anger walked to Eli’s room. And through clenched teeth, he glared at the blind priest and said, “I’m here; you called me!”
But this time Eli paused before responding, as if he were thinking, as if his muddled brain was attempting to come to some sort of conclusion about what appeared to be happening.
This time he said, “Go and lie down, and if the voice comes again, say exactly this: ‘Speak, YHWH, for your servant is listening.’”
Samuel stared in shocked silence. Could YHWH be calling him? Could this be the experience he had hoped and prayed for? It seemed completely unlikely that YHWH would announce the divine presence in the dead of night to him, a boy, not a man, in the failing temple of Shiloh, calling his own name again and again.
He rushed back to his bed and waited…and waited…and waited. There was no sleeping now, no ruminations on past glories and present disappointments. Samuel’s ears strained to hear the voice again. All was silent. The voice must have been Eli’s, the priest’s confused mind manifesting itself in incoherency. Samuel had about convinced himself that the explanation for the nighttime voice was Eli’s uncontrollable shouting after all, when the voice spoke again just as it had before.
“Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel was terrified, but not really believing that this was in fact the voice of YHWH, he did not quite respond as Eli had told him to.
Instead, he said, “Speak, for your servant is listening,” not identifying the ghostly voice as YHWH.
But to his amazement and horror, it soon became clear that it was the voice of YHWH, and that Samuel had been singled out for a terrible task.
“I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone daring to hear it tingle. On the day when I act I will do everything I said I would do to the house of Eli. I am about to punish him and his family and all his relations, because he knew all the evil of his disgusting sons, who spend their lives blaspheming me, and did not do enough to restrain them. As a result, there are not enough sacrifices, not enough prayers, not enough vows to assuage my fury against all of them, and that fury will never be quenched but will forever rage and rage and rage!”
And with that final “rage” echoing in the air, or it seemed to be in the air, the voice was stilled. And Samuel was stunned.
YHWH was infuriated beyond calming! God had announced to Samuel that he was coming to punish Eli and all of his house. But how? When? And what was Samuel to do? YHWH had not told him to do anything. YHWH had just vented fury, warning about coming judgment. The boy-man lay on his bed trembling all night. Was he to tell this monstrous news to Eli? Why should he, an apprentice to the priest, be called to announce such things to a pathetic old man? And just why was God so enraged against him? Samuel had heard Eli attempt to censure his two boys, but they were incorrigible, untrainable, unchangeable. Surely, a doddering and enfeebled father could not be fully blamed for the actions of two wayward sons. Surely he could not be held so culpable that his entire future, and the future of his family, were now forfeit? Is YHWH so demanding as all that? Could there not be forgiveness from God for all the faithful priestly service, for all the prayers and all the sacrifices Eli had offered in the little temple at Shiloh? This YHWH was a hard taskmaster, a demanding God who brooked no argument, whose mind when made up was not to be changed. Samuel wrestled all night with his love and respect for Eli, who however weak and confused, had mentored him as well as his limited gifts could do, and he wrestled with the harsh pronouncement of YHWH who was determined to obliterate the house of Eli for all time.
But how was YHWH to act? The anger was clear but the means of that anger were not. Was this the way that YHWH charged chosen servants with divine work? Was it up to the servants to choose just how the divine work was to be carried out? Samuel struggled all night with what he should do. This YHWH was stern and demanding, but not as clear as the boy had hoped or needed.
As the sun rose, Samuel got up off his bed, removed the bar off the door, and flung the door to the temple wide. The bright sun streamed into the dim room, and the lamp flared with the morning breeze. But still he hesitated. He feared to tell the news to Eli; such news could easily kill him. He thought he might reveal only part of it, just the part about God’s anger, that God wanted him to reprimand his two sons to bring them back into line with God’s will and way. Perhaps that would suffice. He went about his morning chores—the lamp, fresh water for the animals and for him and Eli and the priests, rekindling the fire for the daily sacrifices. He went out of his way to avoid Eli as long as he could.
But he could not avoid him forever.
Soon Eli’s voice, he knew it was his voice this time, crackled through the air, “Samuel, my son.”
And Samuel could do nothing else than respond, “I’m here.”
Eli drew him down to sit on the edge of the filthy bed and with surprising strength demanded, “What did God tell you? I know it was God. What exactly did God tell you? Do not hide it from me! May God strike you dead if you hide anything God said to you last night!” The old man spoke with a vehemence born from a divine silence too long endured. If God had spoken to this boy, the priest had to know what was said. Samuel noticed that Eli had not called the God YHWH. Perhaps he was too fearful to utter the divine name for fear that what had been said was too terrible to hear?
And Samuel had to decide. His youthful mind weighed again what he felt he was called to do. The whole truth of God? But what exactly was the whole truth of God? Was it God’s truth to destroy the future of an old and faithful man whose life was about over in any case? Or was it God’s truth to protect Eli from the full horror of God’s fury against him? In an instant, Samuel chose, and the choice was fateful for the rest of his life and for the life of Israel. He saw himself here and now and for as long as he lived as God’s avenging messenger, God’s hammer, called upon by a harshly demanding deity over and over to correct the ever-sinning people, to correct them without question or pause, to speak the full truth of God as Samuel discerned that truth in every place and in every time. Samuel now knew he was God’s agent, God’s prophet, and that when his words were spoken they were without doubt and without contradiction the words of YHWH.
And so with that resolve he told Eli all that he had heard the voice say in the night, how Eli’s priesthood was over, how his sons were doomed, how his family had no place in the ongoing life of Israel. He spared nothing; he spoke with the harshness of the voice that had spoken to him. He was no longer pupil, no longer student. He was now the master, and the old master was deposed and rejected by the mouth of the new master. Eli reeled under the blows of Samuel’s words, uttered without pity. He lay quietly for a time on his bed.
Finally he said with as much dignity as he could muster, “It is surely YHWH who does whatever YHWH wishes to do.” He had now named the God as the YHWH he had loved and served all his life.
Eli had never said anything more true. Samuel knew he was right, and also knew that he would stake his prophetic life on that truth; YHWH did whatever YHWH wanted to do. He remembered the poem his mother had sung right after his birth; she had sung it to him often enough when he was a child. “YHWH kills and brings to life, sends to Sheol and brings up from there.” This God acts in ways only this God could act, and there was nothing for it but to be YHWH’s messenger in the world. And so Samuel had resolved that day to be.
But that was then, and this was now, and Saul, the powerful one YHWH had demanded for ruler, stood before him. Why was it that YHWH had chosen this one when Samuel was still fully capable of leading the people and the land? Surely YHWH would not cast him away from the leadership of Israel after all these years! He was old, but his mind remained clear, his body slower but still useful, his experience unmatched, his devotion undimmed! YHWH had deposed the vastly
