1 Sam 3 Ouch!

1 Sam. 3

Please – read this chapter before you read the blog.

There are time when I read the scriptures and I am left numb.  I’m not sure what to make of what I’ve just read.  This chapter is one such time.

Certainly it is the “calling of Samuel,” but, if you’ve read it, it’s a tough calling.

Since that age of about 3 Samuel has been in the care of Eli learning and ministering at Shiloh.  We’ve considered the sorry state of the people’s spirituality and even that of the Priests and we have to keep in mind that Samuel was raised and trained right in the middle of it.

How tough must have it been for him?  Compromise on every side.  Abuses, apostasy avarice – it was all there.  And yet Samuel seems to have passed through it without negative results.  I’m sure it all affected him greatly.  It had to be confusing and appalling, even frustrating and angering and yet he didn’t just survive but he seems to have done well.

Verse 7 is interesting.  Consider the translations:

1Sa 3:7  And Samuel did not yet know Jehovah, and the Word of Jehovah had not yet been revealed to him.  (LITV)

1Sa 3:7  Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor had the word of the LORD yet been revealed to him. (NASV)

1Sa 3:7  Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. (ESV)

So – all are in agreement.  But read the words.  He did not yet know the Lord?  The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him?
 

There are some really weird ideas out there as though there was something hidden.  But when we realize that it wad been quite a while since God spoke directly we begin to get a bettr understanding.  Gill suggests the following:

He knew that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the true God; he had spiritual knowledge of him, and knew somewhat of his word and worship, ways and ordinances, in which he had been instructed by Eli; wherefore, though the Targum is,"Samuel had not yet learned to know doctrine from the Lord;''it can only be understood, that he had not learnt it perfectly; somewhat he knew of it, but in an imperfect manner, being a child: but the sense of the word is, that as yet he was ignorant that God had used to speak with ordinary and familiar voice to men, as Maimonides says (s); he perhaps had never heard of any such thing, and much less was experimentally acquainted with it, that God ever did speak after such a manner to men, and could not distinguish between the voice of God and the voice of Eli:

This had to be – well – weird.  

Eli “got it,” and gives his student sound advice.  But the result had to be painful.

Samuel has been in Eli’s care for years.  He has served and trusted Eli as a father.  There had to be a bond between the two which only serves to make the “message” from God that much tougher.  Verse 15 makes it clear, “And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.”  Well, duhhhh!!!  But this fear is perhaps described as a “terrible reverence,” as opposed to common fear.

What a conundrum.  The very first time God speaks to Samuel it’s to tell him of the utter devastation of Eli and his whole line.  This is very tough news concerning someone in whose hands your life has rested and in whom you’ve placed great trust and respect.

OK – I’ve always said I wouldn’t have wanted to be Job.  I’ll add Samuel to that now!!

Would Samuel have kept silent?  What would you have done?  I a world where we work very hard to avoid any “unpleasantness and to make folks “comfortable,” I wonder what any of us would do.

But Eli is Eli and he makes it very clear to Samuel that he must relay all of what God told him.

Ouch!!

Samuel does this and something incredible happens – at least for me.

Eli says,” "It is the LORD. Let him do what seems good to him."

How was this possible?  There is perhaps a hint found in verses 2 and 3a:

1Sa 3:2-3   “At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place.  (3)  The lamp of God had not yet gone out,”

Was this the lamp in the shrine?  Perhaps.  But its proximity to verse 2 may indicate that we’re being told something about Eli.  Perhaps as Gill says:

“. . . .the lamp of prophecy, that before that was quite extinct in Eli, only began to depart, as his eyes are said to begin to wax dim, the spirit of prophecy came to Samuel; so that, as the Jews express it, before one sun was set another arose; thus before the sun of Moses set, the sun of Joshua arose; and before the sun of Eli set, the sun of Samuel arose:”

Surely we can see that this is possible.  And if so Eli demonstrates his faithfulness in accepting God’s message.

The rest of the chapter makes it clear that Samuel in commissioned and acknowledged as a Prophet of God.

There is one interesting statement here as well.  We are told:

1Sa 3:21  And the LORD appeared again at Shiloh, for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the LORD.

God’s means of revealing Himself at Shiloh is “by the word of the Lord.”  It is by His word that we have live, that life is sustained and that redemption is given.  It is the word of the Lord with which Samuel and all the Prophets to follow will call the people to repentance and by which God’s judgment will be pronounced.

Father, help me to understand the lesson here.  Help me to be willing to do, say and even accept the hard things that come with being Your child.  Let me not shirk my responsibility to speak Your word without hesitation, hemming or hawing.