SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:36
Y será que el que hubiere quedado en tu casa, vendrá a postrársele por un dinero de plata y un bocado de pan, diciéndole: Te ruego que me constituyas en algún ministerio, para que coma un bocado de pan.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 1 Samuel 2:36
Verse 36. Shall come and crouch to him] Shall prostrate himself before him in the most abject manner, begging to be employed even in the meanest offices about the tabernacle, in order to get even the most scanty means of support. A piece of silver] Psk trwga agorath keseph, translated by the Septuagint, obolou arguriou, an obolus of silver. The Targum translates it a[m mea, which is the same as the Hebrew gerah, and weighed about sixteen grains of barley.
A morsel of bread] A mouthful; what might be sufficient to keep body and soul together. See the sin and its punishment. They formerly pampered themselves, and fed to the full on the Lord's sacrifices; and now they are reduced to a morsel of bread. They fed themselves without fear; and now they have cleanness of teeth in all their dwellings. They wasted the Lord's heritage, and now they beg their bread! IN religious establishments, vile persons, who have no higher motive, may and do get into the priest's office, that they may clothe themselves with the wool, and feed themselves with the fat, while they starve the flock.
But where there is no law to back the claims of the worthless and the wicked, men of piety and solid merit only can find support; for they must live on the free-will offerings of the people. Where religion is established by law, the strictest ecclesiastical discipline should be kept up, and all hireling priests and ecclesiastical drones should be expelled from the Lord's vineyard. An established religion, where the foundation is good, as is ours, I consider a great blessing; but it is liable to this continual abuse, which nothing but careful and rigid ecclesiastical discipline can either cure or prevent. If our high priests, our archbishops and bishops, do not their duty, the whole body of the clergy may become corrupt or inefficient. If they be faithful, the establishment will be an honour to the kingdom, and a praise in the earth.
The words pillars of the earth, Åra yqxm metsukey erets, Mr. Parkhurst translates and defends thus: "The compressors of the earth; i.e., the columns of the celestial fluid which compress or keep its parts together." This is all imaginary; we do not know this compressing celestial fluid; but there is one that answers the same end, which we do know, i.e., the AIR, the columns of which press upon the earth in all directions; above, below, around, with a weight of fifteen pounds to every square inch; so that a column of air of the height of the atmosphere, which on the surface of the globe measures one square inch, is known by the most accurate and indubitable experiments to weigh fifteen pounds. Now as a square foot contains one hundred and forty-four square inches, each foot must be compressed with a weight of incumbent atmospheric air equal to two thousand one hundred and sixty pounds. And as the earth is known to contain a surface of five thousand five hundred and seventy-five billions of square feet; hence, allowing two thousand one hundred and sixty pounds to each square foot, the whole surface of the globe must sustain a pressure of atmospheric air equal to twelve trillions and forty-one thousand billions of pounds; or six thousand and twenty-one billions of tons. This pressure, independently of what is called gravity, is sufficient to keep all the parts of the earth together, and perhaps to counteract all the influence of centrifugal force. But adding to this all the influence of gravity or attraction, by which every particle of matter tends to the center, these compressors of the earth are sufficient to poise, balance, and preserve the whole terraqueous globe. These pillars or compressors are an astonishing provision made by the wisdom of God for the necessities of the globe. Without this, water could not rise in fountains, nor the sap in vegetables.
Without this, there could be no respiration for man or beast, and no circulation of the blood in any animal. In short, both vegetable and animal life depend, under God, on these pillars or compressors of the earth; and were it not for this compressing power, the air contained in the vessels of all plants and animals would by its elasticity expand and instantly rupture all those vessels, and cause the destruction of all animal and vegetable life: but God in his wisdom has so balanced these two forces, that, while they appear to counteract and balance each other, they serve, by mutual dilations and compressions, to promote the circulation of the sap in vegetables, and the blood in animals.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 36. And it shall come to pass, that everyone that is left in thine house , etc.] That is not cut off by death, the few remains of Eli’s posterity in succeeding times, after the high priesthood was removed out of his family into another; so that they were reduced at best to common priests, and these, as it should seem, degraded from that office for their maladministration of it, or scandalous lives: shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread ; which Grotius interprets of their coming to God, and bowing themselves before him, and praying to him for the smallest piece of money to cast into the treasury, and for a morsel of bread to be accepted as an offering, instead of a bullock, sheep, lamb, or even a bird, which they were not able to bring; but the meaning is, that such should be the low estate of Eli’s family, when another, even Zadok, was made high priest, that they should come and humble themselves before him, as the Targum expresses it, beseeching him to give them a piece of silver, even the smallest piece, that is, as the word signifies, a “gerah” or “meah”, about a penny or three halfpence of our money, the twentieth part of a shekel, ( Ezekiel 45:12) and a piece of bread, not a whole loaf, but a slice of it, to such extremity would they be brought: and shall say, put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a piece of bread ; or into one of the wards of the priests; their custodies or courses, as the Targum; with which the Jewish commentators generally agree, and of which there were twenty four; (see 1 Chronicles 24:4-19), and there are some traces of them in the New Testament, (see Luke 1:5-8), but these were regular priests, who were in those courses, and had a sufficient maintenance for them, and had not barely a piece of bread to live on, or just enough to keep them from starving, as the phrase denotes; wherefore this must be understood, as before hinted, of priests degraded from their office, on some account or another, and reduced to poverty and want; and therefore, that they might be kept from starving, would solicit the high priest in those days, and beg that he would put them in some inferior post under the priests, to do the meanest offices for them, slay the sacrifices for them, wash their pots, open and shut up doors, and the like, that so they might have a living, though a poor one; and this may reasonably be thought to be the case of Eli’s posterity, in process of time, after Abiathar was deposed from the high priest’s office, and was ordered to go and live upon his fields and farm at Anathoth, ( 1 Kings 2:26) with which compare ( Ezekiel 44:10-14). This, as Ben Gersom observes, was a fit punishment, and a righteous retaliation on Eli’s posterity, that they should be brought to crouch to others, and be glad of a morsel of bread, who had behaved so imperiously towards the Lord’s people, and had taken away their flesh from them by force; and, not content with their allowance, took the best pieces of the sacrifices, to make themselves fat with them.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 27-36 - Those who allow their children in any evil way, and do not use their authority to restrain and punish them, in effect honour them more tha God. Let Eli's example excite parents earnestly to strive against the beginnings of wickedness, and to train up their children in the nurtur and admonition of the Lord. In the midst of the sentence against the house of Eli, mercy is promised to Israel. God's work shall never fal to the ground for want of hands to carry it on. Christ is that mercifu and faithful High Priest, whom God raised up when the Levitica priesthood was thrown off, who in all things did his Father's mind, and for whom God will build a sure house, build it on a rock, so that hel cannot prevail against it __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
והיה 1961 כל 3605 הנותר 3498 בביתך 1004 יבוא 935 להשׁתחות 7812 לו לאגורת 95 כסף 3701 וככר 3603 לחם 3899 ואמר 559 ספחני 5596 נא 4994 אל 413 אחת 259 הכהנות 3550 לאכל 398 פת 6595 לחם׃ 3899
