Wherefore Jehovah the God of Israel saith, I said indeed, Thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever. But now Jehovah saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.
God speaks this word to Eli, the priest whose sons did evil while he did little more than protest. The sentence falls on the father, not only on the sons. It also raises a hard question: how can God set aside a promise He said would last forever?
God names the motive: Eli honoured his sons above Him. One writer shows where the failure lay:
The sons were the guilty ones, but Eli took no action against them, so God charges him with their offence. It is true he had protested. But the evil was of such a kind that to protest and still stay with the men he protested against was to approve their evil. The words "you honour your sons above Me" reveal the secret motive that governed Eli. He set family ties and the friendships of life above the claims of the Lord.
Eli was a godly man, so the word "despise" seems far too strong. One writer answers that difficulty from the Lord's own teaching:
"You honour your sons above Me!" Poor Eli! For all his piety, there were men — his sons, as his behaviour proved — whom he was honouring more than the Lord... Did this righteous man Eli, then, despise the Lord? Yes, for "no servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other."
Why does God take back His promise? Commentators point to the terms on which He gave it:
Under the covenant of law God had proposed that Eli's house and his father's house would walk before Him forever. The glaring failure of the priesthood changed this completely, because such a promise depended on their faithfulness. So God presses on Eli the unchanging principle: "those who honour Me I will honour, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." The history of the priesthood shows how empty natural succession is.
One writer takes the point further. What Aaron's line lost, another Priest holds and never loses:
God promised the priesthood to the house of Aaron forever... "The priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute"; but it was conditional in a way — they had to "walk before" the Lord. This they stopped doing, so they were "put as polluted from the priesthood." In the end this became true of the whole house of Aaron, and that Priest "after the order of Melchizedek, who abides continually" took its place.
This is a standing rule, not a one-off ruling. One writer marks what it does and does not promise:
He has said, "Those who honour Me I will honour," and this proves true even where the honour given may not come from a renewed soul. It is so in every age. For example, if a household honours God and calls on His name, He will bless that household in His government on earth. The same holds when people carry on daily life and business with the recognition of His name. But this is not salvation; it is temporal mercy according to the principles of God's government.
God's promise to honour comes with a condition. One writer sets out the pattern:
He always delights to honour His saints in the eyes of others; but then they must not seek their own honour. He will honour His servants. But the moment we step out of the servant's place to take what we judge to be a higher place, He humbles us. The Lord Jesus Christ, the one faithful Servant, was always hiding Himself so that God might appear. And God was always honouring Him in the eyes of others.
One writer points to men whom God honoured because they honoured Him:
These faithful men became witnesses for God, for we read that they stood "before the king." God was true to His own word, "Those who honour Me I will honour."
The judgment on Eli is not the end. God also promises a faithful priest, and one writer shows what that change prepares:
Because Eli was unfaithful, God would cut off his house. He would raise up a faithful priest to act according to His own heart and mind... From now on the priest would no longer hold the first place before the Lord, but would walk before the Lord's anointed... So through the failure of the priest, God is preparing the way to fulfil His purpose: to establish Christ as King, with a faithful priest walking before Him forever.
- Honour misplaced — Eli did no evil himself, but he put his sons before God. He protested at their evil and then stayed with them, and that counted as approving it.
- Honour withdrawn — the promise that his house would walk before God forever rested on faithfulness. Natural succession secured nothing.
- Honour as a rule — God governs this way in every age. He blesses homes and daily business that honour His name, but that blessing is mercy in this life, not salvation.
- Honour returned — God honours those who keep the servant's place. Take honour for yourself, and He humbles you instead.
- Honour secured — Aaron's line lost its place. Another Priest holds it forever, and God sets Christ as King with a faithful priest before Him.
Behold, days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house.
God sets a date against the family of Eli the priest. Why should a house once promised a permanent place before God lose its strength, and what had this aging priest done to deserve it?
The verse is a verdict. The charge behind it came first. Eli himself was not abusing the offerings, yet the message came to him. One commentator traces the sentence back to a failure of holiness in a good man:
"You honour your sons above Me!" Poor Eli! For all his piety, there were men — his sons — whom he was honouring more than the Lord, and his behaviour proved it. God had been patient with him. But now he was about to reap the bitter fruit of the lack of holiness in his walk. Holiness is nothing other than separation from evil for God's service.
Where the ESV says "strength," older translations read "arm." The word is a picture. It stands for the power to do the work, and losing it left the office standing but useless:
Of course God speaks figuratively. The arm is what does the work. It is the strength behind any work that may be done. None of this would be left: the priesthood would be reduced to helplessness... God would still do good to His people despite this, but would take away the priests in their youth. Eli was to be the last of the old men among the priests.
God had said Eli's house would walk before Him always. Here He withdraws it. That is not a broken promise, because the promise carried a condition from the start:
Under the covenant of law, God had proposed that Eli's house and the house of his father would walk before Him forever. But the glaring failure of the priesthood changed this completely, because such a promise depended on their faithfulness. So God presses the unchanging principle on Eli: "those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed." This history of the priesthood plainly shows how empty natural succession is.
The judgment came on the family through whom Eli had sinned. It arrived in stages, and Scripture records each one:
Eli had sinned through his family, and on his family the judgment would come. Those born into his house would die in the prime of life. Hophni and Phinehas would meet their death in one day. Everyone left of his house would be thrust out of the priest's office to beg their bread. The later history gives the solemn fulfilment of these predictions. The Philistines killed Hophni and Phinehas in battle (1 Sam. 4:11). Sixty years later King Saul cut off the offspring of Eli's house (1 Sam. 22:18). One hundred years after the prediction King Solomon thrust out the last of Eli's house from the priest's office (1 Kings 2:27).
Eli held both religious and civil authority, so he had every means to stop his sons. He used none of it. One writer applies this to parents today and sets Eli beside Abraham:
This was the deep fault of the over-indulgent father, though he himself was innocent of the disorders around the tabernacle. He was both high priest and chief magistrate over the land. He had full power to remove them from office and to punish them, but he did neither. How much failure there is of this, sadly, among Christian parents today. There are good men, fathers, who seem to have neither eyes nor ears for the failings of their children. Disastrous results follow... God said of Abraham that he would command his children and his household after him. He did not, like Eli, weakly argue or gently warn. He commanded. This is the very thing Eli failed most to do.
The cutting off was not the end of the story. God did not repair the fallen priesthood. He moved on to something better, and the priest now came under the king:
Eli's unfaithfulness and his sons' wickedness brought an entire change in God's dealings. The priesthood passed into the shade. Instead of the King walking by his counsel, the High Priest now came under the King... But God never re-establishes an order of things that has failed in men's hands. In His great grace He goes on to something better. Everything in which man has proved so incapable will be seen in perfection in Christ, on the day He appears.
- Cause — Eli honoured his sons above God. Holiness is separation from evil for God's service, and Eli's lack of it bore bitter fruit.
- Sentence — The arm stands for strength to work. God left the office standing but drained it of power, and Eli was the last old man in it.
- Condition — The promise to walk before God forever depended on faithfulness. Birth alone guarantees nothing.
- Fulfilment — Three blows across a hundred years: two sons dead in one day, Eli's line cut off under Saul, the last of it removed by Solomon.
- Replacement — God does not rebuild what has failed in human hands. He moves on to something better, seen in perfection in Christ.
And thou shalt see an oppressor [in my] habitation, amidst all the good that shall be done to Israel; and there shall not be an old man in thy house for ever.
God's word to Eli takes away two things at once: the long life his family expected, and their share in the good God still plans for Israel. That raises hard questions — what had Eli done, and can God bless His people once their priesthood collapses?
Eli knew what his sons were doing, and did little about it. One writer traces what God did next:
"Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did to all Israel" in their wrongdoing. His protest was weak, and it did no good… And now comes a testimony. God never judges without a warning.
The guilty men were Hophni and Phinehas, yet the charge lands on their father:
The sons were the guilty ones. But Eli took no action against them, so God charges him with their offence. True, he had protested. Yet he stayed with the very men he protested against. With evil like this, staying was to approve it. The words you "honour your sons above Me" expose the secret motive that governed Eli. He set the ties of nature and the friendships of life above the claims of the Lord.
Translations differ here. Some older ones speak of an adversary in God's dwelling, where the ESV speaks of looking with envy on Israel's prosperity. One writer explains what the arm in God's sentence stands for:
God speaks figuratively. The arm is what does the work, the strength behind anything that gets done. Nothing of this would be left. The priesthood would sink into helplessness. An oppressor or adversary would gain some prominence in God's habitation… Despite this, God would do good to His people. But He would take away the priests while they were young. Eli was to be the last of the old men among the priests.
Notice what is not cancelled. Israel's prosperity still comes. Eli's line has no part in it.
God points Eli's house back to the favours He had given them, and one writer says what they should have produced:
These special favours should have stirred them to faithfulness in their official duties. They should have moved them to wholehearted obedience to all His will. This is always God's way with His own, and often with sinners too. He reminds them of His past dealings in grace and favour towards them. The review of His "goodness" is meant to "lead them to repentance." If that does not work, the goodness given only deepens the guilt. It must bring down heavier judgment.
Eli's failure happened at home, and one writer presses the point on parents:
Think of it — he honoured his wicked sons above Jehovah! Could sin be greater or guilt more serious? Some parents allow and back up their children in any evil way, and never use their authority to restrain and punish them. In effect they honour their children more than God. They are more careful of their children's reputation than of His glory, and more eager to honour them than to honour Him.
The words about no old man in Eli's house took generations to work out:
The later history gives the solemn fulfilment of these predictions. Hophni and Phinehas are killed in the fight with the Philistines (1 Sam. 4:11). Sixty years later King Saul cut off the offspring of Eli's house (1 Sam. 22:18). One hundred years after the prediction, King Solomon thrust out the last of Eli's house from being priest (1 Kings 2:27).
- Warned — God sent a warning before He sent the blow. He never judges without notice.
- Cause — Eli honoured his sons above the Lord. He protested, but he stayed beside the evil, and that approved it.
- Aggravation — God's past favours should have produced faithfulness. Ignored, that same goodness only made the guilt heavier.
- Sentence — the "arm" means strength for work, and God cut it off. The priesthood sank into helplessness, an adversary gained ground at God's dwelling, and Eli was the last old man among the priests.
- Reach — Eli's sons died fighting the Philistines. Saul cut off his house sixty years later, and Solomon removed the last of his line a century on. God went on doing good to Israel all the same.
And the man of thine [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to cause thine eyes to fail and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house shall die in their vigour.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.