1 Samuel 2:33

33 A member of your family will serve me at my altar. But what he does will bring tears to your eyes. Your heart will be sad. And the rest of the men in your family line will die while they are still young.

1 Samuel 2:33 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 2:33

And the man of thine
. Of his family, which should spring from him: whom I shall not cut off from mine altar: from serving there: who though he shall not be an high priest, but a common priest, as all the descendants of Aaron were,

shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart;
that is, the eyes and heart of his posterity; who though they should see of their family ministering in the priest's office, yet should make so poor a figure on account of their outward meanness and poverty, or because of their want of wisdom, and intellectual endowments, or because of their scandalous lives, that it would fill their hearts with grief and sorrow, and their eyes with tears, so that their eyes would fail, and be consumed, and their hearts be broken:

and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their
age;
or "die men" ^F11; grown men, not children, when it would not be so great an affliction to part with them; but when at man's estate, in the prime of their days, perhaps about thirty years of age, the time when the priests entered upon their office to do all the work of it; the Targum is,

``shall be killed young men:''

it is more than once said in the Talmud ^F12, that there was a family in Jerusalem, the men of which died at eighteen years of age; they came and informed Juchanan ben Zaccai of it; he said to them, perhaps of the family of Eli are ye, as it is said, ( 1 Samuel 2:33 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 (Myvna wtwmy) "morientur viri", Montanus, Tigurine version; "morientur virile aetate", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so V. L.
F12 T. Bab. Roshhashanah, fol. 18. 1. & Yebamot, fol. 105. 1.

1 Samuel 2:33 In-Context

31 The time is coming when I will cut your life short. I will also cut short the lives of those in your family. No man in your family line will grow old.

32 " 'You will see nothing but trouble in the house where I live. Good things will still happen to Israel. But no man in your family line will ever grow old.

33 A member of your family will serve me at my altar. But what he does will bring tears to your eyes. Your heart will be sad. And the rest of the men in your family line will die while they are still young.

34 " 'Something is going to happen to your two sons Hophni and Phinehas. When it does, it will show you that what I am saying is true. They will both die on the same day.

35 " 'I will raise up for myself a faithful priest. He will do what my heart and mind want him to do. I will make his family line very secure. They will always serve as priests to my anointed king.