The sense seems to be, If one man sin against another, the judge shall amerce him in the due penalty, and then he shall be free; but if he sin against the Lord, who shall act the part of judge and arbiter for him? His guilt must remain to the great day of judgment.
Because the Lord would slay them - There is a sense in which whatever comes to pass is the accomplishment of God’s sovereign will and pleasure, and all the previous steps, even when they involve moral causes, by which this will and pleasure are brought about, are in this sense also brought about by God. How this truth, which reason and revelation alike acknowledge, consists with man’s free will on the one hand; or, when the evil deeds and punishment of a sinner are some of the previous steps, with God’s infinite mercy and love on the other, is what cannot possibly be explained. We can only firmly believe both statements,
(1) that God hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, and that He willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live;
(2) that the sins and the punishments of sin are accomplishments of God’s eternal purpose (compare the marginal references, and Isaiah 6:9-10; Mark 4:12; Romans 9:15). It may be explained by saying that in the case of Hophni and Phinehas God’s will to kill them was founded upon His foreknowledge of their impenitence; while from another point of view, in which God’s will is the fixed point, that impenitence may be viewed in its relation to that fixed point, and so dependent upon it, and a necessary step to it.