1 Samuel 2:24

1Sa 2:24 Nay, my sons; for [it is] no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD’S people to transgress.

Ver. 24. Nay, my sons.] Too mild all along. He should have said as Isa 57:3-4, "Draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore," &c., ye degenerate brood and sons of Belial, and not of Eli; ye brats of fathomless perdition, &c.

For it is no good report that I hear.] He should have said, It is stark stinking naught that I hear, and woe is me that I yet live to hear it; it had been better that I had died long since, or that you had been buried alive, than thus to live and stink above ground. But he saith only, "I hear ill of you by all the people": as if he went only upon hearsay; and were put on by the people thus to check them.

Ye make the Lord’s people to transgress.] Or, To cry out: to transgress, even to a cry, by their abhorring the sacrifices, - see 1Sa 2:17 - which they did, but ought not to have done, - for the evil lives of those profligate priests.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Because they contemn their duty to God, verse 17.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(24) Ye make the Lord’s people to transgress.—The life led by the priests publicly in the sanctuary, with their evident scornful unbelief in the divinely established holy ordinances on the one hand, and their unblushing immorality on the other, corrupted the inner religious life of the whole people.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him, &c. When one man does an injury to another in his person and property, the case is brought before the judge, he hears it, examines into it, and determines upon it, and does justice, orders that the injured person have satisfaction made him, and so the matter is ended:

but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him? all sin is in some sense against God, as it is contrary to his nature, and a breach of his law, and especially bold, daring, presumptuous sins; but there are some sins that are more immediately and particularly against God, as sins against the first table of the law, which relate to the worship of God, and such were the sins of Eli's sons in the affair of sacrifices; all sin against God is aggravated by the perfections of his nature, and made tremendous, as being against a God of strict justice, of unspotted purity and holiness, and who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent; and by the relation and connection there is between God and men, he is their Creator and Preserver, the God of their lives and mercies, and of all the blessings they enjoy, and yet sin against him! who will entreat the favour of God for such persons, ask pardon for them, and beseech the Lord to be propitious and merciful to them? who on earth will do it? such persons are scarce and rare, few care to stand up in the gap between God and sinners; in some cases they ought not, in others they cannot. Eli suggests by this question, that he could not, even for his own sons; and who in heaven can or will do it? not saints departed, who know nothing of what is done below, nor angels, only the Lord Jesus Christ; he is the only Mediator between God and men, who has engaged his heart to approach unto God, and interpose between him and sinful men, and has made peace and reconciliation by his blood, and is become the propitiation for sin, and ever lives to make intercession for transgressors, and is always prevalent and successful in his mediation and intercession; excepting him, there is none to entreat for those that have sinned against the Lord, see Jo1 2:1. In answer to this question, who shall entreat for him? the Jews say (x) repentance and good works; but these are insufficient advocates for a sinner, without the atoning sacrifice of Christ, who is propitiation for sin, and upon which a plea can only be founded:

notwithstanding, they hearkened not unto the voice of their father; to his reproofs and counsels, his reasonings and expostulations; though his rebukes were so gentle, and this last reasoning of his so close and strong, so nervous and striking:

because the Lord would slay them; it was his purpose and decree, his will and pleasure, to cut them off for their wickedness; wherefore he gave them up to a judicial blindness, and hardness of heart, as he did Pharaoh, so that they were proof against all advice, admonitions, and arguments used with them: some choose to read the words, "therefore the Lord would slay them" (y), because they were disobedient to the voice of their father; but the former sense is best; for his will to destroy them was not so much for their disregard to the reproofs of their father in which he himself was culpable, as for their breach of his laws.

(x) T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 87. 1. (y) "ideo", Noldius, p. 395. No. 1342. "idcirco vel quapropter", Quistorp, so Patrick.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Words too mild for such diabolical actions.

Ye make the Lord’s people to transgress; either,

1. The women that by your instigation were drawn to folly. Or,

2. Others who are easily brought to follow your pernicious example. Or,

3. Other persons of pious and honest minds, whom therefore he calls the

Lord’s people by way of distinction from the children of Belial, who were so highly offended. with the great dishonour done to God and to his worship, and with the horrible wickedness of the priests, that upon that occasion they were hurried into the other extreme, and lived in the neglect and contempt of their own indispensable duty of offering sacrifices, because they came through the priests’ hands.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 24, 25. Ye make, etc. Eli"s words are very obscure, but "Ye make Jehovah"s people to transgress" is upon the whole the best rendering of the clause. Both the Sept. and Syriac have a different reading: "Ye make Jehovah"s people cease to worship him" In the next verse there is no sufficient reason for supposing that Elohim, God, here means a judge. Elohim was the head of the theocracy, the ruler of Israel in all things, and he would set to rights these delinquencies of "one man against another" by the ordinary exercise of his judicial functions. So far all is easy, and we must translate, "If one man sin against another, God shall judge him." But in the last clause there is one of those plays upon words to which the Hebrew language, with its numerous conjugations, so readily lends itself; (see on 1Sa_1:28) and it is rarely possible to transfer to another language the force of passages in which the sense depends upon the terms in the original having a double meaning. The verb rendered shall judge in the first clause is used again by Eli in the second, but in a different conjugation, in which its usual meaning is to pray. According to the lexicon, therefore, we must translate: "If a man sin against Jehovah, who shall pray for him?" But surely it was just the occasion in which the only remedy left was intercessory prayer. Bearing then in remembrance the use made by Eli of the verb in the first clause, we must translate: "Who shall act as judge for him?" "Who shall interpose as arbitrator between him and Jehovah to settle the quarrel?" The verb itself, moreover, is a rare and old-fashioned one, and apparently means to settle a dispute. So it is used of Phinehas, who by his righteous zeal put an end to the rebellion against God"s laws; and accordingly in Psa_106:30, where our version renders "executed judgment," the, Vulgate has placavit, appeased Jehovah"s anger.

The sense then is, In case of wrong done between man and man, God as the supreme Arbitrator settles the dispute; but where the two parties are God and man, what third power is there which can interfere? The quarrel must go on to the bitter end, and God, who is your opponent, will also punish you. The same idea is found in Job_9:33. Naturally to so mild a remonstrance, and founded upon so low a view of the Divine nature, the sons of Eli paid but slight attention, and by thus hardening themselves in sin they made their punishment inevitable, "because it pleased Jehovah to slay them." Man can bring upon himself neither good nor evil except by the working of God"s will, and the punishment of sin is as thoroughly a part of God"s will as the rewarding of righteousness. An intense conviction of the personality of God was the very foundation of the religious life of the Israelites, and lies at the root of the words of Eli here and of those of Job; and it was this which made them ascribe to God that hardening of the wicked in sin which is the sure means of their punishment. We ascribe it to the working of natural laws, which after all is but saying the same thing in a round about way; for the laws of nature, in things moral as well as in the physical world, are the laws of God. In ver. 26, in contrast with Eli"s sons ripening for punishment, and daily more abhorred to God and man, we have Samuel set before us advancing in age and "in favour with Jehovah and also with men," like him of whom in so many respects he was a type, (Luk_2:52) our blessed Lord.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

בּני אל, "Not, my sons," i.e., do not such things, "for the report which I hear is not good; they make the people of Jehovah to transgress." מערים is written without the pronoun אתּם in an indefinite construction, like משׁלּחים in Sa1 6:3 (Maurer). Ewald's rendering as given by Thenius, "The report which I hear the people of God bring," is just as inadmissible as the one proposed by Bttcher, "The report which, as I hear, the people of God are spreading." The assertion made by Thenius, that העביר, without any further definition, cannot mean to cause to sin or transgress, is correct enough no doubt; but it does not prove that this meaning is inadmissible in the passage before us, since the further definition is actually to be found in the context.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

That I hear being passed on by Adonoy's people. The rumor which השם's people are spreading about you, an expression similar to, "and they proclaimed [וַיַעֲבִירוּ] throughout the camp; meaning, they let out a rumor about you which is not good.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.