“The LORD said to Samuel, ‘Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.’”
Eli did the opposite of what the faithful Israelites did at Exodus 32:29: “Then Moses said, ‘Dedicate yourselves today to the LORD–for every man has been against his son and against his brother–in order that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.’” The egregious sin of Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, is that they had desecrated the worship of God in Israel by sleeping with women in the tabernacle and mocking God’s sacrifices: “Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for the men despised the offering of the LORD” (1st Samuel 2:17). The curse that they had brought upon themselves was the end of the line for the house of Eli from its priestly heritage, forever. They had crossed the line, so to speak, from being able to have this judgment atoned for, meaning that God would not change His mind concerning the calamity with which He was now going to judge it. Fulfillment of this curse is found with Abiathar, descendant of Eli, who was a faithful priest for King David, but turned against David when David’s son, Adonijah, tried to take the crown from Solomon (1st Kings 1:7). The result was this proclamation from King Solomon: “Then to Abiathar the priest the king said, ‘Go to Anathoth to your own field, for you deserve to die; but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David, and because you were afflicted in everything with which my father was afflicted.’ So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD, which He had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh” (1st Kings 2:26-27). Also perhaps in fulfillment of the curse was the murder of 85 priests of Nob, descendants of Eli, whom Saul, in a fit of rage, had “Doeg the Edomite” murder (1st Samuel 22:22).
What do Calvinists believe?
These are people that Jesus could not have died for, since their sin cannot be atoned forever. So when someone comes along and says that Jesus loves the world and died for everyone, show them this passage. Not these people! Not the house of Eli!
Our reply:
There is no mention in the prophecy of 1st Samuel 2:28-36 that says that the “curse” on the house of Eli was that every one of its descendants was doomed to Hell. Instead, the unatonable curse on the house of Eli was premature death, poverty and the loss of its priestly heritage, and there was no sacrifice or offering that would remedy that judgment. So, the argument is not whether the curse was unatonable, but what exactly the “curse” was.
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2024.]
