The Reading
The Summary
Shemuel Alef Chapter 4
This chapter describes the fulfillment of Shemuel’s prophecy about the implosion of the house of Eli. The Jewish people have sustained serious losses in their ongoing military conflicts with the Pelishtim. The elders advise them to bring the Ark of the Covenant, accompanied by Hofni and Pinhas, the sons of Eli, onto the battlefield with them.
The soldiers of Israel receive the Ark enthusiastically, feeling that it signifies that their success is guaranteed. At the same time, the Pelishtim are stricken with fear and panic, worrying that the powerful God of Israel will indeed defeat them. It seems that the Pelishtim either believed that the Ark was itself a god or that the Keruvim atop the Ark were the gods of the Jews.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Ark was with them, the Jews lose the battle. Hofni and Pinhas, sons of Eli, are both killed. The Ark itself is captured and placed in the idolatrous house of the Phillistine god Dagon. Eli HaKohen was sitting at the gate of the city nervously; he was extremely anxious about the decision to take the Ark to the battlefield and eagerly awaited its safe return. A messenger arrives and informs Eli that his sons have died and that the Ark has been taken; when he hears the news of the Ark, the shock causes him to lose his balance, fall backwards and break his neck, killing him instantly.
The wife of Pinhas, one of the sons of Eli, was pregnant. Upon hearing the news of the demise of her husband, brother-in-law and father-in-law and of the capture of the Ark, she enters premature labor and delivers a baby boy whom she names “Ikhavod”, meaning “there is no honor”. She saw the deaths of the religious leaders and the loss of the Ark as the ultimate affront to the dignity of Israel; when she restates the meaning of the name before dying, however, only the capture of the Ark is mentioned as a reason why the honor of the Jewish people has departed.
It is worth highlighting that the attitude of the Jewish people to the Ark of the Covenant is tainted with a healthy measure of superstition and idolatry. They relate to the Ark as a kind of magical talisman or good luck charm and believe that Hofni and Pinhas, despite their incorrigibly bad behavior and distance from Hashem, will confer divine blessing to the troops with their mere presence.
When the Ark arrives at the camp, the Jews celebrate, proclaiming that the Ark will save them from the Pelishtim and ignoring the fact that it is their relationship with the Almighty (or lack thereof) that will ultimately determine their fate. The Jewish orientation toward the Ark is, in the final analysis, not that much different from the view articulated by the thoroughly idolatrous Pelishtim, and it comes as little surprise to the reader that Hashem does not enable the Jews to triumph over their enemies at this time. Eli HaKohen and his daughter-in-law share this overestimation of the power of the Ark of the Covenant. In the aftermath of the battle, both of them react to the capture of the Ark as if it constitutes a tragedy that surpasses the deaths of Hofni and Pinhas in importance.
Another interesting point in the story is the parallelism between the death of Pinhas’ wife here and the death of Rachel as described in the Torah. Both enter labor suddenly and assign names with a “tragic” overtone to their children (although Yaaqov changed the name Ben-Oni, “son of my suffering”, to Binyamin). Both die in childbirth and the deaths of both are linked to the “taking” of something associated with divine power or influence – in this case, the capture of the “magical” Ark and in Rachel’s case, her stealing of the “fortune-telling” teraphim from her father Lavan.
The deaths of these women mark the end of their respective eras in Jewish history. The connection between the narratives is highlighted by the text when it mentions that the messenger who delivers news from the battlefield is from the tribe of Binyamin; this biographical detail would seem to be insignificant, but it draws our attention to the similarity between the story here and the story in Beresheet.
Undoubtedly, the religious beliefs espoused here by the Jews are evidence of the influence of the surrounding pagan culture upon them. The removal of the Ark of the Covenant from the spiritual landscape of the nation and its eventual return is a symbolic “restart” for Israel, clearing away old, distorted, pagan ideas that attached themselves to Jewish ritual objects and performances and making room for the new era of Torah study and authentic divine service that will be ushered in by the prophet Shemuel.