People of the Bible

Eli

Judged Israel for forty years, mistook a praying woman for a drunk, and could not restrain his own sons.

Eli is priest at Shiloh, where the tabernacle stands, and the first thing he does in the book is misread someone. A woman is praying with her lips moving and no sound, and he accuses her of being drunk. When she explains, he blesses her, and the boy she is given grows up sleeping in the same house. His own two sons are taking the meat before it is offered and sleeping with the women at the door, and Eli speaks to them but does not stop them. He is ninety-eight and blind when a runner comes from the battlefield.

Where he appears1 Samuel 1 to 4

1 Samuel

Scroll down to the account

The movements, in the order the text gives them.

The Account of Eli

01
1 Samuel 1:9-18
How long will you be drunk
He watches her mouth move without sound and reaches the wrong conclusion out loud. When she answers he does not defend himself, he blesses her, and she goes away and her face is no longer sad.
Eli watches a woman's mouth and manages to miss her prayer. The lips move, no voice reaches him, and the priest supplies the explanation himself: drunkenness. Hannah's answer quietly turns his diagnosis inside out. She has not been pouring wine into herself. She has been pouring out her soul before the LORD. The difference is considerable.
His mistake matters, but so does what he does after it. Eli does not defend the accusation or require Hannah to apologize for looking suspicious. He changes from rebuke to blessing. Nothing in the recorded conversation tells him the particular request she has made; the God of Israel grant thee thy petition is a blessing over a prayer whose contents remain unspoken to him. The priest who has read her so badly can still send her away in peace.
That mixture belongs to Eli throughout these chapters. He is neither a fraud who knows nothing of God nor a reliable judge of everything before his eyes. Here a distressed woman has to explain prayer to the man sitting at the sanctuary door. To his credit, he listens.
Verse by verse
1. 1:9
  The temple here is the sanctuary at Shiloh, not the later temple Solomon built in Jerusalem.
2. 1:13
  Her voice was not heard does not mean that Hannah had no words. The passage distinguishes speech in the heart, moving lips, and audible sound.
3. 1:17
  Grant thee thy petition is Eli's blessing, not an explicit report that God has disclosed the answer to him.
4. 1:18
  Hannah eats and her expression changes before the conception reported in verse 20. The order is part of the account, not evidence that Eli knew her future.
Worth knowing
Hannah asks not to be counted a daughter of Belial in 1 Samuel 1:16. The very next chapter calls Eli's own sons sons of Belial, in 2:12. The Hebrew expression describes worthlessness, not literal parentage. The woman suspected at the sanctuary entrance rejects precisely the description that the Book of First Samuel applies to the priests inside.
1 Samuel 1:9-18
King James Version · 10 verses
1:9So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.
1:10And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.
1:11And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
1:12And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.
1:13Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
1:14And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.
1:15And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.
1:16Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.
1:17Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.
1:18And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
02
1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-25
Why do you do such things
His sons take the flesh raw and by force. He hears it from everyone and confronts them with a real question, and the text says they did not listen to their father.
The worshipper is not arguing over the best cut. He is asking the priest's servant to let God's portion reach the altar first. Even that is too much to ask. A three-toothed hook has already turned the sacrificial meal into a means of taking whatever comes up; now the demand for raw meat pushes the priest's preference ahead of the offering itself. Refusal brings a threat of force. Shiloh's worship has acquired an enforcer.
Eli hears the wider report, including his sons' sexual conduct with women at the entrance to the tabernacle. He does speak against it. Any account that makes him simply silent misses the uncomfortable precision of the charge against him: he says that the conduct is evil, yet the men continue in it. Chapter 3 will name his failure as not restraining them. A rebuke has occurred. A restraint has not.
The last sentence will not let this become merely an account of a father whose advice went unheeded. Their refusal to listen is set within the LORD's purpose to put them to death. The Book of First Samuel states both their guilt and the judgment without making either less severe.
Verse by verse
1. 2:13
  Seething means boiling; sodden in verse 15 means boiled. The servants are intervening in the preparation of the sacrificial meal.
2. 2:16
  Presently here means immediately, not after a delay. The worshipper asks for the fat to be burned first.
3. 2:22
  The women are associated with the tabernacle entrance, but this verse does not define their duties or describe their consent. It does not identify an institution of cult prostitution.
4. 2:25
  Because the LORD would slay them is the stated explanation for their failure to heed Eli. The verse does not erase their previously described wrongdoing or explain every question about divine judgment.
Worth knowing
Leviticus 7:31-34 already assigns the breast and right shoulder of a peace offering to the priests, while the fat is burned on the altar. Eli's sons are not inventing a way to feed an otherwise unpaid priesthood. Their hook and their demand for raw meat override an existing arrangement that distinguishes the priest's portion from the LORD's.
1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-25
King James Version · 10 verses
2:12Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD.
2:13And the priests’ custom with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand;
2:14And he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither.
2:15Also before they burnt the fat, the priest’s servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw.
2:16And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force.
2:17Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.
2:22Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
2:23And he said unto them, Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people.
2:24Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD’s people to transgress.
2:25If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him? Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the LORD would slay them.
03
1 Samuel 3:1-18
Speak, for your servant hears
Three times the boy runs to him in the night and three times he sends him back. On the third he works out what is happening and tells him what to say, then makes him repeat the whole message.
Eli teaches Samuel how to receive the word that will condemn Eli's house. That is the peculiar severity of this night. He recognizes the call, gives the child the right response, and in the morning insists that nothing be withheld from him. The man whose sons will not hear his voice helps another child hear the LORD's.
The sentence centers on knowledge: the iniquity which he knoweth. Eli is not being judged for failing to discover a secret. The disorder has been reported to him, and he has addressed it without stopping it. Nor can the sanctuary's ordinary work simply absorb the damage. Sacrifice and offering are named specifically as unable to purge this guilt. The institution his household has misused cannot supply an automatic escape from its judgment.
Samuel fears to speak; Eli requires him to speak everything. His answer, It is the LORD, is neither an argument nor an attempt to discredit the messenger. The text does not open his heart far enough to settle whether this is repentance, resignation, or something more complicated. It does show an old priest accepting a word he had helped a boy to hear. Recognition has survived. The sentence remains.
Verse by verse
1. 3:1
  Precious translates Hebrew yaqar, here meaning rare or scarce. The final verses of the chapter contrast that scarcity with renewed revelation at Shiloh.
2. 3:13
  He restrained them not distinguishes Eli's failure from total silence. His rebuke has already been recorded in 2:23-25.
3. 3:17
  God do so to thee, and more also is an oath formula that invokes a penalty without spelling it out. Eli uses it to demand an unabridged report.
4. 3:18
  Eli accepts the LORD's authority in his spoken reply. The passage does not explicitly label the reply repentance or describe a subsequent reform.
Worth knowing
Eli's family judgment reaches beyond the deaths recorded in 1 Samuel 4. First Kings 2:27 explicitly connects Solomon's removal of Abiathar from the priesthood with the LORD's word concerning Eli's house at Shiloh. That later verse makes the connection itself; it is not a family resemblance constructed by later commentary.
1 Samuel 3:1-18
King James Version · 18 verses
3:1And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.
3:2And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see;
3:3And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep;
3:4That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.
3:5And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.
3:6And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again.
3:7Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him.
3:8And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.
3:9Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
3:10And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.
3:11And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.
3:12In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end.
3:13For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.
3:14And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.
3:15And Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of the LORD. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision.
3:16Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I.
3:17And he said, What is the thing that the LORD hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he said unto thee.
3:18And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good.
04
1 Samuel 4:12-18
The seat by the gate
He is sitting watching the road because his heart trembles for the ark. Four pieces of news arrive in one sentence and it is the fourth, the ark taken, that kills him.
The messenger reaches Eli with four losses, and the last one brings him down. Israel has fled. The slaughter is great. Both sons are dead. The ark is taken. The Book of First Samuel marks the exact point of the fall: when he made mention of the ark of God. It does not say that Eli feels nothing for his sons. It identifies the news his body cannot survive.
His concern for the ark was already there before the runner arrived. His heart trembled while he sat by the road, unable to see. The priest judged for honoring his sons above the LORD is not therefore presented as a man without any attachment to the LORD's sanctuary. That contradiction makes him harder to dismiss and his failure harder to soften. Real concern and disastrous neglect occupy the same life.
Eli first appeared sitting beside the sanctuary doorway in 1:9. He leaves the account falling backward from his seat beside the gate. Between those seated scenes the house he led has been exposed and judged. The final sentence supplies forty years of leadership, not forty years of detailed explanation. A long tenure receives a terribly brief ending.
Verse by verse
1. 4:12
  The runner is identified as a Benjaminite, not by personal name. Identifying him as Saul goes beyond this passage.
2. 4:15
  Eli is ninety-eight. The forty years in verse 18 describe his period of judging Israel, not his age.
3. 4:17-18
  The account explicitly locates Eli's fall at the mention of the ark. It does not give a separate description of his response to the deaths of his sons.
4. 4:18
  His death fulfills part of the disaster announced against his house, but the later reference to Abiathar in 1 Kings 2:27 shows that the family judgment is not exhausted here.
Worth knowing
The Hebrew root k-b-d connects several words around Eli's downfall: honoring his sons in 2:29, the heavy man of 4:18, and the glory, kabod, said to have departed in 4:21. The related vocabulary gives weight, honor, and glory a shared sound. Eli's physical heaviness is stated literally; the verbal connection adds another layer without turning his body into a joke.
1 Samuel 4:12-18
King James Version · 7 verses
4:12And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head.
4:13And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.
4:14And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What meaneth the noise of this tumult? And the man came in hastily, and told Eli.
4:15Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.
4:16And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?
4:17And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken.
4:18And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.

Why it matters

Eli is the failure the book opens with, and it is a failure of restraint rather than of belief. He knows what his sons are doing and says so, and the word that comes back is that he honoured them above God. His last act is the best thing about him: told that the ark is captured, he falls backwards and dies, and his daughter in law names her child Ichabod, the glory is departed. What replaces him is a boy who did know how to listen.

5 songs

The music

Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.

1 Samuel 1-2
Hannah's Song
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics
1 Samuel 1:1-2:11
Poured Out Before the LORD
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics
1 Samuel 1-2
The Prayer of Hannah
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics
1 Samuel 2:12-3:21
Speak, for Thy Servant Heareth
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics
1 Samuel 3
Speak, Lord
Play here
Open song page Read lyrics

Nearby

All the people

Report an error on this page

Eli

The Account of Eli

How long will you be drunk

Verse by verse

1 Samuel 1:9-18

Why do you do such things

Verse by verse

1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-25

Speak, for your servant hears

Verse by verse

1 Samuel 3:1-18

The seat by the gate

Verse by verse

1 Samuel 4:12-18

Why it matters

The music

Hannah's Song

Poured Out Before the LORD

The Prayer of Hannah

Speak, for Thy Servant Heareth

Speak, Lord

Nearby