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.
And this shall be the sign to thee, which shall come upon thy two sons, upon Hophni and Phinehas in one day they shall die, both of them.
God had already told Eli that his family would lose the priesthood. His descendants would die young. Now He adds a guarantee to that sentence. One event, soon to come, would prove the whole word true.
One part of the sentence would serve as proof of the rest. One writer places the sign inside the wider judgment on the priesthood, and notes what God left unsaid:
Even so, God would do good to His people, but He would take away the priests in their youth. Eli was to be the last of the old men among the priests. All his sons would die in the prime of life. God gave a sign to confirm that this was real. His two sons would die on the same day. God did not add what was also true, that Eli himself would die that day.
The sentence falls on Hophni and Phinehas, yet God charges their father with the offence. Eli had spoken against their conduct and then carried on alongside them:
The sons were the guilty ones. But Eli took no action against them, so God charges him with their offence. It is true that he had protested. Yet the evil was of such a kind that to protest and still go on with the men he had protested against was to approve their evil. The words "you honour your sons above Me" reveal the secret motive that ruled Eli. He set the ties of family and the friendships of life above the claims of the Lord.
The two deaths in one day were only the first instalment. The same writer traces the rest of the judgment through the century that followed:
Eli had sinned through his family, and on his family the judgment would come. His descendants would die in the prime of life. Hophni and Phinehas would meet their death in one day. Everyone left of his house would be driven out of the priest's office to beg their bread. Later history gives the solemn fulfilment of these predictions. Hophni and Phinehas were killed in the battle with the Philistines (1 Sam. 4:11). Sixty years later, King Saul cut off the descendants of Eli's house (1 Sam. 22:18). One hundred years after the prediction, King Solomon drove the last of Eli's house out of the priesthood (1 Kings 2:27).
The sign came on a day when Israel carried the ark into the battle line and still lost. One writer weighs the guilt on both sides:
"And the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and they fled, every man to his home... And the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died." So the word of the Lord came true. Poor Eli sits by the wayside watching, and his heart trembled for the ark of God... The Philistines might be wrong to fear that simply bringing the ark onto the field would settle the fight. But the Israelites were a hundred times more guilty. They flattered themselves that the ark, brought in this way, was bound to save them.
A good personal character did not cover Eli's failure at home. One writer puts the two houses side by side:
Here we see that it does not matter how good the personal character of God's servant may be. If he fails to rule his own house properly, God will not hold him guiltless. Eli should have restrained his sons... His terrible end was this: he broke his neck over the house of God, because he had not broken his heart over his own house.
Right after the sign of death comes a promise of a faithful priest. One writer reads that promise as reaching beyond any priest of Israel:
Here again a bright light shines out of the gathering gloom. God was to raise up for Himself a "faithful priest," His "Anointed." This clearly looks beyond either David or Zadok. It is God's glorious King-Priest, who on earth always did what was according to God's heart and mind. So, in wrath, God always remembers mercy.
- Warned. God announced the judgment before He carried it out. Eli heard the sentence long before it fell.
- Sealed. God sealed that word with a sign. Hophni and Phinehas would die on the same day, and that one event proved the rest true.
- Wider. The sign opened a judgment that ran for a century. Saul cut off Eli's descendants, and Solomon removed the last of his line from the priesthood.
- Fulfilled. The Philistines defeated Israel and captured the ark, and both sons died that day, just as God had said.
- Replaced. The same message that ends one priesthood promises a faithful priest who does what is in God's heart. Judgment closes; mercy opens.