a. Then a man of God: We don’t know who this was; this man of God is one of the wonderful anonymous characters of the Bible. But it doesn’t matter who he was. He was a man of God, and God raised him up to speak to Eli and Eli’s whole family at this important time.
b. Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father: The father referred to is Aaron, who was the first high priest. Since the high priesthood was a hereditary office, Eli was a descendant of Aaron, whom God had revealed Himself to.
c. 1 Samuel 2:28 is a wonderful summary of some of the duties of the priesthood in Israel.
· To be My priest: First and foremost, the job of the high priest was to minister to the LORD. Before he served the people, he was a servant of God. He was not first the people’s priest, he was first the priest of God.
· To offer upon My altar: The priest brought sacrifices for atonement and worship.
· To burn incense: Burning incense was a picture of prayer because the smoke and the scent of the incense ascends up to the heavens. The priest was to lead the nation in prayer, and to pray for the nation.
· To wear an ephod before Me: The priest was clothed in specific garments, for glory and for beauty(Exodus 28:2). He was to represent the majesty, dignity, glory, and beauty of God to the people.
· All the offerings: The priest was also charged with the responsibility to receive the offerings of God’s people and to make good use of them.
d. Why do you kick at My sacrifice: It would have been easy for Eli to say, “I’m not doing it! My sons are!” But Eli had a double accountability for his sons, both as a father (though this was diminished because the sons were adults), and as the high priest. His sons “worked” for him as priests, and Eli was a bad “boss.”
e. And honor your sons more than Me: Since Eli did not correct his sons the way he should, he essentially preferred them to the LORD. If Eli were more afraid of offending God and less afraid of offending his sons he would have corrected them as he should have.
i. Eric Liddell was one of Britain’s great athletes, and later he gave his life for Jesus on the mission field. In 1924 he was to run for Britain in the Olympics when it was discovered that the preliminary heats of his best event – the 100 meters – would be run on a Sunday. Quietly but firmly, Liddell refused to run. The day of the 400 meters race came, and as Liddell went to the starting blocks, an unknown man slipped a piece of paper in his hand with a quotation from 1 Samuel 2:30: Those who honor Me I will honor. That day Eric Liddell set a world’s record in the 400 meters.
f. I will cut off your arm: Not literally, but since the arm was a picture of strength and might in Hebrew thinking (Psalms 10:15, 77:15, and 89:10), this said the house of Eli would be left powerless and without strength.
g. “I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.” But now the LORD says: God promised that the priestly line would not stay with Eli and his descendants but would pass to another line of descendants from Aaron. This was fulfilled many years later, in Solomon’s day. Abiathar (from Eli’s family) was deposed as high priest and replaced with Zadok (who was from another family).
i. 1 Kings 2:27 reads, So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, that he might fulfill the word of the LORD which He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.
ii. “I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.” But now the LORD says: This was a promise to Aaron in passages like Exodus 29:9. God did not remove the priesthood from the line of Aaron, but He did remove it from the line of Eli.
h. There shall not be an old man in your house forever…. And all the descendants of your house shall die in the flower of their age: This idea is repeated twice in these few verses. God wanted to emphasize that He would not bless the descendants of Eli with a long life.
i. Shall consume your eyes and grieve your heart: The descendants of Eli who did live a little longer would not live blessed lives. Their end would be painful to see. (Guzik)
A Man of God!
We don’t know who he was but we know he was sent from God.
There was a time in my marriage that we were in a very rough spot and I had given it before the Lord at the foot of the cross. I said, I can’t fix this and only You can. Afterwards I had gone to church by myself and after service a man that I didn’t know and haven’t seen before came up to me and said, that he had a message for me from the Lord. He said the Lord sees my sorrow and that He would restore my marriage. 😳
Pastor Robert has always said if someone claims they have a message for you from the Lord, you will know that it was true if it comes to fruition and if doesn’t, it wasn’t from the Lord.
Was he a man of God?
I believe he was!
Blessings
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