• Week 1: 1
• Samuel
• Chapters
• 1, 2
• :11-36,
• 3, 8, 9
• :1-16,
• 10
• :1, 17-27
• Elkanah & Hannah
• Hannah's perseverance & prayer
• Samuel is dedicated to the Lord
• The High Priest Eli & his wicked sons
• Israel asks for a king and rejects God
• Saul is anointed king by the prophet Samuel
• Discussion Questions
• IN ORTHODOX BIBLES, 1 & 2 SAMUEL = 1 & 2 KINGDOMS
• 1 Samuel/1 Kingdoms 1

Who were Elkanah & Hannah, and what was Hannah’s predicament?

Elkanah was an Ephraimite, and Hannah was 1 of his 2 wives. Hannah, like Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, for a long time

(many years)

had a “closed womb”, meaning she was not bearing children. Remembering again our context (Middle East B.C.), we know that not having any children was a great shame, grief, and pain to a woman, especially if her husband had another wife(s) who was able to bear children.

Who is Hannah’s “rival”?

Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah.

What were some of Hannah’s reactions to her situation and what do they teach us?

• Grief—

She wept each year after Peninnah would provoke her.

So yes, when we are suffering grief and pain, like when we’re in a genuinely hard time in life or dealing with the death of a loved one, our human emotions cause us to grieve and be sad.

• Fasting—

She did not eat after Peninnah provoked her, fasting in the time of her grief.

So we too should fast in those tough times, because when we are grieving, we are more susceptible to lose faith or hope in God/Christ, which a Christian CANNOT do. You can grieve because of physical/mental/emotional pain you suffer as a human, but to lose faith/hope in Christ is when you enter error.

Prayer—

Hannah prayed in her time of struggle alongside her fasting, and still recognized God as the Lord and directed her requests to Him. She also shed bitter tears.

So we too must accompany our fasting with prayer. Our prayer should not only be more frequent, but humble like Hannah’s is, remembering that we are all feeble servants of God in one capacity or another, and that He is sovereign over our lives (ultimate authority).

We should know also that when we shed genuine, bitter tears, or feel terrible and “dead” after sin, that God sees we are truly weeping over our sins, and those tears of repentance appeal to Christ’s grace and mercy.

Lastly, we are reminded that God sees the inner heart/thoughts, because Hannah’s prayer was silent and within herself, but it was still answered by God. How can you answer something that you do not hear? You have to be able to know inner thoughts. God

does

know our inner thoughts, and the complete depth of what we truly feel, but know from this that prayer is a conversation with God, whether you pray out loud or from within.

***Through fasting and prayer, Hannah preserved throughout her grief, and she received blessings for it that were more than ever her somewhat bold and lofty request in prayer, as she gave birth to the prophet Samuel AND had more children too, as we will see in the next chapter.

• 1 Samuel 2:11-36

Who was Eli and what were some of the offenses of Eli’s sons?

Eli was the high priest at this time, and he is Aaron’s grandson, but not in the same line as Eleazar, who succeeded his father Aaron. Aaron had 4 sons: Nadab & Abihu who died for offering strange incense, and Eleazar and Ithamar. Eli is Ithamar’s descendant. It is uncertain why or when the high priesthood line switched from Eleazar to Ithamar.

• Aaron
• ├──
• Nadab (died)
• ├──
• Abihu (died)
• ├── Eleazar
• │ └── Phinehas
• │ └── Abishua
• │ └── Bukki
• │ └── Uzzi
• └── Ithamar
• └── (unknown generations)
• └── Eli

Eli’s sons were stealing the

sacrificial meat and not observing the correct sacrifices, abusing their priestly office to force people to do things for them, and also committing sexual immorality in the sanctuary.

This is what is called corruption in the priests, but not the PRIESTHOOD, meaning the people are corrupt, but not the rank itself.

Let’s carefully examine what God DOES and DOES NOT do

God DOES

Recall His promise that Aaron’s line would serve perpetually as priests, which we read in Exod. & Num.

Remind Eli that He CHOSE Aaron’s household to be priests

Proclaim that He will cut off Eli’s house from the priesthood.

Say they “kicked/regard with with impudent (disrespectful) eyes” His offerings

• God DOES NOT

Say He will completely cut off Aaron’s line; only Eli’s line.

Say that the priests were randomly selected.

Say that He will cut off the priesthood.

That they defiled the priesthood itself or that offerings of the people who came to them are invalid.

So let’s consider this in light of recent events— Mar Shaleta.

He was arrested on charges of embezzlement and money laundering, with other accusations of possibly immoral things pertaining to women. Now we can’t fully judge him; he will get a trial, but let’s assume the accusations are true. Well, does it not almost exactly like what Eli’s sons were doing?

But God never denounced the priesthood nor said that they

invalidated it.

He only proclaimed judgement against the individual offenders, and severe judgement at that, because the sins of priests were the “worst”, as we read in Leviticus.

So when a priest, or bishop in this case, disrespects and disregards the Holy Priesthood that Christ instituted in the New Testament, it has absolutely zero effect on the rank itself. It also has absolutely zero effect on the validity of the services of that priest/bishop, because the authority of their rank, in addition to the faith of the people taking Qurbana or baptizing their kids or getting married, means that everything is still valid. Just as God says in

V. 30

“or I will honor those who honor Me, and the one who despises Me shall be dishonored”.

That’s not to say it’s ok to have a priest/bishop like that; when a shepherd is like that, it damages the flock, because ultimately that lifestyle will worsen their service to the Church and thus to the people. God is quicker to righteously judge those in these positions too, because of their responsibility to His flocks and so to prevent the priest/bishop from making things worse for themselves, again because their sin is “worse”.

So God, like how He “transferred” the priesthood from the first born Israelites to the Levites, is now “transferring” Eli’s line to Samuel, because Samuel is faithful and obedient to God’s will, just like the Levites were during the Golden Calf incident.

Eli was guilty too because he was too lenient on his sons, and his inaction was his sin; he did not stop the evil that he clearly knew about.

The only condition that makes a priests/bishops services invalid are when they are officially stopped by their superior from serving. They can be temporarily stopped from serving, or permanently, in which case they are

• defrocked

, meaning removed of their holy duties and reduced to a layperson.

Don’t think that’s harsh when God’s punishment for these priests was to kill them!

• 1 Samuel 3

What happens in this chapter?

The Lord calls the young boy Samuel in the dead of the night to give him the prophecy regarding Eli and his sons, and we see that Samuel is established as a prophet from there on out.

Samuel is frequently referred to as the first prophet in the O.T. Abraham and Moses and others were prophets, but from here on out we are going to enter a long line of kings (hence the name in Orthodox Bible), and also start a long chain of major and minor prophets until John the Baptist comes as the last prophet to start the Gospel.

• 1 Samuel 8

How are Samuel’s sons evil if their father is a holy prophet?

One person’s holiness doesn’t guarantee someone else’s, even if they’re close family, because everybody has their own free will. A lot of people think the Church is a Patriarch or a priest. No! A patriarch can’t get you into the Kingdom of Heaven if you don’t constantly toil in your own life to enter it, no matter how holy they are!

Was Israel wrong to ask for a king when God later establishes the monarchy through David, and even Christ descends from David (in the flesh)?

The motive behind Israel asking for a king was wrong, but having a kingship in and of itself was not wrong. Here are the 2 main reasons:

Firstly, they sinned by rejecting Samuel as leader, as that’s rejecting God’s chosen prophet and thus His rule. Quick side note, but rejecting someone God chose equals rejecting Him? Sounds a lot like

Luke 10:16…

Secondly, they sinned by asking for a king so that they could be “like all the nations”

(V.5),

Another side note, this mentality of “everybody else is doing so and so *sin*/the whole world does so and so *sin*” used to try and justify conformity to the world is ridiculous.

John 17:16 & Romans 12:2, James 4:4

God permits them to have a king, despite disapproving of it, because we have free-will. Even then, God warns them that the king will be cruel to them, in the hope that they might heed his warning and turn away from this request, but they do not.

God knew all along they would one day have a king, as He gives laws for such, as we read in

• Deut. 17:14-15
• 1 Samuel 9:1-16

What does Saul being unable to find the donkeys foreshadow about his kingship?

His inability to find the donkeys and then his uncertainty about the whole ordeal, leading to him having to go seek advice from Samuel, foreshadow his future poor leadership.

Why do they have to wait for Samuel to bless the food before eating it?

He has spiritual authority as a prophet, and they respect that, because God gave it to him. That’s why in large gatherings of Church faithful, a priest, who has spiritual authority, will bless the fellowship meal if he is present. But going deeper, this meal was a sacrificial meal. So too the priesthood must hallow and bless the Eucharist in order for the people to eat It, otherwise they ought not to.

• 1 Samuel 10:1, 17-27

Why is Saul anointed with oil by Samuel?

As we have seen so far, priests and now kings, and later sometimes prophets, are anointed with oil, because the oil signifies Divine (Godly) selection. In V. 10 we see Saul receive the Spirit of God, so the oil is

a visible sign of an invisible gift (Holy Spirit).

• Christ
• in Latin and
• Messiah
• from Hebrew, which is the similar

in Assyrian, literally means “anointed one”. These “anointed” kings were imperfect because they were human, especially Saul, but here starts a line of kingship that the King of kings will eventually come from, who is Jesus “the anointed one” Christ, anointed by the Holy Spirit, as St. Peter proclaims in

Acts 10:38

But so too the Church will anoint with the Oil of Unction/Oil of the Apostles/ Holy Anointing Oil (which is our Church’s 3rd sacrament) those who are baptized, b

ecause that oil is a visible sign of the invisible gift of the Holy Spirit that they will receive in Holy Baptism.

What happens at the end of the chapter?

Despite God disapproving of the Israelites request for a king, He appoints them one, but some rebels are against Saul, doubting if he can save them from the Palestinians who were amongst them, meaning from day 1 Saul’s kingdom already had division.

• This Week's Study

Watch this short video on our 3rd sacrament, the Oil of Unction