Speaker 1: Samuel was arguably the greatest spiritual leader Israel had seen
Speaker 1: since Moses. He was a prophet, a judge, and the
Speaker 1: man who anointed Israel's first kings. For decades, he held
Speaker 1: an entire nation together through the sheer force of his integrity.
Speaker 1: People trusted him with their disputes, their families, their futures.
Speaker 1: And when he got old and it came time to
Speaker 1: pass the torch, he did something that would change the
Speaker 1: entire trajectory of Israel's history. He handed the job to
Speaker 1: his sons, Joel and Abijah, two names that literally mean
Speaker 1: Yahweh is God and my father is Yahweh, two men
Speaker 1: whose names were declarations of faith stamped on them at
Speaker 1: birth by a father who walked with God closer than
Speaker 1: almost anyone in the Hebrew Bible. So why did they
Speaker 1: become the most corrupt judges in Israel's recorded history. Why
Speaker 1: did their betrayal of justice trigger the single biggest political
Speaker 1: upheaval the nation had ever experienced. And what does the
Speaker 1: original Hebrew text tell us about their corruption that most
Speaker 1: English Bibles completely bury. That is what we are going
Speaker 1: to uncover today, because this is not just an ancient
Speaker 1: story about two bad sons. This is a story about
Speaker 1: how corruption grows in the places you would least expect.
Speaker 1: It about how the children of the righteous can become
Speaker 1: the instruments of destruction, and about a pattern in scripture
Speaker 1: that once you see it, you will never be able
Speaker 1: to unsee. And honestly, it might be one of the
Speaker 1: most personally relevant stories in the entire Old Testament, because
Speaker 1: if you have ever struggled with living up to someone
Speaker 1: else's legacy, or if you have ever watched someone you
Speaker 1: raised or mentored walk away from everything you who taught them,
Speaker 1: this story is going to hit different. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning. To understand what went wrong with Joel
Speaker 1: and Abija, you have to understand the man who raised them,
Speaker 1: and to understand Samuel, you have to understand the woman
Speaker 1: who prayed him into existence. Around eleven hundred BC, in
Speaker 1: the hill country of their frame, there was a woman
Speaker 1: named Hannah. She was one of two wives of a
Speaker 1: man named Elkana. The other wife, Panina, had children. Hannah
Speaker 1: had none, and in ancient Israel, that was not just
Speaker 1: a personal sorrow, it was a social catastrophe. A woman
Speaker 1: without children was considered cursed. She had no security, no
Speaker 1: standing and no future. Every year the family would travel
Speaker 1: to the tabernacle at Shiloh to worship, and every year
Speaker 1: Panina would provoke Hannah about her barrenness. Us. The Hebrew
Speaker 1: word used for what Paninna did is ram, and it
Speaker 1: does not just mean she teased her. It means she
Speaker 1: thundered against her. She made her life unbearable. So one
Speaker 1: year at Shiloh, Hannah did something desperate. She went to
Speaker 1: the entrance of the tabernacle and poured out her soul
Speaker 1: before God. She was crying so hard and praying so
Speaker 1: intensely that the priest on duty, a man named Eli,
Speaker 1: actually thought she was drunk. He confronted her about it,
Speaker 1: and this is where it gets interesting. Hannah told Eli
Speaker 1: she was not drunk. She was in anguish. She was
Speaker 1: praying for a son, and she made a vow that
Speaker 1: if God gave her a child, she would give that
Speaker 1: child back to God for his entire life. She would
Speaker 1: dedicate him to the Nazarite vow no razor would touch
Speaker 1: his head. He would serve God from infancy. God answered
Speaker 1: her prayer. She conceived. She gave birth to a son,
Speaker 1: and she named him Samuel, which in Hebrew is Shemuel,
Speaker 1: meaning heard by God or asked of God. His very
Speaker 1: name was a monument to answered prayer. And then Hannah
Speaker 1: did the hardest thing a mother could do. When Samuel
Speaker 1: was weaned, probably around age three, she brought him to
Speaker 1: the tabernacle at Shiloh and left him there. She handed
Speaker 1: her miracle baby to Eli, the priest, and said, in essence,
Speaker 1: he is yours now he belongs to God. Think about that.
Speaker 1: This child was not an accident. He was not even
Speaker 1: a normal blessing. He was a prayer answered after years
Speaker 1: of tears, and she gave him away. That decision shaped
Speaker 1: everything that followed, because the house where Samuel grew up
Speaker 1: was not a holy, peaceful sanctuary. It was disaster. Eli
Speaker 1: was the high priest of Israel. He was an old man,
Speaker 1: he had served faithfully for years, and his sons were
Speaker 1: destroying everything he had built. Their names were Hopni and Finejas,
Speaker 1: and the Hebrew Bible does not hold back when describing
Speaker 1: what they did. First Samuel chapter two calls them beney belial,
Speaker 1: which is often translated as worthless men or sons of wickedness,
Speaker 1: but that phrase is much heavier than it sounds in English.
Speaker 1: Bellial in Hebrew means without worth or without going up,
Speaker 1: a term that later Jewish writings would associate with pure evil.
Speaker 1: These were not just bad apples. The text is telling
Speaker 1: you these men were spiritually cancerous. What did they actually do?
Speaker 1: They stole from the sacrifices When people brought offerings to
Speaker 1: God at the tabernacle, Hofni and Finihas would send a
Speaker 1: servant with a three pronged fork to plunge into the
Speaker 1: pot while the meat was boiling. Whatever the fork pulled
Speaker 1: out they kept for themselves. And if the worshiper protested
Speaker 1: and said, let the fat be burned first, as the
Speaker 1: law requires, and then take what you want, they would
Speaker 1: threaten them. The text says their servant would respond, give
Speaker 1: it now, or I will take it by force. They
Speaker 1: were robbing God's altar and threatening God's people to do it.
Speaker 1: And it gets worse. The text tells us they were
Speaker 1: also sleeping with the women who served at the entrance
Speaker 1: to the tabernacle. They were using their religious authority to
Speaker 1: exploit vulnerable women. This was not just corruption. This was
Speaker 1: predatory abuse wrapped in priestly robes. Now Here is the
Speaker 1: critical detail. Mule was growing up in this house. He
Speaker 1: was a little boy sleeping in the tabernacle, serving under Eli,
Speaker 1: watching Hofni and Finihaus do all of this. He saw
Speaker 1: the stolen meat, he heard the threats, He witnessed the abuse.
Speaker 1: He watched Eli, the high priest, do almost nothing about it.
Speaker 1: Eli did confront his sons technically, he asked them why
Speaker 1: they were doing these terrible things, But the Hebrew verb
Speaker 1: used for Eli's rebuke is weak. It was a verbal
Speaker 1: scolding from a man who had no intention of actually
Speaker 1: removing them from power. He asked questions, he did not act,
Speaker 1: and God noticed. A prophet came to Eli and delivered
Speaker 1: one of the most devastating messages in the entire Old Testament.
Speaker 1: He told Eli that because he honored his sons above God,
Speaker 1: his family line would be cut off. His descendants would
Speaker 1: die young. Both Hofni and Finnejas would die on the
Speaker 1: same day, and the priesthood would eventually be given to
Speaker 1: some one else. Samuel heard all of this. He was
Speaker 1: there the night God called his name three times, and
Speaker 1: he kept running to Eli's room, thinking the old priest
Speaker 1: was calling him. He was there when God told him
Speaker 1: directly that judgment was coming on Eli's house and that
Speaker 1: nothing could stop it. This is the environment that shaped Samuel.
Speaker 1: He grew up watching a godly leader fail to discipline
Speaker 1: his corrupt sons. He watched that failure destroy an entire
Speaker 1: family and bring judgment on a nation. Remember that, because
Speaker 1: the cruelest irony in this entire story is that Samuel
Speaker 1: watched this disaster unfold from the front row, absorbed every
Speaker 1: lesson it should have taught him, and then, decades later,
Speaker 1: repeated the exact same mistake. Samuel grew into one of
Speaker 1: the most remarkable figures in the Hebrew Bible. He was
Speaker 1: not just a priest. He was a prophet, confirmed by
Speaker 1: God before all of Israel. First Samuel chapter three says
Speaker 1: that the Lord was with him and let none of
Speaker 1: his words fall to the ground. Every prophecy he spoke
Speaker 1: came true. Every judgment he rendered was just. He traveled
Speaker 1: a circuit between Bethel, Gilgal, Mispah and his home in Ramah,
Speaker 1: judging Israel year after year after year. He was also
Speaker 1: a military leader. When the Philistines threatened Israel, it was
Speaker 1: Samuel who called the nation to repentance at Mispah, offered
Speaker 1: a sacrifice, and led them to a decisive victory. The
Speaker 1: text says the Philistines were subdued and did not invade
Speaker 1: Israelite territory again. During Samuel's time as judge, he quite
Speaker 1: literally kept the nation safe through spiritual authority. For decades.
Speaker 1: Samuel was the glue holding Israel together. No king, no
Speaker 1: centralized government, just one man whose integrity was so widely
Speaker 1: recognized that people trusted him to resolve their disputes, guide
Speaker 1: their worship, and speak for God. And then he got
Speaker 1: old first. Samuel Chapter eight opens with five Hebrew words
Speaker 1: that change everything viahi Kaasha, zakin Shamuel. And it happened
Speaker 1: when Samuel grew old. That phrase zaken, meaning old or aged,
Speaker 1: is the same word used to describe Abraham when he
Speaker 1: was preparing to die. It carries weight. This is not
Speaker 1: getting a little gray. This is a man approaching the
Speaker 1: end of his capacity to lead. And what did he do.
Speaker 1: He appointed his sons as judges over Israel. Now pause
Speaker 1: on that for a seton, because something is already wrong.
Speaker 1: The office of judge in Israel was not supposed to
Speaker 1: be hereditary. Judges were raised up by God in response
Speaker 1: to specific crises. Moses did not pass the role to
Speaker 1: his sons. Joshua did not pass it to his the
Speaker 1: judges who came after Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon. They were
Speaker 1: called by God individually. The people were supposed to have
Speaker 1: a say in who judged them. According to Deuteronomy, chapter sixteen,
Speaker 1: verse eighteen, Samuel did not consult God. He did not
Speaker 1: consult the elders. He just appointed his sons. The Hebrew
Speaker 1: verb used is viasem, which means he placed or he set.
Speaker 1: It is a unilateral action. He placed them in power,
Speaker 1: the way you place an object on a shelf. He decided.
Speaker 1: Some scholars believe this was Samuel's first mistake, not because
Speaker 1: the men he chose were unqualified, though they clearly were,
Speaker 1: but because the act of appointing them at all was
Speaker 1: an overreach. Samuel, the man who had spent his entire
Speaker 1: life listening to God's voice, made this particular decision on
Speaker 1: his own, and he sent them to Beersheba Bersheba. That
Speaker 1: name should mean something to you if you know the
Speaker 1: patriarchal narratives. This was where Abraham planted a tamarisk tree
Speaker 1: and called on the name of the Lord. Where Isaac
Speaker 1: built an altar after God appeared to him and renewed
Speaker 1: the covenant. Where Jacob stopped to offer sacrifices on his
Speaker 1: way to Egypt. Beersheba was sacred ground, soaked in the
Speaker 1: memory of God's faithfulness, but by Samuel's time, it was
Speaker 1: also something else. It was the southernmost settlement in Israel.
Speaker 1: When the Bible describes the full extent of the nation,
Speaker 1: it says from Dan to Beersheba, meaning from the northern
Speaker 1: border to the southern edge. Beersheba was the frontier, the boundary,
Speaker 1: the last outpost before the wilderness of the Negev, and
Speaker 1: it was fifty miles south of Ramah, where Samuel lived.
Speaker 1: Fifty miles. In the ancient world, that was not a
Speaker 1: short drive down the highway. That was days of travel
Speaker 1: on foot or donkey. There was no e mail, no
Speaker 1: phone calls, no way for Samuel to keep daily tabs
Speaker 1: on what his sons were doing. Think about the geography
Speaker 1: for a moment. Samuel judged from a circuit in the
Speaker 1: central hill country. He stationed his sons at the extreme
Speaker 1: southern edge of the nation. Whether he did it intentionally
Speaker 1: to give them independence, or whether he simply needed judges
Speaker 1: in the south. The practical effect was the same. Joel
Speaker 1: and Abija operated with almost zero oversight, and that distance,
Speaker 1: that physical separation, became a metaphor for something much deeper,
Speaker 1: because it is in the absence of accountability that corruption
Speaker 1: finds its oxygen. Now maybe you are thinking, well, Samuel
Speaker 1: trusted his sons, He raised them well, He expected them
Speaker 1: to do the right thing without someone watching over their shoulders,
Speaker 1: And that is exactly the point, because the text is
Speaker 1: about to tell us just how badly that trust was betrayed.
Speaker 1: First Samuel, chapter eight, verse three. In the original Hebrew,
Speaker 1: it reads vlohlchu vanav bidrachav vaitu acha rei habatsa vaik
Speaker 1: chu shochad vayatu mishpat. Most English translations render this something
Speaker 1: like his sons did not walk in his ways. They
Speaker 1: turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.
Speaker 1: That is accurate, but it is also flat. The Hebrew
Speaker 1: text is doing something much more devastating than those English
Speaker 1: words convey. Let's break it apart phrase by phrase, because
Speaker 1: every word in this sentence is chosen with surgical precision.
Speaker 1: Vilo halchu vanav bidrachav. His sons did not walk in
Speaker 1: his ways. The word hulchu comes from halak, which means
Speaker 1: to walk, to go, to conduct one's life. It is
Speaker 1: one of the most important verbs in the Hebrew Bible.
Speaker 1: When God tells Abraham walk before me and be blameless
Speaker 1: in Genesis seventeen, that is halak. When the psalms say,
Speaker 1: blessed is the one who does not walk in the
Speaker 1: council of the wicked, that is halak. The entire concept
Speaker 1: of Jewish law is called halai, literally the way of walking.
Speaker 1: Samuel walked, his sons did not. The text is telling
Speaker 1: you this is not just about behavior. It is about
Speaker 1: a fundamentally different orientation of life. Samuel moved through the
Speaker 1: world in alignment with God. His sons moved in a
Speaker 1: completely different direction. And then comes the key phrase vaitu
Speaker 1: achaai habatza they turned aside after habatza. Now, most English
Speaker 1: Bibles translate betsa as dishonest gain, and while that is
Speaker 1: technically within the semantic range, it misses the violence embedded
Speaker 1: in the Hebrew word. Betsa comes from the root butsa,
Speaker 1: which means to cut off, to break off by violence,
Speaker 1: to plunder. The noun form betsa does not just mean
Speaker 1: dirty money. It means gain acquired through violence, exploitation, or coercion.
Speaker 1: It is the word used for plunder taken in war.
Speaker 1: It is the word Judah used when he suggested selling
Speaker 1: Joseph instead of killing him. What betsa is it to
Speaker 1: us if we kill our brother. When the text says
Speaker 1: Joel and Abija turned aside after Betsa, it is saying
Speaker 1: they pursued gain the way a soldier pursues plunder. This
Speaker 1: was not passive corruption, It was not skimming a little
Speaker 1: off the top. The Hebrew implies an aggressive, violent extraction
Speaker 1: of wealth from the people they were supposed to protect,
Speaker 1: and then via chu sho chad, they took sho chad.
Speaker 1: Shochad means a bribe, but in the Torah this word
Speaker 1: carries the weight of divine prohibition. Exodus twenty three, verse
Speaker 1: eight says, do not accept a shochad for a shochad
Speaker 1: blinds the clear sighted and corrupts the words of the righteous.
Speaker 1: Deuteronomy sixteen, verse nineteen repeats it almost word for word.
Speaker 1: The Talmud later says that any judge who takes shochad
Speaker 1: brings divine anger upon the entire world. The rabbinic tradition
Speaker 1: held that a bribe taking judge was so corrupted that
Speaker 1: it was as if he had become one of the
Speaker 1: litigants himself. He could no longer see clearly the bribe
Speaker 1: had fused with his judgment. Joel and Abeja were not
Speaker 1: just taking money on the side. They were doing the
Speaker 1: one thing that God's Law said would blind them to
Speaker 1: truth itself. They were making themselves incapable of justice while
Speaker 1: sitting in the seat of judgment. And finally, viatu mishpat.
Speaker 1: They bent justice. The verb nuta means to bend, to stretch,
Speaker 1: to incline, to turn aside, and mishpat is one of
Speaker 1: the most important words in the entire Hebrew Bible. It
Speaker 1: appears over four hundred times. It means justice, judgment, the
Speaker 1: right order of things, the way things are supposed to be.
Speaker 1: When the prophets cry out for justice and righteousness, mishpat
Speaker 1: is what they are demanding. Joel and Obeja took mishpat,
Speaker 1: the sacred obligation of making things right between human beings,
Speaker 1: and they bent it. They warped it. They took the
Speaker 1: straight line of God's justice and curved it to serve
Speaker 1: whoever paid the highest price. So when you put the
Speaker 1: whole verse together in its full Hebrew weight, you get
Speaker 1: something far more devastating than they were dishonest. You get
Speaker 1: they did not walk as their father walked. They aggressively
Speaker 1: pursued violent gain. They accepted the one thing God's Law
Speaker 1: said would make them spiritually blind, and they took the
Speaker 1: sacred order of justice and bent it until it broke.
Speaker 1: That is what was happening in Beersheba. Think about what
Speaker 1: that meant for the ordinary people of the southern territories.
Speaker 1: If you had a land dispute and your neighbor was
Speaker 1: wealthier than you, you lost. If someone stole your livestock
Speaker 1: and could afford to pay off the judge, you had
Speaker 1: no recourse. If a widow was cheated out of her inheritance,
Speaker 1: she had no advocate. The very system designed to protect
Speaker 1: the vulnerable was now weaponized against them. And the men
Speaker 1: doing this were the sons of Samuel, the sons of
Speaker 1: the most trusted man in Israel. They were trading on
Speaker 1: their father's name while violating everything that name stood for.
Speaker 1: I want you to sit with something uncomfortable for a moment.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in a position where you were
Speaker 1: trusted because of someone else's reputation, where doors opened for
Speaker 1: you because of a you carried, or a relationship you had,
Speaker 1: or an institution you belonged to. And have you ever
Speaker 1: been tempted to use that trust for your own benefit
Speaker 1: knowing that nobody was really watching, Because that is exactly
Speaker 1: what Joel and Abeja did. They inherited credibility they had
Speaker 1: not earned, and they spent it on themselves. And if
Speaker 1: you are on the other side of that equation, if
Speaker 1: you are the person who trusted someone because of their pedigree,
Speaker 1: because of their family name, because of the institution they represented,
Speaker 1: this story is a warning. Credentials are not character. A
Speaker 1: name is not a guarantee. Now let's talk about those names,
Speaker 1: because this is one of those details that, once you see,
Speaker 1: it makes this whole story cut about ten times deeper.
Speaker 1: Joel in Hebrew Yoel it is a combination of two
Speaker 1: divine names. Yo is an abbreviated form of the tetragrammaton
Speaker 1: y h w H the sacred name of God, and
Speaker 1: l is the word for God from Elohem put them together,
Speaker 1: and Joel means Yahweh is God. It is essentially the
Speaker 1: name Elijah reversed Elijah means my God is Yahweh. Joel
Speaker 1: means Yahweh is God. Same declaration, different word order. Abija
Speaker 1: In Hebrew avia Avi means my father jah is again
Speaker 1: an abbreviated form of hy h w h. So Abija
Speaker 1: means my father is Yahweh or Yahweh is my father.
Speaker 1: Samuel named his first born Yahweh is God and his
Speaker 1: second my father is Yahweh. These were not casual names.
Speaker 1: In ancient Israelite culture, Naming a child was a prophetic act.
Speaker 1: It was a declaration of identity and destiny. Samuel was
Speaker 1: writing theology on his son's birth certificates. He was embedding
Speaker 1: his faith into their very identities, and both of those
Speaker 1: names became lies. Joel Yahweh is God, lived as though
Speaker 1: Yahweh did not exist, as though there was no divine
Speaker 1: standard of justice, as though the God whose name he
Speaker 1: carried would never hold him accountable. Abija, my father is Yahweh,
Speaker 1: acted as though his only father was prophet, as though
Speaker 1: the divine fatherhood encoded in his name meant nothing compared
Speaker 1: to the silver he could extract from desperate litigants. There
Speaker 1: is a Hebrew concept for this that does not translate
Speaker 1: cleanly into English. It is the idea of chilul Hashem,
Speaker 1: the desecration of God's name. It is considered one of
Speaker 1: the gravest sins in Judaism. When someone who represents God
Speaker 1: bees in a way that makes God look bad, that
Speaker 1: makes people associate the name of God with injustice and corruption.
Speaker 1: That is chilul Hashem, and it is exactly what Joel
Speaker 1: and Abija were doing. Their corruption was not just a
Speaker 1: legal problem, it was a theological crisis. They were teaching
Speaker 1: the people of southern Israel through their daily actions that
Speaker 1: the God of Samuel was either powerless to stop corruption
Speaker 1: or indifferent to it. Every crooked verdict they handed down
Speaker 1: was a sermon about who God is, and the sermon
Speaker 1: said God doesn't care about justice. God's representatives can be bought.
Speaker 1: The system God established doesn't work. That is why this
Speaker 1: was not just a family scandal. It was a national
Speaker 1: catastrophe waiting to happen. If you are watching this and
Speaker 1: you carry any kind of spiritual responsibility, whether you are
Speaker 1: a pastor, a small group leader, a parent who is
Speaker 1: trying to raise kids in the faith, or even just
Speaker 1: someone who calls yourself a follower of God, this is
Speaker 1: the weight you carry. People are watching, and when your
Speaker 1: life contradicts the name you carry, the damage goes far
Speaker 1: beyond your personal reputation. It teaches people something about God
Speaker 1: that is not true. Now, there is a question hiding
Speaker 1: in this text that nobody seems to ask, and I
Speaker 1: think it might be the most important question of all.
Speaker 1: Why did Samuel not stop them? The text does not
Speaker 1: say Samuel was unaware of his son's corruption. It does
Speaker 1: not say he confronted them and they refuse to listen.
Speaker 1: It does not say he tried to remove them and
Speaker 1: the elders blocked him. It just says he appointed them,
Speaker 1: they were corrupt, and then the elders showed up at
Speaker 1: his complaining about it. What was happening in that gap?
Speaker 1: What was Samuel doing while his sons were dismantling justice
Speaker 1: in Beersheba. One possibility is distance Samuel was old, Basheba
Speaker 1: was fifty miles away. He may have genuinely not known
Speaker 1: the extent of what was happening. In the ancient world,
Speaker 1: information traveled slowly. Abuses in a remote southern outpost could
Speaker 1: continue for months or years before word reached the central authorities.
Speaker 1: But there is a more uncomfortable possibility, and it is
Speaker 1: the one that haunts this narrative. Samuel may have known
Speaker 1: and done nothing just like Eli. Remember, Samuel grew up
Speaker 1: watching Eli fail to discipline Hofni and feinihas he watched
Speaker 1: that failure result in the deaths of Eli's sons, the
Speaker 1: capture of the Ark of the Covenant, and the collapse
Speaker 1: of the priesthood at Shiloh. He had a front row
Speaker 1: seat to the most catastrophic example of failed parental leadership
Speaker 1: in Israelite history, and some scholars believe he repeated the
Speaker 1: pattern exactly. This is one of the most painful themes
Speaker 1: in the Hebrew Bible, the cycle of generational failure. Good
Speaker 1: men who see exactly what goes wrong in the generation
Speaker 1: above them, who understand the consequences, who are perfectly positioned
Speaker 1: to learn from the mistakes of their mentors, and who
Speaker 1: then make those same mistakes with their own children. It
Speaker 1: is not stupidity. It is something worse. It is the
Speaker 1: blind spot that forms when you are so focused on
Speaker 1: your public calling that you neglect your private responsibilities. Samuel
Speaker 1: spent decades traveling a circuit judging Israel, offering sacrifices anointing kings.
Speaker 1: He poured his life into the nation, and maybe, just
Speaker 1: maybe he did not pour enough into his own house.
Speaker 1: There is a phrase that circulates in pastoral circles that
Speaker 1: applies here. He saved every one else's family and lost
Speaker 1: his own. It is the occupational hazard of spiritual leadership.
Speaker 1: The more you give to the public, the less you
Speaker 1: may have left for the private. Now, I want to
Speaker 1: be careful here. The text does not explicitly blame Samuel
Speaker 1: for his son's corruption. The responsibility for their choices ultimately
Speaker 1: falls on Joel and Abija. They were grown men. They
Speaker 1: made their own decisions. The Bible is clear that children
Speaker 1: of godly parents can and do choose their own path.
Speaker 1: But the text is also uncomfortably silent about Samuel's role.
Speaker 1: It doesn't defend him. It doesn't say he did everything
Speaker 1: right and his sons just went bad anyway. It just
Speaker 1: presents the facts. He appointed them. They were corrupt, and
Speaker 1: the consequences were enormous, and that silence speaks volumes. Let's
Speaker 1: follow those consequences, because what happened next changed the entire
Speaker 1: political structure of Israel for the rest of its history.
Speaker 1: First Samuel, chapter eight verses four and five. Then all
Speaker 1: the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel
Speaker 1: at Ramah and said to him, behold, you are old,
Speaker 1: and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now
Speaker 1: appoint for us a king to judge us, like all
Speaker 1: the nations. Look at how the elders framed their demand.
Speaker 1: They give two reasons. First, Samuel is old. Second, his
Speaker 1: sons are corrupt. They are essentially saying, your leadership is ending,
Speaker 1: your succession plan has failed, and we need a new system.
Speaker 1: The phrase like all the nations is the devastating part.
Speaker 1: Israel was never supposed to be like all the nations.
Speaker 1: That was the entire point. They were supposed to be
Speaker 1: a kingdom of priests, a nation set apart, governed directly
Speaker 1: by God through his law and his appointed representatives. The
Speaker 1: demand for a king like all the nations was not
Speaker 1: just a political request, It was a theological rejection, and
Speaker 1: God confirmed that interpretation. When Samuel prayed about the people's demand,
Speaker 1: God's response was stunning. Listen to the voice of the
Speaker 1: people in all that they say to you, For they
Speaker 1: have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from
Speaker 1: being king over them. Let the wait of that statement
Speaker 1: land for a second. God told Samuel that the demand
Speaker 1: for a human king was at its core a rejection
Speaker 1: of divine kingship. The people were saying, in effect, we
Speaker 1: do not trust your system anymore. Your judges are corrupt,
Speaker 1: your law is not being applied fairly. We would rather
Speaker 1: have a human king with a standing army and centralized
Speaker 1: power than continue with this broken arrangement. And what makes
Speaker 1: this whole story so staggering is the Domino chain. Hannah
Speaker 1: prayed for a son. God gave her Samuel. Samuel grew
Speaker 1: up watching Eli fail. Samuel became the greatest judge in Israel.
Speaker 1: Samuel appointed his corrupt sons. Their corruption gave the elders
Speaker 1: an excuse. The elders demanded a king. God gave them Saul.
Speaker 1: Saul failed. God replaced Saul with David. David's dynasty produced Solomon.
Speaker 1: Solomon's excesses split the kingdom. The divided kingdom eventually fell
Speaker 1: to Assyria and Babylon, and the exile reshaped Judaism forever.
Speaker 1: The chain of events that starts with two corrupt judges
Speaker 1: in Beersheba extends all the way to the Babylonian exile
Speaker 1: and beyond. Joel and Abija did not just pervert justice
Speaker 1: in a southern border town. They set the first domino
Speaker 1: falling in a sequence that would reshape the entire history
Speaker 1: of God's people. That is the weight of corruption in
Speaker 1: a position of trust. It does not just affect the
Speaker 1: people directly harmed. It creates ripple effects that can last
Speaker 1: for centuries. Now, I need to be fair here. The
Speaker 1: desire for a king was not entirely caused by Joel
Speaker 1: and Abija. It had been building for a long time.
Speaker 1: Deuteronomy chapter seventeen actually anticipated that Israel would eventually ask
Speaker 1: for a king, and it laid out rules for how
Speaker 1: that king should govern. The problem was not the institution
Speaker 1: of monarchy itself. The problem was the motive behind the request.
Speaker 1: The people wanted a king because they had lost faith
Speaker 1: in God's system, and the corruption of Samuel's sons was
Speaker 1: the breaking point. So the question becomes what would have
Speaker 1: happened if Joel and Abija had been righteous? What if
Speaker 1: they had walked in their father's ways? What if they
Speaker 1: had judged fairly, refused bribes and upheld mishpat in Beersheba?
Speaker 1: Would Israel have still demanded a king, maybe eventually, but
Speaker 1: the timeline would have been different, the motive would have
Speaker 1: been different, and the entire story of Israel might have
Speaker 1: unfolded in a way we cannot even imagine two men,
Speaker 1: two corrupt judges in a border town, and the entire
Speaker 1: future of a nation pivoted on their choices. If you
Speaker 1: are finding value in content like this, take a second
Speaker 1: and subscribe. We go deep into Biblical text every week,
Speaker 1: examining the Hebrew and Greek, uncovering what gets lost in translation,
Speaker 1: and connecting ancient wisdom to modern life. So we have
Speaker 1: seen what Joel and Abija did, and we have traced
Speaker 1: the political earthquake their corruption triggered. But there is a
Speaker 1: deeper layer to this story, and honestly, it might be
Speaker 1: the part that matters most to you personally. There is
Speaker 1: a pattern in scripture that is so consistent it almost
Speaker 1: functions like a law of spiritual physics. Godly parents, wayward children.
Speaker 1: It happens over and over. Eli was a faithful priest,
Speaker 1: his sons were predators. Samuel was a righteous judge, his
Speaker 1: sons were crooks. David was a man after God's own heart.
Speaker 1: His son Absalom tried to steal his throne, and his
Speaker 1: son Amnon committed an unspeakable crime against his own ciss
Speaker 1: Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. His son
Speaker 1: Rihaboem was so arrogant and foolish that he split the
Speaker 1: kingdom in two. Hezekiah was one of Judah's greatest reformer kings.
Speaker 1: His son Manasseh became the most wicked king in Judah's history,
Speaker 1: filling Jerusalem with innocent blood. The pattern is relentless, and
Speaker 1: it raises a question that every believing parent, every spiritual leader,
Speaker 1: every mentor has to wrestle with. If the most righteous
Speaker 1: people in the Bible could not guarantee the faithfulness of
Speaker 1: their children, what does that mean for the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Here is what I think the text is teaching, and
Speaker 1: I want to say this carefully because it is a
Speaker 1: truth that can bring both pain and freedom. Righteousness is
Speaker 1: not genetic. Faith is not inherited the way eye color
Speaker 1: is inherited. You cannot pass it down through DNA or
Speaker 1: osmosis or proximity. Every generation, every individual has to choose
Speaker 1: for themselves. Joel and Abeja did not become corrupt because
Speaker 1: Samuel failed as a father. Necessarily They became corrupt because
Speaker 1: they made choices. They saw the path of integrity and
Speaker 1: the path of profit, and they chose profit. They had
Speaker 1: the same information their father, had the same access to God,
Speaker 1: the same knowledge of the law, and they rejected it.
Speaker 1: This is actually one of the central tensions of the
Speaker 1: entire Hebrew Bible. God works through families and generations and covenants,
Speaker 1: but the covenant requires personal consent. You can be born
Speaker 1: into the right family, given the right name, raised in
Speaker 1: the right house, and still walk away. And if you
Speaker 1: are a parent watching this, I know that truth might
Speaker 1: land like a punch in the stomach, especially if you
Speaker 1: have a child who has walked away from the faith
Speaker 1: you tried to give them. You might be asking what
Speaker 1: did I do wrong? Where did I fail? And the
Speaker 1: story of Samuel suggests that sometimes the answer is maybe
Speaker 1: you did not fail at all. Maybe your child is Joel,
Speaker 1: Maybe your child is a Bieja. Maybe they were given
Speaker 1: every advantage, every truth, every example, and they chose a
Speaker 1: different path. That does not mean you stop praying. It
Speaker 1: does not mean you stop loving them. It does not
Speaker 1: mean you give up. But it does mean you release
Speaker 1: yourself from the crushing weight of thinking that their choices
Speaker 1: are your fault, because even God, the perfect Father, has
Speaker 1: children who reject him. That is the whole story of Scripture.
Speaker 1: And if the perfect Father has rebellious children, then imperfect
Speaker 1: human parents are not failures for having them too. But
Speaker 1: there is another angle to this story that deserves attention,
Speaker 1: and it is less comfortable, because while it is true
Speaker 1: that Joel and Abija made their own choices, the text
Speaker 1: does give us some clues about what might have contributed
Speaker 1: to their corruption, and those clues are worth examining honestly
Speaker 1: because they apply to anyone who carries authority and influence.
Speaker 1: The first clue is distance. Samuel stationed his sons fifty
Speaker 1: miles away in Beersheba, Whether intentional or not, that geographic
Speaker 1: distance created a vacuum of accountability. Joel and Abija operated
Speaker 1: in a place where no one with authority over them
Speaker 1: could easily observe what they were doing, and when accountability disappears,
Speaker 1: temptation fills the space. This is a universal principle, not
Speaker 1: just an ancient Israelite one. When leaders operate without oversight,
Speaker 1: when there are no checks on their power, when they
Speaker 1: are physically, structurally, or relationally isolated from the people who
Speaker 1: could hold them accountable. Corruption becomes almost inevitable, not because
Speaker 1: people are inherently evil, but because the human heart, as
Speaker 1: Jeremiah seventeen tells us, is deceitful above all things. The
Speaker 1: second clue is precedent. Samuel grew up in Eli's house
Speaker 1: and watched Eli's sons abuse their power with impunity. He
Speaker 1: saw a model of what happens when a leader fails
Speaker 1: to discipline his own children, and then, when his turn came,
Speaker 1: he appears to have followed the same script. He appointed
Speaker 1: his sons to positions of power, and, as far as
Speaker 1: the text tells us, did not establish any system of
Speaker 1: accountability for them. This is the generational cycle. In action.
Speaker 1: We often repeat the patterns we observed growing up, even
Speaker 1: the destructive ones, even the ones we hated. Samuel despised
Speaker 1: what Eli's sons did. He may have sworn he would
Speaker 1: never let his own family fall into the same trap,
Speaker 1: but watching someone else fail is not the same as
Speaker 1: building the structures that prevent failure in your own life.
Speaker 1: The third clue is the nature of their appointment. The
Speaker 1: text says Samuel set his sons as judges. He did
Speaker 1: not consult God. There is no record of divine instruction
Speaker 1: or prophetic confirmation. Samuel, the man who heard God's voice
Speaker 1: as a boy, who had spent his entire career listening
Speaker 1: for divine direction, apparently made this one decision on his own,
Speaker 1: and it is possible, just possible, that this was an
Speaker 1: act of pride, or comfort or exhaustion. Maybe Samuel was tired.
Speaker 1: Maybe he wanted to keep things in the family because
Speaker 1: it was easier than searching for qualified strangers. Maybe he
Speaker 1: assumed that his bloodline would automatically produce integrity. Whatever the motivation,
Speaker 1: the result was a catastrophe, and it teaches something important
Speaker 1: about leadership succession. The person you want in the role
Speaker 1: and the person who should be in the role are
Speaker 1: not always the same. Now, let's come back to the
Speaker 1: broader theological picture, because this story does not end with corruption.
Speaker 1: It ends with a choice, and that choice has echoes
Speaker 1: that reach all the way into the present. When the
Speaker 1: elders came to Samuel and demanded a king, God told
Speaker 1: him to grant their request. But God also told Samuel
Speaker 1: to warn them, and the warning Samuel delivered is one
Speaker 1: of the most prophetic and practical speeches in the entire
Speaker 1: Old Testament. He told them what a king would do.
Speaker 1: He will take your sons and make them soldiers. He
Speaker 1: will take your daughters and make them perfumers and cooks
Speaker 1: and bakers. He will take the best of your fields
Speaker 1: and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his officials.
Speaker 1: He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage.
Speaker 1: He will take your male and female servants, and the
Speaker 1: best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to
Speaker 1: work for himself. He will take a tenth of your flocks,
Speaker 1: and you, yourselves, will become his slaves. The Hebrew verb
Speaker 1: yekach is repeated over and over. He will take, he
Speaker 1: will take, he will take. Samuel is painting a picture
Speaker 1: of centralized power that extracts wealth from the bottom and
Speaker 1: concentrates it at the top. He's describing a system that looks,
Speaker 1: ironically a lot like what Joel and Abija were already doing,
Speaker 1: except scaled up to national proportions. And then Samuel says
Speaker 1: the most chilling line. When that day comes, you will
Speaker 1: cry out for relief from the king you have chosen,
Speaker 1: but the Lord will not answer you. In that day,
Speaker 1: the people heard all of this, and their response, no,
Speaker 1: we want a king over us, then we will be
Speaker 1: like all the other nations, with a king to lead
Speaker 1: us and to go out before us and fight our battles.
Speaker 1: They chose human power over divine governance. They chose the
Speaker 1: predictability of a king they could see over the uncertainty
Speaker 1: of a god they could not. And the corruption of
Speaker 1: two judges in Beersheba gave them the moral cover to
Speaker 1: make that choice without feeling like they were rejecting God.
Speaker 1: That is what makes this story so sophisticated. The elders
Speaker 1: were not wrong that Joel and Abija were corrupt. They
Speaker 1: were not wrong that the current system was failing. They
Speaker 1: were not wrong that something needed to change. But their solution,
Speaker 1: a human king, like all the nations, addressed the symptoms
Speaker 1: while creating an entirely new set of problems. And this
Speaker 1: connects to your life in a way that might surprise you.
Speaker 1: How often have you experienced a legitimate injustice or failure
Speaker 1: in a system that was supposed to work, whether that
Speaker 1: is a church, a family, a workplace, an institution, and
Speaker 1: in your frustration, you reached for a solution that was
Speaker 1: just a different version of the same problem. The Israelites
Speaker 1: swapped corrupt judges for an extractive monarchy. They traded one
Speaker 1: broken system for another, not because they were stupid, but
Speaker 1: because when you are in pain, any alternative looks better
Speaker 1: than the status quo. The deeper question the text is
Speaker 1: asking is not should Israel have had a king? The
Speaker 1: deeper question is where do you place your trust when
Speaker 1: human systems fail? Do you run to another human system
Speaker 1: or do you run back to the God who was
Speaker 1: never the one who failed you in the first place.
Speaker 1: Because God did not fail Israel. Joel and Obeja failed Israel,
Speaker 1: the institution of judges did not fail. The men occupying
Speaker 1: the seats failed, and the people, in their grief and anger,
Speaker 1: confused the failure of the representatives with the failure of
Speaker 1: God himself. God even said, so they have not rejected you, Samuel,
Speaker 1: they have rejected me. So what do we do with
Speaker 1: all of this? Let me pull together the threads of
Speaker 1: this story, because they weave into a picture that I
Speaker 1: think has something to say to every single person watching this,
Speaker 1: regardless of where you are in your faith journey. First,
Speaker 1: there is the thread about legacy. Samuel's story teaches us
Speaker 1: that legacy is real, but it is not automatic. Having
Speaker 1: godly parents is a privilege. Growing up in a faithful
Speaker 1: home is a gift, but it is not a guarantee.
Speaker 1: At some point, every person has to take the faith
Speaker 1: they inherited and make it their own. You have to
Speaker 1: stop borrowing your parent's relationship with God and build your own.
Speaker 1: Joel and Obeja never did that. They inherited a name,
Speaker 1: a position, and a reputation, but they never internalized the
Speaker 1: faith behind those things. If you are living on borrowed
Speaker 1: faith right now, if the main reason you believe what
Speaker 1: you believe is because someone else believed it, first, this
Speaker 1: story is an invitation, not a condemnation, an invitation to
Speaker 1: stop and ask is this my faith or someone else's?
Speaker 1: Have I walked with God myself? Or am I just
Speaker 1: worn looking in someone else's footsteps. Second, there is the
Speaker 1: thread about accountability. Joel and Abija operated without oversight, and
Speaker 1: it destroyed them. This is not just an ancient problem.
Speaker 1: This is a human problem. Every person, regardless of how
Speaker 1: strong their character is, needs accountability, not punishment, not surveillance,
Speaker 1: but people who love them enough to speak truth when
Speaker 1: they start drifting. If you have authority in any area
Speaker 1: of your life, ask yourself honestly, who has permission to
Speaker 1: tell me I am wrong? Who can see what I
Speaker 1: am doing when no one else is watching. If the
Speaker 1: answer is nobody, you are in Beersheba. You are fifty
Speaker 1: miles from the nearest person who could hold you accountable,
Speaker 1: and that distance is dangerous. Third, there is the thread
Speaker 1: about the ripple effect of corruption. Joel and Abija prob
Speaker 1: thought they were just padding their bank accounts. They probably
Speaker 1: rationalized it. Everyone does it. The system is broken anyway,
Speaker 1: We are not hurting anyone that badly. But their corruption,
Speaker 1: which may have seemed small and local to them, triggered
Speaker 1: a national upheaval that reshaped the history of an entire civilization.
Speaker 1: You never fully see the consequences of your choices. The
Speaker 1: lie you tell today could have ripple effects for generations.
Speaker 1: The corner you cut at work could affect people you
Speaker 1: will never meet. The compromise you make in secret could
Speaker 1: alter the trajectory of your family for decades. Joel and
Speaker 1: Abegia are proof that small, hidden corruption in the right
Speaker 1: position at the right time, can change the world. And finally,
Speaker 1: there is the thread about God's response, Because what is
Speaker 1: remarkable about this story is that God did not destroy
Speaker 1: Israel for demanding a king. He did not abandon them
Speaker 1: because they rejected his direct rule. He worked within their
Speaker 1: broken choice. He gave them Saul, and when Saul failed,
Speaker 1: he raised up David, and from David's line centuries later
Speaker 1: came the one who would fulfill what every judge, every king,
Speaker 1: and every priest had failed to deliver. The corruption of
Speaker 1: Joel and Abija did not derail God's plan. It re
Speaker 1: rooted it. And if God can take the worst failure
Speaker 1: of his chosen leaders and weave it into the story
Speaker 1: of redemption, then whatever failure you're carrying right now, whatever
Speaker 1: broken legacy you have inherited, whatever system has let you down,
Speaker 1: there is a God who is not done with that
Speaker 1: story yet. Joel and Abijah bent justice until it broke,
Speaker 1: but the God of Mishpat is not done straightening things out.
Speaker 1: Their names made mean Yahweh is God and my Father
Speaker 1: is Yahweh. They lived as though neither statement was true,
Speaker 1: But the names outlasted the men, because Yahweh is still
Speaker 1: God and he is still Father. Long after the corrupt
Speaker 1: judges of Beersheba turned to dust, the truths their names
Speaker 1: declared remain standing, and that truth is not just ancient history.
Speaker 1: It is an invitation you can respond to today. The
Speaker 1: real question is not why did the sons of Samuel
Speaker 1: follow the path of corruption? The real question is whose
Speaker 1: path are you walking?