The tabernacle is the family home of the heavenly Father of Israel. But with the exile of the ark in 1 Samuel 4 and its failure to return to Israelite hands, the table at Shiloh was empty. It is in this context that our question about Samuel’s role in 1 Samuel 9 should be framed. The great reforming kings of Judah- Hezekiah and Josiah- had spent great energy cleansing the land of its “high places.” These were alternative cultic sites set up in competition to the temple in Jerusalem. And indeed, Samuel begins at the central sanctuary as it existed during the period of the judges- the Shiloh tabernacle, where Hannah prayed for a son. Yet as Saul comes to the land of Zuph (1 Samuel 9:5), he hears that the people are waiting for Samuel to preside over a sacrificial feast on the high place (1 Samuel 9:12-13)! What is happening here? In order to understand the nature of this event, one must grasp two crucial principles: first, the mission and character of Samuel himself. Second, one must recall the journey of the ark of the covenant in the book’s narrative thusfar.
The prophetic calling of Samuel takes place in relation to the status of the Shiloh tabernacle at the end of the judges era. When Hannah comes up to Shiloh with her husband to pray for a son, Eli and his sons Hophni and Phinehas are serving as priests. Hophni and Phinehas are sons of Belial- they go so far as to “lay with the women who were serving at the entrance of the tent of meeting” (1 Samuel 2:22). Remembering that the doorway or entrance signifies the birth canal, and remembering that the tabernacle itself is the bridal chamber in which God meets with His people (women are consistently linked with architectural language in scripture, beginning with the woman being “built” out of the side of the man in Genesis 2), the very priesthood which had been delegated to guard the house of God in the way a man would guard his bride is violating the house of God. We are similarly told in 1 Samuel 3:3 that the lamp of God had not yet gone out. The era of the Shiloh tabernacle is drawing to its conclusion- the priesthood has failed to maintain its purity, and God will soon depart. Yet this is not the end of Israel’s story. God is a God of death and resurrection.
Thus, in the midst of this crisis, a barren woman goes to the family home of God seeking the reparation of her own family. As she prays, we are told that Eli was serving at the “doorpost of the temple of the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:9)- alerting us to the themes of rebirth that will permeate not only this chapter, but the entire book of Samuel. After Hannah conceives and bears Samuel, he is sent up to God to be raised not in his family home, but in God’s family home. Samuel is born of the operation of the Spirit, a son of God to minister at his house. As firstborn son, he also serves to consecrate the entire family to God. This is why we read that after Samuel is born, it is not a one-off. Hannah’s barrenness is healed permanently, so that she becomes mother to five other children- but always through Eli’s blessing at the tabernacle (1 Samuel 2:21). In 1 Samuel 3, Samuel himself experiences another rebirth- in his prophetic calling. As Passover happened in the midst of the night, so also does Samuel’s prophetic calling. Moreover, he is laying down, not in his private chambers, but “in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of the covenant was” (1 Samuel 3:3). This note is extremely significant, as you must recall that the Ten Words were placed within the ark of the covenant: the word of God, engraved by His finger, was within the ark (Exodus 25:16, Deuteronomy 10:5).