Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 3:1

"And the child Samuel ministered unto Jehovah before Eli. And the word of Jehovah was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision." — 1 Samuel 3:1 (ASV)

The child Samuel ministered to the Lord. —The writer of this history, although well aware of the great revolution accomplished in Israel by the prophet whose life and work the Holy Spirit instructed him to record, gives us only the simplest and shortest possible account of the childhood of the one who was second only to Moses in his influence on the eventful story of the chosen people. But short and devoid of detail though the record is, it is enough to show us that the atmosphere in which the child lived was a pure and holy one; the boy was evidently kept apart from Hophni, Phinehas, and their impious, self-seeking party.

The high-priestly guardian was evidently fully conscious of the importance of his charge, and he watched over his pupil with tender, watchful care. Perhaps his sad experiences with his evil, headstrong sons had taught the old man wisdom; certainly, the training he gave to Samuel was one that educated the boy well for his later life of stirring public work. The accounts of his childhood and boyhood are indeed brief.

The first account sharply contrasts the lawless profligacy of the priestly houses with the pure, holy childhood spent in the sanctuary courts, probably always in the company of the old man.

Hophni and Phinehas, the grown men, prostituted the holy work for their own vile, worldly ends; the child ministered before the Lord in his little white robe.

And while in the home life of his own mother and father in Ramah, his brothers and sisters were growing up with the sorrows and joys of other Hebrew children, the child Samuel grew before the Lord amid the stillness, silence, and awful mystery of the Divine protection, which always seems, even in the darkest days of the history of Israel, to have surrounded the home of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.

It was amid this silent, sacred mystery, apart from the disorders of his priestly sons, that Eli taught the boy the story of his ancestors, with only the dark curtains of the sanctuary hanging between master and pupil and the mystic golden throne of God, on which His glory was sometimes pleased to rest.

The writer composed his gloomy recital of the wild, unbridled life of the wicked priests, and recorded the weak, sorrowful remonstrances of the father and high priest, foreshadowing, however, their certain doom.

Then, again, their life of shame is sharply contrasted with the pure childhood of the little pupil of the old, sorrow-stricken high priest—the boy whom all men loved: And the boy Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men.

Once more Eli, now weak with age, is warned of the sure consequences that would follow the evil license and irreligion of his priestly sons.

And again, the boy Samuel and his life, guided by Eli, his guardian and teacher, is contrasted with the wild, unchecked lawlessness of Eli's priestly sons, who were perpetually dishonoring religion and the sanctuary—a lawlessness that had just been denounced by the nameless prophet (1 Samuel 2:27–36).

Josephus tells us that Samuel, when the Lord first called him, was twelve years old. This was the age of the child Jesus when He disputed with the doctors in the Temple.

Was precious in those days.—Precious, that is, rare. The word of the Lord is the will of the Lord announced by a prophet, seer, or man of God. Between the days of Deborah and the nameless man of God who came with the awful message to Eli, no inspired voice seems to have spoken to the chosen people.

Open vision refers to such manifestations of the Divinity as were granted to Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and Manoah, and in this chapter to Samuel. There may possibly be some reference to the appearance of Divine glory that was connected with the Urim and Thummim, which were worn by the high priest.

The writer dwells on this significant silence from the invisible King, explaining it as a result of the deep corruption into which the priests and, through their evil example, a large proportion of the nation had fallen.