The Death of Eli

A Benjamite reaches Shiloh with signs of mourning, and Eli waits in fear for news of the ark. When the messenger reports Israel’s flight, the death of Eli’s sons, and the capture of the ark, Eli falls backward and dies.

T¹²hat same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line all the way to Shiloh, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. ¹³When he arrived, there was Eli, sitting on his chair beside the road and watching, because his heart trembled for the ark of God. ¹⁴Eli heard the outcry and asked, “Why this commotion?” ¹⁵So the man hurried over and reported to Eli. Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, and his gaze was fixed because he could not see. ¹⁶“I have just come from the battle,” the man said to Eli. “I fled from there today.” 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.” 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.

Phinehas’s pregnant wife goes into labor when she hears the news and dies after giving birth. She names her son Ichabod, saying that glory has departed from Israel because the ark has been captured.

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. ²⁰As she was dying, the women attending to her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have given birth to a son!” ²¹But she did not respond or pay any heed. And 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. ²²“The glory has departed from Israel,” she said, “for the ark of God has been captured.”