1 Samuel 2:27 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 2:27
And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house?
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
man
אִישׁ'ish-
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
אֱלֹהִ֖ים'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Eli
עֵלִ֑י'e.Li
H5941
Eli · proper noun, a man's name
said
וַיֹּ֣אמֶרvai.Yo.mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
saith
אָמַ֣ר'a.Mar
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
plainly
הֲנִגְלֹ֤הha.nig.Loh
H1540
to denude (especially in a disgraceful sense) · interrogative particle + verb, niphal infinitive absolute
appear
נִגְלֵ֙יתִי֙nig.Lei.ti
H1540
to denude (especially in a disgraceful sense) · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
house
בֵּ֣יתbeit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct
father
אָבִ֔יךָ'a.Vi.kha
H1
father · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
Egypt
בְּמִצְרַ֖יִםbe.mitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · preposition + proper noun, a place name
Pharaoh’s
פַּרְעֹֽהpar.'Oh
H6547
Paroh · noun, masculine singular absolute
house
לְבֵ֥יתle.Veit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
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
Judges 13:6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God…
Exodus 4:14-16 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And al…
Exodus 4:27 And the LORD said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and kissed him.
Deuteronomy 33:1 And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.
1 Kings 13:1 And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Beth-el: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.
Exodus 12:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
Exodus 12:43 And the LORD said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof:
Judges 6:8 That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egy…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 2:27–end
Eli reproved his sons too gently, and did not threaten them as he should, and therefore God sent a prophet to him to reprove him sharply, and to threaten him, because, by his indulgence of them, he had strengthened their hands in their wickedness. If good men be wanting in their duty, and by their carelessness and remissness contribute any thing to the sin of sinners, they must expect both to hear of it and to smart for it. Eli's family was now nearer to God than all the families of the earth, and therefore he will punish them, Amo 3:2. The message is sent to Eli himself, because God would bring him to repentance and save him; not to his sons, whom he had determined to destroy. And it might…
A PROPHECY AGAINST ELI'S HOUSE. (Sa1 2:27-35)
there came a man of God unto Eli, and said . . . that there shall not be an old man in thine house--So much importance has always, in the East, been attached to old age, that it would be felt to be a great calamity, and sensibly to lower the respectability of any family which could boast of few or no old men. The prediction of this prophet was fully confirmed by the afflictions, degradation, poverty, and many untimely deaths with which the house of Eli was visited after its announcement (see Sa1 4:11; Sa1 14:3; Sa1 22:18-23; Kg1 2:27).
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 2:27
There came a man of God - Who this was we know not, but the Chaldee terms him נביא דיי nebiya daya, a prophet of Jehovah.
Unto the house of thy father - That is, to Aaron; he was the first high priest; the priesthood descended from him to his eldest son Eleazar, then to Phinehas. It became afterwards established in the younger branch of the family of Aaron; for Eli was a descendant of Ithamar, Aaron's youngest son. From Eli it was transferred back again to the family of Eleazar, because of the profligacy of Eli's sons.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 2:27
And there came a man of God unto Eli,.... A prophet, as the Targum; he had gifts and graces bestowed on him by the Lord, qualifying him for that office; he came from God, and spoke in his name, as prophets used to do: who this was is not said, nor can it be known with certainty; many conjectures are made; some think he might he Phinehas, as Ben Gersom and Abarbinel (a), which is not at all likely; it is not probable that he was living, for if he had been alive, Eli would not have been high priest; the more ancient Jews say (b) he was Elkanah, the father of Samuel; and so Jarchi; and he is said in the Targum on 1 Samuel 1:1, to be one of the disciples of the prophets, and was reckoned by them…
The Church Fathers
Was I not openly revealed? etc. He does not speak here of the recent father of Eli, who could not have been in that Egyptian servitude; but of Aaron himself, to whose house He was revealed in Egypt, and whom He, having been instructed from there, preferred to all the tribes of Israel by the right of the priesthood.
Now a man of God is described as having come to Eli, who, being about to bring forth the severity of the divine sentence, carefully enumerated how many gifts He had bestowed upon him. And because he finally announces the punishment of the vengeance that he deserved, what does this give us to understand, except that the faults of pastors are judged more strictly? And not only do their sins increase the punishment of retribution, but also the gifts that were granted. Likewise, because he recounts those same gifts one by one, he indicates something more serious: that each individual gift comes to be a torment, when it is proved to have been poorly preserved. For he poorly guards in himself the gifts of almighty God who defiles the splendor of the pastoral summit through the stains of wicked conduct.
23. What is represented by this man of God, if not that venerable company of the holy apostles? He is indeed called a man of God on account of the excellence of his holiness, because he governed the summit of authority, which he had ascended in the governance of the whole world, with an equal loftiness of virtue. He came to Eli at that time when he approached the chief priests to announce the rejection of the Synagogue. There follows: (Verses 27, 28.) And he said to him: Was I not plainly revealed to the house of your father, when he was in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh, and I chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to ascend to my altar, and to burn incense before me, and to wear the ephod in my presence, and I gave to the house of your father all the sacrifices of the children of Israel?
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Eli — Ascent, the high priest when the ark was at Shiloh (1 Sam. 1:3, 9). He was the first of the line of Ithamar, Aaron’s fourth son (1 Chr. 24:3; comp. 2 Sam. 8:17), who held that office. The office…
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,…
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…
Eli · Prophecies of — Prophecies of
High Priest, The · Family of Eli degraded from office of, for bad conduct — Family of Eli degraded from office of, for bad conduct
Hophni · Sin of — Sin of
Judgments · Eli’s house — Eli’s house
Parents · Involved in children’s wickedness — Involved in children’s wickedness
Announcement of the judgment upon Eli and his house. - Sa1 2:27. Before the Lord interposed in judgment, He sent a prophet (a "man of God," as in Jdg 13:6) to the aged Eli, to announce as a warning for all ages the judgment which was about to fall upon the worthless priests of his house. In order to arouse Eli's own conscience, he had pointed out to him, on the one hand, the grace manifested in the choice of his father's house, i.e., the house of Aaron, to keep His sanctuary (Sa1 2:27 and Sa1 2:28), and, on the other hand, the desecration of the sanctuary by the wickedness of his sons (Sa1 2:29). Then follows the sentence: The choice of the family of Aaron still stood fast, but the deepest d…
Man of God is another name for a prophet (9:6; 1 Kgs 13:1; 2 Kgs 1:9).
Rashi on 1 Samuel 2:27
The man of God came. This was Elkonoh.
Have I not repeatedly revealed Myself to your ancestor's family. From here [our Sages concluded] that Aharon prophesied in Egypt. What was the prophecy? It is stated, "and I said to them, 'Every man, cast away the detestable idols of his eyes, do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt.'"18Ibid., 20:7.
Have I not repeatėdly revealed Myself. Did you know that this favor and greatness I gave to Aharon.19Ralbag interprets this phrase as an affirmative statement, i.e., “I did indeed reveal myself to the…”
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).
