[mc id="930" type="audio"]1 Samuel Chapter 2[/mc]the word of God online presents first Samuel chapter 2
this was Hannah’s prayer:
“how I rejoice in the Lord! How he has blessed me! Now I have an answer for my enemies, for the Lord has solved my problem. How I rejoice! No one is as holy as the Lord. There is no other God, nor any rock like our God. Stop acting so proud and arrogant! The Lord knows what you have done, and he will judge your deeds. Those who were mighty are mighty no more. Those who are weak are now strong. Those who were well are now starving; those who were starving are fed. The barren woman now has seven children; she with many children has no more. The Lord kills, the Lord gives life. Some he causes to be poor and others to be rich. He cuts one down and lifts up another. He lifts the poor from the dust — yes, from a pile of ashes — and treats them as princes sitting in the seats of honor. For all the earth is the Lord’s and he has set the world in order. He will protect his godly ones, but the wicked shall be silenced in darkness. Not one shall succeed by strength alone. Those who fight against the Lord shall be broken: he thunders against them from heaven. He judges throughout the earth. He gives mighty strength of the King, and gives great glory to his anointed one.”
So they return home to Rama without Samuel; and the child became the Lord’s helper, for he assisted Eli the priest.
Now the sons of Eli were evil men who didn’t love the Lord.
It was their regular practice to send out a servant whenever anyone was offering a sacrifice, and while the flesh of the sacrificed animal was boiling, the servant would put a three-pronged flesh hook into the pot and demand that whatever it brought up to be given to you I sons. They treated all of the Israelis in this way when they came to Shiloh to worship. Sometimes the servant would come even before the right of burning the fat on the altar had been performed, and he would demand Romney before it was boiled, so that it can be used for roasting.
If the man offering the sacrifice replied,” take as much as you want, but the fat must first be burned,” [as the law requires], then the servant would say,
“no, give it to me now or I’ll take it by force.”
So the sin of these young men was very great in the eyes of the Lord; they treated the people’s offering to the Lord with contempt.
Samuel, though only a child, was the Lord’s helper and wore a little linen robe just like the priest .
Each year his mother made a little cold for him and brought it to him when she came with her husband for the sacrifice. Before they returned home he lie would bless Elkanah and Hannah and ask God to give them other children to take the place of this one they had given to the Lord.
And the Lord gave Hannah three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile Samuel grew up in the service of the Lord.
Eli was now very old, but he was aware of what was going on around him. He knew, for instance, that his sons were seducing the young woman who assisted at the entrance to the tabernacle.
“I have been hearing terrible reports from the Lord’s people about what you are doing,” he lie told his sons. “It is an awful thing to make the Lord’s people send. Ordinary send receives a heavy punishment, but how much more the sin of yours which has been committed against the Lord?” But they wouldn’t listen to their father, for the Lord was already planning to kill them.
Little Samuel was growing in two ways — he was getting taller, and he was becoming everyone’s favorite (and he was a favorite of the Lord’s, too!)
One day a prophet came to Eli and gave him this message from the Lord: “didn’t I demonstrate my power when the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt? Didn’t I choose your ancestor Levi from among all his brothers to be my priest, and to sacrifice upon my altar, and to burn incense, and to wear a priestly robe as he served me? And didn’t I assign the sacrificial offerings to you priest? Then why are you so greedy for all the other offerings which are brought to me? Why have you ordered your sons more than me — for you and they have become fat from the best of the offerings of my people!
“Therefore, I., the Lord God of Israel, declare that although I promised that your branch of the tribe of Levi could always be my priest, it is ridiculous to think that what you are doing can continue. I will honor only those who honor me, and I will despise those who despise me. I will put an end to your family, so that it will no longer serve as priests. Every member will die before his time. None shall live to be old. You will envy the prosperity I will give my people, but you when your family will be in distress in need. Not one of them will live out his days. Those who are left alive will live in sadness and grief; and their children shall die by the sword. And to prove that what I have said will come true, I will cause your two sons Hophni and Phinehas, to die on the same day!
“Then I will raise up a faithful priest who will serve me and do whatever I tell him to do. I will bless his descendents and his family shall be priest to Mike Kings forever.
Then all of your descendants shall bow before him, begging for money and food. “Please,” they will say, “give me a job among the free so that I will have enough to eat.”
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