Eli (Bible)

1645 painting by Jan Victors of Hannah presenting her son Samuel to Eli, who is seated on the right.

Eli (Hebrew: עֵלִי, Modern ʻEli Tiberian ʻĒlî, "Ascent"; Greek: Ηλι; Latin: Heli) was, according to the Books of Samuel, a Jewish High Priest of Shiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel.

Biblical narrative

Hannah, is the wife of Elkanah. He also has another wife Peninnah who bore children with Elkanah. Penninnah at every chance needles Hannah about her barrenness to the point that brings Hannah into deep despair. Her husband sees her distress and tries to uncover her deep despair with these questions. "Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?" The story indicates that Hannah gave no answer to the questions and rose and presented herself before the Lord weeping bitterly in the temple. When she is found in the temple by the priest she is praying silently, but her lips are moving. The priest witnesses this odd posture and concludes she is drunk. In her despair she prays to the Lord for a child and if her prayer is granted she will give the son back to the Lord. After Hannah's explanation of her sobriety, Eli blesses her with peace and a guarantee that the God of Israel will grant her request. She went home ate and drank with her husband and was filled with hope. Subsequently Hannah becomes pregnant; her child is named Samuel. The time had come to offer the yearly sacrifice at the temple but Hannah stayed home. She promises to go with him to the temple when Samuel is weaned and planned to leave him with Eli to be trained as a Nazirite. The book of 1Samuel 2 records Hannah's beautiful prayer to the Lord. She rejoices and exalts the Holy One there is no god like Yahway, therefore, the nation should rejoice also in this Holy One. This story of Hannah intertwines itself with the culture of the nation of Israel. Eli is the high priest of Shiloh, the last Israelite judge before the rule of the kings, therefore, the Shiloh tradition will become an old and lost tradition that when the prophet Jeremiah comes on the scene in the history of the Lord's people, he will seek to renew and to bring back the way of the Shiloh tradition to the people of Israel because the kings have become wicked and defile the temple and tradition of Yahway.

The sons of Eli

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 committing adultery 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" prophesies 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 male 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.

Samuel's training

Eli goes on to train Samuel. When Samuel hears Yahweh speaking to him, he thinks it is Eli at first; Eli, who doesn't 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.

Philistine attack and the death of Eli

Some years later, when Samuel has grown up, the Philistines attack 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 has run to Shiloh to report on events. When Eli is told what has happened, he falls over backwards, and dies from a broken neck. He was a Judge of 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. 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; since the early parts of Eli's rule do not appear to occur during a time of oppression, this appears to rule out any overlap with the Philistine oppression that Samson, a previous judge, had 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]

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 is born and weaned 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.^[5] 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.^[6]

His descendants

• Ahimelech great-grandson of Eli; slain by Doeg the Edomite-fulfilling part of the curse on the House of Eli that none of his male descendants would live to old age. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia on David descendant Jehoash of Judah: In Rabbinical Literature: As the extermination of the male descendants of David was a divine retribution for the extermination of the priests by David (comp. I Sam. xxii. 17-21), Joash escaped death because in the latter case one priest, Abiathar, survived (Sanh. 95b).
• Abiathar son of Ahimelech; the only survivor of the massacre at Nob; great-great-grandson of Eli and the 3rd and last High Priest of the House of Eli; deposed from office of High Priest which went to the house of Zadok after the Holy Spirit deserted Abiathar and without which the Urim and Thummin could not be consulted {Jewish Encyclopedia}; {fulfilling the other part of the Curse on the House of Eli that the priesthood would pass out of his descendants hands-the house of Zadok was descended from the family of Eleazar and Phinehas}
• Hannaniah Brother of Rabbah bar Nahmani {amora}
• Rabbah bar Nahmani {270-330} Babylon Jewish Talmudist {amora}
• Abaye {280-340} Babylon Jewish Talmudist-nephew of Rabbah bar Nahmani {amora}

Both Rabbah and his nephew Abaye died at the same age-60.

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, {Mount of the Blessing}, and the other half in Mount Ebal, {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 רידון (Ridhwan) or רהוּתה (Rahuta), which began with Moses. Thus began the פנוּתה (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).^[10]

Likewise according to Samaritan sources the high Priests line of the sons of Phineas died out in 1624 C.E. with the death of the 112th High Priest Shlomyah ben Pinhas when the priesthood was transferred to the sons of Ithamar; see article Samaritan for list of High Priests from 1613 to 2004-the 131st High priest of the Samaritans is Elazar ben Tsedaka ben Yitzhaq

References and notes

See also

• Books of Samuel
• Biblical judges