“Samuel.”
Samuel lifted his head.
“Samuel.”
The boy rolled off his sleeping pallet and slipped through the heavy brocade of the lamp-lit sanctuary. He ran, light on the balls of his feet, to the end of the curtained corridor where the high priest Eli slept on a cot. The old man was loosing his eyesight. Sometimes he needed Samuel to guide him in the dark.
“Eli, I’m here.”
The aging priest took a deep breath. Then he snored. Samuel shook his shoulder. “Eli, you called me?”
Eli snorted awake. “Samuel? Samuel boy, what are you doing up this time of night?”
“You called me.”
“Called you? I didn’t call you. Why would I call you? Go back to sleep.”
Samuel bit his lip. Night wind rubbed the tent walls. But he had heard a voice. He went back to his pallet and pulled his new cloak over himself. It smelled like his mother’s home. During the day, Samuel wore a white linen ephod, a child sized version of the priest’s ceremonial robe. The ephod smelled of alter smoke and incense. But once a year, his mother came for the festival. She brought his father and his brothers and sisters and a new robe made just for him. She was always singing.
“My heart is happy in the Lord.
Happy in salvation’s horn.
He knows, he tracks
God gauges our doings.
The strong are shattered
But he strengthens the stumblers,
Even the barren woman has seven children…”
Nearly fourteen years ago, the aging priest Eli spotted a woman sobbing soundlessly in the tabernacle courtyard. Watching her lips move, Eli thought she was drunk. It was the festival. He had seen many drunk women. He had seen several of them with his own sons. Eli spoke to her shortly, “Dump your wine and get your life together.”
She looked up. “No sir, I am not drunk! I’m heartsick. I can’t have children,” she choked. “I’m pouring out my soul to the Lord.”
Recognizing his mistake, Eli quickly blessed her and told her to eat something. Her name was Hannah.
Five years later Hannah appeared before Eli again, leading a little boy by the hand. “I told the Lord that if he would give me a child I would give that child back to the Lord. This is my son. His name is Samuel.”
“Samuel! Samuel…”
The boys sat up again. Maybe Eli had changed his mind. He crept down the hall. “I’m here. You called me.”
Eli rolled over heavily. “My son,“ he mumbled, “I did not call you. Go back and lay down. It’s easier to fall asleep if you lie down.”
Samuel shuffled back to the sanctuary. He loved the old man like a father but Eli was not his father. Eli had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. They also wore the ephod. With its status, they bullied men and seduced women. They treated the people’s sacrificial offerings like their own personal meat market. Nothing Eli said slowed them down.
Last year, a man arrived to give Eli a message from God. Samuel ducked behind a tent flap to listen. God’s word lived on scrolls but a word to the living was rare.
“The Lord says, why do you honor your sons more than me, fattening yourself on what my people bring? Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me I will drop like a damp rag. I’m warning you. Everyone in your family will die young and both your sons will die on the same day.“
When the man left, Samuel watched Eli sit heavily by the gate and blink into a distance he couldn’t see. And nothing changed.
Samuel checked the oil in all the lamps. He slept in the sanctuary to make sure they burned sunset to sunrise. He lay down, watching the petal-like flames grow from each wick. The great center lamp stood like a tree with seven golden branches guarding a memory of Eden.
In Eden, God could walk with sinless man and they could talk together. At Sinai, God had instructed Moses to re-create an Eden space in this tent of meeting. A tent could move and God could meet with his people anywhere. But now the tabernacle tent had been at Shiloh for so long, the tent pegs set in like roots and didn’t move. And the word of the Lord was rare in the land.
“Samuel. Samuel!”
Samuel set up with a huff. He did not mind helping Eli but the man should make up his mind. For the third time he walked down the hallway. “Eli, I’m here. You called me.”
Eli groaned in his sleep, “Samuel? I told you to…” Mid-sentence, Eli heaved himself up and gripped the 12-year-old’s boney shoulder. “You hear someone calling your name? Yes? Listen to me, Samuel. Go back and lie down and if that Voice calls you again say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’ Do you understand me?” He made the boy repeat it. “Go lay down.”
Samuel tiptoed back to the sanctuary door. Lord? The Lord? Samuel hesitated to face the holy place but he didn’t dare turn his back. He laid down, pulled his cloak over his head, and closed his eyes very tightly.
He felt someone come and stand there.
“Samuel. Samuel!”
How could he mistake that for Eli? That wasn’t any voice. It crashed over him like wind and water and festival trumpets.
Samuel’s voice cracked. “I’m here… Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”
“Samuel,” said the Lord, “keep your eyes open. I’m about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle…”
The next morning, Eli hoisted himself out of his cot to find that the sanctuary was already open, the lamps trimmed, the sunlight streaming in. But he didn’t find Samuel. The boy wasn’t in the kitchens or the courtyard. The priest finally found his helper in the storeroom, wiping the great stone jars of sacred oil over and over. “Samuel? Samuel my son.”
The boy turned around, his eyes on the floor. “I’m here.”
“What did God say to you?” Eli asked. He stooped down to look the boy in the face. “Don’t hide what God said from me, not a single word or God will know.”
So Samuel told him everything. God said He was about to judge Eli’s sons and make real everything He’d already warned Eli about. Samuel finished the terrible words and looked up. Even Eli’s short sight could see the tears trembling in the boy’s eyes. He set his big hands on the boy’s shoulders. “He is the Lord; let Him do what He sees to be good. And God spoke to you. That is good.”
So the Lord was with Samuel. As he grew up, none of his words were dropped. People picked up each saying and carried them away until all of Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that God and a prophet were in conversation again.
And Hannah sang:
“There is no one like God who kills and brings life.
In His world, the full bellied work for a crust
But the hungry have no empty cupboards.
He safe steps with His saints
And gives His anointed power.”
This story can be found in 1 Samuel chapters 1-3 of the Bible. Read the whole story for yourself and subscribe to get Anna’s next retelling in your inbox.
