The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Death of Eli
1 Samuel 4:12–22 — The Death of Eli. 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.
12That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line all the way to Shiloh, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ha·hū bay·yō·wm bin·yā·min ’îš- way·yā·rāṣ mê·ham·ma·‘ă·rā·ḵāh way·yā·ḇō ši·lōh ū·mad·dāw qə·ru·‘îm wa·’ă·ḏā·māh ‘al- rō·šōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-ran a-man-of-Benjamin from-the-battle-array, and-came Shiloh on-that-day; and-his-garments torn, and-soil upon his-head.
Where the English smooths the original
The rent clothes and the earth upon the head were the usual indications that the news brought by the messenger were tidings of evil.
The distance from Ebenezer to Shiloh was probably not more than twenty miles, so that a swift runner could easily arrive the same evening.
which, according to Bunting (d), was forty two miles from Ebenezer, near to which the battle was foughtGill and Cambridge flatly disagree on the distance (forty-two miles against “not more than twenty”), and Gill himself rejects the Jewish figures of sixty and a hundred and twenty. The text fixes only that the man arrived the same day; the mileage is inference, and the commentators' inferences do not agree.
13When he arrived, there was Eli, sitting on his chair beside the road and watching, because his heart trembled for the ark of God. When the man entered the city to give a report, the whole city cried out.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·yā·ḇō·w wə·hin·nêh ‘ê·lî yō·šêḇ ‘al- hak·kis·sê yaḵ de·reḵ mə·ṣap·peh kî- lib·bōw hā·yāh ḥā·rêḏ ‘al ’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm wə·hā·’îš bā bā·‘îr lə·hag·gîḏ kāl- hā·‘îr wat·tiz·‘aq
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-he-came, and-behold Eli sitting upon the-throne [by] the-hand-of the-road, watching; for was his-heart trembling over the-ark of-the-God. And-the-man came to-report in-the-city, and-shrieked all the-city.
Where the English smooths the original
Whereby he discovered a public and generous spirit, and a fervent zeal for God, and for his honour, which he preferred before all his natural affections
Eli knew too much of the Eternal Guardian of Israel to put any real trust in the power of the lifeless Ark.Ellicott's confidence about what Eli inwardly knew is reconstruction, not text; the narrative reports only that his heart trembled. It is offered here because it is the strongest counterweight to reading Eli's anxiety as mere superstition.
for his heart trembled for the ark of God, which had been taken from the sanctuary into the camp without the command of God
His seat was an official chair, similar to those of the ancient Egyptian judges, richly carved, superbly ornamented, high, and without a back
14Eli heard the outcry and asked, “Why this commotion?” So the man hurried over and reported to Eli.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
‘ê·lî ’eṯ- way·yiš·ma‘ qō·wl haṣ·ṣə·‘ā·qāh way·yō·mer meh qō·wl haz·zeh he·hā·mō·wn wə·hā·’îš mi·har way·yā·ḇō way·yag·gêḏ lə·‘ê·lî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-heard Eli the-sound-of the-shrieking, and-said: “What [is] the-sound-of this uproar?” And-the-man hastened and-came and-told to-Eli.
Where the English smooths the original
The cry of sorrow was the first intimation to the blind Eli: he was soon to hear the details.
It exactly expresses here the Babel of voices, all asking news at once, which at the coming of the messenger surged around the high priest's throne.
Eli had his hearing, though not his sight; he could not see the distress in their countenances, but he heard the lamentations they made
15Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his gaze was fixed because he could not see.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·‘ê·lî tiš·‘îm ū·šə·mō·neh ben- šā·nāh wə·‘ê·nāw qā·māh wə·lō yā·ḵō·wl lir·’ō·wṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Eli [was] a-son-of ninety and-eight year; and-his-eyes had-stood-still, and-not was-he-able to-see.
Where the English smooths the original
Eli's blindness, while it made him alive to sounds, prevented his seeing the ripped garments and dust-besprinkled head of the messenger of bad news.
This is a description of the so-called black cataract (amaurosis), which generally occurs at a very great age from paralysis of the optic nerves
Such a system was naturally fruitful in errors of transcription, and thus numbers, and dates especially, in the earlier books of the Old Testament are frequently confused and uncertainEllicott is explaining why the versions differ on Eli's age. His account of alphabetic numerals is a nineteenth-century generalization about scribal practice, offered here as the standard explanation, not as proof of any particular variant.
16“I have just come from the battle,” the man said to Eli. “I fled from there today.” “What happened, my son?” Eli asked.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ā·nō·ḵî hab·bā min- ham·ma·‘ă·rā·ḵāh hā·’îš way·yō·mer ’el- ‘ê·lî wa·’ă·nî nas·tî min- ham·ma·‘ă·rā·ḵāh hay·yō·wm meh- hā·yāh had·dā·ḇār bə·nî way·yō·mer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-said the-man unto Eli: “I [am] the-one-coming from the-battle-array, and-I, from the-battle-array I-fled today.” And-he-said: “What was the-matter, my-son?”
Where the English smooths the original
I speak not what I have by uncertain rumours, but what mine eyes were witnesses of.
He has to announce himself to the blind old man who cannot see the tale of disaster which his dust-soiled, blood-stained garments tell all too plainly to the people.
he uses the kind and tender appellation, my son, to engage him to tell him all freely and openly
17The messenger answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are both dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ham·ḇaś·śêr way·yō·mer way·ya·‘an yiś·rā·’êl nās lip̄·nê p̄ə·liš·tîm wə·ḡam hā·yə·ṯāh ḡə·ḏō·w·lāh mag·gê·p̄āh ḇā·‘ām wə·ḡam- šə·nê ḇā·ne·ḵā ḥā·p̄ə·nî ū·p̄î·nə·ḥās mê·ṯū wa·’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm nil·qā·ḥāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-answered the-bearer-of-tidings and-said: “Fled Israel before the-Philistines, and-also a-great blow has-been among-the-people, and-also thy-two sons are-dead, Hophni and-Phinehas, and-the-ark of-the-God has-been-taken.”
Where the English smooths the original
Observe the climax. Each blow is heavier than the preceding one. The rout of the army, the slaughter of the people, Eli’s personal bereavement, the loss of the most precious treasure of Israel. The last blow is more than the aged High-priest can bear.
He delivered his account gradually, beginning with generals, and then proceeding to particulars, and with what he thought Eli could better bear the news of, and so prepared him for the worst; in which he acted a wise part
18As soon as the ark of God was mentioned, Eli fell backward from his chair by the city gate, and being old and heavy, he broke his neck and died. And Eli had judged Israel forty years.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·hî ’eṯ- ’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm kə·haz·kî·rōw way·yip·pōl ’ă·ḥō·ran·nîṯ bə·‘aḏ mê·‘al- hak·kis·sê yaḏ haš·ša·‘ar kî- hā·’îš zā·qên wə·ḵā·ḇêḏ wat·tiš·šā·ḇêr map̄·raq·tōw way·yā·mōṯ wə·hū šā·p̄aṭ ’eṯ- yiś·rā·’êl ’ar·bā·‘îm šā·nāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was, at-his-mentioning the-ark of-the-God, and-he-fell from-off the-throne backward, beside the-hand-of the-gate, and-was-broken his-neck, and-he-died; for the-man was-old and-heavy. And-he had-judged Israel forty year.
Where the English smooths the original
but when his ears caught the words “the ark of God is taken,” the old man s heart broke, and he diedQuoted exactly as the source prints it, including the typographical slip “old man s” for “old man's.” Nothing has been silently corrected.
So fell the high-priest and judge of Israel! So fell his heavy head, when he had lived within two of a hundred years
A man may die miserably, yet not die eternally; may come to an untimely end, yet the end be peace.Henry is deliberately refusing to read Eli's manner of death as a verdict on his soul. It is the minority note among these sources and the unit keeps it for that reason.
The reading twenty in the Septuagint does not deserve the slightest notice, if only because it is perfectly incredible that Eli should have been appointed judge of the nation in his seventy-eight yearK&D's dismissal rests on their own chronological reconstruction, not on manuscript evidence; Pulpit treats the same variant as unremarkable. The thread on the forty years is flagged accordingly.
19Now Eli’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and about to give birth. When she heard the news of the capture of God’s ark and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband, she collapsed and gave birth, for her labor pains overtook her.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·ḵal·lā·ṯōw ’ê·šeṯ- pî·nə·ḥās hā·rāh lā·laṯ wat·tiš·ma‘ ’eṯ- haš·šə·mu·‘āh ’el- hil·lā·qaḥ hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm ’ă·rō·wn ū·mêṯ ḥā·mî·hā wə·’î·šāh wat·tiḵ·ra‘ wat·tê·leḏ kî- ṣi·re·hā ne·hep̄·ḵū ‘ā·le·hā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-his-daughter-in-law, wife-of Phinehas, [was] pregnant, about-to-bear; and-she-heard the-report concerning the-being-taken of-the-ark of-the-God, and-dead [were] her-father-in-law and-her-husband; and-she-bent-the-knee and-bore, for turned upon-her her-pangs.
Where the English smooths the original
she fell upon her knees and was delivered, for her pains had fallen upon her (lit. had turned against her), and died in consequence
put herself in a posture for travailing; perceiving she was coming to it, she fell upon her knees, as the word used signifies
Her death is recorded ( a ) as being a further fulfilment of the doom of Eli’s house: ( b ) for the sake of her pathetic dying words about the Ark.
To wit, before her time, which is oft the effect of great terrors, both in women and in other creatures
20As she was dying, the women attending to her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have given birth to a son!” But she did not respond or pay any heed.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḵə·‘êṯ mū·ṯāh han·niṣ·ṣā·ḇō·wṯ ‘ā·le·hā wat·tə·ḏab·bê·rə·nāh ’al- tî·rə·’î kî yā·lā·ḏət ḇên wə·lō ‘ā·nə·ṯāh wə·lō- šā·ṯāh lib·bāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-about-the-time of-her-dying, and-spoke the-women the-ones-stationed over-her: “Do-not fear, for a-son thou-hast-borne.” And-not she-answered, and-not she-set her-heart.
Where the English smooths the original
What is any earthly joy to her that feels herself dying? No joy but that which is spiritual and divine, will stand in any stead then
Death admits not the relish of any earthly joy: it is then all flat and tasteless.
The loss of the Ark so absorbed her mind, that even a mother’s greatest joy ( John 16:21 ) could not rouse her.
21And she named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” because the ark of God had been captured and her father-in-law and her husband had been killed.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wat·tiq·rā lan·na·‘ar ’î- ḵā·ḇō·wḏ lê·mōr ḵā·ḇō·wḏ gā·lāh mî·yiś·rā·’êl ’el- ’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm hil·lā·qaḥ wə·’el- ḥā·mî·hā wə·’î·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-she-called to-the-boy I-kabod, saying: “Gone-into-exile [is] glory from-Israel,” with-regard-to the-ark of-the-God being-taken, and-with-regard-to her-father-in-law and-her-husband.
Where the English smooths the original
But the best rendering seems to be to understand the syllable “I” as an exclamation of bitter sorrow
denotes the visible manifestation of the Presence and Majesty of Jehovah, known in later times as the Shechinah
the glorious type and assurance of God’s presence, the ark, which is oft called GodAnchors stop short of the curly apostrophes in the printed text; the resolver takes the contiguous span between them, which includes “presence, the ark,” in full.
Is departed - Properly, "Is gone into captivity.Barnes's whole note on this verse is the correction of a translation, and it is the single most important lexical observation any of these sources makes about the unit.
22“The glory has departed from Israel,” she said, “for the ark of God has been captured.”
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ḵā·ḇō·wḏ gā·lāh mî·yiś·rā·’êl wat·tō·mer kî ’ă·rō·wn hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm nil·qaḥ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-she-said: “Gone-into-exile [is] glory from-Israel, for taken [is] the-ark of-the-God.”
Where the English smooths the original
When the glory of holiness departs from what should be a holy community, the glory of God's presence has already departed, and the outward tokens of His protection may be expected to depart soon likewise.
With the surrender of the earthly throne of His glory, the Lord appeared to have abolished His covenant of grace with Israel
She uttered her great sorrow by repeating her words.
so when the word, worship, and ordinances of God are removed from a people, the glory is gone from themGill immediately applies this to lukewarm congregations of his own day. The application is his, not the text's, and is kept here only for the lexical point it carries about what departure means.
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 unit opens with a verb, not a name: וַיָּרָץ, and he ran. The man has no name in the chapter, only a tribe and a speed. Ellicott and Pulpit independently judge the scene an eyewitness report, Pulpit writing that it “is so full of exact particulars, that it must have come from an eyewitness, probably from Samuel himself.” Both also record, and Pulpit rejects on chronological grounds, the Rabbinic tradition that this Benjamite was Saul. ✦ On the distance, the sources simply disagree: Gill, following Bunting, makes it forty-two miles from Ebenezer, while Cambridge says “probably not more than twenty miles.” ⚙ The text itself fixes only bay-yōm ha-hū, that same day. The torn מַדָּיו and the אֲדָמָה on his head are, as Benson (citing Joshua 7:6, Job 2:12, Ezekiel 27:30), Poole, Barnes, Geneva and K&D all agree, the ordinary rite of deep mourning. ⚙ Note what the narrator has done: he has given the reader a message written on a body, and then seated at the end of the road a judge whose eyes have stood still.
Eli is יֹשֵׁב עַל־הַכִּסֵּא, sitting on the seat: Pulpit insists the word is “literally, ‘the throne’,” and JFB describes the official chair of a judge, “high, and without a back.” ✦ Where it stood is disputed: Cambridge places it at the outer gate of the tabernacle enclosure, since the news reaches the town before it reaches Eli, while Ellicott follows the Septuagint's “by the side of the gate watching the way,” and K&D flatly call the text's יַךְ “a copyist's error for יד.” ⚙ The participle מְצַפֶּה is Piel, the stance of a lookout leaning forward, and it is spent on a man who cannot see. What the verse actually credits to Eli is his heart: his heart was חָרֵד, trembling, and trembling for the ark. Benson and Poole in nearly identical words call this “a public and generous spirit, and a fervent zeal for God”; K&D sharpen it by adding that the ark “had been taken from the sanctuary into the camp without the command of God”; Ellicott presses further and claims Eli “knew too much of the Eternal Guardian of Israel to put any real trust in the power of the lifeless Ark.” ⚙ Ellicott's reconstruction goes past what the text reports, but it identifies the real question of the chapter: was Eli's trembling faith, or was it fear for a talisman he had failed to keep? The verdict is left to vv. 17-18.
Cambridge names the structure exactly: “Observe the climax. Each blow is heavier than the preceding one.” Gill reads the same order as pastoral tact, the runner “beginning with generals, and then proceeding to particulars… and so prepared him for the worst.” ⚙ Hebrew marks the rungs with a repeated וְגַם, and also, and also. The last rung is a Niphal with no agent: נִלְקָחָה, it has been taken. ⚙ The hinge word of the death scene is a pun the English cannot carry. The reason given for Eli's broken neck is that he was זָקֵן וְכָבֵד, old and kâbêd, heavy (H3515); and the word his daughter-in-law will cry over Israel in vv. 21-22 is kâbôwd, glory (H3519), which Strong's itself glosses as “properly, weight.” The same weight kills the priest and departs the nation. Ellicott, Benson, Poole, Gill, Henry, JFB, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D are unanimous on one point: it was the ark, not his sons, that killed him. Ellicott: “when his ears caught the words ‘the ark of God is taken,’ the old man s heart broke, and he died.” Benson turns it into a cry: “Let me fall with the ark!” ✦ Henry alone, and characteristically, refuses to read the manner of the death as the measure of the man: “A man may die miserably, yet not die eternally.”
The last scene is a birth that is also a funeral. Hebrew says she וַתִּכְרַע, bent the knee: Gill and Geneva both understand the birth posture rather than a collapse, Gill noting she “fell upon her knees, as the word used signifies.” Her צִרֶיהָ, pangs, are literally hinges (H6735, “a hinge, as pressed in turning”), and they נֶהֶפְכוּ, were turned, upon her; Gill preserves the old rendering “her doors were turned.” ✦ K&D give the idiom of v. 20 precisely: lēb shûth equals lēb sûm, animum advertere, to set the mind to a thing, and she would not. Cambridge observes that “even a mother's greatest joy (John 16:21) could not rouse her.” On the name, the commentators split honestly: Gill with Jarchi and Kimchi reads ʼî as “no glory”; Cambridge allows “No-glory, or Where is glory?”; Benson takes it as “Where is the glory?”; Ellicott argues the best sense is the exclamation, “Alas! the glory.” ✦ Cambridge further argues that v. 22's closing clause is the narrator's explanation and not the woman's words, judging the English versions “wrong (though the Hebrew is not decisive).” ⚙ Whichever reading of the name is right, the verb is not in doubt: גָּלָה, which Barnes renders “Is gone into captivity.” The glory did not evaporate. It was deported.
⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text. Read alone, 1 Samuel 4:12-22 is not the story of a stolen box; it is the story of a God who will not be carried. Israel had fetched the ark into the camp as a charm, and K&D are right that it went out “without the command of God.” What follows is God's refusal, staged as a series of removals: the army's arrangement dissolves, the priest's throne tips over backward, the glory goes into exile. ⚙ The Hebrew ties the middle removal to the last one with a single root. Eli dies because he is kâbêd, heavy; Israel is bereaved because the kâbôwd, the weight, is gone. A priesthood that had grown heavy on the fat of other men's sacrifices is crushed by its own weight at the very moment the true Weight departs. That is not the Philistines' doing; the verb in v. 17 has no agent. ⚙ And notice who feels it. Not the nation, which screams once and disappears from the chapter, but a blind old man whose heart trembled for the right thing too late, and a dying woman married into the worst house in Israel, who will not take comfort in a living son because the ark is gone. ⚙ If the ⚙ layer has a claim to make here, it is this: the ark's capture is not the moment the glory left. The glory had already left a sanctuary where the word of the LORD was rare and the priests despised the offering; the capture only made the departure visible, and put a name on a newborn boy. The line that follows is this tool's own sentence, not Scripture, and should be weighed as such.
The glory did not depart because the ark was taken; the ark was taken because the glory had already gone.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The messenger's third blow is the exact discharge of the sign given to Eli by the man of God: Hophni and Phinehas, in one day they shall both die. The Verifier confirms the link at the level of the words themselves: this unit and 1 Samuel 2:34 share חָפְנִי (Chophnîy, H2652), a name that occurs in only five verses in the whole canon, together with פִּינְחָס (Pîynᵉchâç, H6372). ✦ Geneva's entire gloss on the clause is “According as God had said before”; JFB likewise say the calamities “announced to Samuel as about to fall upon the family of Eli [1Sa 2:34] were now inflicted.” ⚙ The report in 4:17 is therefore not news in the narrative's own terms. It is a receipt.
1 Samuel 2:34
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2652 Chophnîy (rare, in 5 vv) and H6372 Pîynᵉchâç (in 24 vv); the paired rare names make this a verbal link to the oracle of 1 Sam 2:34, attested as fulfilment by Geneva and JFB
“His heart was חָרֵד” uses an adjective found in only six verses of the Hebrew Bible, and the Verifier returns every one of them. Gideon dismisses the chârêd, the fearful, from his army (Judges 7:3); the men who tremble at the commandment of God gather to Ezra (Ezra 9:4; 10:3); and twice in Isaiah 66 the LORD says he looks to the man who is chârêd at his word (66:2, 66:5). ⚙ The same word therefore names both the disqualifying fear that is sent home from the battle line and the reverence God says he regards. Eli sits on the edge of both senses: he trembles for the ark, which is the right object, and he trembles only now, when it is already in the camp against God's command. ⚙ The shared lexeme is real and rare; the moral weighing of Eli is this tool's reading, not the Verifier's.
Isaiah 66:2 · Isaiah 66:5 · Ezra 9:4 · Judges 7:3
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2730 chârêd (rare, in 6 vv) linking 1 Sam 4:13 to Judges 7:3, Ezra 9:4, Ezra 10:3, Isa 66:2, Isa 66:5; a rare-word link, not a quotation of one passage by another
Eli is introduced in this book seated on הַכִּסֵּא by the doorpost of the LORD's temple at Shiloh while Hannah prays (1 Samuel 1:9); he leaves it by falling backward off it (4:18). The Verifier records the shared vocabulary: kiççêʼ (H3678), Shîylôh (H7887) and ʻÊlîy (H5941). The same three-word cluster reappears at 1 Kings 2:27, where Solomon expels Abiathar “that he might fulfil the word of the LORD which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.” ✦ Cambridge cross-references 1 Samuel 1:9 for the position of the seat, and cites 1 Samuel 4:1 for the forty years. ⚙ The three passages together frame the whole arc of the house: seated at Shiloh, toppled at Shiloh, finally removed from the priesthood generations later, with Shiloh still named as the place where sentence was passed.
1 Samuel 1:9 · 1 Kings 2:27
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H7887 Shîylôh (in 30 vv), H5941 ʻÊlîy (in 30 vv), H3678 kiççêʼ (in 124 vv); real verbal overlap, but the link is a shared narrative frame, not a quotation
The Verifier's strongest candidate for this unit is 1 Samuel 14:3, where the priest carrying the ephod beside Saul is “Ahijah son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the LORD's priest in Shiloh.” The shared lexemes are the proper names themselves, ʻÊlîy and Shîylôh. ⚙ The boy named No-Glory in 4:21 does not vanish from the story: he becomes a genealogical marker, the point from which the surviving line of Eli is measured. ⚙ The narrative that kills the house keeps its name in circulation for another two generations, and the name it keeps is the name of the loss.
1 Samuel 14:3
basis: Verifier: highest-scoring candidate (0.75); shared Hebrew lexemes H5941 ʻÊlîy (in 30 vv) and H7887 Shîylôh (in 30 vv). Genealogical and narrative continuity, not a quotation
חָמִיהָ (châm, H2524, “a father-in-law”) occurs in only four verses in the Hebrew Bible, and the Verifier returns two of them from Genesis 38, the Tamar narrative: she sends word to her father-in-law (38:25), and Judah's going up to the sheepshearers is told (nâgad, H5046) to her (38:13). ⚙ The lexical link is genuinely rare, but it is a link of vocabulary and situation only, and no quotation of any kind is claimed. What it puts side by side is worth noticing: both chapters turn on a woman who has married into a compromised house and who, at the crisis, shows a truer sense of what Israel owes God than the men she married. Gill observes that the wife of Phinehas names the ark first and her husband last; K&D call her the wife “of the godless Phinehas.” ⚙ The pairing is this tool's reading; the shared word is the Verifier's.
Genesis 38:25 · Genesis 38:13
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2524 châm (rare, in 4 vv), with H5046 nâgad (in 344 vv) and H2030 hâreh (in 16 vv) at Gen 38:25. Deliberately NOT tiered verbal: the rare word is shared, but there is no citation, allusion or common formula, only a comparable situation
Three of the sources here reach for the same two passages. Poole says the ark “is oft called God's glory, as Psalm 26:8, 78:61”; Gill cites Psalm 78:61 on “the glory is departed”; Pulpit points to Psalm 78:64, “their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation,” as a possible allusion to this very scene, noting that others besides the wife of Phinehas “felt that there was no room for private grief.” Barnes carries the motif forward to Ezekiel 10:18 and 11:23, where the kâbôwd lifts from the temple and leaves the city, and to Revelation 2:5. ⚙ This basis is commentary-attested rather than Verifier-computed: Psalm 78 and Ezekiel are not in the candidate list for this unit, so the link rests on the shared motif of departing glory and on the explicit citations by Poole, Gill, Pulpit and Barnes, not on a computed lexeme match. Tiered structural accordingly.
Psalm 78:61 · Ezekiel 10:18 · Ezekiel 11:23
basis: Commentary-attested, not Verifier-computed: Poole and Gill cite Psalm 78:61 for the ark as God's glory, Pulpit cites Psalm 78:64 for the priests and unlamented widows, Barnes cites Ezekiel 10:18 and 11:23 for the departing glory. Shared motif of kâbôwd going into exile; no lexeme frequency is claimed
The closing clause of v. 18 dates Eli's judgeship, and Barnes notes that this “chronological note connects this book with that of Judges,” comparing Judges 3:11. ✦ But the figure is contested in the manuscripts. Pulpit records that “the Septuagint reads twenty,” and treats the difference as routine; K&D dismiss it with heat, saying the reading “does not deserve the slightest notice,” on the ground that Eli could not have been made judge in his seventy-eighth year; Gill calls the Septuagint figure “very wrongly twenty.” ⚙ Barnes adds a separate, unresolved problem: how Eli's forty years relate to the high priesthood of Phinehas son of Eleazar, concluding only that “at least one high priesthood intervened.” ⚙ Flagged: the canonical connection to the Judges framework is real, but the number that carries it is not text-critically secure, and K&D's certainty rests on their own chronological reconstruction rather than on manuscript evidence.
Judges 3:11
basis: Disputed text: MT “forty years” against LXX “twenty” (reported by Pulpit, Gill, K&D). The link to the Judges chronological formula is Barnes's; the underlying figure is uncertain, so the connection is flagged rather than confirmed
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The dying woman's word is כָּבוֹד, and Barnes translates her verb “Is gone into captivity.” ✦ Cambridge explains what the noun meant: in Exodus 16:10 and 40:34-35 “the glory of the LORD” is “the visible manifestation of the Presence and Majesty of Jehovah, known in later times as the Shechinah,” bound by the promise of Leviticus 16:2 to the mercy seat on the ark; and Cambridge notes that Paul still lists “the glory” among Israel's privileges at Romans 9:4. ✦ K&D press the covenantal point: “With the surrender of the earthly throne of His glory, the Lord appeared to have abolished His covenant of grace with Israel.” ⚙ The Christian reading, which is ancient and not novel, runs the motion in reverse: the glory that was deported from a box in Shiloh is the glory that John says tabernacled among us, so that men beheld it (John 1:14). ⚙ No shared Strong's number can be offered here, since the link crosses from Hebrew to Greek; the connection is the motif of the dwelling glory itself, and the claim is made as a reading, not as a citation. Israel's lowest sentence, the glory is gone, is answered not by the ark's return in chapter 6 but by a Presence that cannot be captured because it is a Person.
John 1:14 · Romans 9:4 · Exodus 40:34-35
Eli dies in office, on the throne, of the news that his office had failed to guard. ✦ JFB call him “a good man, in spite of his unhappy weaknesses,” and make his ruin a warning “to all heads of Christian families”; Barnes generalizes it further: “When the glory of holiness departs from what should be a holy community, the glory of God's presence has already departed.” ⚙ The book itself has already promised the remedy: “I will raise me up a faithful priest” (1 Samuel 2:35), a promise the narrative fulfils partially in Zadok and which the church has long read as reaching past every mortal priest. ⚙ Hebrews states the underlying principle without citing 1 Samuel: the former priests “were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,” but this one holds his priesthood permanently (Hebrews 7:23-25). ⚙ Honest about the seam: Hebrews does not quote this chapter, and the connection is by principle, not by text. But the picture is exact. An old, heavy priest falls off his chair and his neck breaks; the priest who abides is the one whose seat no message can tip.
1 Samuel 2:35 · Hebrews 7:23-25
The unit's last word is נִלְקַח, a Niphal with no agent named: it was taken. ⚙ Nothing in 1 Samuel 4 knows what chapters 5 and 6 will report, that the captured ark throws down Dagon in his own house and comes home uncarried, drawn by cows that had never borne a yoke. ⚙ Read forward, the shape is the shape of the gospel: the sign of God's presence is handed over into pagan hands, the covenant looks abolished (so K&D, on the surrender of the throne of glory), and the enemy's triumph turns out to be the occasion of his defeat, which is Paul's claim in Colossians 2:15. ⚙ Attestation marked novel: I can find no such figural reading in any of the eleven sources gathered for this unit, and the Verifier offers no lexical warrant for it. It is offered as a reading to be tested, not as an established one, and the distinction matters: the ark was a box, and Christ is not a type's prisoner.
1 Samuel 5:1-4 · Colossians 2:15
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:
⚙ Honesty notes for 1 Samuel 4:12-22.
Text. Three numbers in this unit are unstable. Eli's age is 98 in the Masoretic Text, 90 in the Septuagint and 78 in the Syriac (Ellicott, Pulpit); the length of his judgeship is 40 in MT and 20 in LXX (Pulpit, Gill, K&D). Pulpit and Ellicott both explain the variation by the Hebrew practice of writing numerals as alphabet letters. This synthesis follows the Berean text throughout and flags the variants rather than choosing between them.
The word יַךְ in v. 13. The Berean interlinear carries it as H3197 yak, “a hand or side.” K&D call it plainly “a copyist's error for יד”; Gill reports Kimchi reading it as a verb, “his heart smote him”; the Septuagint, per Ellicott and Cambridge, reflects a different text again. BSB's “beside the road” silently resolves a genuine crux.
Where Eli sat. Cambridge argues for the gate of the tabernacle enclosure, since the news reaches the town before it reaches Eli; JFB, Poole, Gill and Barnes place him at the city gate; Gill supposes the runner slipped past the blind old man, while Pulpit denies it, arguing his attendants would have raised the cry. Unresolved, and the unit's reading does not depend on it.
The name Ichabod. Genuinely disputed. Gill (with Jarchi and Kimchi) and K&D read “no glory”; Cambridge allows “No-glory, or Where is glory?”; Benson takes the interrogative; Ellicott argues for the exclamation, “Alas! the glory.” All three readings are given above without adjudication.
Verse 22's closing clause. Cambridge argues that “for the ark of God is taken” is the narrator's explanation rather than the woman's own words, and that the English versions are “wrong (though the Hebrew is not decisive).” The literal rendering here keeps it inside her speech, following BSB, but the alternative is live.
Rejected tradition. The Rabbinic identification of the Benjamite runner with Saul is reported by Ellicott, Pulpit, Cambridge and Gill, and rejected by all four (Pulpit on chronology, Gill as “not at all to be depended on”). It is recorded here as tradition, never as fact.
Cross-Testament links. No Verifier candidate for this unit reaches the New Testament, and no shared Strong's number can bridge Hebrew and Greek. Every link to John, Romans, Hebrews or Colossians above is therefore tiered structural or typological and marked as a reading; the Psalm 78 and Ezekiel connections are commentary-attested (Poole, Gill, Pulpit, Barnes) rather than computed.
Synthesis. The kâbêd/kâbôwd observation in v. 18 rests on Strong's own glosses in this brief (H3515 “heavy”; H3519 “properly, weight, but only figuratively… splendor”). It is a reading of a shared root idea, not a claim that the narrator states a pun. All ⚙ material in this unit is fallible and offered to be tested.
✦ = 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)