1 Samuel 4:16-17

What is there done, my son? Literally, What is the thing? Or, as the phrase is translated in 2 Samuel 1:4 , "How went the matter?" Eli must have gathered from the words of the messenger that Israel had been defeated; for he expressly says, I fled, and his haste, as testified by the added words today , showed that the defeat was a severe one. Eli, therefore, anxiously asks what has happened, and the answer piles misery upon misery, rapidly heaping together four crushing catastrophes. For Israel had fled before the Philistines; there had been a great slaughter; among the slain were Eli's two sons; and, worst of all, the ark of God was taken .