1 Samuel 4:13
And 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. And 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.
Eli, old and blind, sat by the wayside beside the road near the tabernacle at Shiloh, anxiously watching and waiting for news from the battle during Israel's very great slaughter by the Philistines. His heart trembled for the ark of God because he feared the Philistine host would take it and pollute it. His anxiety for the ark was greater than for his own sons. When the man came into the city and told his news, all the city cried out in grief. Eli heard their wailing before he was told of Israel's defeat, the deaths of his sons, and the capture of the ark.
The news that his sons had died distressed Eli, but he had reason to expect it and could bear it with calmness. The news that the ark had been taken overwhelmed him with anguish so that he fell backward from his seat and died. The capture of the ark was the greatest calamity that could befall Israel and the loss of its strength and glory. Yet God permitted it to humble the people by removing it and to show how vain it was to trust in the ark as the symbol of His presence and their boasted strength and confidence while profaning the commandments contained in it. Eli understood the loss as the result of his own sin dishonoring God and causing God to withdraw His presence, knowing that his neglect to restrain his sons' wrongdoing had helped bring Israel's defeat.
The verse presents Eli as the example of a father who did not rule his own house well and did not restrain his children in a loose and slack manner of upbringing. His sons were wicked, ungodly, and corrupt, a proverb of reproach exerting a corrupting influence where they lived, disgusting unbelievers and bringing reproach upon the cause of God. For this the frown of God was upon Eli, and judgment followed upon him and his house. The verse presents Eli as high priest watching with a trembling heart while guilty of dishonoring God and misleading the people by partiality toward his sons. Though quick to see and rebuke the sins and errors of the people, even to unjust reproof as with Hannah, he counted his own sons' sins less offensive than the sins of others and in undue affection was ever ready to find excuses for their perverse course.
To just the extent he permitted or excused sin in them he became a partaker in their guilt, greatly heightened because as sons of the high priest they were connected with the work of God. His course illustrates the natural but unjust and unchristian partiality of parents, especially those who think themselves superior, who censure severely in others what they pass over as smart and witty in their own children. Such parents leave faults uncorrected on the plea of youth and foster wrong traits until they become second nature. Tenfold more when found in those who stand in Christ's stead, this course misleads many, sanctions the growth of evil instead of repressing it, and effaces the distinction between right and wrong, purity and vice.