1 Samuel 2:15 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 2:15
Also before they burnt the fat, the priest’s servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw.
flesh (from its freshness) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
raw
חָֽיChai
H2416
alive · adjective, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 3:16 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’s.
Leviticus 3:3-5 And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all…
Romans 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the s…
Philippians 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Jude 1:12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 2:11-26
In these verses we have the good character and posture of Elkanah's family, and the bad character and posture of Eli's family. The account of these two is observably interwoven throughout this whole paragraph, as if the historian intended to set the one over against the other, that they might set off one another. The devotion and good order of Elkanah's family aggravated the iniquity of Eli's house; while the wickedness of Eli's sons made Samuel's early piety appear the more bright and illustrious.
I. Let us see how well things went in Elkanah's family and how much better than formerly. 1. Eli dismissed them from the house of the Lord, when they had entered their little son there, with a ble…
the priests' custom with the people--When persons wished to present a sacrifice of peace offering on the altar, the offering was brought in the first instance to the priest, and as the Lord's part was burnt, the parts appropriated respectively to the priests and offerers were to be sodden. But Eli's sons, unsatisfied with the breast and shoulder, which were the perquisites appointed to them by the divine law (Exo 29:27; Lev 7:31-32), not only claimed part of the offerer's share, but rapaciously seized them previous to the sacred ceremony of heaving or waving (see on Lev 7:29); and moreover they committed the additional injustice of taking up with their fork those portions which they preferre…
Before they burnt the fat - They would serve themselves before God was served! This was iniquity and arrogance of the first magnitude.
He will not have sodden flesh - He chooses roast meat, not boiled; and if they had it in the pot before the servant came, he took it out that it might be roasted.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 2:15
Also before they burnt the fat,.... Which belonged to the Lord, and was to be offered to him by fire, in the first place, as it ought to be; and the order of sacrificing required that he should have his part first before the priest or the owner: but so impious were the priests become, that
the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed; not to the priest that offered, but to the man that brought his sacrifice to be offered by the priest:
give flesh to roast for the priest; meaning, not what was his by law, as the breast and shoulder, though for these he ought to have stayed until the fat was offered to the Lord; but other parts of the peace offering, which he had no right u…
The Church Fathers
Even before they burned the fat, etc. The wickedness of Pharisaic deception progressed so far that even before they taught that the rich offering of love, most pleasing to God, should be made, which should be offered singularly on the altar of the heart before other sacrifices of virtues, they would put their own service before divine worship; telling their wretched listeners that each should not consume the enticements of carnal lust with a flame of heavenly charity worthy of God, but should spend these less chastised in the injury to the Creator according to the whim of carnal commands. However, these wicked ones said this to their listeners not with words, but with the deeds themselves. We wish we did not know that very similar things are being done today by teachers and priests of the Church.
6. He would give raw meat to the boy, who before the persecutors would assert the pure humanity of Christ, and the boy would cook it for the priest, because through the fire of malice the Jewish people would think this: that their leaders would willingly receive it in the refreshment of their mind. Therefore the priest's boy came and demanded raw meat, when the Jewish people, serving the letter of the law, urged the faithful to deny the divinity of the Redeemer. Coming therefore he says: "I will not accept cooked meat from you, but raw." Because the one whom the faithful person was compelled to confess as a mere man, he did not even wish to hear was God. The importunity of this people is indeed shown when sacrilegious words are doubled in wicked exaction. For it follows: "I will not accept cooked meat from you, but raw." Because he greatly desired to hear that Jesus our Lord and Redeemer was not Lord and man, but only a mere man. But those whom he tested as if imperfect in the flesh, he found perfect. For those who were compelled to deny the divinity of the Redeemer not only refused to deny the Redeemer, but took care to draw their very compellers to life. ...
But whoever had sacrificed a victim, the priest's boy would come, etc. Whoever at that time had decided to consecrate his life to the Lord, the disciples of the scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests would come, as his carnal customs began to be boiled away by the fire of heavenly devotion, and they had the rapacious desire of the world in their works; whose three-pronged bite the Apostle John describes, saying: For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2). And they would send examples or even teachings of earthly desires into whatever heart of the listener, whether it be teachable, or of slower and narrower intellect, whether weak and fragile, or patient of adversity, whether effective in speaking, or rustic and less eloquent, which is distinguished by the variety of larger and smaller iron, bronze, or earthen vessels; and they would pollute the small flame of divine love that someone had recently conceived by their worst touch, not expecting the reward of preaching as the law decreed, but rather compelling what was due to God to be made an offering to themselves in obedience; by which most crooked staff they also now defile sacred offerings in the church, whoever, having received the mystery of faith or even the ministry of the word, seek their own benefit, not that of Jesus Christ.
Dictionary and topics
Fast — The sole fast required by the law of Moses was that of the great Day of Atonement (q.v.), Lev. 23:26-32. It is called “the fast” (Acts 27:9). The only other mention of a periodical fast in the Old…
Hannah — Favour, grace, one of the wives of Elkanah the Levite, and the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 1; 2). Her home was at Ramathaim-zophim, whence she was wont every year to go to Shiloh, where the tabernacle…
Hophni — Pugilist or client, one of the two sons of Eli, the high priest (1 Sam. 1:3; 2:34), who, because he was “very old,” resigned to them the active duties of his office. By their scandalous conduct they…
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Samuel — Heard of God. The peculiar circumstances connected with his birth are recorded in 1 Sam. 1:20. Hannah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, who came up to Shiloh to worship before the Lord, earnestly…
Songs — Of Moses (Ex. 15; Num. 21:17; Deut. 32; Rev. 15:3), Deborah (Judg. 5), Hannah (1 Sam. 2), David (2 Sam. 22, and Psalms), Mary (Luke 1:46-55), Zacharias (Luke 1:68-79), the angels (Luke 2:13), Simeon…
Fat · Offered in sacrifice — Offered in sacrifice
Gluttony · . — .
Hophni · Sin of — Sin of
Judge · .Eli’s — .Eli’s
Offence · Exemplified: Sons of Eli — Exemplified: Sons of Eli
Samuel the servant of the Lord under Eli. Ungodliness of the sons of Eli. - Sa1 2:11 forms the transition to what follows. After Hannah's psalm of thanksgiving, Elkanah went back with his family to his home at Ramah, and the boy (Samuel) was serving, i.e., ministered to the Lord, in the presence of Eli the priest. The fact that nothing is said about Elkanah's wives going with him, does not warrant the interpretation given by Thenius, that Elkanah went home alone. It was taken for granted that his wives went with him, according to Sa1 1:21 ("all his house"). את־יחוה שׁרת, which signifies literally, both here and in Sa1 3:1, to serve the Lord, and which is used interchangeably with יי את־פּני…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
— Were sometimes: Greedy
Worldliness · .Eli’ s — .Eli’ s
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).