us (John 12:26)…. but ... [t]he dishonour which their impotent malice puts upon God and his omnipotent justice will return upon their own heads (Ps. 79:12).” ~Matthew Henry

• As that massage therapist reminded Eric Liddel a century ago, God still honors those who honor Him and God still diminishes those who despise Him, so let us consider our own responsibilities before God as we have considered the faithfulness of Samuel and Eli:

III) Application: Your Responsibility for your priestly privileges

• According to the Apostle John, you are a kind of priest if you are a Christian! Rev. 1:5-6 "...To Him [Jesus] who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever…"

  • Like Samuel and Eli, you are keeping care of His temple, which is now your body,

  • and you are reconciling people to God through sharing the Gospel (1Co. 6:19, 2Co. 5:20)?

  • Are you a representative who is accurately reflecting the character and values of God?

• Like Eli and Samuel, your ability to lead in the service of God can be effected by whether you are respectful toward God and love Him wholeheartedly or not. Rev. 2:1-7 "To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, '... I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent... "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who over­comes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God."

• Another thing you have in common with Samuel and Eli is stewardship of the Bible: 2 Tim. 3:14-17 “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (NKJV) I’m thankful we don’t have to hand-copy our Bibles anymore, but are you reading and memorizing the Bibles you have?

• If your honest answer is No, you have despised God and are not obeying Him, not reconciling people to Him, lost your love for Him, and are not being a good steward of His word, there is still hope if you will repent, for the good news is, as Isaiah put it, that Jesus “...was despised ... and we did not give Him consideration. Surely our griefs He Himself carried, and our sorrows, He bore them… Chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes there is healing for us." (Isaiah 53:3-5, NAW)

1 Samuel 2:18-30 - Side-by side comparison of versions^A