1 Samuel 2:18-19

But Samuel ministered before the Lord.

Early piety

I. the mother’s devotion.

II. Samuel’s early piety.

1. It arose first from a mother’s piety. It was the mother’s act by means of which all his early impressions were of sacred things. It has been said that the secret of greatness is ordinarily to be traced to mothers. The influence of the mother is the most powerful upon the young life--it springs from purest love. We owe Augustine to Monica’s prayers, and in modern times there are those who have bold us what was the source of their success--a mother’s training.

2. But influence has its limits. Samuel, as a child, “ministered before the Lord.” He accepted his vocation, and rose to its demands.

3. Samuel ministered to God as a Levite. Some have thought he was a priest, because he offered sacrifices; but he offered sacrifice by “a special commission” from God, because of the degeneracy of the priesthood. In the same way, sacrifices were offered in different places, instead of one, not because the Levitical laws were unknown, but because it was not possible to keep to one spot until the ark was recovered and settled in its final resting place. God is not bound by His own laws or ordinary modes of acting, whether in the sphere of nature or of grace, and sometimes directly asserts His supremacy.

4. That Samuel was a Levite is seen from the fact that his father was a Levite (1 Chronicles 6:27). He is described as an Ephrathite, because his family resided in Ephraim. Further, he was not of the sons of Aaron. And the “linen ephod,” according to some writers, was a Levitical vestment. This, however, seems doubtful. Both the ephod and the “little coat,” which was a long outer garment, were not exclusively sacerdotal vestments, so that it cannot be gathered from the mention of them that Samuel had an “irregular priesthood.” In the Psalms he is not included amongst priests: “Moses and Aaron among His priests;” but “Samuel among them that call upon His Name” (Psalms 99:6).

5. Samuel, besides being a Levite and a Nazarite, was the first of a new order, “the goodly fellowship of the Prophets.” St. Peter puts him first (Acts 3:20): “all the prophets from Samuel.” The stream of communication between God and man had almost dried up (1 Samuel 3:1).

III. Lessons.

1. Parents may learn from Hannah’s devotion the blessedness of offering their children to God, and that in no grudging spirit, but as realizing with Hannah the nobleness of a life consecrated to God, and the blessings which were brought thereby to His people.

2. Children should learn from Samuel never to put off the service of God to later life, when it is more difficult and less enthusiastic. Samuel, when he was gray-headed, had the happiest reflection when he looked back upon early faithfulness (1 Samuel 12:1.)

3. Repentance after a youth misspent is a means of return to God, and may be the basis of future holiness; but preserved innocence has a beauty, and a greatness, and a buoyancy, and a likeness to Christ, the “Holy Child,” which the penitent prodigal knows not. (Canon Hutchings, M. A.)

The ministering child

One of our poets has beautifully remarked that “the child is father to the man;” and the remark is as true as it is beautiful. Just as youth is characterized, so will manhood be distinguished. Youth is the period of impressions, when the heart is tender, and the features begin to be developed. Like the tree which grows as it was influenced when a sapling, man is moulded by the bias of his childhood. “The boyhood of great men” illustrates this in a striking degree. In the days of his romping boyhood, it is said Cromwell had so little respect for dignity that he struck prince Charles while they were playing together at Hitchinbrook; at which hospitable mansion rested the royal caravan which conveyed James to the throne of England. And in after years no sanctity of royalty could restrain the triumphant Oliver from bringing Charles to the scaffold. When Nelson in his eager birds’ nesting had placed himself in a position of danger, near a river which he could not cross, and had caused much alarm to his relatives, his reply to an angry grandmamma, who expressed her wonder that fear had not driven him home, was, “Fear, grandmamma! I never saw fear! who is he?” And this is the most expressive character of that great Admiral, whose career was so brilliant, and whose death was so brave. Mozart, when a child of seven years, composed a concerto for the harpsichord, and died when only thirty-five, with immortality on his memory and his music. Though piety is not a birthright, and has been frequently ingrafted on a wild career, yet none will wonder that Samuel’s childhood, so beautiful in piety and promise, should result in a godly manhood, a blessing his parents, his country, and his Church. Let us, then, contemplate Samuel in this interesting period of his history, and mark how the good seed took root and evinced its verdure, and how parental godliness sought to bless and comfort a young man from home. It would be no small trial to Elkanah and Hannah to leave their cherished son in the tabernacle of Shiloh, where abandoned priests were ministering. God cared for Samuel, and kept him from the evil of his times. He was “one of the cares of Providence,” and never wanted any good thing. Resident in the sanctuary, he was to be trained for the ministry; and though a child, he was clad with a linen ephod. In the Levitical dispensation the ephod, which the priest wore, attested the same great truth. Whenever he drew near to consult the Lord and to offer sacrifice, he put on the linen ephod (1Sa 14:3; 1 Samuel 23:9.) Then he could plead on behalf of men, and act as mediator. It sanctified his person, and made him a type of Him who was to come. In the New Testament Church there is an ephod for all to wear who would approach God. It is the spotless robe of the Redeemer’s righteousness. This is the symbol of acceptance, and guarantees admission at all times to the presence chamber of Jehovah. Samuel was young in years. He could not know much of divine things; but he was capable of experiencing the divine blessing. He was more than a dedicated child He was born from above. An illustrious ancestry did not so much ennoble him as did this heavenly birth. It exalted him to a place in that family whose names are written in heaven. Samuel ministered before the Lord. He was occupied in the tabernacle service. Levites did not usually begin their service until they were twenty-five years of age, but Samuel was taken into active office in his very childhood. The son of his adoption seemed better than Eli’s sons by blood. It revived the hearts of all the godly throughout the land, when Samuel in his youthful beauty was seen in the holy place. It is ever interesting to see youth in the service of Christ. “Perhaps,” says Matthew Henry, “he attended immediately on Eli’s person--was ready to him to fetch and bring as he had occasion; and that is called ministering to the Lord. .. He could light a candle, or hold a dish, or run on an errand, or shut a door; and because he did this with a pious disposition of mind, it is called ministering to the Lord, and great notice is taken of it.” We have not now a tabernacle such as was in Shiloh, nor have we such services as Samuel was called upon to render; but in the Church of God there is a sphere wide enough for the most active energy, diversified enough for many workers, and simple enough for the youngest to undertake. The hearts of parents often beat anxiously for their absent children. Hannah’s prayers would also often follow him, and her hands were busily occupied with providing for his wants. As a prudent wife, “she sought wool and flax, and wrought willingly with her hands,” and made a coat for her boy to wear at Shiloh. Her heart was with him in the tabernacle; and as she wrought with her distaff, or wove her web, or plied needle and thread, she thought of her absent son. You may have absent children who, amidst the business and sin of great cities, are much exposed. Have a care over them. Remember their case every day at your family altar. Write often to them words of truth and soberness. It is specially useful to see them often. Some who have been early from home and separated from friends may read these pages. You had in the beginning of youth days to rough “life’s tempestuous sea.” Think often of home. There is a charm in that little word. Think of a parent’s yearning heart on behalf of the absent. Letters are the electric wires of families; “they bear in their bosoms some message of love,” and make the heart thrill. Hannah was an industrious wife and mother. Among the many virtues of female character this is not the least. In the portrait of a virtuous woman sketched by King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs, out of twenty-two verses descriptive of female excellence, eleven refer to industry; and of these eleven scarcely one points to labour that is net useful. Many fritter their time away in labours that bring no profit, but she whom the Bible delights to honour is industrious in well-doing. It is to be remembered, however, that the duties of a house and family have proved snares to many who, like Martha, have been cumbered with such serving, and distracted with many cares. Where there are habits of order and of prayer, these evils may be avoided, and while “not slothful in business,” the Christian matron may be also “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Hannah was not so occupied with domestic duties as to be absent from the sanctuary and the feast of the passoverse The loan which Elkanah and Hannah gave to the Lord when they left Samuel at Shiloh was not lost. It had its blessed recompense. God is never in debt to His people, and he has graciously promised a recompense. It may not be always realized in this life, but it shall be at the resurrection of the just. What an encouragement to well-doing, and to sacrifice for the Lord’s cause! (R. Steel.)

Childhood and service

A sweet picture! Here is a child who came into the world, as it were, through the very gate of prayer. So to speak, he was the direct creature of intercession. His mother went immediately to God’s house for him; actually went straight up to God, and asked Him for the child. Here, then, is a child-prophet, and that fact is pregnant with the deepest signification. That a child should have any place in God’s temple, and especially that a child should hold office in that temple, is a circumstance which should arrest our attention.

1. God’s interest in human life begins at the earliest possible period. When does God’s interest in human life begin? When does Christ’s heart begin to yearn in pity over all human creatures? Is it when they are five years old, or ten; does He shut up His love until they are twenty-one? The question may appear quaint, but I press it. When does Christ’s interest in human life begin? I contend that His interest relates to life, not to age; to birth, not to birthdays. As soon as a child is borne that great redeeming heart yearns with pitying love. I do then encourage all parents to bring their children early to the temple; to lend them unto the Lord before they can give themselves away; and what know we, but that the mother’s loan may be confirmed by the man’s own gift!

2. “Moreover his mother made him a Little coat, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.” Great rivers bays often Little sources. The river of a whole year’s joy came out of making this little coat. It seems a very simple circumstance to put down in the world’s great volume that Hannah made Samuel a little coat every year! Mark, then, how age must work for childhood, strength must toil lovingly and helpfully for weakness. The resources of life must be expended on the children of need. This is the way to obtain happiness; namely, by making those mound us happy. He who sends joy down to the roots of society, shall find that joy reproducing itself in the solaces and comforts of his own life. The making of this little coat caused the hours to fly speedily; and the gift of it, at the appointed time, enriched the giver more then it enriched the wearer. So it is that giving is getting, and that scattering may, be the truest consolidation of wealth.

3. Now let us advance a step, and see how this child proceeds. In the ensuing chapter he is still called a child--a ministering child. Experience has taught me to have more faith in children than in adults! Children are more like God than men and women are. Children are unsophisticated, straightforward, simple, trustful, joyous, loving; adults are often crooked, crafty, double-minded, selfish, moody, rancorous, and vile. I sympathise with the poet when he wishes that he could go back to God through his “yesterdays.” Alas, there is no way to heaven except through our tomorrows; and as we get older by travelling through these tomorrows, we often lose the simplicity and beauty of childhood, and engross ourselves with engagements which tend rather to degrade and unfit us for the high society of heaven.

4. According to the opening verse of the third chapter, “the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.” That which is rare is precious. The word of the Lord did not shine forth in noon-day glory; it was like a glimmer on the horizon. God’s kingdom on the earth begins with small demonstrations. It is small as a mustard seed. Oftentimes in the Gospel narrative it is likened to all minutest things. In our day there is open vision. The whole heaven is blazing with light. But who cares today, when England is flooded with the celestial glory? We, as a nation, being exalted to heaven with multitudinous privileges, are not unlikely to be cast down into hell, through our perversion and personal neglect. It is a beautiful picture this of Eli and Samuel engaged in temple service. Here we have extreme age and extreme youth united in the same labour. It is as if sunrise mud sunset had found a meeting point; here is all the brightness of the one and all the gorgeous colouring and solemn pomp of the other. What is the lesson? The lesson I see is that God has work for all classes.

I. Looking at this scene, we have, first of all, almighty God calling man at an unlikely time. The time is night: deep sleep has fallen upon man, and in the time of rest and unconsciousness the voice from heaven sounds. Why not in the temple, and why not in open day? This is like God, the darkness and the light are both alike unto Him.

II. In the next place we have almighty God calling an unlikely person. We should have thought that it would have been more probable that God would have called the aged prophet rather than the ministering child. But the first shall be last and the last first. (J. Parker, D. D.)

A child’s ministry

Samuel was very, very young; but Samuel’s little efforts to minister to the Lord were precious; and are here recorded by God Himself. Is it only the grown up, strong children in a family, who are noticed, and approved of, by their parents? Do not your father and mother love the little infant that can but just creep about? and if it does but put forth its little arm, to show its affection for them, do they not notice it, and look very pleased? Oh, yes, you know they do; nay, you sometimes imagine that they think more of the little ones than of you great ones, and take more notice of any feeble effort that the youngest makes, than of all your great doings; and I could almost think that if our heavenly Father has Peculiar favourites in his family, it is his little infants, whom he has taught to stretch out the desires of their souls after him. It is his Samuel and his Timothy, who from childhood have known and loved the Scriptures and the God of the sacred Scriptures. But, perhaps you think, Samuel could not help being devoted to the Lord and serving him, when he was left so young at the temple, with good old Eli and good people around him. My dear child, if you were to get a bramble, and plant it in some very good ground, and put good trees all round it, would you expect your bramble to become a good tree likewise? You smile at the very idea. But does not God tell you in his word, that our hearts are like thorns and brambles, and that no power, short of his, can make a myrtle or a rose grow up instead of the thorn? Nay, does not daily experience teach us the same lesson? While we look at the holy child Samuel with delight and love, our hearts ache while looking at the two wicked sons of Eli; abusing the office of priest, and causing the way of truth to be evil spoken of. You are none of you fond of a thorn or thistle, I dare say; if they catch you when you are walking or running, they will prick or scratch you--and you get no fruit from them: but when they get in among your favourite fruit trees or flowers, and choke them up, and hinder their growth, they make you doubly angry with them. Now this was the state of things with the wicked sons of Eli: they were not only like worthless thorns, but, by growing up among the people of the Lord, and ministering in holy things, they stopped the growth of the faithful, and even caused the Lord’s people to transgress. We gladly turn awhile from so awful a subject to look at the dear child Samuel. “Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod. Moreover, his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband So offer the yearly sacrifice.” We have here the tender affection of the mother pointed out, with the blessed firmness of the Christian. While she brings him his little coat of her own making, as a token of her love, she expresses no desire to take back the loan which she had lent unto the Lord--the loan of her only child--it, it cheerfully leaves him time after time, and returns to her home, where she had not a child to receive or to cheer her. But who was ever a loser by lending unto the Lord? look l whatsoever he layeth out in cheerful, humble confidence, it shall be restored a hundredfold into his bosom. (Helen Plumptre.)

Moreover his mother made him a little coat.

A talk to mothers

We have three separate statements of the nature of a little child. The first is that, in some way, it is utterly depraved and lost; not capable of conceiving one good thought, saying one good word, or doing one good thing. This statement, to my mind, is untrue. It clashes with the loftiest revelation ever made to our race about the child-nature. Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come auto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” If the child is utterly depraved, and of such is the kingdom of heaven, wherein does the kingdom of heaven differ from the kingdom of hell? The second theory is one that I have heard from some liberal Christians--that the heart and nature of a little child are like a fresh garden mould in the springtime. Nothing has sprung out of it: but the seeds of vice are already bedded down into it; and we must plant good seeds, and nurse them until there is a strong growth of the better promise--carefully, all the while, weeding out whatever is bad as it comes to the surface. At the first glance this seems to be about the truth. Still, I fear it has not come so much out of that true philosophy which is founded on a close observation of our nature, as it has come out of a desire not to differ so very far from those who denounce us heartily as unchristian. Such an idea of the child-nature is, after all, a moderate theory of infant depravity; and as such I reject it, so far as it gives any preoccupation and predominance to sin, and accept the third theory, as the true and pure gospel about the child-nature; namely, that the kingdom of heaven, in a child, is like unto a man that sowed good seed in his field; but afterward, while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away; and when the blade sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. The good seed is sown first. The good is primary, and purely good; the bad is secondary, and not totally bad. And every little child ministers before the Lord, and every mother makes his garments from year to year. I propose to speak briefly on the nature and possibilities of this mother influence, what it is, and what it may be.

1. And note, first of all, that while in afterlife the father may come to an equal or even stronger influence over the child--in the plastic morning of life, when the infant soul puts on its first robes of joy and love and faith and wonder, the hand of the mother alone is permitted to give them their rich quality and texture.

2. Then, secondly, while it is eminently true that the little child has such rich endowment, and you have such a wonderful preeminence, it is also true that the possibilities open out two ways--you may greatly blight his life, or you may greatly bless it. The garments that mothers fit on to the spirits of little children, like the garments that they fit to the outward form, only more certainly, have a great deal to do with that child’s whole future life. Let me give you instances that are kept in the archives of the world. What would you judge to be the foremost thing in Washington? The obvious answer is, his perfect, spotless, radiant integrity. Now it is an instructive fact for mothers that of the few books that have come down to us with which the mother of Washington surrounded her boy in early life, the one most worn and well used is a book on morals, by that eminent pattern of the old English integrity, Sir Matthew Hale; and the place where that book opens easiest, where it is most dog eared and frail, is at a chapter on the great account which we must all give of the deeds done in the body. Before that boy went out of his home his mother took care to stamp the image and superscription of integrity deeply on his soul. What, after his great genius, would you mention as the most notable thing in William Ellery Channing? We answer at once, his constant loyalty to a broad, free, fearless examination of every question that could present itself to him; a frank confession of what he believed to be true about it, no matter what was said against it; and an active endeavour to make that truth a part of his life. Channing testified, with a proud affection, of his mother: “She had the firmness to examine the truth, to speak it, and to act upon it, beyond all women I ever knew.” And so it was that, when her frail boy must go out into the battle, she had armed him with the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation. And so one might go reciting instances almost endlessly, if it were needful, to show how true it is that the mother makes the man. What, then, positively, shall the mother do who will do her best? I will answer this question first by noting what she shall not do. And I cannot say one thing before this--that the spiritual garment she fashions for her little ones from year to year shall not be black. All mothers know how long before their children can utter a word they can read gladness or gloom in the mother’s face. Let her smile, and the child will laugh; let her look sad, and it will weep. Now, some mothers, if they have had great troubles or are much tried in their daily life, get into a habit of sadness that is like a second nature. They talk with unction of who is dead, and how young they were, and how many are sick, and what grief is abroad altogether on the earth. And the child listens to all that is said. The mother may think he does not care; but, if my own earliest memories are at all true to the common childhood, he does care. These things chill him through and through. Then I would ask that the garment of spiritual influence, which you are ever fashioning, shall not be of the nature of a straight jacket. Has your boy a heavy foot, a loud voice, a great appetite, a defiant way, and a burly presence altogether? Then thank God for it, more than if your husband had a farm where corn grows twelve feet high; your child has in him the making of a great and good man. The only fear is that you will fail to meet the demand of this strong, grand nature and try to break where you ought to build. The question for you to solve, mother, is not how to subdue him, but how to direct him. Dr. Kane was a wonder of boisterous energy in childhood, climbing trees and roofs, projecting himself against all obstacles, until he got the name of being the worst boy in all Branch town; but time revealed the divinity of this rough life, when he bearded the ice king in his own domain, and made himself a name in Arctic exploration second to none. I shall not speak in any material sense; but, when the child begins to think, he at once begins to question. He is set here in a great universe of wonder and mystery, and he wants to know its meaning and the meaning of himself. But some mothers, when their children come to them with their questions in all good faith, either treat the question with levity, or get afraid, and reprove the little thing for asking. Mothers, this is all wrong. This is one of your rarest opportunities to clothe the spirit of your child in the fresh garments that will make him all beautiful, as he stands before the Lord. Then, as this primitive woman would be evermore careful to meet the enlarged form of her child, as she went to see him stand before the Lord from year to year, will you be careful to meet the enlarged spirit of your child? I do fear for the mother who will not note how her child demands and needs ever new and larger confidences. (R. Collyer.)

A coat for Samuel

1. Hannah stands before you, then, today, in the first place, as an industrious mother. There was no need for her to work. Elkanah, her husband, was far from poor. She is industrious from principle as well as from pleasure. God would not have a mother become a drudge or a slave; He would have her employ all the helps possible in this day in the rearing of her children. But Hannah ought never to be ashamed to be found making a coat for Samuel. Most mothers need no counsel in this direction. The wrinkles on their brow, the pallor on their cheek, attest that they are faithful in their maternal duties. Indolent and unfaithful mothers will make indolent and unfaithful children. You cannot expect neatness and order in any house where the daughters see nothing but slatterness and upside-downativeness in their parents. The mothers of Samuel Johnson, and of Alfred the Great, and of Isaac Newton, end of Saint Augustine, and of Richard Cecil, and of President Edwards, for the most part were industrious, hardworking mothers.

2. Again: Hannah stands before you today as an intelligent mother. From the way in which she talked in this chapter, and from the way she managed this boy, you know she was intelligent. There are no persons in a community who need to be so wise and well-informed as mothers. O, this work of culturing children for this world and the next. This child is timid, and it must be roused up and pushed out into activity.

3. Again: Hannah stands before you today as a Christian mother.

4. Again, and lastly: Hannah stands before you today the rewarded mother. For all the coats she made for Samuel; for all the prayers she offered for him; for the discipline she exerted over him, she got abundant compensation in the piety, and the usefulness, and the popularity of her son Samuel; and that is true in all ages. Every mother gets full pay for all the prayers and tears in behalf of her children. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

The little coat

I. We have here--the sacred toil of a mother.

1. House labour consecrated by love and worship. Serve God, then, in toiling for your children. Offer to the Lord the sacrifice of your weariness for them and you will find that God will not be “unrighteous to forget your work of faith and labour of love” in your ministering to those whom you have tried to make His saints.

2. We have here not only labour blessed by love and worship, but also household love consecrated by religion. “Love is of God;” and that home affection is not worthy the name, of which the beginning, continuance, and end are not in God.

3. And now in a return of blessing we have religion beautified by loving labour. Religion and common labour are not only not incongruous, they give to one another added dignity, blessedness, and comeliness.

II. The dutiful, pious memorial of a son, I have already presumed what we have fair warrant for:--that we have this story either by Samuel’s own writing in this book, or through his communication of the story to others. Either positron implies on Samuel’s part a tender remembrance that must not be lightly passed by. Though you can think only of a lowly home and homely people as your life’s guides; yet, if like Samuel you can remember common work done lovingly for you, it is worth your remembering and honouring. The same truth is to be held by fathers and mothers. No man or woman can leave to children a more honourable memory than that of hard work, of faith, and diligent labour of love in or for the home, in and for the Lord. (G. B. Ryley.)