1 Samuel 4:17

17. The messenger answered and said The simple, direct, and yet climacteric way in which the messenger tells his tale of sorrow has attracted the notice of all critics. How few the words used to relate all the items of this thrilling message! How each successive statement rises in the announcement of a still severer loss! First he says:

Israel is fled before the Philistines This was the beginning of sorrows.

A great slaughter among the people This was worse than flight, and the cause of lamentation in thousands of Israelitish homes.

Thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead Most terrible tidings for a devoted father! And perhaps those sons had gone forth to the field of battle despite the father’s prayer and entreaties. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of the man of God who had before announced the downfall of his house, (1 Samuel 2:34,) and this was to be for Eli the sign of yet heavier woes.

The ark of God is taken This was the calamity of the tabernacle in that which was Israel’s highest hope and glory. 1 Samuel 2:32. The ark was the symbol of the Divine Presence, and its loss foreshadowed, in Eli’s mind, the utter destruction of his nation and the abolishment of Jehovah’s covenant with them. In Judges 18:30, this capture of the ark is called “the captivity of the land,” so deeply was it, from the theocratic standpoint, identified and associated with the highest interests and holiest hopes of all Israel. And the wickedness of his sons had been largely the cause of all this woe! All these thoughts, and many more, rushed in upon his mind as the last terrible announcement fell upon his ear, and his enfeebled constitution and trembling heart could not endure the shock.