Difference between revisions of "Eli" - New World Encyclopedia

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Eli (Hebrew: עֵלִי, Standard ʻEli Tiberian ʻĒlî ; "Ascent") was, according to the Books of Samuel, the name of a priest of Shiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel.

Biblical narrative

Eli first appears in the biblical narrative at the beginning of the first Book of Samuel. Here, we are told of a man name Elkanah, whose wife Hannah is barren. Year after year Elkanah travels to Shiloh to offer sacrifice God. Eli is apparently retired from his priestly office by this time, for his son, the corrupt Hophni and Phinehas, are the chief priests at Shiloh's Tabernacle.

Hannah prays fervently to God for a child. Eli, who is sitting at the foot of the doorpost in the sanctuary, hears her prayer, and thinks Hannah is drunk. After he is assured by her of her true motivation and sobriety, he blesses her and her prayer for a child. "May the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him," Eli tells her.

Subsequently Hannah has sex with her husband, and she becomes pregnantm giving birth to Samuel. She determined to offer the child to God's service, and when the child weaned, she leaves him in the care of Eli.^[1].

The sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, meanwhile, were behaving wickedly. They took for themselves all the prime cuts of meat from the sacrifices offered through them, but worse, they were having sex with the women who served at the sanctuary entrance. Despite Eli's castigation of their behavior, the sons continued in their sin, and so. Meanwhile Samuel was developing nicely: he "continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men." (1 Sam. 2:25)

At this point an unidentified "man of God" prophecies confronts Eli and informs him that that he and his family will be punished for the sins of Hopnhi and Phinehas, with most of the men dying by the sword in youth, and only a few surviving to work at the temple. In addition, although Eli had previously been promised by God that his family would be priests of Yahweh forever, the man of God, states that this will no longer be the case. As a sign of the accuracy of this future, Eli is told by the prophet that his sons will both die on the same day.

Samuel now emerges as a true priest, judge, and prophet in his own right. Eli trains Samuel, and when Samuel hears Yahweh speaking to him, he at first thinks it is Eli, but Eli, who doesn't himself hear the voice, eventually realizes the truth and instructs Samuel on how to respond. "Say 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,'" Eli instructs him (1 Sam 3:9). God finally speaks more fully to Samuel, reiterating the doom which the unnamed prophet had earlier pronounced:

"See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle... For I told [Eli] that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them. 1Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, 'The guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.' " )1 Sam. 3:11-14)

Eli asks Samuel what he had been told, insisting that he be told the whole truth, and so Samuel does. Eli reacts by saying that Yahweh will do what he judges best.

The text then skips to some years later, when Samuel has grown up. Eli is now extremely old, and the Philistines attack the Israelites at Aphek, killing 4,000. The Israelites decide to bring forth the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh as their standard. Hophni and Phinehas carry the Ark into battle while Eli, who is now blind and by some accounts 98 years old, remains at the sanctuary. The Ark indeed provides the Israelites with hope, but the Philistines rally and defeat them. According to the account, the results were catastrophic: "The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died." (1 Sam. 4:10-11)

After the slaughter, a man from the battlefield runs back to Shiloh to report on events. When Eli is told what had happened, he falls over backward and dies from a broken neck. To further compound the tragedy, Eli's daughter-in-law goes into premature labor on hearing the news, dying as a result, but giving birth to a son whom she names Ichabod.

Legacy

Although his own sons proved wicked, Eli nonetheless left an important legacy through his training of Samuel, who was, in effect, his adopted son and spiritual heir. Samuel went on to become Israel's greatest judge, who united the tribes into a national federation, led important battles against Israel's enemies, and anointed its first two kings, Saul and David.

Though Eli's genealogy is not specified in the text, other passages indicate that he did have important descendants. The Books of Samuel state that Abiathar was a son of Ahimelek and that Ahimelek was a son of Ahitub, who is the brother of Ichabod. Consequently, Abiathar was Ichabod's great-grandson and Eli's great-great-grandson.

Abiathar would go on to be a loyal and important supporter of David through most of his life. He provided David with crucial advice by means of the sacred ephod and later, when David ascended the throne, Abiathar was appointed high priest (1 Chr. 15:11; 1 Kings 2:26) along with Zadok. He also greatly helped the king at the time of the rebellion of Absalom, both spiritually and by providing military intelligence (2 Sam. 25:24-35). However, late in David's reign, Abiathar became a supporter of the usurper Adonijah, for which he was deposed by Solomon and banished to Anathoth. With his demise, the lineage of Zadok emerged as the leading priestly clan.

Credits

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↑ Though the text at face value states that the child was Samuel, some textual scholars believe that it originally referred to Saul, since the explanation given for Samuel's name is awkward, but a far better fit for Saul's.

[1] Though the text at face value states that the child was Samuel, some textual scholars believe that it originally referred to Saul, since the explanation given for Samuel's name is awkward, but a far better fit for Saul's.

[1]

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
-==Identity==
+==Legacy==
+Although his own sons proved wicked, Eli nonetheless left an important legacy through his training of Samuel, who was, in effect, his adopted son and spiritual heir. Samuel went on to become Israel's greatest judge, who united the tribes into a national federation, led important battles against Israel's enemies, and anointed its first two kings, [[Saul]] and [[David]].
-Though his own [[genealogy]] is not given by the text, a number of scholars who trust the bible at face value have determined a genealogy for Eli, based on that given to his sons in other passages. [[Abiathar]] is described by the [[Book of Chronicles]] as being a direct (paternal) descendant of [[Ithamar]]; the [[Books of Samuel]] state that Abiathar was a son of [[Ahimelek]] and that Ahimelek was a son of [[Ahitub]], who is the brother of [[Ichabod]]. Consequently since the narrative states that Ichabod was the son of Phinehas, and that Phinehas was the son of Eli, a number of scholars have
+Though Eli's [[genealogy]] is not specified in the text, other passages indicate that he did have important descendants. The [[Books of Samuel]] state that [[Abiathar]] was a son of [[Ahimelek]] and that Ahimelek was a son of [[Ahitub]], who is the brother of [[Ichabod]]. Consequently, Abiathar was Ichabod's great-grandson and Eli's great-great-grandson.
-drawn the conclusion that Eli must be a descendant of Ithamar<ref>{{JewishEncyclopedia}}</ref>.
-It is the opinion of most textual scholars that the continued misbehaviour of Eli's sons and the castigation Eli receives as a result from the ''man of God'' (1 Samuel 2:27-36) is a later [[redaction]], more in line with the views of the religious establishment at the time of [[Josiah]]. Without the passage, the Israelites's defeat, and the deaths of Phinehas and Hophni, appear as quite ordinary events, and suggest that there is no automatic divinely given protection over Israel, while with the passage the defeat is explained away as punishment for not following correct religion closely enough <ref>ibid, ''Books of Samuel''</ref>.
-Since Eli appears in the narrative abruptly and without introduction, some [[biblical criticism|biblical scholars]] have argued that there may have originally been further, narratively earlier, accounts of Eli and of Shiloh that were excised by the compiler of the Books of Samuel. An alternate theory is that the story is more than it appears at face value, with Eli actually a [[cipher]] for [[El (god)|El]], and Samuel as a cipher for [[Yahweh]], and the Eli-Samuel narrative as one which refers to the change from El being seen as head of the pantheon to Yahweh being seen as chief deity. ''Eli'' is simply an alternative spelling of ''El'', while ''Samuel'' literally means ''name of god'' - in Jewish tradition the [[tetragrammaton]] was often not used directly but only a reference to it would be mentioned.
-Eli, for example, is present when Hannah prays, responds to her prayer, and when he wishes for her to have children she becomes pregnant; when the child and weaned is born she takes him to Eli, having promised to give him to God. He is introduced as an old man, and though the text describes his eyes as becoming weak, it immediately says that the ''lamp of God'' (or ''lamp of El'') is not quite extinguished; as time progresses Samuel gradually becomes more prominent, with the people starting to listen to him, while Eli becomes blind and eventually dies when the [[Ark of the Covenant]] is captured. Notably, it is the ''sons of Eli'' that are described as performing the actual priestly role, and Eli does nothing more than sit in the sanctuary; the term ''sons of Eli'' could simply be a priestly title, much like ''[[son of God]]'' (more literally ''son of El'') was used <ref>for example, 2 Samuel 7:14 describes [[David]] as being a son of God</ref>. Thus, in this theory, the narrative describes how the priests of El were seen as corrupt, Yahweh-worship then came to power, while that of El faded away, his chief priests were killed, the Ark was taken by the Philistines, and the priesthood of El in general became looked down upon.
+Abiathar would go on to be a loyal and important supporter of David through most of his life. He provided David with crucial advice by means of the sacred [[ephod]] and later, when David ascended the throne, Abiathar was appointed high priest (1 Chr. 15:11; 1 Kings 2:26) along with Zadok. He also greatly helped the king at the time of the rebellion of [[Absalom]], both spiritually and by providing military intelligence (2 Sam. 25:24-35). However, late in David's reign, Abiathar became a supporter of the usurper Adonijah, for which he was deposed by [[Solomon]] and banished to Anathoth. With his demise, the lineage of Zadok emerged as the leading priestly clan.
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