AFTER the death of Gideon, Jehovah, whose minister he had been for the deliverance of the people, was again forgotten by the Israelites. Forgetting Gideon, forgetting Him who had sent Gideon, they made Baal-Berith, Baal of the Covenant, their god, and set up his sanctuary even in Shechem, though hallowed by the memories of the patriarchs207 and the solemn ratification of the Law208.
Meanwhile Gideon’s 70 sons appear to have exercised authority over some portion of the country. One of them, whose name was Abimelech, the son of a slave a Canaanite native of Shechem, after consultation with his mother’s brethren and her relatives (Judg. ix. 1), suggested that in place of the divided authority of his numerous brothers, he, their bone and their flesh (Judg. ix. 2), should be vested with the supreme authority. The spirit of clanship was strong. He is our brother, whispered the family to the Shechemites, who at length fell in with the scheme, and lent Abimelech seventy pieces of silver from the sanctuary of Baal-Berith.
With the money he hired a body of men, and going to his father’s house at Ophrah, murdered all his brethren, save Jotham the youngest, who managed to escape. He was now left alone, and was solemnly anointed king by the men of Shechem, who thus formally signified their revolt from the Hebrew commonwealth. Tidings of what was going on reached the ears of Jotham. Emerging from his hiding-place, he stationed himself on one of the rocky inaccessible spurs of Mount Gerizim209, and taking up his parable from the variegated foliage of the valley below and the neighbouring forest, bade the men of Shechem listen while he addressed to them the earliest Parable, that of the Bramble-King. Once, he said, the Trees went forth to anoint a king over them. The Olive, the Vine, the Fig were each asked to accept the royal dignity, but each declined; the Olive could not leave his fatness, or the Fig-tree his sweetness, or the Vine the juice of his grapes. Recourse was then had to the Bramble, which not only accepted the proffered honour, but bade the other trees put their trust in its shadow, and threatened, if they did not, that fire should come forth from it and devour even the cedars of Lebanon. Jotham then reminded the Shechemites of the services his father had rendered to the nation, and rebuked them for their gross ingratitude to his family. If they thought they had done well in electing Abimelech, the Bramble-King, he bade them rejoice in him; if not, he hoped a fire might come forth from the king, in whose shadow they had placed their trust, and destroy him and all who had joined in electing him. With these words the speaker fled.
In a short time his words were fulfilled. For three years Abimelech maintained his supremacy, residing himself at Arumah (Judg. ix. 41), not far from Shechem, while that place was entrusted to Zebul, his viceroy. During the joyous season of the vintage210 (Judg. ix. 27) Gaal the son of Ebed, a leader of a body of freebooters tried to persuade the people of Shechem to transfer their allegiance from Abimelech, who was but half a kinsman, to the Hivite tribe of Hamor. Intelligence of this movement reached the ears of Zebul, who without delay sent word to Abimelech, bidding him levy his forces and surprise the plotters in the city. After a desperate battle Abimelech captured the place, put the entire population to the sword, and sowed the ruins of the city with salt (Judg. ix. 45). A remnant, however, of the insurgents took refuge in the temple of Baal-Berith. Thither Abimelech pursued them at the head of his followers, whom he commanded on their way to cut down boughs from the trees on the wooded eminence of Zalmon (Ps. lxviii. 14) close to the city. These he piled against the hold, set them on fire, and suffocated and burnt the refugees. From Shechem he repaired to Thebez211 (Tûbas) and speedily captured the town; but again the inhabitants took refuge in one of its strong towers, and there held out. Forcing his way up to it, Abimelech was about to repeat the stratagem he had found so successful at Shechem (Judg. ix. 52), when a woman flung a fragment of millstone at his head212. Unwilling to die thus ingloriously, he bade his armour-bearer thrust him through with his sword, and so expired.
Other judges now succeeded, of whom Tola, of the tribe of Issachar, governed Israel for a space of 23 years at Shamir in Mount Ephraim (Judg. x. 1, 2); he was succeeded by Jair of Gilead, who during 22 years shared his almost regal honours with his thirty sons (Judg. x. 3, 4).
Invasion of the Ammonites; Jephthah.
But recent judgments had not the effect of restraining the people from apostasy. To the worship of Baal and Astarte they now added that of the gods of Syria, of Zidon, of Moab and Ammon, as also of the Philistines. The national punishment they thus drew down upon themselves came from two quarters. On the south-west and along the fertile borders of the Shephelah the Philistines rose and reduced a portion of the country to subjection, while the tribes on the east of Jordan fell a prey to the Ammonites, and for 18 years endured the humiliation of irksome oppression. Nor were they the only sufferers, for the Ammonites crossed the Jordan and carried on their ravages even in the territories of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim (Judg. x. 6–9). So terrible was the oppression they now endured, that at length the Israelites were roused to a deep repentance; finding it in vain to cry unto their false gods in the day of tribulation, they put them away, and besought Jehovah if only this once to stretch forth His hand and deliver them. Grieved for the misery of Israel (Judg. x. 16), the Lord raised up a deliverer in the person of Jephthah, a base-born native of Gilead. Driven forth from his father’s house by his legitimate sons, Jephthah had fled into the land of Tob, somewhere on the east of Gilead, where putting himself at the head of brave but lawless men, he lived the life of a freebooter, making incursions from time to time into the territories of neighbouring tribes, and living on the proceeds of the spoil (Judg. xi. 1–3).
Determined to throw off the Ammonitish yoke, the tribes on the east of Jordan now turned to Jephthah, and promised him the chieftaincy, if he would undertake to lead them against the enemy. Jephthah consented, and it was formally agreed that, in the event of success, he should retain the supreme command. His first step was to send an embassy to the Ammonites urging the right of the Israelites to the land of Gilead. This being unsuccessful, he prepared for open war, and traversing Gilead and Manasseh collected warriors from such places as acknowledged his authority. But before entering on the campaign, in imitation probably of heathen customs, and especially of the Ammonites (2 Kin. iii. 27), he solemnly vowed to offer as a burnt-offering to Jehovah whatever should first come forth from his house to meet him on his return from battle. The engagement took place in the forests of Gilead, and the Ammonites were utterly routed. Twenty cities, from Aroer on the Arnon to Minnith and Abel Keramim (the Meadow of the Vineyards), fell into the hands of the conqueror (Judg. xi. 33).
But his rash and heathenish vow cast a deep shadow on his triumphal return. As he drew near his home in Mizpeh (the Watch-tower) of Gilead, his daughter and only child came forth to meet him with timbrels and with dances. When the father saw her he rent his clothes, and with the utmost grief made known to her his vow, from which he declared he could not go back. But the noble maiden did not decline the awful sacrifice demanded of her. All she requested was that for two months she might be allowed to wander with her companions among the mountain-gorges of her native Gilead, and bewail her virginity. At the expiration of this period she returned to her father, and Jephthah without referring the matter to the High-priest, or remembering the strict commands of the law on this subject213, his spirit clouded with gloomy superstition, did with her according to his vow that he had vowed (Judg. xi. 39). The memory of this awful sacrifice was kept up by a yearly festival, lasting four days, during which the daughters of Israel went up into the mountains of Gilead to praise and lament the death of their heroic sister.
Jephthah, however, was not long suffered either to enjoy his triumph, or lament the fatal vow which had stained it. Like Gideon before him, he had to encounter the complaints of the proud and jealous tribe of Ephraim for not summoning them to share the glories of the late victory. In vindication of their absurd claims, they even threatened to burn his house over his head, and invaded the territory of the Gileadites, whom they taunted with being fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and Manassites. A second tribal war ensued, in which the men of Ephraim were thoroughly worsted. Rushing routed to the fords of the Jordan, they found them already in possession of Jephthah’s forces, who allowed none to cross that failed to pronounce the word Shibboleth214. Upwards of 42,000 revealed their Ephraimite origin by substituting the simple s for sh, and were massacred. The supreme authority, for which he had covenanted, Jephthah only lived to enjoy for 6 years, when he died, and was buried in one of the cities of his native land (Judg. xii. 1–7).
After him other and obscurer judges rose to display the growing tendency towards hereditary monarchy. Thus Ibzan of Bethlehem in Zebulun judged, at least north-western Israel, for 7 years, and conferred a portion of his dignity on his 30 sons and 30 daughters; Elon of the same tribe ruled for 10 years; and after him Abdon, of Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, about 6 miles from Shechem, exercised the supremacy for 8 years, and was succeeded in a portion of his almost regal honours by his numerous children (Judg. xii. 8–14).
MEANWHILE the Philistines215 on the south-west had not only established themselves in the Shephelah, or Low Country, but now commenced that long and deadly hostility to the Israelites, which lasted from this time through the reigns of Saul and David, and was not finally terminated till the time of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 8). Their oppressions naturally pressed most heavily on the little tribe of Dan, already hard pushed by the Amorites. From this tribe, then, the Deliverer came. But unlike others who had been called to the same office, he was specially set apart for it even before his birth.
On the high hill of Zorah overlooking the fertile lowlands of Philistia lived a Danite named Manoah. To his wife, who as yet had no child, it was announced by an Angel that she was about to become the mother of a son, whom she was to devote as a Nazarite216 unto God from his birth; no razor was ever to come upon his head; wine and strong drink he was never to touch; and he should commence the deliverance of Israel from the Philistines (Judg. xiii. 5). These words were announced to Manoah by his wife, and a second appearance of the Angel was vouchsafed to assure both parents of the certainty of these events, which was further confirmed, as in the case of Gideon, by the disappearance of the Angel in the flames which consumed the Danite’s meat-offering (Judg. xiii. 20).
In process of time the child was born, and was named Samson, either the sunlight, or the strong. As he grew, he became distinguished for supernatural strength, and from time to time in Mahanah-Dan, the camp of the famous Six Hundred of his tribe217, was moved to perform those exploits which made him the terror of the Philistines. His first action, however, when come to man’s estate, did not display that hostility to the national enemy which his parents would naturally have expected. At Timnath, then in the occupation of the Philistines, he saw one of the daughters of the place, whom he was resolved to marry. Very unwillingly did his father and mother give their consent, and went down from Zorah with their wayward son “through wild rocky gorges” to the vineyards of Timnath, situated, as was often the case, far from the village to which they belonged, and amidst rough wadies and wild cliffs218. In one of these Samson encountered a young lion, and, though he had nothing in his hand, rent it as he would have rent a kid. Thinking little of the circumstance, he did not mention it to his father and mother, but went with them to Timnath, and talked with the woman, and she pleased him well. On his second descent through the same wild rocky pass, he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion, and discovered amongst the bones a swarm of bees. A portion of the honey he took himself, and gave a portion to his parents, saying nothing of his exploit, or the place whence he had obtained the honey. The wedding festival was celebrated at Timnath, and lasted several days, on one of which the bridegroom put forth a riddle to his thirty Philistine “companions,” promising thirty sheets and thirty changes of garments to any that guessed it, but demanding the same of them if within the days of the feast they failed to discover it. The young men accepted the challenge, and Samson put forth his riddle, saying,
Out of the eater came forth meat,
Out of the strong came forth sweetness.
For three days the Philistine youths tried to unravel it, and failed. Then they beset Samson’s wife, and threatened to burn her and her father’s house, if she did not ascertain for them the interpretation. During the remaining days, therefore, she implored of Samson with tears the revelation of the secret. At first he was proof against her entreaties, but on the last day of the feast he told her, and she revealed it to the thirty Philistines, who came to him in the evening and said,
What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?
If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle was the giant’s brief reply, and going down to Ashkelon, one of the five cities of the lords of the Philistines, on the extreme southern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, he slew thirty men and of the spoil brought the stipulated reward.
Then in great wrath he returned to Zorah. But when wheat-harvest came round, his passion for the woman was somewhat rekindled, and he resolved to present her with a kid, and now learnt from her father for the first time, that, probably during his absence at Ashkelon, thinking he utterly hated her, he had bestowed her upon another. Thereupon Samson, being enraged, resolved to wreak his vengeance on the Philistines, and catching, probably in pitfalls and snares, 300 foxes, he fastened them tail to tail with lighted firebrands in the midst, and sent them into their cornfields, olive-yards, and vine-yards. Terrible was the mischief thus inflicted in a country, which even now, “in the summer months, is one sea of dead-ripe grain, dry as tinder219.” At length the Philistines ascertained who was the author of this destructive conflagration, and went to the house of his late wife, and burnt her and her father to death. Thereupon Samson avenged himself by inflicting upon them a great slaughter, and went and took up his abode on the lofty cliff of Etam, probably not very far from Bethlehem. Thither the Philistines pursued him, and demanded his surrender of the men of Judah. So utterly lost to all feelings of honour, so degraded from its former high estate was this tribe, that 3000 men actually scaled the rocky cliff, and brought Samson bound with two new cords to his enemies. On his approach, the Philistines raised a mighty shout. But at the moment supernatural strength was given to the captive. He burst his bonds as though they had been cords of flax burnt in the fire, and seizing the jawbone of an ass, and aided probably by the now inspirited Israelites, slew a thousand of the Philistines. In memory of this exploit, he named the place Ramath-Lehi (the casting away of the jawbone). Sore athirst after his exertions, he feared that from sheer exhaustion he might fall once more into the hands of his foes, but from a hollow place in Lehi God caused water to issue, and his spirit reviving he called the spot En-hakkore (the Spring of the crier) (Judg. xv. 16–19).
Samson is next found at Gaza (the strong), which though allotted to and conquered by Judah (Josh. xv. 47; Judg. i. 18) had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, who now encompassed the gate of the city, intending to capture him in the morning. But at midnight he arose, and taking the doors of the gate and the two posts, carried them, bar and all, to the top of the hill before Hebron. After this, he fell in love with Delilah, a Philistine courtesan, of the valley of Sorek, apparently near Gaza. This last amour led to his capture and death. For the enormous reward of 1100 pieces of silver from each lord, equivalent to 5500 shekels, the five lords of the Philistines persuaded her to undertake the task of discovering the secret of his great strength. Three times she importuned him to reveal the mystery, but he succeeded in putting her off with wiles. Green withes, new ropes, the binding of his seven clustering locks to the web, all these expedients were powerless to detain him prisoner, and he escaped with ease from the hands of the Philistines. The fourth time, however, she succeeded, and he told her all his heart, revealing the secret of his Nazarite vow. Accordingly, while he was asleep upon her knees, she caused the seven locks to be shaved off, and when he awoke the giant found that his strength had departed from him. The watching Philistines sprang into the chamber, took him, bored out his eyes, and brought him bound with brazen fetters to Gaza, where they made him grind in the prison-house (Judg. xvi. 21).
Then a day was fixed for a solemn festival in honour of Dagon, their national deity, half man and half fish220, to whom the deliverance of the nation from their dreaded foe was ascribed. In the midst of the feast, Samson was brought in to make sport for his unfeeling captors. The temple, where the festival was held, situated probably on a sloping hill, was full of men and women, and even on the roof upwards of 3000 were packed together. The blinded giant was led in by a lad, and at his own request was suffered to feel the pillars on which the temple stood. Standing there, he prayed that his old strength might for this once be restored to him, and that he might be enabled to wreak a complete revenge on his unfeeling enemies. Taking hold of the pillars with both hands, and praying that he might die with the Philistines, he bowed himself with all his might, and the temple walls fell in, and crushed the lords of the Philistines and the assembled crowd. Samson’s body was extricated from the ruins, and in sad procession was borne by his brethren and kinsmen “up the steep ascent to his native hills,” and laid between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial-place of Manoah his father (Judg. xvi. 31).
As Judge, Samson’s supremacy had lasted twenty years. The words of the Angel to his parents had declared that he should begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and in truth his work was only begun. Its completeness was marred chiefly by himself. “His acts were dictated mainly by caprice and the impulse of the moment; he frittered away the great powers which had been bestowed upon him, and forgot the Divine call which he had received. Still these incomplete results may in some measure be fairly ascribed to the character of his countrymen; they always permitted him to stand unaided and alone, and even surrendered him to the enemy221.” The work that he began needed a very different man to complete it, the spirit of the people needed renewal, and an internal reformation was essential.
Before recounting the means whereby this was brought about, the Sacred Narrative presents us with a little history, which strikingly illustrates the repose and peacefulness which characterized some of the calmer intervals in the disturbed period of the Judges. From Bethlehem-Judah there went forth during a season of famine222 two Ephrathites of the place, Elimelech and Naomi, with their sons Mahlon and Chilion, to seek a home across the Jordan in the land of Moab. Here Elimelech died, and his two sons married two of the daughters of Moab, Orpah and Ruth.
After a period of about ten years his sons also died, and Naomi hearing that the famine had ceased in the land of Israel, prepared to return to her native town accompanied by her daughter-in-law Ruth, whom no entreaties could induce to remain amongst her own people. It was the beginning of barley-harvest223 when they returned, and Ruth went to glean near Bethlehem in the fields of Boaz, a man of wealth and a kinsman of Elimelech. The appearance and the story of the beautiful stranger, which he learnt from the townspeople, attracted the attention of Boaz to the Moabitess, and he permitted her not only to glean in his fields, but to share with his labourers the provisions supplied them. By the advice of her mother-in-law, Ruth afterwards claimed kinship with the wealthy Boaz, and he was not slow to acknowledge it. A nearer kinsman, however, was first asked to discharge these duties, which included not only the redemption of the land that had belonged to Elimelech, but also the taking of Ruth in marriage to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance (Deut. xxv. 5–10). On his declining to perform the latter duty, Boaz redeemed the land in the presence of ten elders of Bethlehem and the assembled people, and married Ruth, by whom he became the father of Obed, the grandfather of King David224.
A more pleasing picture of Hebrew country life can hardly be imagined than the story of “the gleaner Ruth,” illustrating, as it does, “the friendly relations between the good Boaz and his reapers, the Jewish land-system, the method of transferring property from one person to another, the working of the Mosaic Law for the relief of distressed and ruined families, but above all handing down the unselfishness, the brave love, the unshaken trustfulness of her, who though not of the chosen Race was, like the Canaanitess Tamar (Gen. xxxviii. 29; Matt. i. 3) and the Canaanitess Rahab (Matt. i. 5), privileged to become the ancestress of David, and so of great David’s greater Son” (Ruth iv. 18–22).
DURING the twenty years that Samson judged Israel, the High-priesthood, diverted for reasons not revealed from the line of Eleazar to the younger line of Ithamar (1 Chron. vi. 4–15; xxiv. 4), had been filled by Eli, who henceforth appears to have discharged the united duties of High-priest and Judge. The Tabernacle with the Ark was now at Shiloh, where a town had rapidly grown up. Inside the gateway leading up to it was a “seat” or “throne” (1 Sam. i. 9; iv. 13), on which Eli used to sit, and thence survey the worshippers as they came up on high days to the Festivals.
Year by year, as he sat there, he would see amongst the pilgrims coming up to the Feast of Tabernacles the family of Elkanah, a man of Ramathaim-Zophim225 in Mount Ephraim. Though a Levite in the line of Kohath (1 Chron. vi. 27–34), he affords one of the few instances of polygamy in the ranks of the lower orders. By his wife Peninnah he had several children; by Hannah, his favourite wife, he had none, which was to her a source of much trouble, and brought down upon her many taunts from her rival. On one occasion, as Eli sat on his throne at the gate, he was led more particularly to notice one of this little family group. At the close of the sacrificial Feast, unable any longer to endure the mockery of her rival and her own bitterness of heart, Hannah remained long in silent prayer at the Sanctuary. The High-priest saw her lips move, but heard no sound of her voice, as she prayed. Thinking that she had indulged to excess at the feast, he rebuked her, and bade her put away her wine from her. Then Hannah told him of her secret grief, and the aged priest, convinced of his error, quickly made amends by bestowing upon her his blessing, and expressing a hope that the God of Israel might grant the petition she had preferred (1 Sam. i. 17).
The story of the wife of Manoah was, probably, not unknown to Hannah, and she too prayed that if the Lord would grant her a man-child, she would devote him as a Nazarite to His service all the days of his life. Her prayer was heard. Before the Feast of Tabernacles came round again, she had become the mother of a son, to whom she gave the appropriate name of Samuel, “the Asked or Heard of God.” When he was weaned, she brought him to Shiloh, with three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a skin bottle of wine, and having poured forth her thankfulness in an inspired hymn, presented the boy to Eli, as the child for whom she had prayed, and whom she now wished to return to the Lord (1 Sam. ii. 1–11).
In striking contrast with the simplicity and innocence of the young child, who henceforth waited upon Eli, the two sons of that pontiff, Hophni and Phinehas were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord. By their rapacity and lust they had filled all Israel with loathing and indignation, so that men abhorred the offering of the Lord. But Eli restrained them not, and, as years went on, their wickedness seemed only to increase in spite of his expostulations. It was a dark day in Israel, and their conduct gives us a terrible glimpse into the fallen condition of the chosen people (1 Sam. ii. 12–21).
Before long the first warning came to Eli. A man of God stood before him, and after reminding him of the high honour God had conferred upon him, when He chose him to be His priest, sternly rebuked him for honouring his sons above their Maker, and announced that instead of the office remaining in his family, its high functions should be transferred to another and more faithful line. And not only did he thus denounce distant punishment but an immediate and speedy pledge of it in the death on one day of both his sons (1 Sam. ii. 27–36).
But this warning produced no effect. Eli was old and greyheaded. However fitted he might have been once for the task of ruling his family, that day was gone by now. A second warning, therefore, of coming doom was now given him, not by the mouth of any stranger, but of the child, whom Hannah had left in the Tabernacle at Shiloh a loan unto the Lord. Clad in a white linen ephod, and the little mantle226 reaching to the feet, which his mother brought him from year to year, his long flowing hair betokening his Nazarite vow, Samuel ministered before Eli. The degraded state of the priesthood in the hands of Hophni and Phinehas had made intimations of the Divine Will rare and precious in those days, there was no open vision. But the Lord found a way to intimate the coming doom of Eli’s house. One night, when the aged priest had lain down to rest in one of the chambers hard by the Tabernacle, which was illumined only by the light of the seven-branched Golden Candlestick, in the early morning, before it was yet light, a Voice called Samuel and awoke him from his slumber. Thinking Eli had called him, he went to him, and enquired the cause. But Eli had not spoken, and bade him lie down again. He did so, and again the Voice pronounced his name. Once more he ran to the bed-side of the High-priest, who as before denied that he had called him, and told him to return to his bed. A third time the Voice pronounced his name, and then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child, and bade him, if he heard it again, reply, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Samuel returned to his bed, and when the Voice called to him for the fourth time, answered as the aged priest had bidden him, and heard the purport of the mysterious call. The Lord was about to do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of him that heard it should tingle. Eli’s sons had made themselves vile, and he had not restrained them. For this iniquity his house was now to be judged and neither sacrifice nor offering could make atonement; when the Lord began, He would also make an end.
Until the sun was up, Samuel lay still, and forbore to tell Eli what he had heard. But the High-priest, whose conscience, doubtless, only too surely whispered what it was, bade him hide nothing from him. And then the old man, whose eyes were dim that he could not see, listened, while the child told him every whit. Death awaited his sons, beggary and desolation his family. It is the Lord, was his brief reply, let Him do what seemeth Him good, and in the course of time the warning was fulfilled. As Samuel grew, the Lord began to reveal Himself more and more to him. The influence of Eli, already weakened, now dwindled from day to day. He “decreased” and Samuel “increased,” and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground, so that all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that he was established to be a Prophet, a revealer of the Divine Will (1 Sam. iii. 19–21).
Meanwhile the strength of the Philistines had recovered from the wounds it had received from the champion of Dan. Advancing their forces to Aphek, no great distance from the fortress of Jebus, they attacked the Israelites, and inflicted on them a loss of 4,000 men. Alarmed at this reverse, the Israelites resolved to fetch the Ark and take it into battle, that it might save them out of the hands of their enemies. The sacred symbol was thereupon removed from the curtains that enclosed it, and the two sons of Eli accompanied it to the field. A great shout, so that the earth rang again, greeted its arrival in the Israelite camp, and the Philistines alarmed at the proximity of the mighty Gods, that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues, resolved to sell their lives dear, rather than become subject to their enemies. Again, therefore, the battle was joined, and Israel sustained a still more disastrous defeat. Upwards of 30,000 were slain, amongst whom were Eli’s sons, and worse than all, the Ark of God was taken (1 Sam. iv. 11).
On his elevated “seat” by the wayside Eli sat to receive any tidings from the battle-field, his heart trembling for the sacred Symbol of which he was the guardian. As the day closed, a young man of the tribe of Benjamin came running into the town of Shiloh. His clothes were rent, his hair sprinkled with dust. A wail of lamentation arose from the people, who no sooner saw him thus attired, than they knew how the day had gone. Eli heard the noise of the tumult, and enquired the cause. I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army, said the young man. And what is there done, my son? enquired the pontiff. Israel is fled before the Philistines, was the reply, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people—and thy two sons, also, Hophni and Phinehas are dead—and the Ark of God is taken. No sooner did the last part of his terrible tidings fall from his mouth, than the aged priest fell from his seat backwards, and his neck brake, and he died. Ninety-eight summers had passed over his head, and forty years he had judged Israel, and now his doom was come. But still another death was to mark that dreadful day. The wife of Phinehas was near to be delivered of her second child. The news reached her that her husband and her father-in-law were dead, that Israel had been defeated, that the Ark had been taken. She bowed her head, the pangs of childbirth came upon her, a son was born, and the women that stood by tried to cheer her fainting spirits. But in vain. The Ark of God was taken, that was all her mind could realize. With her last breath she gave the child a name that should be a memorial of that fearful day. Call him Ichabod, she said, The glory is departed from Israel227 (1 Sam. iv. 12–22).