The Invisible Principle Made Visible: Daily Thoughts from 1 Samuel (1 Samuel 2:27-36)

This principle, that God exalts the humble and abases the proud, does God always make it plain that this is what is going on? Or is it left to us to draw the logical conclusion, as we see arrogant men and women come to ruin?

Perhaps it is like the case of Eli. God sends someone to His people to make it plain that a wrong choice is being made, but may not always do so to those outside the faith.

And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh? Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel. Why then do you scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling, and honor your sons above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?’ Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the LORD declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. Then in distress you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. The only one of you whom I shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out to grieve his heart, and all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men. And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you: both of them shall die on the same day. And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. And I will build him a sure house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever. And everyone who is left in your house shall come to implore him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and shall say, “Please put me in one of the priests’ places, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’” (1 Samuel 2:27-36, ESV)

Our failure to honor the Lord will never be without consequences. Eli has chosen his sons over Yahweh, honoring them more than the priesthood God gave his father, Ithamar, son of Aaron. He has forsaken his responsibility to go up to Yahweh’s altar (to offer sacrifices), to burn incense (a perpetual sign of paying attention to God), and wearing the ephod (which bore the names of Israel’s tribes before Yahweh and contained means of determining Yahweh’s will for the people).

Now God has sent a man of God, a prophet, to declare the end of Eli’s privilege and the giving of that privilege to another in Aaron’s line. Eli’s house will dwindle, and his own two sons, whom he refused to discipline, will die on the same day. But the new faithful priest whom Yahweh will raise up (even as he abases Eli) will do His will and serve the king (Yahweh’s “anointed,” whose position does not yet exist) and those of Eli’s house will find themselves begging from this priest’s family.

Just as Hannah experienced, those who are arrogant are brought low by God, and those who are humble are exalted. When we try to blow our own horn and make our own way, believing that it is by might that one succeeds, we find God working against us. He reverses for good the fortunes of those who trust in Him alone.

As a side note, when God makes a promise as He did to the house of Aaron about the priesthood being in his family forever, that does not mean that those who despise God and His promise and who are in that family will therefore unfailingly reap that promise. The promise is to the family, but individuals within that family who fail to honor God will be judged and excluded from the promise. The same is true of the promise of God to Israel as a whole. The nation will receive the promise, but many individuals within the nation will not, because of their unbelief.