God’s Retribution to Wickedness

W.G. Blaikie

“And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant hears.’ Then the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever’” (1 Samuel 3:10-14).

When God denounced His judgment on Eli’s house by the prophet, he seems to have intended to give them an opportunity to repent. If Eli had bestirred himself then and banished the young men from Shiloh, and if his sons in their affliction and humiliation had repented of their wickedness, the threatened doom might have been averted. So at least we are led to believe by this second message having been superadded to the first. Now the opportunity of repentance has passed away.

God’s words are very explicit — “I have sworn unto the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.” After the previous warning, Eli seems to have gone on lamenting but now chastising. Hophni and Phinehas seem to have gone on sinning as before, and heedless of the scandal they were causing. In announcing to Samuel the coming catastrophe, God shows Himself thoroughly alive to the magnitude of the punishment He is to inflict, and the calamity that is to happen. It is such that the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.

God shows also that, painful though it is, it has been deliberately determined, and no relenting will occur when once the terrible retribution begins. “In that day will I perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house; when I begin I will also make an end.” But terrible though the punishment will be, there is only too good cause for it. “ For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.” There are some good parents whose sons have made themselves vile, and they would fain have restrained them but their efforts to restrain have been in vain. The fault of Eli was that he might have restrained them, and he did not restrain them. In those times, fathers had more authority over their families than is given them now. The head of the house was counted responsible for the house, because it was only by his neglecting the power he had that his family could become openly wicked. It was only by Eli neglecting the power he had that his sons could have become so vile. Where his sons were heirs to such sacred functions there was a double call to restrain them, and that call he neglected. He neglected it at the time when he might have done it, and that time could never be recalled.

So, there is an age when children may be restrained, and if that age is allowed to pass the power of restraining them goes along with it. There are faults in this matter on the part of many parents, on the right hand and on the left. Many err by not restraining at all. Mothers begin while their children are yet infants to humour their every whim, and cannot bear to hold back from them anything they may wish. It is this habit that is liable to have such a terrible reaction.

There are other parents that while they restrain do not restrain wisely. They punish, but they do not punish in love. They are angry because their children have broken their rules; they punish in anger, and the punishment falls merely as the blow of a stronger person on a weaker. It does not humble, it does not soften. What awful consequences it often brings! What skeletons it lodges in many a house!

God has designed the family to be the nurse of what is best and purest in human life, and when this design is crossed, then the family institution, which was designed to bring the purest joy, breeds the darkest misery. And this is one of the forms of retribution on wickedness which we see carried out in their fullness in the present life!

How strange that men should be in any doubt as to God carrying out the retribution of wickedness to the bitter end! How singular they should disbelieve in a hell! The end of many a career is written in these words: “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore, and see that it is an evil thin and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.”