One of the harshest punishments we ever see in the Old Testament is towards Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas. What did they do that was so wrong?

1 and 2 Samuel are full of stories and examples about abuse. That makes sense. Sin plays a heavy role in the way these stories progress, and what we now call “abuse” is a grouping of different harmful or toxic behaviours. That is, they are different sins.

There is a great benefit in grouping behaviours together because it helps us spot patterns. An abusive person might commonly have dozens of abusive behaviours. That makes it very difficult to address them one behaviour at a time. Doing so can feel like trying to block the holes in a colander with your fingers, while the water keeps pouring out. Too many holes. Not enough fingers.

This makes sense of the difficulty of making progress with a deliberately abusive person through counselling, mediation, or human resource strategies. A good-hearted person might be shocked to discover they have behaved harmfully, and work earnestly to change. But a deliberate abuser is more likely to swap to different abusive behaviours and work harder to hide their abuse.

With so many tactics to choose from it’s easy for an abuser to claim they have changed if they just stop doing one specific behaviour. They can continue their abuse simply by swapping to a new tactic. A huge advantage of grouping behaviours under the heading of “abuse” is it gives us the capacity to say, “Nope. You are still being abusive.”

It’s easy for an abuser to claim they have changed if they just stop doing one specific behaviour, while they continue their abuse simply by swapping to another. Click To Tweet

 

Abusers hide behind “positive” behaviour

Another advantage is this grouping of behavioural patterns enables us to identify positive seeming behaviours as part of an overall pattern of abuse.

“Smokescreening” is an easy example. Abusers – especially in the Christian community – might point to their wonderful ministry or position of trust, or their sermons about domestic violence, or some other positive. Those “positive” behaviours might be just a smokescreen to hide behind. It is common for abusers to hide in plain sight, and where there is evidence of other behaviour, such as bullying, such examples of “positive” behaviour fit within the overall pattern of abuse.

Good behaviour is not proof the abuse isn’t happening! It really makes things difficult when good-hearted and trustworthy people are also likely to have wonderful public behaviour. This muddying of the waters makes smokescreening such a powerful tactic. Who is sincere?

 

Abuse involves many types of behaviour

Grouping behaviour under the heading of “abuse” helps us. But it also makes it easy to talk about abuse – even sound knowledgeable – without having much idea of what specific behaviours are involved. When abusers present with forms of abuse that aren’t so commonly understood, (such as emotional, financial, or spiritual abuse), it’s much easier for them to get away with it. We need to know what abusive behaviour looks like. One of our goals at The Abigail Project is to make abusive behaviours “pop out” and be seen clearly. Then, when we recognise these behaviours, we can act on them to create safer environments together.

A tragedy with some of the better-known types of abuse – especially sexual and physical abuse – is the tactics used to hide and deny these abuses aren’t commonly known. Especially:

• With emotional abuse, such as gaslighting and blame-shifting.
• Secret financial abuse, making it difficult for a woman, (less commonly, a man), to leave a relationship or even speak up.
• Using spiritual abuse, to assist with blaming the victim or to use power advantages against them.

An abuser can fine-tune dozens of abusive strategies to specific scenarios. But when we drill down to search for these specific behaviours the Bible opens up as a gold mine of information about abuse. We can use it to help us.

 

What about Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas?

What does this have to do with Eli and his sons? All is not as it seems. As the most powerful religious leaders in the land, Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas all had smokescreens in place.

The first time we meet Eli,¹ he is sitting in a chair by the doorpost of the temple. It’s perhaps not a bad pastoral location. His engagement with Hannah² is less than fantastic, but he ends up helping her. (Although he’s not recorded as apologising.)

We only have what we read here. But Hannah had her eyes and experience. She and her family were at the temple to take part in the sacrifice. We know that whenever anyone offered a sacrifice Eli’s sons would use their positions of spiritual and political power to bully them.³ They even threatened physical violence.⁴ It’s likely Hannah saw that, or knew of it.

 

But Eli was innocent… or was he?

At first, it seems Eli didn’t practise abuse. It’s Eli’s sons who bullied and abused people. But that’s not entirely how God saw things. And while it’s not often scripture comments on a person’s weight, it does in Eli’s case.

God sent Eli a message:

Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?’⁵

“Fattening” here is not a figure of speech. We see when Eli dies, the text makes note: “he was an old man, and heavy.”⁶

What would Hannah have seen with her eyes? Israel’s leader, looking like he was doing his job, but clearly growing fat on the excessive and unlawful demands his sons were making on people like her and her family. Under threats of violence. The Bible tells us Eli knew what his sons were doing. He spoke up, but God expected him to restrain them, not grow fat on their corruption. Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas were all involved in oppressing others.

In our next articles, we will look more at this. God was not at all happy with the way Eli and his sons used their positions of power to harm others. Meanwhile, Hannah’s Godly authenticity sits in stark contrast with their crimes.

Steve Wade

The Bible tells us Eli knew what his sons were doing. He spoke up, but God expected him to restrain them, not grow fat on their corruption. Click To Tweet

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1. 1 Samuel 1:9
2. 1 Samuel 1:13-18
3. 1 Samuel 2:12-17
4. vs 16
5. 1 Samuel 2:29
6. 1 Samuel 4:18