1 Samuel 2:14, commentary and pictures

The verse describes Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, serving as priests at Shiloh at the door of the tabernacle where they officiated in slaying the beasts and at the altar of sacrifice. When Israelites came with sacrifices they thrust the fleshhook into the pan or kettle or caldron or pot and took for themselves all that it brought up, defrauding the offerers and violently seizing the chiefest parts to make themselves fat. The act was selfish, covetous, gluttonous and extortionate, done with irreverence and open contempt for God's authority, and it disregarded the sacred rules for peace offerings by which the fat belonged on the altar and most of the food was to be returned to the offerer for a sacrificial meal of thanksgiving and faith. Eli as father and as high priest and judge was in a special sense accountable for his sons, yet though he knew of their wrongdoing and reproved them he overlooked their faults from indulgence and fear of their displeasure and failed with promptness and decision to restrain them or remove them from their trust. Because sin was allowed to flourish unrebuked God cursed Eli and his house, declaring their sin should not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever, and the mournful history stands recorded for future generations as a warning that God holds parents responsible in great degree for the conduct of their children and requires them not only to give right instruction and good example but to restrain evil promptly and decisively.

Corrupt Worship at Shiloh

The men described are Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, serving as priests at Shiloh at the door of the tabernacle, where they officiated in slaying the beasts and at the altar of sacrifice. When Israelites came to Shiloh with sacrifices, the priests struck a fleshhook into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot and took for themselves all that it brought up. In doing so they defrauded the offerers and violently seized the chiefest parts to make themselves fat.

The act was selfish, covetous, gluttonous and profligate, and also licentious and extortionate. It was done with irreverence and sacrilege, with violence, and with open contempt for God's authority and for the priestly service. In taking whatever the fleshhook brought up they disregarded the sacred rules for peace offerings, by which the fat belonged on the altar, the priests had only a specified portion, and most of the food was to be returned to the offerer for a sacrificial meal of thanksgiving and faith. Their abuse stripped the worship of its sacred meaning and made what was holy seem common. So the people came to despise the Lord's offering and to lightly regard crime.

Because the peace offerings pointed forward to Christ's death, their selfish conduct obscured faith in the coming Redeemer. Their irreverence caused the sacrifice to be no longer recognized as pointing forward to Christ. Their conduct shows how religious service can be used to disguise depravity and lead people to ruin. Their example corrupted Israel, compelling the people to sin and bringing temptation upon them. It led those who cherished sin to join them and to excuse their own wrongdoing because leaders were transgressing.

That religious corruption at first troubled Israel less than the later arrogance and injustice of Samuel's sons. The reason was that the later injustice threatened their temporal interests.

Eli's Neglect and Judgment

Eli as father and as high priest and judge in Israel bore a twofold accountability for the fleshhook robbery at Shiloh, in a special sense for his own sons and in a wider sense for the moral and religious standing of the people, and he was guilty for exalting men unfit for holy office to minister at the door of the tabernacle. His sons’ taking for themselves all that the fleshhook brought up was conduct he was accountable before God to restrain, and by failing to restrain and remove them from the Lord’s service he dishonored God and incurred the Lord’s displeasure. He could not be depended upon to keep Israel pure while he left such sin unrebuked.

He knew of their wrongdoing and was saddened by it and reproved them, but he did not restrain them with promptness and decision nor remove them from their trust. He followed human wisdom instead of God’s commands in training and governing his household, overlooking their faults and sins from childhood and flattering himself that after a time they would outgrow their evil tendencies. From indulgent, ease-loving fondness and fear of their displeasure he lacked moral courage, allowed their evil conduct to continue, and let sin remain among Israel. His fond indulgence left their forward, selfish ways to become confirmed habits.

He should first have attempted to restrain evil by mild measures, reproving sin, and if these did not avail he should have subdued the wrong by the severest means, executing justice upon the sinner. That meant at once removing them from the priesthood and judging them as their case deserved even to death for their abominable example. His fault was that he did not manage his household according to God’s rules for family government but followed his own judgment, and because of his position his negligent government had extended influence, was imitated throughout Israel, and its baleful results were seen in thousands of homes, bringing reproach and ruin upon himself and his household with tenfold guilt as a teacher who misled many.

Their sin was especially grave because it was not a sin of man against man which officiating priests could atone for, but sin by the priests themselves against God for which no one could atone. They boldly transgressed the law of God with open contempt for His authority while officiating in slaying the beasts and at the altar of sacrifice. Because sin was allowed to flourish unrebuked and unchecked, God cursed Eli and his house for allowing the wickedness to continue, declaring that their sins should not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. Eli restrained not his children, and God made known to Samuel the heavy curse to follow; when Samuel told Eli, Eli submitted and said It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. Permitting such disobedience makes children candidates for perdition and leads to transgression and death.

The curse soon followed in fearful calamity: the wicked priests were slain in battle, thirty thousand of Israel were also slain, the ark of God was taken by the Philistines, and when Eli heard that the ark was taken he fell backward and died. His sin brought disaster and death to himself, ruin to his wicked sons in their perverse conduct, ruin to thousands in Israel, and loss of Israel’s strength and glory. Eli’s sin consisted in passing lightly over this priestly corruption and over the evils prevailing throughout the land, neglecting to correct and rebuke them, and his neglect to stand for what was right helped bring the loss. Israel had vainly thought that the presence of the ark would insure victory over the Philistines notwithstanding their sinful practices, just as the inhabitants of Judah in the days of Jeremiah believed strict observance of the divinely appointed services of the temple would preserve them from just punishment for their wicked course.

Because the aged priest neglected his solemn sacred charge and failed to train his children in the right way, God passed him by and accepted Samuel, whom his mother had dedicated to God’s service, and communicated a solemn message to the boy Samuel. Samuel’s careful early training in right and wrong enabled him to remain untainted by the evil around him and to resist the evil influences in Eli’s household, though Eli’s sons were controlled by Satan and corrupted Israel. Their iniquitous conduct brought widespread corruption that called for a barrier to protect Israel’s moral and spiritual welfare, and Samuel established the schools of the prophets as that barrier to promote the people’s moral and spiritual welfare.

Warning to Parents and Ministers

The fleshhook seized at Shiloh belongs to the mournful history of Eli that stands recorded for the benefit of future generations as a warning about sin arising from failures in home management, proving that God's word is the only safe guide in managing children. Eli followed human wisdom instead of God's commands in training his children, and his fond, indulgent failure to restrain their forward, selfish ways let those ways become confirmed habits. The result was disaster and death to himself, ruin to his wicked sons in their perverse conduct, and ruin to thousands in Israel.

God holds parents responsible in great degree for the conduct of their children because they have the formation of their characters. Lax government, failure to command the household, over-tenderness, and allowing sin, passion, unthankfulness, disobedience, headiness, high-mindedness, pride, self-will, and forward, selfish ways make parents partakers of their wrongs and leave the blood of their souls upon them, in the skirts of their garments. That neglect is reflected back upon parents in this life and the future life, with results that later reformation can never fully blot out. Permitting disobedience in children makes them candidates for perdition and leads to transgression and death, a work that does not please God, done from lack of the wisdom which comes from God and working counter to His will with will and purpose and course of action opposed to Him.

Parents are therefore required not only to give right instruction and good example but to restrain evil promptly and decisively, to lead their children rather than be led by them, to teach obedience, govern them, correct their passions and subdue them. Indulgence from mistaken love and fondness, and from fear of their displeasure, nourishes pride and self-will until rebellion grows stronger and springs up to make children despise parental authority. Allowing rebellion to continue through indulgence let it grow until they were a curse to Israel, and their example can lead others astray and bring judgment and lasting harm. Those who fail in this neither parents nor children walk in the narrow path nor enter the strait gate, where obedience to the will of God with hearts of righteousness is required.

Letting children manage their parents instead of yielding to their parents' wishes and will, indulging them, consulting their pleasures, and failing to educate them to self-denial injures their future and eternal good and plants a thorn in the hearts of the parents. Such children dishonor their parents and show the same lack in religious experience, having little reverence for God and for truth, with self-will appearing in all their experience and pleasing self, seeking pleasure, and gratifying self made prominent, and being allowed to be forward. They discern not sacred things but place the high, the sacred, and the holy upon the same level with common things and make religion a common thing.

Unless such children are converted, see the necessity of coming out from the world and being separate, and learn the lesson their parents failed to impress upon them, they are in danger of losing heaven and can have no part with the redeemed in God's everlasting kingdom. They have no just idea of what is required to become a Christian and of the purifying, cleansing work to be carried on to fit them for the society of heavenly angels and to dwell in the presence of a pure and holy God. Their salvation depends very much upon the course pursued by their parents.

God watched the actions at Shiloh and rewarded according to deeds, making known the heavy curse that their sins should not be purged with sacrifice nor offerings forever. If He was so particular as to notice such things anciently, He is no less particular in these last days, so people reap what they sow. Unfaithful parents will not be blameless when He destroys the disobedient children in the day of His fierce anger.

In a pre-eminent degree those who minister in sacred things must make their families patterns of good works and examples to the flock, having order at home and their households in good subjection first before they are prepared to judge or decide in matters of the church. He who fails to direct wisely his own household is not qualified to guide the church of God and cannot be depended upon to keep Israel pure. Such a family disgusts unbelievers and brings reproach upon the cause of God and disgrace on the cause of Christ. The taking of the offerings for self was extortion and sin before God, and it warns against selfish grasping for financial advantage, including accepting thirty dollars a week for one's work while limiting others' opportunity to serve freely.