Eli and his sons serve as warnings to both parents and children. As parents, we need to obey God in our parenting. We cannot honor our children’s desires to the neglect of honoring God. The cost could be great for ourselves, our children, and future generations. And our children need to be faithful to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right.

In Ephesians 6:1-3 God commands children to obey and honor their parents and fathers to discipline and instruct their children in the Lord. A child who obeyed generally lived a long life, a promise first given to Israel in Exodus 20:12.

The sons of Eli the priest serve as dire examples of lives cut short due to a consistent failure to obey. The failure of Eli to discipline and instruct his sons in the Lord contributed to the shortness of their lives, which should prod parents, especially fathers, to faithfully train their children.

1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as worthless men who did not know the Lord. They selfishly and disobediently demanded their choice of raw meat before it was even offered, disregarding the law (cf. Leviticus 7:28-36). The Lord saw this contempt for the offering as a very great sin (1 Samuel 2:17).

Eli, an old and apparently out-of-touch father, heard about his sons’ sins, which included sleeping with the women who ministered at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Eli confronted his sons (rather mildly, it seems), but his sons refused to listen (1 Samuel 2:22-25).

God laid the responsibility for Eli’s sons on Eli himself. He sent a man of God to him to speak, asking Eli why he scorned the Lord’s sacrifices and offerings and honored his sons above the Lord by letting them take the best parts of the offerings to fatten themselves (1 Sam 2:27-29).

The Lord then declared his judgment on Eli and his descendants:

Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. Then in distress you will look with envious eye on all the prosperity that shall be bestowed on Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. (1 Samuel 2:30-34).

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