Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I.
Then Eli called Samuel. The burden of this communication to Samuel was an extraordinary premonition of the judgments that impended over Eli's house; and the aged priest, having drawn the painful secret from the simple child, exclaimed, "It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth to him good." Such is the spirit of meek and unmurmuring submission in which we ought to receive the dispensations of God, however severe and afflictive. But, in order to form a right estimate of Eli's language and conduct on this occasion, we must consider the overwhelming accumulation of judgments denounced against his person, his sons, his descendants, his altar, and nation. With such a threatening prospect before him, his piety and meekness were wonderful. In his personal character he seems to have been a good man, but his relative conduct was flagrantly bad; and though his misfortunes claim our sympathy, it is impossible to approve or defend the weak and unfaithful course which, in the retributive justice of God, brought these adversities upon him.