The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Samuel Shares the Vision
1 Samuel 3:15–21 — Samuel Shares the Vision. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
15Samuel lay down until the morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·mū·’êl way·yiš·kaḇ ‘aḏ- hab·bō·qer way·yip̄·taḥ ’eṯ- dal·ṯō·wṯ bêṯ- Yah·weh ū·šə·mū·’êl yā·rê mê·hag·gîḏ ’eṯ- ‘ê·lî ham·mar·’āh ’el-
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-lay-down, Samuel, until the-morning; and-he-opened the-doors-of house-of-YHWH. And-Samuel feared from-telling the-vision to-Eli.”
Where the English smooths the original
Here was Samuel’s first experience of the prophet’s cross: the having unwelcome truth to divulge to those he loved, honoured, and feared.Ellicott is himself quoting the Speaker’s Commentary here; the sentence is a quotation inside a quotation, and Barnes carries almost the identical wording.
The confiding the keys of these enclosures to Samuel shows that he was no longer a mere child, or he would have been incapable of holding a position of such high trustAn inference from custody, not from the text: Pulpit is arguing against the picture of Samuel as a small child, which the narrative nowhere settles.
he was not elated with it, nor thought himself above so low and mean an employment in the house of God
16but Eli called to him and said, “Samuel, my son.” “Here I am,” answered Samuel.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
‘ê·lî ’eṯ- way·yiq·rā šə·mū·’êl way·yō·mer šə·mū·’êl bə·nî hin·nê·nî way·yō·mer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-called, Eli, Samuel, and-he-said: ‘Samuel, my-son.’ And-he-said: ‘Behold-me.’”
Where the English smooths the original
Then he summons Samuel to him, calling him lovingly my son , and everything tends to show that there was a real affection between the two.
called him by his name, and in a very tender and affectionate manner, the more to engage him to hasten to him, and thereby also putting him in mind of his filial duty to obey him
Samuel's communication, however, simply confirmed to the aged Eli what God had already made known to him through a prophetK&D is pointing back to the unnamed man of God of 2:27 to 36; on his reading the night vision confirms a sentence Eli had already been given and had not acted on.
17“What was the message He gave you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God punish you, and ever so severely, if you hide from me anything He said to you.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
māh had·dā·ḇār ’ă·šer dib·ber ’ê·le·ḵā way·yō·mer ’al- nā ṯə·ḵa·ḥêḏ mim·men·nî ’ĕ·lō·hîm kōh ya·‘ă·śeh- lə·ḵā wə·ḵōh yō·w·sîp̄ ’im- tə·ḵa·ḥêḏ mim·men·nî dā·ḇār mik·kāl had·dā·ḇār ’ă·šer- dib·ber ’ê·le·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-said: ‘What [is] the-word which he-spoke to-thee? Do-not, I-pray, hide from-me. Thus may-God-do to-thee and-thus may-he-add, if thou-hide from-me a-word out-of-all the-word which he-spoke to-thee.’”
Where the English smooths the original
Observe how Eli first simply asks for an account of what had passed, then demands a complete statement, and finally adjures Samuel to conceal nothing from him.
let God deal with thee so severely, as I cannot, or am loth to express. So it is a kind of aposiopesis, usual in oaths and in adjurations.
God punish you after this and that sort, unless you tell me the truth, Ru 1:17.The Geneva note is a marginal gloss on the oath formula, keyed to Ruth 1:17; Cambridge independently observes that the formula is characteristic of Samuel and Kings and occurs elsewhere only in Ruth.
18So Samuel told him everything and did not hide a thing from him. “He is the LORD,” replied Eli. “Let Him do what is good in His eyes.”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·mū·’êl ’eṯ- way·yag·geḏ- lōw kāl- had·də·ḇā·rîm wə·lō ḵi·ḥêḏ mim·men·nū hū Yah·weh way·yō·mar ya·‘ă·śeh haṭ·ṭō·wḇ bə·ʿē·nå̄w
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-told to-him, Samuel, all the-words, and-not did-he-hide from-him. And-he-said: ‘YHWH He [is]; the-good in-his-eyes let-him-do.’”
Where the English smooths the original
But it is the passive resignation of a weak character. Though he submits himself patiently to the will of God, he would not rouse himself to do it.Cambridge is deliberately correcting the more admiring readings (Henry, Benson, JFB) printed beside it; we keep both, because the text supports the confession and the record supports the criticism.
Such is the spirit of meek and unmurmuring submission in which we ought to receive the dispensations of God, however severe and afflictive.
This was a pious and noble answer, and shows what a deep sense Eli had of the divine sovereignty over him
Eli was probably in his last days little more than a puppet in their hands. He had sown the wind, and now must reap the whirlwind.Ellicott’s closing clause borrows Hosea 8:7; it is his verdict on Eli, not a statement of this text.
19And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and He let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
šə·mū·’êl way·yiḡ·dal Yah·weh hā·yāh ‘im·mōw wə·lō- mik·kāl də·ḇā·rāw hip·pîl ’ā·rə·ṣāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-grew, Samuel, and-YHWH was with-him, and-not did-he-let-fall from-all his-words groundward.”
Where the English smooths the original
It is a metaphor taken from precious liquors, which, when they are spilt upon the ground, are altogether useless. Or rather, it is taken from arrows shot out of a bow; which, when directed by a good archer, fail not to arrive at their intended mark.Benson offers two competing images and prefers the second; Gill, on the same clause, adds a third (a weapon dropped in battle). The Hebrew supplies only the verb.
The Lord accomplished whatever he had said.The Geneva gloss settles the ambiguous subject of the clause: the one who lets nothing fall is the Lord.
In those dark days of sin and shame at Shiloh, in the midst of scenes of temptation, the boy stood firm; his early life was a perpetual protest against covetousness and iniquity.
Early piety will be the greatest honour of young people. Those who honour God he will honour.Henry reads the verse devotionally and for the young; the text itself makes no promise of honour, it reports God’s keeping of one man’s words.
20So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kāl- yiś·rā·’êl mid·dān wə·‘aḏ- bə·’êr šā·ḇa‘ way·yê·ḏa‘ kî šə·mū·’êl ne·’ĕ·mān lə·nā·ḇî Yah·weh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-knew, all-Israel, from-Dan and-unto Beer-Sheba, that trustworthy [was] Samuel as-a-prophet to-YHWH.”
Where the English smooths the original
The Heb. word is the same as that which, in ch. 1 Samuel 2:35 , is rendered ‘a faithful priest,’ ‘a sure house;’ and the use of it here seems to indicate that Samuel’s call was the beginning of the fulfilment of that prophecy.
It is one of those pregnant words common in Hebrew, containing two cognate meaning. It says, first, that Samuel was faithful in his office; and, secondly, that because he was found trustworthy he was confirmed and strengthened in the possession of it.
On this rapid and universal acknowledgment of the young prophet it has been observed, “that the people, in spite of their disruption, yet formed religiously an unit.Ellicott is quoting an unnamed source for the closing clause; we reproduce his words as printed, including the attribution he leaves vague.
And indeed he seems to have been the first eminent prophet that was raised up, after Moses, to be a public instructer and governor of God’s people.
21And the LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, because there He revealed Himself to Samuel by His word.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
Yah·weh way·yō·sep̄ lə·hê·rā·’ōh ḇə·ši·lōh kî- bə·ši·lōw Yah·weh niḡ·lāh ’el- šə·mū·’êl Yah·weh biḏ·ḇar
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“And-he-added, YHWH, to-be-seen in-Shiloh; for he-uncovered-himself, YHWH, to Samuel in-Shiloh by-the-word-of YHWH.”
Where the English smooths the original
The state described in 1 Samuel 3:7 was henceforth reversed. Samuel now knew the Lord, and the Word of the Lord was revealed unto him.
And the Lord continued to appear at Shiloh; for He revealed himself there to Samuel "in the word of Jehovah," i.e., through a prophetic announcement of His word.
by Christ, the Word of the Lord, who appeared to him, it is probable, in an human form, as he was wont to do to the patriarchs and prophetsGill takes the Targum’s “Word of the Lord” (Memra) as a name of the pre-incarnate Christ. That is a theological inference, not a reading required by the Hebrew phrase; Pulpit, quoted on the same verse, holds that the phrase itself “really means, by prophetic inspiration.” We print Gill and record the dissent.
Many of the old commentators refer this to the second person of the Holy Trinity, but he is himself Jehovah, as we affirm in the Te Deum
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
⚙ The verse gives us two acts and one condition. Samuel lay down (וַיִּשְׁכַּב, H7901, a verb that says nothing about sleep, as Gill carefully observes), then he opened (וַיִּפְתַּח, H6605) the doors of the house of YHWH, then he feared from telling. Ellicott, Benson, Poole, Barnes, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D all stop at the same noun, דַּלְתוֹת (deleth, H1817), because the wilderness tabernacle had curtains and this word means leaves of wood that swing. Benson and Poole reason that the sanctuary at Shiloh had by now been enclosed in a solid building; K&D reconstructs fixed houses built against the court, with folding doors “shut in the evening and opened again in the morning”; Barnes and Cambridge locate the doors in the enclosure rather than the holy place, and Cambridge adds that the duty was that of “a subordinate Levite.” Pulpit draws a different inference from the same fact: whoever held the keys was no longer a small child.
⚙ The theological weight, however, sits on the last clause. Ellicott, quoting the Speaker’s Commentary (and Barnes carries the identical sentence), calls this “Samuel’s first experience of the prophet’s cross,” and sends the reader to Jeremiah 15:10 and 20:7 to 18. Poole argues that the delay was prudence rather than cowardice, since Samuel had no command to speak and could reasonably wait; Gill argues that it was tenderness, sparing an old man two griefs at once. The Hebrew is quieter than any of them: יָרֵא מֵהַגִּיד, a stative perfect of fear governing the Hifil of nâgad (H5046), “to set a thing conspicuously before a man’s face.” He was not weighing strategy. He was afraid.
⚙ Eli called (וַיִּקְרָא, H7121), which is the verb that has driven this entire chapter, and Samuel answered הִנֵּנִי, the same self-offering he had carried back and forth in the dark. The Pulpit Commentary hears genuine warmth in the address “my son,” and K&D agrees that Samuel venerated Eli “with filial affection.” Then the tone changes. Cambridge maps the escalation precisely: Eli “first simply asks for an account of what had passed, then demands a complete statement, and finally adjures.” Cambridge and Gill both note that the divine name is absent from Eli’s question in the Hebrew; the Pulpit Commentary judges that the A.V.’s inserted “The Lord” weakens it, since the indefinite form says in effect, whoever your visitor was, tell me all.
⚙ The adjuration itself is a self-curse with the curse left out. Poole names the figure, “a kind of aposiopesis,” and sends us to Ruth 1:17; Cambridge notes the formula is a signature of Samuel and Kings, occurring eleven times there and elsewhere only in Ruth; the Geneva gloss reads it as “God punish you after this and that sort, unless you tell me the truth.” Gill reports that Kimchi, Abarbanel, Josephus and Procopius of Gaza all take it as a formal oath, and the Pulpit Commentary draws the legal consequence: concealment would then have been perjury. So the man under sentence puts the messenger under oath. ⚙ There is a hard mercy in it. Eli cannot make himself act, but he can make the boy speak, and by doing so he takes the last decision out of a frightened child’s hands.
⚙ The verse turns on two verbs and a verbless clause. וַיַּגֶּד is the very act feared in v. 15; וְלֹא כִחֵד negates the verb Eli had used twice. K&D takes this as the proof of vocation: by telling everything about a man he loved, Samuel “proved himself to be a man possessing the courage and the power to proclaim the word of the Lord without fear to the people of Israel.” Gill draws the office out of the same clause: nothing is to be concealed that God wills to be made known, whether it pleases the hearer or not.
⚙ Then יְהוָה הוּא, with no copula. Barnes sets it beside Aaron’s silence at Leviticus 10:3 and Hezekiah at 2 Kings 20:19, and then beside Gethsemane. Cambridge adds Job 1:21 and 2:10, and points to Exodus 34:5 to 7 for the content of the name being confessed. Benson calls the answer “pious and noble”; JFB calls it a spirit of “meek and unmurmuring submission,” while adding, in the same breath, that it is “impossible to approve or defend the weak and unfaithful course” that brought the judgment; Henry reads the meekness as proof that Eli “was truly repentant.” Cambridge refuses the consensus: “it is the passive resignation of a weak character. Though he submits himself patiently to the will of God, he would not rouse himself to do it.” Ellicott lands hardest of all, judging that reformation was probably now too late and that Eli “had sown the wind.” ⚙ We print the quarrel rather than resolving it, because the text sustains both halves: the confession is true, and the man who makes it will still not restrain his sons.
⚙ Three verses of summary do the work of years. Samuel became great (וַיִּגְדַּל, H1431, a root spanning body, mind, estate and honour, as Poole and Gill both spread it out); YHWH was with him, which Cambridge identifies as the one formula shared by Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon and David; and YHWH did not let fall (הִפִּיל, Hifil of nâphal, H5307) any of his words groundward. Benson offers spilled liquor and a spent arrow as the image; Gill adds a weapon dropped in battle; Pulpit prefers nails fastened, borrowing Ecclesiastes 12:11, and insists that unlike the sound judgment of the wise, this was “a higher gift.” The Geneva gloss settles the grammatical ambiguity in one line: “The Lord accomplished whatever he had said.” Cambridge supplies the legal frame, Deuteronomy 18:21 to 22, where fulfilment is the statutory test of a true prophet; K&D supplies the idiom’s pedigree at Joshua 21:45, Joshua 23:14 and 1 Kings 8:56.
⚙ So Israel knew, from Dan to Beer-Sheba, that Samuel was נֶאֱמָן (H539) as a prophet. Pulpit calls the participle “pregnant”: faithful in the office, and therefore confirmed in it. Cambridge notices that it is the identical word as 2:35, the promised “faithful priest” and “sure house,” and concludes that the prophecy has begun to be fulfilled in this boy; K&D and Pulpit both cite Numbers 12:7, where Moses is faithful in all God’s house. Ellicott observes how fast and how total the recognition was, and quotes the remark that the people, for all their fragmentation, “yet formed religiously an unit.” Finally YHWH added to be seen at Shiloh, uncovering Himself by His word. Barnes states the reversal at its plainest: the condition of 3:7 is now undone. Cambridge extends it to 3:1, where the word of YHWH was rare and vision was not breaking through; now, he says, the word was no longer rare. ⚙ Note what the Hebrew does under all of this: the verb yâçaph, “to add,” which Eli invoked in v. 17 to summon extra punishment onto Samuel’s head, is the verb that closes the unit as God adds extra appearances to Israel’s famine of hearing.
⚙ This is the tool’s own fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text. The unit is organised around a single question: what does a word from God cost the one who has to carry it? Samuel’s first act as a prophet is not receiving revelation, which happened in the previous paragraph, but repeating it to a man he loves who will be destroyed by it. The chapter is careful to tell us he was afraid, and equally careful not to excuse him. Poole’s reading, that he was prudently waiting for a fit occasion, is a generous gloss on a text that says only יָרֵא.
⚙ What breaks the fear open is not courage but an oath. Eli, who could not discipline his own house, does one decisive thing in this chapter: he puts the boy under adjuration, and so removes concealment from the list of available options. The reader is entitled to hold both facts together, as Cambridge and JFB do in different ways, and as Henry and Benson largely do not: a man can genuinely confess that YHWH is God and genuinely refuse to act. Eli’s confession is not cheap, but it is late.
⚙ Then the summary paragraph does something the reader should notice. Every failure in the surrounding chapters is a failure of words. Eli’s sons treat the offering with contempt and their father’s words do not hold them (2:25). The word of YHWH is rare in those days (3:1). Against that background, “He let none of his words fall to the ground” is not a compliment to Samuel’s accuracy; it is God repairing the channel. The subject of the verb is YHWH. And the word that Israel measures him by, נֶאֱמָן, is the same word promised to the faithful priest of 2:35 and used of Moses in Numbers 12:7: it is built on the root that gives us amen, the root meaning to hold up, to support. A trustworthy prophet is not one who is impressive but one who can be leaned on without collapsing.
⚙ The last verse is the quiet reversal, and it is made of one Hebrew root. In v. 17 Eli swears, “so may God do to thee, and so may He add” (yâçaph), invoking multiplied harm. In v. 21, YHWH added to be seen. The same verb that carried the threat carries the mercy. Where the word had been rare, God now uncovers Himself, נִגְלָה, a verb whose plain sense is to strip bare. The line set beside this reading is ours and not Scripture’s, offered as commentary and not as a verse.
The word that would not fall to the ground had first to come out of a frightened boy’s mouth.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
⚙ The unit is the far end of an arc that begins at 3:1: “the word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” The Verifier returns 1 Samuel 3:1 as a candidate on the shared proper names alone, but the substantive link is the vocabulary of the frame: dâbâr (H1697) and the seeing verbs. Barnes states the reversal for 3:7, Cambridge for 3:1: “The state of things described in 1 Samuel 3:1 was now reversed.” ⚙ This is an inner-chapter structural inclusio rather than a quotation, and we tier it accordingly.
1 Samuel 3:1 · 1 Samuel 3:6 · 1 Samuel 3:9
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8050 Shᵉmûwʼêl (in 120 vv), H5941 ʻÊlîy (in 30 vv), H7901 shâkab (in 190 vv) across 3:1, 3:6, 3:9. All three are common or narrative-local, so the shared vocabulary alone cannot carry a verbal claim; the link recorded here is the frame reversal of 3:1 by 3:21, which Barnes and Cambridge both state explicitly.
⚙ The narrator calls the night’s revelation הַמַּרְאָה (marʼâh, H4759), a noun that stands in only eleven verses of the Hebrew Bible. One of them is Numbers 12:6, where YHWH lays down the rule: “If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision (marʼâh), I speak with him in a dream.” The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme, and confirms that Numbers 12:6 also shares nâbîyʼ (H5030), the title Israel will give Samuel in v. 20. ⚙ So the chapter uses the technical vocabulary of Numbers 12 to certify Samuel twice over: he receives a marʼâh in v. 15 and is called a nâbîyʼ in v. 20. Separately, and not from the Verifier, both Pulpit and K&D point out that נֶאֱמָן in v. 20 is the word used of Moses at Numbers 12:7; that part of the link is commentator-attested rather than machine-computed, and we mark it as such.
Numbers 12:6 · Numbers 12:7
basis: Verifier: shared rare Hebrew lexeme H4759 marʼâh (in 11 vv only), plus H5030 nâbîyʼ (in 288 vv) and H4994 nâʼ (in 375 vv), at Numbers 12:6. The rarity of marʼâh carries the verbal tier. The further tie to Numbers 12:7 (H539 ne’eman, “faithful in all my house”) is NOT in the Verifier output for this unit; it is attested by Pulpit and K&D, who both cite Numbers 12:7 on 1 Samuel 3:20, and is recorded here on their authority.
⚙ Samuel opens doors (pâthach, H6605) and then has a marʼâh he is afraid to report. The Verifier returns Ezekiel 1:1, which shares both lexemes: the heavens were opened and Ezekiel saw marʼôth of God. The same rare noun carries Daniel 10:7 and 10:16, Ezekiel 8:3 and 40:2, and Genesis 46:2, where God speaks to Israel in visions of the night and Jacob answers הִנֵּנִי, the identical word Samuel gives Eli in v. 16. ⚙ The hinnenî parallel with Genesis 46:2 is our own observation from the interlinear and is not part of the Verifier’s computed basis; the shared marʼâh is. We tier this structural rather than verbal because no text here quotes another: what is shared is a technical vocabulary for prophetic seeing, distributed across the prophets.
Ezekiel 1:1 · Daniel 10:7 · Genesis 46:2
basis: Verifier: Ezekiel 1:1 shares H6605 pâthach (in 133 vv) and the rare H4759 marʼâh (in 11 vv); Daniel 10:7 and Genesis 46:2 share H4759 marʼâh (in 11 vv). The rare lexeme is a real verbal tie, but there is no citation or quotation in either direction, so the badge stays structural.
⚙ הִפִּיל (Hifil of nâphal, H5307) with a word as object is a fixed Hebrew idiom for a promise that does not fail. K&D annotates it directly: “On הפּיל, see Joshua 21:45; Joshua 23:14; 1 Kings 8:56.” Poole cites Joshua 21:45 and Esther 6:10. Cambridge supplies the statutory background at Deuteronomy 18:21 to 22, where a word that does not come to pass is the mark of a prophet YHWH did not send, and notes that the opposite verb, “to raise up,” was used of this same word at 3:12. ⚙ The point is juridical: Israel has a published test, and this paragraph reports Samuel passing it.
Joshua 21:45 · Joshua 23:14 · 1 Kings 8:56 · Deuteronomy 18:21-22
basis: Basis is commentator-attested, not Verifier-computed: the Verifier returned no candidate pairing for these references in this unit. K&D names Joshua 21:45, Joshua 23:14 and 1 Kings 8:56 for the identical idiom הפּיל + word; Poole independently names Joshua 21:45; Cambridge names Deuteronomy 18:21-22 for the prophetic test. Recorded on their authority, and downgraded to structural because we have not machine-verified the shared lexeme.
⚙ The Verifier returns a tight cluster on the two proper names of this unit’s setting, ʻÊlîy (H5941) and Shîylôh (H7887): 1 Samuel 1:3, 1:9, 4:4, 14:3, and 1 Kings 2:27. The last is the payoff. When Solomon expels Abiathar from the priesthood, the narrator says it was done “to fulfil the word of the LORD which he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.” ⚙ That is the same word Samuel was afraid to repeat on this morning, landing three generations later, which is what v. 19 promised: none of it fell to the ground. 1 Samuel 14:3 keeps the doomed line visible one more time, in Ahijah son of Ahitub, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, still wearing the ephod at Shiloh's successor sanctuary. We tier this structural because 1 Kings 2:27 reports a fulfilment rather than quoting the oracle’s words.
1 Kings 2:27 · 1 Samuel 1:9 · 1 Samuel 4:4 · 1 Samuel 14:3
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5941 ʻÊlîy (in 30 vv, twice) and H7887 Shîylôh (in 30 vv) at 1 Kings 2:27, 1 Samuel 1:3, 1:9, 4:4 and 14:3. Both are relatively infrequent proper names, but the link is narrative fulfilment rather than quotation, so it is tiered structural rather than verbal.
⚙ The clause וַיהוָה הָיָה עִמּוֹ in v. 19 is not description but induction. Cambridge assembles the roll: Abraham (Genesis 21:22), Jacob (Genesis 28:15), Joseph (Genesis 39:2), Moses (Exodus 3:12), Joshua (Joshua 1:5), Gideon (Judges 6:16), David (1 Samuel 16:18 and 18:14), and calls it “the one source of strength for all the ‘heroes of Hebrew history.’” Benson, on the same clause, points instead to God’s visible favour (Genesis 31:2). ⚙ Placed where it is, immediately after Eli’s house has been sentenced, the formula is a transfer notice.
Genesis 39:2 · Joshua 1:5 · Judges 6:16 · 1 Samuel 16:18
basis: Basis is commentator-attested: Cambridge, on 1 Samuel 3:19, lists these references as instances of the identical formula. The Verifier returned no candidate for them in this unit, so no shared-lexeme frequency is claimed; the tie is a recurring formulaic clause, not a quotation.
⚙ Benson, commenting on vv. 20 to 21, brings Peter forward: “And therefore St. Peter says, Acts 3:24, All the prophets from Samuel spake of these days.” Acts 3:24 names Samuel as the beginning of the line, which is exactly the claim 1 Samuel 3:20 makes when all Israel from Dan to Beer-Sheba acknowledges him as nâbîyʼ. ⚙ This link cannot be verbal: the texts are in different languages, so no shared Strong’s number exists between the Greek of Acts and the Hebrew of Samuel, and any claim of shared lexeme would be false. What is shared is the historical claim about where prophecy in Israel begins after Moses. Benson draws the further inference that Samuel was “the first eminent prophet” raised up after Moses.
Acts 3:24
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition, so no verbal tier is available and none is claimed. The recorded basis is the explicit historical reference in Acts 3:24 to Samuel as the head of the prophetic succession, which Benson cites on this very passage, matched against the acknowledgment of Samuel as nâbîyʼ in 1 Samuel 3:20.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ The word Israel uses of Samuel in v. 20 is נֶאֱמָן (H539, Nifal participle), the same word that stood in the promise of 2:35: “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest… and I will build him a sure house.” Cambridge makes the connection explicitly and concludes that Samuel’s call is “the beginning of the fulfilment of that prophecy.” Pulpit and K&D both trace the same word to Numbers 12:7, where Moses is faithful in all God’s house. ⚙ The New Testament takes that Numbers text and presses it past Moses: Hebrews 3:2 to 6 says Christ was faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house, but counted worthy of more glory, “as a son over God’s house.” The chain is a chain of offices, not of quoted words from 1 Samuel: a boy confirmed as trustworthy, a promised priest whose house is made sure, and finally a Son who is Himself the house’s faithfulness. Cambridge’s own note (v. 20) supplies the first link, and the second is the plain argument of Hebrews.
1 Samuel 2:35 · Numbers 12:7 · Hebrews 3:2-6
⚙ Barnes himself makes this link and makes it carefully. Commenting on Eli’s answer he writes: compare the devout submission of Aaron at Leviticus 10:3 and of Hezekiah at 2 Kings 20:19, “and, for the highest conceivable submission to the will of God, compare Luke 22:42.” Cambridge adds Job to the same file. ⚙ The comparison is honest about the distance as well as the likeness. Eli submits to a sentence he has earned and that he still will not act to avert; in Gethsemane the one who says “not my will, but yours, be done” has earned nothing and submits to a judgment belonging to others. The grammar is the same surrender, the good in His eyes, let Him do; the moral situations are opposite, and reading the type without that difference would flatter Eli and diminish Christ.
Luke 22:42 · Leviticus 10:3 · Job 1:21
⚙ The chapter closes with YHWH uncovering Himself בִּדְבַר יְהוָה, “by the word of the LORD,” a phrase Gill takes christologically: the revelation came “by Christ, the Word of the Lord,” which he supports from the Targum’s rendering at v. 19, “the Word of the Lord was his help.” ⚙ Honesty requires the counterweight, and the brief supplies it: the Pulpit Commentary records that “many of the old commentators refer this to the second person of the Holy Trinity,” agrees that the Word is Christ and that Christ is Jehovah, and yet holds that this Hebrew phrase “really means, by prophetic inspiration.” ⚙ Our reading: the phrase itself is an instrumental idiom and does not by itself name the Son, so the christological weight here is not lexical but canonical. What the verse does establish is the pattern that John’s prologue completes. Revelation at Shiloh is mediated by a word, God lets Himself be seen by speaking, and the boy who carries that word is the first of a line that runs, on Peter’s account in Acts 3:24, toward the days of Christ. The reading is ancient and widely held; the specific identification of this clause with the pre-incarnate Son is Gill’s inference, and we mark it as inference.
John 1:14 · John 1:18 · Hebrews 1:1-2
⚙ Twice in two verses the text turns on kâchad (H3582), to conceal: Eli demands that nothing be hidden, and the narrator certifies that nothing was. Gill draws the ministerial rule from it, that the whole counsel of God is to be declared whether it pleases or displeases. ⚙ The same claim is made by Christ of Himself in John 15:15, “all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you,” and in John 17:8, “I have given them the words you gave me,” and by Paul at Acts 20:27, who says he did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God (the phrase Gill is echoing). Samuel had to be put under oath to do it once; the greater Prophet does it without compulsion and at cost. ⚙ We mark this as a reading rather than a received type: the verbal chain runs through the English of Gill and the concept of non-concealment, not through a quotation of 1 Samuel 3 in any of those New Testament texts.
John 15:15 · John 17:8 · Acts 20:27
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's tagging. The interlinear word indices in this unit follow the English rendering order, not the Hebrew; in 3:15, for example, “the vision” (index 14) and the preposition ʼel (index 15) are listed after “Eli” (index 13), although in the Hebrew they precede it. Our literal renderings are built from the Hebrew order, so the sequence there will not match the index sequence. Index 13 of 3:17 (lᵉḵā) and index 3 of 3:18 (lōw) carry no Strong's number in the source data, and Beer-Sheba is split across indices 4 and 5 of 3:20 with both halves tagged H884.
Orthography. The consonantal text spells Shiloh two ways within 3:21, בְשִׁלֹה and בְּשִׁלוֹ, both H7887. We record the variant and draw nothing from it.
Versions. K&D reports that the Septuagint appends to 3:21 a general remark about Eli and his sons, and dismisses it as “utterly worthless” critically; Cambridge prints that Greek text and additionally argues that the opening clause of 4:1, “And the word of Samuel came to all Israel,” belongs at the end of chapter 3 rather than the start of chapter 4. Both are reported here as the commentators' judgments, not as decisions we have verified against manuscripts.
Absent words. The divine name does not stand in the Hebrew of Eli's question in 3:17; Cambridge, Gill and Pulpit all say so, and the BSB's “the message He gave you” supplies a subject the Hebrew withholds.
Sources and their disagreements. The Geneva entries for 3:15, 3:16, 3:18, 3:20 and 3:21 in this brief contain only the verse text with no gloss, so Geneva is quoted here only at 3:17 and 3:19, where genuine marginal notes exist. Barnes's and JFB's entries repeat verbatim across several verses of this unit in the source; excerpts are anchored to the verse under which the entry is printed. Commentators are divided in ways we have not resolved: on Eli's character (Henry, Benson and JFB read repentance; Cambridge reads weak passivity; Ellicott reads a man too late to reform), on the reason for Samuel's silence (Poole reads prudence, Gill reads tenderness, Ellicott and Barnes read the prophet's dread), and on whether “the word of the LORD” in 3:21 names the pre-incarnate Son (Gill affirms, Pulpit restricts the phrase to prophetic inspiration).
What is machine synthesis. Everything marked ⚙, including all literal renderings, divergences, notes, movements, the sola reading, the thread bodies and the christ readings, is fallible synthesis and may be wrong. Thread bases are labelled: those drawn from the Verifier's computed output carry shared Strong's lexemes with frequencies; those drawn from a commentator's citation are labelled commentator-attested and have not been machine-verified. The hinnenî parallel with Genesis 46:2 and the yâçaph reversal between 3:17 and 3:21 are our own observations from the interlinear, and no commentator in this brief states either.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)