Because the Lord Would Slay Them
(Part
2)
Troy
J. Edwards
We learned in Part 1 that
the Hebrew word for “because” should have been translated as “therefore.” The
substitution of the former term dispels the incorrect notion that God ensured
Eli’s sons’ sinfulness through an unstoppable edict for the latter.
Furthermore, God despises
the death and devastation of wicked people (Ezek. 18:23; 33:11; 2 Pet. 3:9).
This leaves us with one more puzzle to solve: the belief that God personally
punishes sinners. While most Evangelicals have no objection to God personally
destroying rebels through the exercise of His supernatural might, this
viewpoint contradicts Christ’s teachings on God’s character.
Our Lord taught us that
the Father did not send Him to destroy lives, but rather to save them (John
3:16-17; Luke 9:51-56). In fact, Jesus taught that disaster arose as a result
of pushing God away, so separating oneself from the One who wished to save them
from destruction (John 3:18-21; Matt. 23:37-39; Luke 13:34-35). After all, the
process of sowing and reaping produces destruction and death (Gal. 6:7-8; James
1:15; Rom. 6:23).
So how do we interpret
phrases like “because the LORD would slay them”? According to some analysts,
there is nothing in the Hebrew language that indicates who or what is
responsible for Eli’s sons’ destruction:
Because the Lord would slay them. The Hebrew particle vau,
neither designates the cause of their destruction, nor the direct and absolute
intention of God to cut them off in their sins; it is used to declare the
conditional intention of God, in case of their final impenitency .... The gloss
therefore of Calvin, which imputes their destruction to the decree of God, is
unsupported by ancient authority.
If this is true, God is
vindicated, and the stigma of directly causing Hophni and Phinehas’ destruction
is lifted off His shoulders. Another simple solution is to remember that God, in
Scripture phraseology, is frequently said to do what He merely permitted. Joe
Blair, using 2 Kings 24:3 as an example, writes:
To read that the Lord did such judgment and
destruction …. Was characteristic of the Jewish way of thinking. As Sovereign,
everything came under the dictates of God. They did not bother sometimes to
differentiate between God’s causing and God’s allowing. It was not God’s wish
that destruction even come upon Israel, or anyone else, but His will to make
people truly free means that He had to allow people the consequences of their
choices. We know that God does not cause everything. He does not cause us to
sin, for example. God does however permit things to happen, even the bad
things.
By comparing Scripture with
Scripture, we arrive at this same conclusion. Compare Eli’s sons’ deaths to the
psalmist’s commentary on the subject. We read in 1 Samuel 4:
And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten,
and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter;
for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark of God was
taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. (1
Samuel 4:10-11)
When Hophni and Phinehas
fought the Philistines, they were both killed. According to some scholars, they
died while defending the ark, which the Israelites of Hophni and Phinehas’ day
referred to as God’s “glory” (1 Sam. 4:21-22). It’s also known as God’s “strength”
in other places (2 Chron. 6:41; Psalm 132:8).
According to Psalm 78,
God permitted the Philistines to take His ark (His “glory” and “strength”) and
the deaths of those who relied on it. This was not accomplished by empowering
or directly driving the Philistines to commit their atrocities against Israel,
but by forsaking Israel:
So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent which he placed among men; And delivered his strength into
captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand. He gave his people over
also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance. (Psalm
78:60-62)
When we compare the
statement in 1 Samuel 2:25 that “the LORD will slay [or “destroy”] them”
with the statement in Psalm 78:60 that “he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh,”
we can see how God is said to have “slain” or “destroyed” Eli's wicked sons. It
wasn’t via the use of destructive power on His part, but through the loss of
God’s protective presence:
Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that
day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall
be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will
say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among
us?
(Deut. 31:17)
The Easy-to-Read Version
says, “I will leave them. I will refuse to help them, and they will be
destroyed.” God “destroys” individuals by respecting their request to leave
them, not by directly harming them with supernatural power (Job 21:14-15;
22:16-17). God is believed to ruin them by abandoning them, refusing to help
them, and allowing their foes to have their way (Deut. 4:31; 2 Chron. 12:7, 12;
Isa. 34:2; Hos. 11:8-9). Other Bible students believe that this is the exact
manner in which God said to “slay” Hophni and Phinehas:
I DOUBT if we are permitted, and I am sure we are not
obliged, to take the fatalist view of this verse. When it says of the sons of
Eli, that “they hearkened not to their father,” it simply means what it says,
viz., that of their own deliberate and wicked free-will, they refused his
advice. And when it implies that this came to pass, “because the Lord would
slay them,” what more does it teach of necessity, than that God was so
displeased with their wilful and obstinate wickedness, that He did not rescue
them from it by his grace? He fulfilled his purpose of slaying them by
leaving them to themselves. It is in the same way we read in the Book of
Exodus, sometimes that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, sometimes that Pharaoh
hardened his own—the interpretation and reconciliation of the two statements lying
in this truth, that men’s hearts naturally become hardened when they are left
to themselves. God, in short, is said to destroy a man when he does not save
him from himself. (Emphasis
added)
It would have been well for Eli’s sons if, when they
did wickedly, they had minded the reproof of their father, and repented of
their sins; instead of which they were deaf to his warnings and entreaties, and
the most dreadful ruin was the consequence. “Why do ye such things?” said the
good old man, “for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my
sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the Lord’s people to
transgress.” These young men were priests, and were guilty of the most wicked
doings; but though their kind old father so affectionately reproved them, “they
hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay
them.” God let them harden their hearts, because of their obstinacy, and so left
them to suffer the most severe punishment. You must have read of the way in
which they came to their end. (Emphasis
added)
Moreover, the words “delivered”
and “gave …. over” in Psalms 78:61-62 are verbs signifying permission. Another
rendering of the psalm is as follows:
He allowed their enemies to capture the sacred chest,
which was the symbol of his power and his glory. Because he was angry with his
people, he allowed their enemies to kill them.
(Psalm 78:61-62; Unlocked Dynamic Bible)
All of this could have
been avoided. God would have subdued their enemies if Eli and his two sons had
heeded to God's voice rather than their own counsel (Psalm 81:10-15). They lost
God’s protection because they refused to walk in God’s ways.
According to this
evidence, the latter part of 1 Samuel 2:25 should be read in a permissive
rather than a causative sense: “Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the
voice of their father, therefore the LORD would permit their enemies
to slay them.” This is consistent with the full tenor of Scripture as
well as with the truth about God’s loving character in which He does no harm.
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