Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.
Ver. 17. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great.] The greater because they were uncounsellable, ac ne moniti quidem ab ista perversitate desistebant; but became evil examples to God's people, who might have desired the like of them, that one did once of a bad living preacher - viz., to point him out a nearer way to heaven than that he had taught in his sermons: for he went not that way himself.
For men abhorred the offering of the Lord.] Which yet was a great sin in them so to do, 1Sa 2:24 likeas it is in those now-a-days that separate from our churches because of the ill lives of some of our ministers. It is a true saying of a reverend divine, a The garden may be watered through a wooden gutter; the sun give comfortable light through a sluttish window; the field may be well sowed through a dirty hand; the bell call us to church, though it never enter itself but by the sound; the well may yield excellent water, though it have much mud: so may wicked ministers perform the true service of Christ, &c.
a Abbot.