1 Samuel 2:18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But Samuel ministered before the Lord Though he was very young, yet he carefully and faithfully performed such offices in God's tabernacle as he was capable of discharging, and did not follow the bad example of others. Girded with a linen ephod A garment used in God's service, and allowed, not only to the inferior priests and Levites, but also to eminent persons of the people, and therefore to Samuel, who, though not a priest, was both a Levite and a Nazarite from his birth.