depression. He sat day after day on his seat by the doorpost of the temple, sometimes failing to move for hours at a time, forgetting to eat, lost in a trance of prayer or confusion; it was hard to tell which. Each evening Samuel would lead the pathetic man to his room behind the temple and help him get into his filthy bed. However often Samuel cleaned the room and the bed, both remained unspeakably rank, with small white insects scurrying in and under the bedclothes and the acrid smells of rotting flesh permeating the fetid air. Eli saw and felt and smelled none of it; he just collapsed into the bed and stared unseeing into a place only he seemed to know.
After getting him settled one night, which was just like so many other nights, Samuel went out to tend the temple light that by custom was never to be allowed to go out. The people were convinced that the light somehow represented the presence of God, and if it ever were extinguished God would disappear with it. So Samuel’s job, one of many, was to be certain that the light was always seen. As he approached the lamp, a small poorly made clay vessel, with an uneven point on one end and a loop at the other, by which it was hung on the wall with a peg, he noticed that the light was sputtering more than usual, threatening to go out. He hurried to the vat of olive oil that rested under the lamp and quickly dipped out a ladle of the oil and poured it carefully into the bowl of the lamp. The flame sputtered a bit more and then caught strongly; the light briefly illuminated one of the corners of the dark temple. But after that surge of light, the flame settled back down to its usual dimness, being less the source of light than a source of comfort for the few worshippers who were wandering through the place.
Samuel shooed out the few desperate souls still in the place of God and locked the large wooden door, placing the bar into the slots on either side of the doorframe. At last, he thought, I can finally go to my own bed. Though the room was smaller than Eli’s, at least it was clean and neat, devoid of the nasty bugs and upwind of the rotten animal smells. The room opened right out into the larger temple room. From his bed, Samuel could look directly into that room at the mysterious box of YHWH, the holy Ark of the Covenant. Samuel thought how strange it was that such a fabled object had ended up in this dank and rather pathetic room in a miniscule village in the highlands of Ephraim. Given what was believed about this wooden chest, Samuel thought that it deserved a more splendid context, a brighter, larger temple, with gold curtains, ornate lampstands, huge images of power and splendor all around. It was nothing less than embarrassing to see the holy thing sitting on the dirt floor, shoved without any real ceremony against the back wall of this miserable room, nearly forgotten, usually avoided by worshippers intent on bloody sacrifice at the altar.
The Ark of the Covenant had a colorful, supernatural history. When the people of Israel had escaped from Egypt, led by the hero Moses, they had moved toward the sacred mountain of Sinai where God was said especially to live. At the mountain God had given to Moses the Ten Commandments, incised on two tablets of stone by God’s own fingers. While that gift was being given, at the base of the mountain, Aaron, Moses’ priestly brother, was creating with his own fingers a splendid golden calf as a way to calm the terrified Israelites who had become certain that Moses had abandoned them to the horrors of wilderness. Moses carried the precious tablets down the mountain to offer them to his people, but instead of seeing people anxious to receive the law of God, he witnessed scenes of complete wanton debauchery, as they worshipped their little bull with unspeakable acts. Aaron was nowhere to be seen. When Moses finally found Aaron, and had demanded he explain the monstrous things his eyes beheld, Aaron calmly lied that he had not made the calf at all, but had merely tossed the gold brought to him by the people into the fire, and the calf had magically popped out! Moses was so enraged that he shattered the two clay tablets of God into a thousand shards. He then had rushed back up the mountain to ask forgiveness of YHWH for the people’s evil and had even offered his own life in their place if God demanded such a sacrifice. God did forgive them, and even made for Moses another set of the ten laws for him to take with them as they moved toward the land God had promised.
It was then that the Ark was made, as a receptacle for the tablets of God. It was made to the exact specifications of YHWH, big enough to contain the two divine tablets of the law, but not so big as to be unwieldy to carry the long distances through the wilderness. It was wooden, nothing special to look at, oblong in shape with leather loops at the four corners on the top through which long wooden poles could be passed so that it could be carried by two men on their shoulders. Carved on the top, too, was the monstrous figure of an ancient Cherubim, a winged creature with cruel claws and sharp beak that warned away those who would abuse the Ark or even touch it. The carving was surprisingly crude, but again, thought Samuel, if it were too ornate it might rival the God who was thought to be enthroned upon the Ark, seated somehow on that Cherubim itself. The Ark possessed a wondrous power, nothing to be trifled with, bearing as it did the tablets of the Almighty YHWH. Samuel had learned as one of his first lessons the Song of the Ark. When the Ark was made to appear, this was said:
“Arise, O YHWH; let your enemies be scattered!
May those who hate you flee from your presence!”
And when it was returned to the temple, the people would say:
“Rest, O YHWH; may the thousands of Israel increase!”
Samuel had memorized these ceremonial words that were uttered whenever the Ark was moved in and out of the temple. But those exciting days were few now; he could not remember the last festival day for the movement of the Ark of the Covenant. So it sat, silent, neglected, gathering dust, the memory of its vaunted power fading with its cracking varnish and splitting wood. In every way the boy Samuel could see the glory of Israel was something far less than glorious, the temple of Shiloh was a crumbling hulk, and the future of the land was as uncertain as the flickering lamp on the wall. He closed his eyes with these dark and hopeless thoughts clouding his mind, and tried to recover that first excitement that his early days in this place had given. He was as close to despair as the day his mother had left him here so long ago.
Suddenly, a voice shattered the silence.
“Samuel, Samuel!”
Immediately and automatically, the boy replied,
“Here I am!”
This was the correct way to respond to a summons, and Samuel leapt out of his bed to rush to Eli’s room. Perhaps the old man was ill. Perhaps he had had a bad dream, as was common as he aged. There was some irritation in Samuel’s reply, however much he tried to keep it polite; he got little enough sleep as it was without the interruptions of a foolish old man.
“I’m here; you called me.”
Samuel waited for the instructions to get Eli some water, or to soothe his troubled mind, or to clean up his bed after still another accident; he could hardly control his body anymore. But instead the man said,
“I did not call; go and lie down.”
Samuel trudged sleepily back to his bed.
But the voice spoke again.
“Samuel, Samuel!”
This time, without replying, a disgusted Samuel stomped toward Eli’s room, ready to berate the slobbering idiot, but before arriving he calmed enough to say again, “I’m here; you called me.”
But Eli, turning his head in the direction of Samuel’s voice, said with genuine surprise, “I did not call, my son. Go and lie down.”
Samuel wanted to add that he thought Eli was so addled as not to know what he was saying, but left the rank room in silence.
But no sooner had he settled into his bed when the same voice came a third time.
“Samuel, Samuel!”
And
