ELI e’ lī (עֵלִ֕י, a short form of ’ēliyyâ, Jah is high). The priest at Shiloh during Samuel’s youth. He was a judge of Israel for forty years (1 Sam 4:18).

Eli is a tragic figure of whom comparatively little is known. An old man with faithless sons, he raised the child Samuel as a temple servant. Eli is remembered for his ineffective protests against the sins of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Because of this failure the boy Samuel was called to pronounce Eli’s doom and the removal of his family from the priestly office (1 Sam 3:11-14; cf. 1 Sam 2:27-36). Finally when the army in distress called for the Ark of God to be used as a talisman of success in battle, Eli’s two sons who bore it were killed and the Ark was captured. On hearing the bad news, Eli, a heavy man, fell off his seat by the city gate and died of a broken neck. He was ninety-eight years old.

The wilderness tabernacle had been pitched in Shiloh for many years (Josh 18:1; Judg 18:31). Eli was a descendant of Aaron’s son Ithamar as one learns from the notation concerning his successor Ahimelech (1 Sam 22:20; 1 Kings 2:27; 1 Chron 24:3). Eli’s descent is not given in 1 Chronicles 6, because after the judgment on Eli’s family the priestly line was reckoned through Aaron’s other son Eleazar. In David’s day, after the slaughter of the house of Ahimelech (1 Sam 22:18-20) it is noted that the priests descended from Eleazar outnumbered those from Ithamar, two to one (1 Chron 24:4).

The sins of the sons of Eli included both sacrilege and immorality. They paid little attention to the proper ritual of the sacrifices and less to their meaning. They used the priestly office merely for livelihood. The sordid story includes their sin with “the women who did service at the door of the tent of meeting” (RSV). The words may suggest that Hophni and Phinehas had introduced into the tabernacle worship the sacred prostitution so common at the surrounding Canaanite shrines. The comment is “the sin of the young men was very great” (1 Sam 2:17).

There was also a better side to Eli. He exhorted Hannah to godliness and blessed her for her faith. He doubtless had much to do with raising Samuel and did better with him than with his own sons. He presided over the Tabernacle in Shiloh a long time. Archeological investigation indicates that Shiloh was destroyed close to 1050 b.c. which is just the time of Eli’s death. The tragedy of Shiloh was remembered until Jeremiah’s day (Jer 7:12). See Shiloh.