Ichabod
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According to Josephus, “Eli had at this time resigned his high priesthood in favor of Phinehas, but as the ark left Shiloh, he instructed his sons that ‘if they pretended to survive the taking of the ark, they should come no more into his presence’ (Antiquities v. 11.2).” “When the army went out to battle, Eli, blind and old, had tarried at Shiloh. It was with troubled forebodings that he awaited the result of the conflict. . . . “At length a Benjamite from the army, ‘with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head,’ came hurrying up the ascent leading to the city. Passing heedlessly the aged man beside the way, he rushed on to the town, and repeated to eager throngs the tidings of defeat and loss. “The sound of wailing and lamentation reached the watcher beside the tabernacle. The messenger was brought to him. And the man said unto Eli, ‘Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead.’ Eli could endure all this, terrible as it was, for he had expected it. But when the messenger added, ‘And the ark of God is taken,’ a look of unutterable anguish passed over his countenance. The thought that his sin had thus dishonored God and caused Him to withdraw His presence from Israel was more than he could bear; his strength was gone, he fell, ‘and his neck brake, and he died.’” The wife of Phinehas, a God-fearing woman, was pregnant and near delivery. The news of the death of her husband and father-in-law and the loss of the ark brought on labor. The midwives told her, “Fear not; for thou hast born a son” (1 Samuel 4:20). With her dying breath, she named him Ichabod, “inglorious.” She believed the last hope for Israel was gone. “The presence of God should always be accounted the greatest blessing, and the loss of His presence and restraining power over evil should be dreaded as the direst calamity.”
