II. The issue of it —
[The Israelites were defeated : no less than thirty thou- sand of them perished : the sons of Eh, the priests who bore the ark, were slain : and the ark itself was taken. The awful tidings soon reached the ears of EK. He heard of Israel's defeat, and bowed with meek submission ; as he did also when he was informed of the death of both liis sons: but when he was told that the ark of God was taken, he fainted, he fell, he died.
Now in this death he may appear to have resembled the wicked Israelites: but there was in truth a great difference between them. His death indeed was in part judicial, and so far may be compared with theirs : but theirs was accompanied with manifest tokens of the divine displeasure ; and we have reason to fear that not they only, but Hophni and Pliinehas also, were cut off in their sins. But Eli shewed his supreme regard for God ; and in some sense died a martyr to his love to God. The wife of Phinehas also evinced the same piety. She was so affected with the tidings, that her pangs of travail were prematurely hastened; and, when her attendants strove to comfort her with the information that she had borne a son, she no further noticed it than to give him the name of I-chabod, which means inglorious ; assigning as the reason for it, that " the glory was departed from Israel, and the ark of God was taken ^." Thus did she, and Eli, manifest, that a concern for the honour of God was deeply rooted in their minds, more deeply than any other consideration, whether of public interest or of the ties of consanguinity.
We congratulate then this aged priest on the issue of his anxiety: and we rejoice, that, when his errors in life had sub- jected liim to the divine displeasure, he shewed in his death
a Hos. ix. 12. with Josh. vii. 6 — 9. and Neh. i. 3, 4. b ver. 19—22.