The judges of Israel

Eli and Samuel

The last judges, and the road to a king · At the close of the age of the judges · Delivered Israel from The Philistines, and Israel's own restless heart · Eli judged forty years; Samuel judged all the days of his life

Eli and Samuel are the last of the judges, and the bridge from the judges to the kings. Eli was the aged priest at Shiloh who judged Israel but could not restrain his own corrupt sons, and who died when the ark was captured. Samuel, given to God as a child, became the last and greatest judge, a faithful prophet who anointed Israel's first kings. When the people demanded a king like the nations, God said they had rejected him from reigning over them.

Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way:1 Samuel 12:23 (KJV)

Their story from Scripture

The book of Judges ends in darkness, and the story is taken up in First Samuel. Eli was priest and judge at Shiloh, where the ark of God rested. He was a good but weak old man whose sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were corrupt priests who despised the offering of the LORD, and Eli honoured his sons above God by failing to restrain them. To that same sanctuary Hannah, a barren woman, prayed for a son and vowed to give him to the LORD, and God gave her Samuel. As a child ministering before Eli, Samuel heard the LORD call his name in the night, and answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth. He grew, and all Israel knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD.

The Philistines came against Israel, captured the ark, and killed Eli's two sons. When the news reached Eli, he fell backward from his seat, and his neck broke, and he died, having judged Israel forty years. His daughter in law, hearing that the ark was taken and her husband and father in law dead, named her newborn son Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel. The ark itself brought plague on the Philistines until they sent it back, but Israel's true return came through Samuel. He gathered the people to Mizpeh, called them to put away their strange gods, and prayed for them; and when the Philistines attacked, the LORD thundered against them and Israel drove them back. Then Samuel set up a stone and called it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us. And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, going in circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and back to his home in Ramah. But when he was old, the people asked him for a king to rule over them, like all the nations. Samuel was grieved, and the LORD told him, they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Samuel warned them what a king would take from them, then anointed Saul, and later David. Even after they had their king, he told them, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you.

Their character, honestly

Eli was devout but fatally soft; his failure to discipline his wicked sons brought judgment on his house, and the Bible states it plainly, that he honoured his sons above God. Yet he was tender to the boy Samuel and bowed to God's word even when it condemned him. Samuel is one of the few figures in the whole era with almost no recorded fault of his own, faithful from childhood to old age, though the text notes honestly that his own sons, whom he made judges, turned aside after money and perverted justice, one more reminder that no human line stays faithful. Even the best of the judges could not pass on his righteousness to his children.

How God used them

God used a weak old priest to raise a faithful prophet, and used a child's simple Speak, for thy servant heareth, to begin a new chapter in Israel's story. Through Samuel, God gave Israel true spiritual leadership, and then, when the people insisted, God used Samuel to anoint the kings, bending even Israel's faithless demand toward his own purpose, for from the line of the kings would come the Christ. God was working through the failure of the judges to prepare the way for something greater.

The end of the cycle

With Eli and Samuel the cycle of the judges comes to its close and its verdict. The people no longer want a judge raised up now and then; they want a permanent king like the nations around them, so they will not have to depend on God's mercy each time. In asking, they reject God himself as their King. The whole book of Judges has been the ache for a true king, and here the ache turns into a demand, and God grants it, knowing it will bring its own sorrows, and knowing too that through the throne of David he will one day send the King they truly need.

How they point to Christ

Samuel was prophet, priestly intercessor, and judge, and he anointed the kings from whose line the Messiah would come; he points to Christ, the true Prophet, Priest, and King in one. Eli's fall shows that even the priesthood needed a better Priest, and Samuel's own sons show that even the best judge cannot make his children righteous. Israel's cry for a king is answered at last not by Saul, who failed, nor fully by David, who sinned, but by the Son of David, Jesus, the King who reigns forever. The judges end here, at the threshold of the kings, and both the judges and the kings are one long road to him. He is the true and final Deliverer the whole book was longing for.

A note on honesty: the book of Judges is one of the darkest and most candid books in the Bible, and it does not flatter its own heroes. The failures named above are the ones Scripture itself records. We do not whitewash them, because the point of the book is not how good the judges were, but how faithful God was to a people who could not save themselves, and how deeply they, and we, need the true Deliverer.

Related: Previous: Samson · Samuel in Bible People · The Kings of Israel and Judah · All the judges of Israel