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.
And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, [who] shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind; and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed continually.
God has just told Eli that his house will be cut off. The message ends not with failure but with a promise: God will raise up a priest of His own choosing. Two questions follow. Who is this faithful priest? And who is God's anointed, the one he walks before?
The dishonour is deep, but the last word is not ruin. One writer traces how the promise answers the failure point for point.
So, after all, deep though the dishonour, the priesthood should not perish forever. Another should take it up in faithfulness as pronounced as the previous unfaithfulness. Another should carry out the office according to God's mind, and God would establish him forever. God was not defeated, for He had in reserve One who should be not only prophet but priest. In due time there would come the faithful priest: and that priest is CHRIST.
God measures this priest by His own heart and mind. That test, one writer argues, rules out every ordinary successor.
Verse 35 looks far beyond the time of Eli and his sons. It looks beyond all the priests who have come and gone down through the centuries. God Himself would raise up a faithful priest — not one from the natural succession of the line of Aaron. We can say this of the Lord Jesus Christ alone: He would do according to what is in God's heart and mind. God would build Him a sure house. This Priest was of the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:9-10), not of Aaron, and as such He is a priest forever (Heb. 5:6).
The closing phrase rearranges Israel's whole system. Older translations render the phrase "walk before my anointed." In the books of the law, "the anointed" had one meaning.
We know that God had planned it long before, entirely apart from all this sad and humbling history: "And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever." This is deeply striking... In the law "the anointed one" always means the high priest. Now, for the first time in God's dealing with Israel, "His anointed," or "the anointed," is not the high priest. It is a greater person, and the high priest is to walk before him.
Earlier the arrangement ran the other way.
Compare this with Numbers 27:18-23. There Joshua must "stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the LORD. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in." The deciding word is Eleazar's. Now the priest must walk before the king, though he is faithful and works according to the Lord's mind and heart. What is more, until now the title "the anointed" was understood to belong to the High Priest. From now on it belongs to the king.
The promise came true once in Israel's own history. One writer holds that this was not the whole of it.
This word came true in the days of Solomon (1 Kings 2:26-27), when Abiathar was thrust out of the priesthood and Zadok put into his office. Yet surely the prophecy holds God's answer in Christ to the failure of the priesthood. He is now a priest after the order of Melchizedek, interceding for us in the presence of God. And He will soon come out to sit as Priest upon His throne (Zech. 6:13).
The same promise of a sure house comes later for the king. That pairing, one writer says, shapes the whole book.
It then shows us the priesthood, set in formal order and succession, corrupting itself and removed by judgment. After that God brings in His own Priest (1 Sam. 2:35), who was to act according to His heart, and for whom He was to build a sure house. In the same way it shows us the kingdom, set up at first according to man's desire, corrupting itself and removed by judgment. After that God brings in His own King, also after His heart, and for whom He would also build a sure house... And this anointed of God, we know, in the fullness of times, is to be none less than the Son of God Himself, God's King to hold the unshakeable kingdom, and God's Priest to hold the untransferable priesthood.
- Failure — God sets Eli's line aside, yet the message ends in light. He keeps another priest in reserve, and the office does not perish.
- Faithful — God measures the new priest by His own heart and mind. That test points past every human successor to Christ.
- First place lost — the priest now walks before the anointed king. In the law "the anointed" meant the high priest; the title now passes to the king.
- Foreshadowed — Solomon put Zadok in Abiathar's place, and the word came true. One writer reads that event as a picture of something larger still ahead.
- Forever — God promises a sure house to His Priest, and later to His King. Both meet in one Person — an unshakeable kingdom and a priesthood that never passes to another.