Study Desk

Whenever Elkanah offered a sacrifice, he always gave portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to each of her sons and daughters.

Making a vow, she pleaded, “Lord of Armies, if you will take notice of your servant’s affliction, remember and not forget me, and give your servant a son, I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and his hair will never be cut.”

The next morning Elkanah and Hannah got up early to worship before the Lord. Afterward, they returned home to Ramah. Then Elkanah was intimate with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.

When Elkanah and all his household went up to make the annual sacrifice and his vow offering to the Lord,

He guards the steps of his faithful ones,but the wicked perish in darkness,for a person does not prevail by his own strength.

Those who oppose the Lord will be shattered;he will thunder in the heavens against them.The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.He will give power to his king;he will lift up the horn of his anointed.

Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.

Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife: “May the Lord give you children by this woman in place of the one she has given to the Lord.” Then they would go home.

Now Eli was very old. He heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

One day Eli, whose eyesight was failing, was lying in his usual place.

He told Samuel, “Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

On that day I will carry out against Eli everything I said about his family, from beginning to end.

I told him that I am going to judge his family forever because of the iniquity he knows about: his sons are cursing God, and he has not stopped them.

The Lord continued to appear in Shiloh, because there he revealed himself to Samuel by his word.

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. The slaughter was severe—thirty thousand of the Israelite foot soldiers fell.

That same day, a Benjaminite man ran from the battle and came to Shiloh. His clothes were torn, and there was dirt on his head.

When he arrived, there was Eli sitting on his chair beside the road watching, because he was anxious about the ark of God. When the man entered the city to give a report, the entire city cried out.

At that time Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his eyes didn’t move because he couldn’t see.

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off the chair by the city gate, and since he was old and heavy, his neck broke and he died. Eli had judged Israel forty years.

brought it into the temple of Dagon and placed it next to his statue.