Eli () was, according to the Books of Samuel, the name of a priest of Shiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel.

Biblical narrative

Eli abruptly appears in the biblical narrative, when Hannah, who is childless, prays to God for a child. Eli, who is sitting at the foot of the doorpost in the sanctuary at Shiloh, sees her apparently mumbling and thinks Hannah is drunk, but is soon assured of her motivation and sobriety. He blesses her after she promises the child to God. Subsequently Hannah becomes pregnant; her child is Samuel. After he is weaned, she leaves him in Eli's care.

The sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, meanwhile, were behaving wickedly, for example by taking for themselves all the prime cuts of meat from sacrifices, and by having sex with the women who served at the sanctuary entrance. Despite Eli's castigation of their behavior, the sons continued, and so, according to the text, an unidentified "man of God" prophecies to Eli that Eli and his family will be punished for this, with all men dying "by the sword" (violently) before reaching old age and being usually placed in positions subservient to priests from other lineages. The curse alludes to a previous (not appearing elsewhere in the Bible) promise from God of Eli's lineage continuing eternally (c.f. similar promises to King David and Jehonadab). While this continuation is not revoked, a curse is placed on all of Eli's descendants forever. As a sign of the accuracy of this future, Eli is told by the man of God that his sons will die on the same day.

Eli goes on to train up Samuel, and when Samuel hears Yahweh speaking to him, he at first thinks it is Eli, but Eli, who doesn't himself hear Yahweh calling Samuel, eventually realizes the truth, and instructs Samuel on how to respond. Samuel is told that Yahweh's threat (which isn't elaborated further) will be carried out on Eli and his family, and that there is nothing that can be done to prevent it. Eli asks Samuel what he had been told, insisting that he be told the whole truth, and so Samuel does; Eli reacts by saying that Yahweh will do what he judges best.

The text then skips to some years later, when Samuel has grown up, at which point the Philistines attack at Eben-Ezer, eventually capturing the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites and killing Eli's sons who accompanied the Ark to battle as priests. Eli, who is 98 and blind, is unaware of the event until he asks about all the commotion; a man from the battlefield had run to Shiloh to report on events. When Eli is told what had happened, he dies from a broken neck, having fallen over backwards, and been frail; he had judged Israel for a total of 40 years.

Era

According to the Book of Judges, the Philistine incursions spanned a period of 40 years, and that Samson, who fought the Philistine incursions, judged Israel for 20 years. Therefore some scholars, like Kessler,^[1] and Nowack^[2] have argued that there is likely to have been some overlap between the time of Samson and that of Eli.^[3] However, the Book of Judges always mentions the years of oppression, in contrast to the period of a judge's dispensation; and hence since the early parts of Eli's rule do not seem to have external oppression this appears to rule out overlap with the Philistine oppression that Samson, a previous judge, lived under.^[3]

Identity

Though his own genealogy is not given by the text, a number of scholars have determined a genealogy for Eli, based on that given to his sons in other passages. Abiathar is described by the Book of Chronicles as being a direct (paternal) descendant of Ithamar; the Books of Samuel state that Abiathar was a son of Ahimelek and that Ahimelek was a son of Ahitub, who is the brother of Ichabod. Consequently since the narrative states that Ichabod was the son of Phinehas, and that Phinehas was the son of Eli, a number of scholars have drawn the conclusion that Eli must be a descendant of Ithamar.^[4]

It is the opinion of many textual scholars that the continued misbehaviour of Eli's sons and the castigation Eli receives as a result from the man of God (1 Samuel 2:27-36) is a later redaction, more in line with the views of the religious establishment at the time of Josiah. Without the passage, the Israelites's defeat, and the deaths of Phinehas and Hophni, appear as quite ordinary events, and suggest that there is no automatic divinely given protection over Israel, while with the passage the defeat is explained away as punishment for not following correct religion closely enough.^[5]

Since Eli appears in the narrative abruptly and without introduction, some biblical scholars have argued that there may have originally been further, narratively earlier, accounts of Eli and of Shiloh that were excised by the compiler of the Books of Samuel. An alternate theory is that the story is more than it appears at face value, with Eli actually a cipher for El, and Samuel as a cipher for Yahweh, and the Eli-Samuel narrative as one which refers to the change from El being seen as head of the pantheon to Yahweh being seen as chief deity. Eli is simply an alternative spelling of El, while Samuel literally means name of god - in Jewish tradition the tetragrammaton was often not used directly but only a reference to it would be mentioned.

Eli, for example, is present when Hannah prays, responds to her prayer, and when he wishes for her to have children she becomes pregnant; when the child and weaned is born she takes him to Eli, having promised to give him to God. He is introduced as an old man, and though the text describes his eyes as becoming weak, it immediately says that the lamp of God (or lamp of El) is not quite extinguished; as time progresses Samuel gradually becomes more prominent, with the people starting to listen to him, while Eli becomes blind and eventually dies when the Ark of the Covenant is captured. Notably, it is the sons of Eli that are described as performing the actual priestly role, and Eli does nothing more than sit in the sanctuary; the term sons of Eli could simply be a priestly title, much like son of God (more literally son of El) was used.^[6] Thus, in this theory, the narrative describes how the priests of El were seen as corrupt, Yahweh-worship then came to power, while that of El faded away, his chief priests were killed, the Ark was taken by the Philistines, and the priesthood of El in general became looked down upon.

Talmud

The Talmud lists him as a prophet.^[7]

An alternative view of Eli--Early history according to Samaritan sources

The Samaritans assert that Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of Israel from the time that Joshua conquered Israel and the ten tribes settled the land. According to the bible, the story of Mount Gerizim takes us back to the story of the time when Moses ordered Joshua to take the Twelve Tribes of Israel to the mountains by Shechem and place half of the tribes, six in number, on the top of Mount Gerizim, the Mount of the Blessing, and the other half in Mount Ebal, the Mount of the Curse. The two mountains were used to symbolize the significance of the commandments and serve as a warning to whoever disobeyed them.

Abu'l Fath, who in the fourteenth century C.E. wrote the major work of Samaritan history, comments on Samaritan origins as follows:

Further, the Samaritan Chronicle Adler, or New Chronicle, believed to have been composed in the 18th century C.E. using earlier chronicles as sources states:

According to the Samaritans this marked the end of the Age of Divine Favor called ????? (Ridhwan) or ?????? (Rahuta), which began with Moses. Thus began the ?????? (Fanuta) Era of Divine Disfavor when God looks away from the people. According to the Samaritans the age of divine favor will only return with the coming of the Taheb (Messiah or Restorer).^[8]

References and Notes

1. ↑ Kessler, The Chronology of Judaism and The First of the Kings
2. ↑ Nowack, Richter-Ruth
3. ↑ ^{a b} Jewish Encyclopedia
4. ↑
5. ↑ Jewish Encyclopedia: Books of Samuel
6. ↑ for example, 2 Samuel 7:14 describes David as being a son of God
7. ↑ How many prophets were there? | AskMoses.com - Judaism, Ask a Rabbi - Live
8. ↑ Ibid. page 13

See also

• Books of Samuel
• Biblical judges

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