1 Samuel 4:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

1 SAMUEL CHAPTER 4 The Israelites are smitten by the Philistines at Eben-ezer, 1 Samuel 4:1,2. They fetch the ark from Shiloh; receive it with a great shout, to the terror of the Philistines, 1 Samuel 4:3-8; who yet take courage, and a second time beat the Israelites: the ark is taken; the two sons of Eli are slain, 1 Samuel 4:9-11; which Eli hearing, falleth backward from his seat, and breaketh his neck, 1 Samuel 4:12-18. His daughter-in-law falls in labour, nameth her son Ichabod, and dieth, 1 Samuel 4:19-22. The word of Samuel, i.e. the word of the Lord revealed to Samuel, and by him to the people; either, first, The prophetical word mentioned before, 1 Samuel 3:11, &c., which is here said to come, or to come to pass, as it was foretold, to all Israel. But the subject of that prophecy was not all Israel, but Eli and his house, as is evident. Or rather, secondly, A word of command, that all Israel should go forth to fight with the Philistines, as the following words explain it, that so they might be first humbled and punished for their sins, and so prepared by degrees for their future deliverance. Against the Philistines; or, to meet the Philistines, who having by this time recruited themselves after their great loss by Samson, Judges 16:30, and perceiving an eminent prophet arising among them, by whom they were likely to be united, counselled, and assisted, thought fit to suppress them in the beginning of their hopes and designs of rescuing themselves from their power. Ebenezer; a place so called here (by anticipation) from a following event, 1 Samuel 7:12. Aphek; a city so called in the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15:53, upon the borders of the Philistines country; not that Aphek in Asher, Joshua 19:30 Judges 1:31, which was very remote from them.