1 Samuel 3

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The verb mesharet ('serving, ministering') is a piel participle indicating ongoing, habitual service — Samuel's role was not a one-time event but an established pattern of temple service under Eli's authority. This is the same verb used of Joshua's service to Moses (Exodus 24:13), establishing a master-apprentice relationship.
2. The adjective yaqar applied to davar YHWH ('the word of the LORD') normally means 'precious, costly, rare.' In this context it signals scarcity rather than value — prophetic revelation was infrequent. However, the Hebrew carries both senses simultaneously: what is scarce becomes precious. We chose 'rare' as the primary sense, noting the double meaning here.
3. The phrase ein chazon nifrats ('there was no vision breaking through') uses the niphal of parats ('to break out, to spread, to burst forth'). The image is of prophetic vision as something that should break through like water or light but was being contained or withheld. 'Not widespread' captures the sense that revelation existed but was not flowing freely through Israel's prophetic channels.

Translator Notes

1. The detail about Eli's failing eyesight (einav hechelu kehot, 'his eyes had begun to grow dim') operates on two levels. Physically, Eli's advancing age has impaired his vision. But in a chapter about prophetic seeing and the return of chazon ('vision'), the narrator signals that Eli — the man responsible for the sanctuary — can no longer see, literally or figuratively. The verb kehah ('to grow dim, to be faint') is used of failing eyes again in Genesis 27:1 (Isaac) and Deuteronomy 34:7 (where Moses's eyes notably did not grow dim).
2. The phrase bimqomo ('in his place') indicates Eli's customary sleeping location within or adjacent to the sanctuary complex. The narrative carefully establishes where each character is positioned before the night begins.

Translator Notes

1. The ner Elohim ('lamp of God') refers to the sanctuary lampstand that burned through the night and was replenished each morning (Exodus 27:20-21, Leviticus 24:2-3). The detail that it 'had not yet gone out' (terem yikhbeh) establishes the time as the pre-dawn hours — the deepest part of night, but with morning approaching. The lamp also functions symbolically: God's light in Israel has not yet been extinguished, though it is burning low.
2. Samuel is sleeping beheikhal YHWH ('in the temple of the LORD'), near the ark of God. This is extraordinary — a boy sleeping in the sacred precinct where the ark rested. His proximity to the ark underscores his special role: he is physically closest to God's dwelling even before he knows the LORD personally. The term heikhal can mean 'temple' or 'palace' and here refers to the tabernacle structure at Shiloh.

Translator Notes

1. The verb qara ('to call') appears here for the first of eleven occurrences in this chapter. The LORD calls Samuel by name — not with a title, not through a mediator, but with the personal, direct address that characterizes prophetic commissioning throughout the Hebrew Bible.
2. Samuel's response hinneni ('here I am') is the classic response of availability in the Hebrew Bible — the same word Abraham uses at the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1), Moses uses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:4), and Isaiah uses at his commissioning (Isaiah 6:8). Samuel uses it correctly, but to the wrong person — he assumes it is Eli calling. The response is right; the direction is wrong.

Translator Notes

1. Samuel's immediate physical response — vayyarats ('and he ran') — shows both the urgency of a servant responding to his master and the boy's assumption that a voice in the night must be Eli. The verb ruts ('to run') conveys eagerness, not panic.
2. Eli's denial lo qarati ('I did not call') is straightforward, and his instruction shuv shekhav ('return, lie down') carries no suspicion or irritation at this point. The brevity of the exchange establishes the pattern that will repeat two more times before recognition comes.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase vayyosef YHWH qero od ('the LORD continued to call again') uses the construction yasaf + infinitive, indicating repeated action — God persists. The repetition is not divine frustration but patient pursuit of a boy who does not yet have the framework to understand what is happening.
2. Eli's addition of beni ('my son') introduces warmth into the second denial. The term is both conventional address from an elder to a youth and an expression of Eli's genuine paternal relationship with Samuel — this is the boy Hannah entrusted to him.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. This parenthetical explanation is one of the most theologically loaded sentences in the chapter. The verb yada ('to know') here does not mean Samuel was ignorant of God's existence — he served in the sanctuary. Rather, yada denotes experiential, personal knowledge: Samuel had not yet encountered God directly. The same verb describes intimate knowledge between persons (Genesis 4:1) and covenantal knowledge between God and Israel (Amos 3:2).
2. The niphal verb yiggaleh ('was revealed') — from galah ('to uncover') — describes divine self-disclosure as an act of uncovering. God must remove a barrier for the human to perceive. The word of the LORD does not arrive by human effort; it is revealed by divine initiative. This verse explains Samuel's confusion: he could not recognize God's voice because he had never heard it before.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase bashshelishit ('the third time') marks the pattern's climax. Three-fold repetition in Hebrew narrative signals completeness and decisiveness — after the third occurrence, something must change. Compare Balaam's three attempts to curse Israel (Numbers 22-24) and Elijah's three-fold pouring of water (1 Kings 18:34).
2. The verb vayaven ('and he understood, and he discerned') from the root bin indicates perceptive insight — Eli grasps what is happening not through information but through discernment. Despite his physical and spiritual decline, Eli retains enough prophetic awareness to recognize that God is speaking to Samuel. This moment is both Eli's last act of priestly wisdom and his acknowledgment that the prophetic mantle is passing to the boy.

Translator Notes

1. Eli's instruction — dabber YHWH ki shomea avdekha ('Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening') — gives Samuel the words to respond to divine address. The imperative dabber ('speak') directed at God is remarkable: a human commanding the Almighty to speak. Yet it is framed by submission — avdekha ('your servant') — making it a request wrapped in obedience. Eli teaches Samuel the posture of a prophet: receptive, available, subordinate.
2. The verb shomea ('listening, hearing') is a participle indicating continuous readiness — not 'your servant heard' (past) or 'will hear' (future) but 'is hearing, is in the act of listening.' The prophetic posture is one of ongoing attentiveness.
3. The poignancy of this moment is layered: Eli, who will receive the judgment Samuel is about to hear, is the one who teaches Samuel how to hear from God. He enables the very communication that will announce his own family's destruction.

Translator Notes

1. The verbs vayyavo YHWH vayyityatstsav ('the LORD came and stood') describe a physical, localized divine presence — God does not merely project a voice but arrives and takes a position. The hitpael of yatsav ('to station oneself, to take a stand') implies deliberate positioning. This is a theophany — a divine appearance — not merely an auditory experience.
2. The doubled name Shemuel Shemuel ('Samuel! Samuel!') is the form of urgent, personal divine address used at critical moments: Avraham Avraham (Genesis 22:11), Moshe Moshe (Exodus 3:4), and later Shaul Shaul (Acts 9:4 in the Greek tradition). The doubling signals both intimacy and gravity — God knows this boy by name and is about to entrust him with a terrible message.
3. Samuel follows Eli's script almost exactly but omits the divine name — dabber ki shomea avdekha ('Speak, for your servant is listening') rather than dabber YHWH. Whether this is reverence, nervousness, or the narrator's editorial choice is debated. Some manuscripts and versions include the name; the Masoretic text omits it.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase tetsillenah shetei oznav ('both his ears will ring') uses the verb tsalal ('to ring, to tingle, to quiver'). The image is of news so shocking that it produces a physical sensation — a ringing in the ears. This exact phrase recurs only twice more in the Hebrew Bible: in 2 Kings 21:12 (judgment on Jerusalem through Manasseh) and Jeremiah 19:3 (the Babylonian destruction). Each instance announces catastrophic, irreversible divine judgment. By using this formula, God signals to Samuel that what follows is not correction but devastation.
2. The pronoun anokhi ('I myself') rather than the shorter ani ('I') adds weight and formality to the divine announcement. God emphasizes personal agency: this is something I am doing, not something that will merely happen.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase hachel vekhalleh ('beginning and finishing') uses two infinitive absolutes to express totality and irreversibility. God will not partially execute the judgment or leave it incomplete. The construction emphasizes that once the process begins, it will reach its full conclusion. This is not a warning that can be averted; it is an announcement of what will be.
2. The verb aqim ('I will raise up, I will establish, I will carry out') from qum is the same verb used for establishing covenants (Genesis 6:18, 17:7). Here it is used for establishing judgment — God's destructive word is as certain as God's creative word. What God speaks, God performs.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase ad olam ('forever, permanently') intensifies the judgment beyond a single generation — this is not temporary discipline but permanent removal of Eli's line from the priesthood. The fulfillment comes in stages: Hophni and Phinehas die in chapter 4, and Eli's priestly line is eventually displaced by Zadok under Solomon (1 Kings 2:27).
2. The crux of Eli's guilt is stated precisely: ba'avon asher yada ('because of the guilt that he knew about'). Eli's sin was not ignorance but inaction — he had knowledge (yada, the same verb from verse 7) of his sons' corruption and failed to exercise his authority. The contrast with Samuel is pointed: Samuel did not yet know (yada) the LORD, but Eli knew (yada) about the sin and did nothing.
3. The participle meqalelim ('cursing, bringing a curse on themselves') is a textual crux. The Masoretic Qere reads meqalelim lahem ('cursing for themselves' — bringing a curse upon themselves), while a scribal tradition (tiqqun soferim) suggests the original read meqalelim Elohim ('cursing God'). The scribes may have softened the text to avoid the direct blasphemy of 'cursing God.' We followed the Masoretic reading while noting the tradition.

Translator Notes

1. The oath formula im yitkapper ('if it shall be atoned' — used as an emphatic negation, 'it shall certainly not be atoned') employs the hitpael of kaphar ('to cover, to atone'). This is devastating because the entire sacrificial system that Eli's family administered was designed precisely to provide atonement. God declares that the system the priests operate cannot save the priests themselves. The instrument of atonement is powerless against the guilt of those who corrupted it.
2. The pairing of zevach ('sacrifice' — blood offerings) and minchah ('grain offering' — non-blood offerings) covers the full spectrum of the sacrificial system. No category of offering can address this guilt. The phrase ad olam ('forever, in perpetuity') mirrors the same phrase in verse 13 — the judgment is permanent, and so is the impossibility of atonement through ritual means.
3. This verse has profound theological implications: it establishes that sacrifice is not mechanically effective. Ritual without integrity does not produce atonement. This principle recurs in the prophets (Isaiah 1:11-15, Hosea 6:6, Amos 5:21-24) and is foundational to the broader biblical theology of worship.

Translator Notes

1. The detail that Samuel opened the doors (vayyiftach et daltot beit YHWH) shows him resuming his normal duties — the mundane act of opening the sanctuary doors after receiving the most devastating prophetic oracle. The boy who heard God's voice in the night returns to his routine, now carrying a burden he did not ask for. The juxtaposition of cosmic revelation and daily chores is characteristically biblical.
2. The noun mar'ah ('vision, revelation, appearance') is related to the root ra'ah ('to see') rather than chazah (the root of chazon in verse 1). This subtle vocabulary shift suggests Samuel's experience was more than auditory — it included a visual or perceptual component, consistent with the theophanic language of verse 10 where God 'came and stood.'
3. Samuel's fear (yare, 'was afraid') is not cowardice but the natural response of a boy who must deliver a death sentence to the man who raised him. The narrator does not judge Samuel for his reluctance; he simply notes it.

Translator Notes

1. Now it is Eli who calls (vayyiqra) and Samuel who responds hinneni ('here I am'). The reversal from the night's pattern is significant — where God called and Samuel ran to Eli, now Eli calls and Samuel responds to Eli. The verb qara here is the same verb used of God's calling throughout the chapter, and the irony is acute: Eli calls to hear the word that God called to deliver.
2. Eli's address Shemuel beni ('Samuel, my son') combines the personal name with the paternal title, matching verse 6. The tenderness is painful given what Samuel must say next.

Translator Notes

1. Eli invokes a formal oath curse: koh ya'aseh lekha Elohim vekhoh yosif ('thus may God do to you and thus may He add'). This is a standard oath formula in the historical books (1 Samuel 14:44, 20:13, 2 Samuel 3:9, 1 Kings 2:23), always invoking unspecified but severe divine punishment for breaking the oath's condition. The threat is left vague intentionally — the imagination fills in what the formula leaves open.
2. The verb tekhached ('to hide, to conceal, to deny') from the root kachad appears twice in this verse, framing Eli's demand. He uses the word davar ('word, thing, matter') three times — mah haddavar ('what is the word'), im tekhached davar ('if you conceal a word'), and kol haddavar ('all the word'). Eli wants the complete, unedited message. He already suspects it concerns his house.
3. Eli's demand reveals his character at its most complex: he is the failed father and the compromised priest, but he is also the man who insists on hearing the full truth of God's judgment against himself. He does not let Samuel protect him from the word.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase vayyagged lo et kol haddevarim velo kiched mimmennu ('he told him all the words and did not conceal from him') directly answers Eli's demand from verse 17, using the same key verbs (nagad, 'to tell'; kachad, 'to conceal'). Samuel passes his first prophetic test: faithfully delivering the complete word of God regardless of personal cost.
2. Eli's response — YHWH hu hattov be'einav ya'aseh ('He is the LORD; the good in His eyes let Him do') — is a statement of theological submission that can be read as either profound faith or resigned fatalism. The phrase hattov be'einav ('what is good in His eyes') affirms that God's judgment is inherently just — what God sees as right is right. This same theology appears in David's response during Absalom's revolt: 'Let Him do to me what is good in His eyes' (2 Samuel 15:26). Whether Eli speaks from trust or exhaustion, the words themselves are theologically sound: the LORD's prerogative to act according to His own assessment is absolute.

Translator Notes

1. The idiom velo hippil mikkol devarav artsah ('he did not let any of his words fall to the ground') is one of the most vivid images for prophetic reliability in the Hebrew Bible. The verb naphal ('to fall') pictures words as physical objects that either reach their target or drop uselessly to the earth. When God ensures that none of Samuel's words 'fall,' it means every prophetic utterance was fulfilled — nothing Samuel said proved empty or failed. This idiom recurs in 2 Kings 10:10 regarding Elijah's words.
2. The phrase vaYHWH hayah immo ('and the LORD was with him') is the covenant-presence formula used of Joseph (Genesis 39:2, 21), Joshua (Joshua 6:27), and David (1 Samuel 18:14). It signals divine favor expressed through observable success and guidance. For Samuel, God's presence means prophetic accuracy — the ultimate credential for a prophet in Israel (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The phrase middan ve'ad Be'er Shava ('from Dan to Beersheba') is the standard biblical merism for the full extent of Israel's settled territory, from the northernmost city to the southernmost. Its use here indicates that Samuel's prophetic reputation was not local but national in scope.
2. The niphal participle ne'eman ('confirmed, faithful, trustworthy, established') from the root aleph-mem-nun ('to be firm, to be reliable') is a rich term. It describes both God's confirmation of Samuel's role and the observable trustworthiness that Israel witnessed. A ne'eman prophet is one whose words consistently prove true — the same root gives us 'amen' (a declaration of trustworthiness) and 'emunah' (faithfulness). Samuel is not merely called a prophet; he is a proven one.
3. The title navi ('prophet') appears here for the first time in connection with Samuel. The word navi likely derives from a root meaning 'to call' or 'to announce' — one who is called by God to announce God's word. Samuel's commissioning in this chapter fulfills the pattern: God called, Samuel listened, and now all Israel knows him as the one through whom God speaks.

Translator Notes

1. The verb vayyosef ('he continued') — the same construction from verses 6 and 8 where God 'continued to call' — now describes ongoing divine self-revelation. The God who persisted in calling a confused boy three times now persists in appearing at Shiloh. The verb's recurrence links the one night to a pattern of continued revelation.
2. The niphal niglah ('he revealed himself') from galah ('to uncover') echoes verse 7, where the word of the LORD had 'not yet been revealed' (terem yiggaleh) to Samuel. The chapter's trajectory is now complete: from 'not yet revealed' (v7) to 'revealed himself' (v21). What was absent is now present; what was closed is now open.
3. The phrase bidvar YHWH ('through the word of the LORD') brings the chapter full circle to verse 1, where davar YHWH ('the word of the LORD') was declared rare. The same construct phrase that opened the chapter in scarcity now closes it in abundance. Shiloh has become what it was meant to be: a place where God speaks and is heard.