Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ELI

(Heb. ʿēlî)

Priest of the Shiloh sanctuary just before the emergence of monarchy (1 Sam. 1–4). In that role he wears the ephod, pronounces oracles, burns incense, and supervises sacrifice. Eli is also named judge in Israel, credited with 40 years at his death (1 Sam. 4:18).

Three related episodes cluster around Eli. First, when the childless Hannah and her husband Elkanah arrive to sacrifice at Shiloh, Hannah prays for a son, whom she promises to Yahweh’s service. Eli, overhearing her prayer, misconstrues her articulation as drunkenness and chides her. Once she has corrected his misapprehension, he pronounces an oracle of fulfillment to her words, verified when Samuel is born and brought to the shrine (1 Sam. 1:9-28). A second episode occurs when Yahweh comes to the young Samuel at the shrine in a night audition and pronounces the end of Eli’s priestly line, the result of the behavior of Eli’s sons Hophni and Phineas: cultic violation and sexual immorality, sustained and recalcitrant (1 Sam. 2:12-36). The third event is Eli’s death, occasioned by the news of devastation of Israel at the hands of the Philistines: military defeat at Aphek includes as well the death of Eli’s sons and the capture of the ark of the covenant (1 Sam. 4:12-18).

Eli’s priestly line both precedes and survives him. Founded before Israel leaves Egypt and descended from Aaron’s son Ithamar, Elide priests are associated with Saul, who tries to extirpate them (1 Sam. 21–22); David, whose court includes the Elide Abiathar (2 Sam. 15–19); and Solomon, whose banishment of Abiathar brings the line to an end, as Yahweh had indicated to Samuel (1 Kgs. 2).

Historians discern in the fragments of Elide genealogy either genuine ancient memory or evidence of redaction and theological intent, with the Ithamar-Eli group subsidiary to the rival house of Phineas-descended Zadokites. Powerful characterization of Eli in the Deuteronomistic history shows the aged, heavy, and blind leader sitting passively on his throne to await the report of the fate of Israel, proleptically symbolizing the monarchy itself — doomed and toppled from its place as exile begins.

Bibliography. R. D. Nelson, Raising Up a Faithful Priest (Louisville, 1993); R. Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist (1989, repr. Bloomington, Ind., 1993).

Barbara Green, O.P.

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ELI

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)