The Life
Samuel was born about 1100 BC to a woman named Hannah, who had been unable to have a child for many years. She prayed at the Tabernacle in Shiloh, weeping silently and promising that if God gave her a son she would dedicate him to the Lord. The High Priest Eli saw her praying and blessed her. She conceived. She named the child Samuel, which means "asked of God." When he was three she brought him back to Shiloh and gave him to Eli, and the boy grew up living in the sanctuary. One night, while sleeping near the Ark of the Covenant, Samuel heard a voice calling his name. He thought it was Eli. Three times he ran to Eli; finally the old priest understood that God Himself was calling the child, and told him: when the voice comes again, say Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. That night God gave Samuel his first prophecy, foretelling judgment on the household of Eli. Samuel was twelve. From that night until his old age he was a prophet of God in Israel.
Samuel’s father Elkanah had two wives. The other wife had children; Hannah did not, and the other woman taunted her. Year after year Hannah went up to the Tabernacle at Shiloh with her family for the appointed feasts, and year after year she wept. One year she prayed in the sanctuary itself, her lips moving silently, weeping with such intensity that the High Priest Eli at first thought she was drunk. She told him she was pouring out her soul to the Lord. Eli blessed her: Go in peace; the God of Israel grant thee thy petition. She went home, and that year she conceived. When the child was born she named him Samuel because, she said, I have asked him of the Lord. As soon as he was weaned she brought him back to Shiloh, presented him to Eli, and said: For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. She left him in the sanctuary and went home.
Samuel slept in the sanctuary itself, near the Ark of the Covenant. One night a voice called him: Samuel, Samuel. He thought Eli was calling him and ran to the old priest, but Eli said: I called not; lie down again. It happened a second time and a third. The third time Eli understood what was happening and told the boy: if it happens again, say Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Samuel went back and lay down. The Lord came and stood by him and called as before; and Samuel said what Eli had told him to say. God then revealed to him that the house of Eli would be punished for the wickedness of Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas, who were priests but were corrupting the worship of God and abusing the people. In the morning Samuel was afraid to tell Eli what he had heard, but Eli pressed him until he told everything. Eli said: It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good. From that night onward, says the scripture, the Lord was with Samuel, and let none of his words fall to the ground. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord.
The Philistines went to war with Israel. Israel was losing, so they sent for the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh, hoping its presence would give them victory. The two corrupt sons of Eli carried the Ark into the camp. The Israelites cheered when it arrived, but it did them no good. The Philistines defeated them anyway, slaughtered thirty thousand Israelites, killed both of Eli’s sons, and captured the Ark itself. A messenger ran to Shiloh with the news. When Eli, sitting blind and ninety-eight years old by the gate, heard that the Ark had been taken, he fell backward off his seat, broke his neck, and died. His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was in labor; when she heard the news she gave birth and died in childbirth. With her last breath she named the baby Ichabod, which means the glory has departed, saying: the glory has departed from Israel because the Ark of God has been taken. Samuel’s prophecy had come true with terrible exactness. The Philistines kept the Ark for seven months but it brought disasters wherever they took it; they finally sent it back. Now Samuel began his work of restoring the people.
Twenty years after the loss of the Ark, the people of Israel had been worshiping foreign gods and were oppressed by the Philistines. Samuel called all Israel to gather at Mizpeh. He told them: if you will return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. The people did this. They poured out water before the Lord as a sign of cleansing, fasted all day, and confessed their sin. The Philistines heard that Israel was gathered and came up to attack them. The people were terrified and begged Samuel: cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us. Samuel offered a lamb as a burnt offering and prayed. As he prayed, the Lord thundered with a great thunder upon the Philistines and threw them into confusion; they were defeated before Israel. Samuel set up a stone there and called it Eben-ezer, meaning the stone of help, saying: hitherto hath the Lord helped us. The Philistines were subdued all the days of Samuel.
When Samuel grew old he made his sons judges of Israel, but they were corrupt and took bribes. The elders of Israel came to Samuel at Ramah and said: thy sons walk not in thy ways; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. The thing displeased Samuel, and he prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to him: hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Samuel warned the people what a king would do: he would take their sons for his army and chariots, take their daughters for his palace, take their fields and vineyards, take a tenth of their flocks. They would cry out in that day because of their king, but the Lord would not hear them. The people said: nevertheless we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations. So Samuel anointed Saul, the tall handsome son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin, as the first king of Israel. He poured oil on his head and kissed him and said: is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance?
Saul disobeyed the Lord. He had been commanded to destroy the Amalekites completely; instead he spared their king Agag and the best of their cattle and sheep, intending (he said) to offer them as sacrifices to the Lord. When Samuel arrived, Saul greeted him with: blessed be thou of the Lord; I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Samuel said: what meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? Saul made excuses. Samuel answered with the words that have echoed through the entire prophetic tradition ever since: hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Samuel told Saul that the Lord had rejected him from being king. Then Samuel himself called for Agag the Amalekite and put him to death before the Lord. He never saw Saul again until the day of his death, but he mourned for Saul, and the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel.
The Lord told Samuel: how long will you mourn for Saul? Fill your horn with oil and go to Bethlehem; I have provided me a king among the sons of Jesse. Samuel was afraid: if Saul hears of it, he will kill me. The Lord told him to bring a heifer to sacrifice, and to invite Jesse to the sacrifice. So Samuel went. When he saw the eldest son Eliab, tall and impressive, he thought: surely this is the Lord’s anointed. But the Lord said: look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature; for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. One after another seven sons of Jesse passed before Samuel, and the Lord chose none of them. Samuel said to Jesse: are these all the children? Jesse said: there remains yet the youngest, and behold, he keeps the sheep. Samuel said: send and fetch him; for we will not sit down till he comes hither. So they brought David, ruddy and of beautiful countenance and goodly to look upon. The Lord said: arise, anoint him; this is he. Samuel anointed David in the midst of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
Samuel was unusual among the figures of the Old Testament because he held three different offices at once. He was a prophet, the great prophet of his generation. He was a priest, descended from Levi and serving at the Tabernacle. He was a judge, the last of the fifteen judges of Israel. Most figures held one of these offices; Samuel held all three. The Fathers of the Church have read this convergence as a typological pointer to the Messiah, who in His one Person holds three offices simultaneously: He is the Prophet greater than Moses, who speaks the final word of the Father; He is the High Priest of the order of Melchizedek, who offers Himself as the eternal sacrifice; He is the King of the Davidic line, who reigns forever. The Old Testament generally separates these offices to keep them from being abused. Samuel was a sign that they would one day be united again — perfectly, in Christ.
Samuel died in extreme old age, having served the Lord since infancy. All Israel gathered together and mourned for him and buried him at his home in Ramah. The book of Sirach in the Greek Old Testament gives him the great praise: Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, established the kingdom and anointed rulers over the people… he called upon the Lord, and the Lord thundered from heaven. After his sleep he prophesied and showed the king his end. In the year 406, more than fifteen hundred years after his death, his relics were carefully translated from Judea to Constantinople and received with great honor by the emperor Arcadius and the Patriarch of the imperial city. They were placed in the church that the saint Helen had built in honor of all the prophets. The Christian historian Sozomen records the great procession that received the relics. From that time the Christian Church has venerated his memory on August 20, recognizing him as the great prophet who anointed the line of David from which Christ would come, and as the foundational type of the convergence of offices that the Church now knows in the Person of the incarnate Lord.