Prophet Samuel
August 20th
He was sleeping peacefully, on the night when it all began.
He was a mere boy, only 12 years old, but the Lord God of Israel had apparently decided that he was old enough to become a prophet. How else could he ever hope to explain the incredible series of events that began with the sound of a deep, powerful voice echoing through the darkness of midnight?
Samuel, Samuel . . .
The boy opened one eye. Had he been dreaming? Who had just called his name? Gazing through a nearby window, he saw the ancient stars glittering in the night sky above Palestine. As always, he was sleeping tonight in a small room that had been created for him in the Temple at Shiloh, where he was living under the care of the Great High Priest, Eli. Blinking slowly, he asked himself if he had imagined the insistent voice that kept calling and calling his name.Samuel, Samuel, Samuel! TAKEN FROM
This time he sat up straight on the narrow bed. Wild-eyed, he looked around the cluttered room for an intruder. But he saw nothing. The room was empty. In the pale light thrown by the stars, he could see the wooden chair the Priest had given him, and the dim shadow thrown by the chair, and the coat he had taken off at bedtime.
The voice began to speak! Thrilled and transfixed, the boy sat paralyzed while the words tumbled through his head. Was he hearing these phrases with his outer ears, or with his inner soul? Amazed and more than a little frightened, he listened to the words that flowed one by one through the silence of the night. They told him of a
dreadful event that was coming, and coming soon. A mighty army was en route to the Land of the Israelites – the fearsome Philistines. The army was unstoppable, and the people of Israel were about to be overwhelmed. Thousands would die brutal deaths, and the Sacred Ark of the Covenant would be carried off by a barbarous people – leaving the defeated Israelites to writhe helplessly in their ignominy and shame.
dreadful event that was coming, and coming soon. A mighty army was en route to the Land of the Israelites – the fearsome Philistines. The army was unstoppable, and the people of Israel were about to be overwhelmed. Thousands would die brutal deaths, and the Sacred Ark of the Covenant would be carried off by a barbarous people – leaving the defeated Israelites to writhe helplessly in their ignominy and shame.
The great voice spoke to Samuel at Shiloh in the year 1096 B.C., which was almost eleven centuries before the birth of the Holy Savior who would free the world from death and sin. And the more the youthful Samuel listened to these warnings from above, the more alarmed he became. According to the prophetic message he was receiving, the Philistines would succeed in large part because of some terrible transgressions that were taking place in the House of Eli, the same High Priest who commanded the Temple! Those transgressions stemmed from the conduct of Eli’s two blasphemous sons, Hophni and Phineas, who had refused to worship the One True God of Israel and who had instead begun to engage in a spiritual revolt.
Make no mistake: Hophni and Phineas had turned away from Almighty God – and their morally flawed father, Eli, had been too afraid of their wrath to properly discipline them. Unless he moved quickly, a disaster of immense proportions would overwhelm not only the House of Eli but also the entire Nation of Israel!
As the amazed Samuel listened to these alarming predictions, he could only marvel at the extraordinary set of circumstances that had placed him on the scene at Shiloh, where he would now be required to tell the world about the moral lapse by Eli and his sons, and also about the terrible catastrophe that was coming to Israel.
Born around 1108 B.C. at Arimathea in Palestine (but fully eleven centuries before another resident of that town, Joseph of Arimathea, would carry the body of Jesus Christ to his burial site in Jerusalem), Samuel was the son of two pious Jews from the tribe of Levi: Elkanah and his longsuffering wife, Hannah.
Infertile for many years, the patient Hannah had tearfully implored God again and again to send her a child. And when the baby boy finally arrived, she thanked the Almighty for the miracle by naming him Samuel (the name means “heard by God”) – and by delivering the child, at the age of only three, to the priest of the Great Temple of Shiloh, there to be raised as a living prayer of thanks to the goodness of the Holy God of Israel.
This was the sequence of events, then, that had shaped the boyhood of Samuel . . . who was destined to become the fifteenth (and final) Judge of Israel, and also to become one of her greatest prophets during an extraordinary life of more than ninety-eight years.
A keenly intelligent child with a natural inclination for prayer, Samuel soon realized that he was required by God to tell the people of Shiloh (then the home of the Ark of the Covenant, which was the most sacred artifact in all of Jewish life) about the inexcusable perfidy of Hophni and Phineas. At the same time, the Prophet would warn them about the looming attack of the mighty Philistines.
To speak aloud of these things in Shiloh required great courage, but the Lord provided Samuel with plenty of that. All too soon, the highly articulate young man was causing great consternation throughout the region, by telling everyone who would listen about the prophecy that had been given to him on the night beneath the stars of Palestine.
The reaction was quite predictable, of course. While some of the elders and priests of Shiloh charged Samuel with outrageous slander, others insisted that the youth had simply lost his reason and was talking gibberish. Content with these simplistic explanations, the residents of Shiloh and its environs did nothing to investigate the charges against the House of Eli. Day after day and week after week, they continued to ignore the warnings that were issuing repeatedly from the mouth of the youthful prophet.
All too soon, the terrible disaster struck.
Marching with an immense army, the powerful Philistines battered their way past every obstacle, while crushing their opponents in battle after battle. Cities burned, cattle were slaughtered, and crops were put to the torch. In the end, more than 30,000 Israelites would be cruelly killed in battle, and Shiloh would be left in smoking ruins . . . while the victorious Philistines made off with the priceless Ark of the Covenant.
During the raging struggle that surrounded the invasion, both Hophni and Phineas were killed. When a messenger arrived at the Temple to inform the Priest Eli of his tragic loss, the news sent him crashing to the ground – where he broke his back and promptly died. But the devastation was not yet complete. Informed of the situation a few hours later, the wife of Phineas suddenly delivered their expected child (Ichabod) and then expired from shock, after crying out: But You have saved us from our enemies, and have put to shame those who hated us. (1 Samuel 4: 22)
What followed was even worse, however; after their humiliating defeat, the Israelites would spend twenty grueling years as the slaves of the Philistines – before finally heeding the voice of their new prophet, Samuel, and returning to the true and proper worship of Almighty God. Only then, when Samuel’s voice had finally been listened to, would the people of Israel regain their freedom and recapture the sacred Ark of the Covenant.
From this point on, the man whose prophecy had at first been rejected would be revered as prophet, priest and judge – and it would be Samuel who would lead the Israelite warriors into the war that finally won them their liberation from the Philistines!
After these mighty struggles, the wise Samuel would lead his people for another fifty years, during which he would remind them again and again that worshipping the One True God of Israel was their first and foremost obligation as human beings. Along the way, the elderly prophet would also anoint one of the greatest kings in the royal line of Israel, the noble David.
When the aging prophet finally went to his eternal reward – at age 98, around 1010 B.C. – the entire nation mourned the loss of one of the most faithful and devoted spiritual counselors in their history. At the end Samuel was buried in his own house in the small town of Arimathea, a beloved figure whose long and faithful life continues to inspire Christians and non-Christians to this very day.
Apolytikion in the Second Tone
As we celebrate the memory of Thy Prophet Samuel, O Lord, through him we beseech Thee to save our souls.
Kontakion in the Eighth Tone
Thy hallowed mother dedicated thee unto the Lord even before she had conceived thee; and when thou wast born, thou didst serve Him from thine infancy like an Angel. And, O Prophet of the Most High, for thy fervent faith, thou wast granted to foretell things that should come to pass. Hence, we cry to thee: Rejoice, O venerable Samuel.
