Canter Bridge

When YHWH calls the boy-prophet Samuel in the late-evening twilight of Eli’s life, light and speech have grown scarce in Israel.

The story of this special child’s emergence as Israel’s prophet is replete with last vestiges.

‘ … the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.’ (1 Samuel 3:1 ESV)

The nation’s state is mirrored by its Old Man’s own lot,

‘… for at that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. (1 Samuel 3:2 ESV)

One might as well sketch this scene as faded daguerrotype, the figures recognizable enough, but too little vision, too little light, too little clarity. Too little of all that mattered, YHWH having absconded to the shadows.

Even the physical ‘lamp of the Lord’ in YHWH’s Eli-tended shrine nears day’s end and the hour of its snuffing out. Or are we too read promise into its vesper flicker?

The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. (1 Samuel 3:3 ESV)

Soon the divine calling of Eli’s apprentice will occur in a voice that is at first too quietly enigmatic to be discerned. Samuel believes it Eli who calls, not only because the Lord has not yet clear ‘stood calling’ Samuel as he will soon do (v. 10). Indistinguishable whispers carry through the night air, for the boy Samuel is as yet a bare promise, a mere hint at Israel’s rescuer, not yet versed in the naming of voices, for …

‘… Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.’ (1 Samuel 3:7 ESV)

When YHWH inhabits the shadows—we are gently instructed by a narrative whose purpose seems prima facie to be bolder than just this—a restless boy might well become a man of God, evening’s shadow might just give way to a bright morning, lost Israel might find YHWH and thus herself.

Evening shadows, for those who will watch and listen, bear sometimes the quiet rustling of redemption.