1 Samuel 2 · a question people ask
What does "because the LORD intended to kill them" mean?
Eli warned his sons, "if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?" (2:25). The verse goes on, "Notwithstanding, they didn’t listen to the voice of their father, because the LORD intended to kill them" (2:25). In Hebrew, intended is chafets, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "delight in". The verse says no more than this, and Christians read it in two main ways. Both agree that the sons were to blame: the LORD tells Samuel that "his sons brought a curse on themselves" (3:13).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The LORD's purpose stood behind their refusal
Those who read it this way take the "because" as the reason the sons didn't listen: the LORD's purpose to judge them lay behind even their refusal, while they stayed responsible for it. They set it beside Pharaoh, of whom the LORD said before any plague, "I will harden his heart" (Exodus 4:21), and later, "The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he didn’t listen to them" (Exodus 9:12). And beside Paul: "So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires" (Romans 9:18).
1 Samuel 2:25 · Exodus 4:21 · Exodus 9:12 · Romans 9:18
Their refusal came first, and the judgment answered it
Those who read it this way take the "because" as the storyteller telling what lay ahead for sons who had already set themselves against the LORD. They point to what came before: "the men despised the LORD’s offering" (2:17), and Eli "heard all that his sons did to all Israel" (2:22). Pharaoh too "hardened his heart" (Exodus 8:15, 8:32) before Exodus first tells that "The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh" (Exodus 9:12). Paul writes of those who turned from God, "Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts" (Romans 1:24). And in Ezekiel the Lord GOD asks, with the same Hebrew verb, "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?" (Ezekiel 18:23).
1 Samuel 2:17 · 1 Samuel 2:22 · Exodus 8:15 · Exodus 8:32 · Exodus 9:12 · Romans 1:24 · Ezekiel 18:23
The verses
“If one man sins against another, God will judge him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who will intercede for him?” Notwithstanding, they didn’t listen to the voice of their father, because the LORD intended to kill them.”
“For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves, and he didn’t restrain them.”