Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: 1 Samuel 3-4 and Augustine's Confessions 13

1 Samuel 3 – During Samuel’s childhood, the “word of the Lord was rare [and] visions were not widespread” (3:1). Samuel was lying down in the temple when he heard someone call him, “Samuel! Samuel!” (3:4) Samuel answers “Here I am!” and thinking the voice was Eli’s, he runs to see what Eli wants of him.  But Eli has not called.  Again, he hears the call and again he runs to Eli, and learns Eli has not called.

“Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him” (3:7). This time, Eli instructs him to respond differently if he hears the voice again—to say, “’Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’” (3:9).

The next time we are told “the Lord came and stood there, calling as before” (3:10). But this time Samuel responds as instructed and the Lord reveals to him that He is about to do something in Israel “that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle” (3:11). He is going to punish the blasphemy of Eli’s sons.  At first Samuel is afraid to tell Eli what God said, but he does and Eli accepts it. “’It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him” (3:18).

As Samuel grows, the Lord is with him.  He does not let any of the Lord’s words “fall to the ground” (3:19). He gains a reputation as a trustworthy prophet at the Shiloh sanctuary.

1 Samuel 4 – The Philistines are Israel’s great enemy at this time.  They are in conflict now—the Israelites encamped at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek, due west of Shiloh on the eastern part of the Plain of Sharon. 

When they lose in battle, the Israelites call for the ark to be brought to them “so that [the Lord] may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies” (4:3). Eli’s two sons bring it.  When it arrives the whole camp shouts “so that the earth resounded” (4:5). The fervor of the Israelites makes the Philistines anxious. 

Again they fight, and again the Israelites lose; they flee “everyone to his home” (4:10). There is a great slaughter and the ark is captured (4:11). The two sons of Eli are killed.  One of the men runs back to tell Eli who is waiting in Shiloh, “his heart trembl[ing] for the ark of God” (4:13). Eli is 99 years old and blind.  The news kills him (4:18).

Phineas’ wife, who is pregnant, gives birth and then dies too.  The son’s name was Ichabod (meaning “the glory has departed from Israel”). Eerdman’s suggests the city of Shiloh was probably destroyed by the Philistines at this time as well.

Augustine (354-430 AD)

Confessions

13 - Did I not, then, growing out of the state of infancy, come to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me, and succeed to infancy? Nor did my infancy depart (for whither went it?); and yet it did no longer abide, for I was no longer an infant that could not speak, but a chattering boy. I remember this, and I afterwards observed how I first learned to speak, for my elders did not teach me words in any set method, as they did letters afterwards; but myself, when I was unable to say all I wished and to whomsoever I desired, by means of the whimperings and broken utterances and various motions of my limbs, which I used to enforce my wishes, repeated the sounds in my memory by the mind, O my God, which You gave me. When they called anything by name, and moved the body towards it while they spoke, I saw and gathered that the thing they wished to point out was called by the name they then uttered; and that they did mean this was made plain by the motion of the body, even by the natural language of all nations expressed by the countenance, glance of the eye, movement of other members, and by the sound of the voice indicating the affections of the mind, as it seeks, possesses, rejects, or avoids. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in duly placed sentences, I gradually gathered what things they were the signs of; and having formed my mouth to the utterance of these signs, I thereby expressed my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me the signs by which we express our wishes, and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending the while on the authority of parents, and the beck of elders.

Interesting analysis of the way we incorporate into us the particular language we are raised with and the universal body language and tone that all people share. We all also “advance [as Augustine did] into the stormy fellowship of human life.”

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: 1 Samuel 1 and Augustine's Confessions 11

1 Samuel 1 – Elkanah of Ramathaim (or simply Ramah), an Ephraimite, had two wives—Peninnah and Hannah.  Peninnah had children but Hannah, whom he loved more, did not. 

When Israel still worshiped and sacrificed at Shiloh, Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phineas were priests there.  Hannah wept and prayed there to have a son, promising to make him a nazirite for his entire life if God would only grant her this.  God is addressed here as YHWH Sabbaoth Jerusalem Bible note says this meant ‘YHWH of Armies’ and was associated with the ark, which was in Seilun at this time, 12 miles south of Nablus; it was a title used often in the major prophets—except for Ezekiel and in the psalms.

Eli observes her one time. At first he thinks she is acting drunk—not unusual apparently during feasts such as Tabernacles, but she explains her grief to him and he asks God to grant her prayer. In due time, Hannah does have a son and names him Samuel.  When she is ready to wean him, she brings him to Shiloh along with a bull, flour and wine.  These she sacrifices and then offers Samuel to Eli: “I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord” (1:28).

Augustine (354-430 AD)

Confessions

11 - Hearken, O God! Alas for the sins of men! Man says this, and You have compassion on him; for You created him, but did not create the sin that is in him. Who brings to my remembrance the sin of my infancy? For before You, none is free from sin, not even the infant, which has lived but a day upon the earth. Who brings this to my remembrance? Does not each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of myself? In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the breast? If I should now so cry—not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years—I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked. For as we grow we root out and cast from us such habits. I have not seen any one who is wise, when "purging" John 15:2 anything cast away the good. Or was it good, even for a time, to strive to get by crying that which, if given, would be hurtful— to be bitterly indignant that those who were free and its elders, and those to whom it owed its being, besides many others wiser than it, who would not give way to the nod of its good pleasure, were not subject unto it— to endeavor to harm, by struggling as much as it could, because those commands were not obeyed which only could have been obeyed to its hurt? Then, in the weakness of the infant's limbs, and not in its will, lies its innocency. I myself have seen and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that they appease these things by I know not what remedies; and may this be taken for innocence, that when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and abundant, one who has need should not be allowed to share it, though needing that nourishment to sustain life? Yet we look leniently on these things, not because they are not faults, nor because the faults are small, but because they will vanish as age increases. For although you may allow these things now, you could not bear them with equanimity if found in an older person.

The origin of sin in us. An interesting book I am reading notes that language itself is “metaphor” – finding concrete things to represent the thought one is trying to convey. The word sin comes from the Old English word “synn.” It means "to miss the mark" or "to miss the target" which was also used in Old English archery. We embody a capacity to reason, and when we don’t act rationally, it seems and is “off the mark” and is judged so by others. When we are children, we have the capacity in us to grow in reason but it takes time, and one of the ways we learn that is by missing the mark.

I don’t think you really get a sense of what sin is until you “see it” on your own for the first time. I remember being censured or told things I was doing that were “wrong” or “selfish” or “not allowed.” But my first recognition of “sinfulness” in myself came when I was about eight, and I started to tell my friends – those who visited with me in the apartment where I was living with my grandfather. My grandmother had just passed away and I was dealing with the reality of death and aging. I also had a strange situation in having both parents alive and living in NYC but only seeing them monthly on brief outings. So I started to use a painting that was up in my bedroom to explain to friends that my parents lived on the farm pictured in the painting – up in Vermont. But my parents thought the schools were better in Westchester and had me staying with my grandfather to go to the schools. It was a romantic falsehood; there were horses and other animals I love on the farm. I went there in the summers. We did usually go away in the summers to vacation with aunts or uncles.

The lie became something I had to carefully hide. It became impossible to have friends over because they might say something about the farm to my grandfather. It was bad and the weight of it did not leave me until we moved; and that move was the beginning of my real sense of God’s presence. Enough for now.