1 Samuel 3

1. The child Samuel. Better, “the boy Samuel.” —there was no other vision. Rather, “vision was not frequent.”

3 and ere the lamp, etc. Rather, as R.V., “and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down to sleep in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.”

13 he restrained them not. How impressively does this history teach the importance of parental control and discipline? Eli had reproved his sons (ii. 23-25), but he had not done all in his power to restrain them. Had he been unable, as a father, to check them, he ought, as high priest, to have deposed them. In both capacities, through his want of moral courage, though a good man, he sadly failed in his duty; and his weak administration not only involved his family in ruin, but brought the affairs of the nation to the lowest ebb.

14 shall not be purged, etc. An appropriate punishment to those who had “caused the Lord’s offering to be abhorred.”

21. The Lord appeared again. That is, perhaps, the Eternal manifested His glory by the oracular voice in the sanctuary from between the cherubim. The following sentence, “And the word of Samuel came to all Israel,” is the end of the paragraph, not, as in A.V., the beginning of a new chapter.