1 Samuel 4:16 He told Eli, "I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day." Eli asked, "What happened, my son?"

◄ 1 Samuel 4:16 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
He told Eli, "I have just come from the battle line; I fled from it this very day." Eli asked, "What happened, my son?"

English Standard Version
And the man said to Eli, “I am he who has come from the battle; I fled from the battle today.” And he said, “How did it go, my son?”

New American Standard Bible
The man said to Eli, "I am the one who came from the battle line. Indeed, I escaped from the battle line today." And he said, "How did things go, my son?"

King James Bible
And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?

Holman Christian Standard Bible
The man said to Eli, "I'm the one who came from the battle. I fled from there today." "What happened, my son?" Eli asked.

International Standard Version
The man told Eli, "I've just come from the battle line, and I escaped from the battle today." He asked, "What happened, my son?"

American Standard Version
And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, How went the matter, my son?

Douay-Rheims Bible
And he said to Heli: I am he that came from the battle, and have fled out of the field this day. And he said to him: What is there done, my son?

Darby Bible Translation
And the man said to Eli, I am he that came out of the battle, and I have fled to-day out of the battle. And he said, What has taken place, my son?

Young's Literal Translation
And the man saith unto Eli, 'I am he who hath come out of the ranks, and I out of the ranks have fled to-day;' and he saith, 'What hath been the matter, my son?'

Commentaries

Matthew Henry's Commentary

4:12-18 The defeat of the army was very grievous to Eli as a judge; the tidings of the death of his two sons, to whom he had been so indulgent, and who, as he had reason to fear, died impenitent, touched him as a father; yet there was a greater concern on his spirit. And when the messenger concluded his story with, The ark of God is taken, he is struck to the heart, and died immediately. A man may die miserably, yet not die eternally; may come to an untimely end, yet the end be peace.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

13-18. Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside—The aged priest, as a public magistrate, used, in dispensing justice, to seat himself daily in a spacious recess at the entrance gate of the city. In his intense anxiety to learn the issue of the battle, he took up his usual place as the most convenient for meeting with passers-by. His seat was an official chair, similar to those of the ancient Egyptian judges, richly carved, superbly ornamented, high, and without a back. The calamities announced to Samuel as about to fall upon the family of Eli [1Sa 2:34] were now inflicted in the death of his two sons, and after his death, by that of his daughter-in-law, whose infant son received a name that perpetuated the fallen glory of the church and nation [1Sa 4:19-22]. The public disaster was completed by the capture of the ark. Poor Eli! He was a good man, in spite of his unhappy weaknesses. So strongly were his sensibilities enlisted on the side of religion, that the news of the capture of the ark proved to him a knell of death; and yet his overindulgence, or sad neglect of his family—the main cause of all the evils that led to its fall—has been recorded, as a beacon to warn all heads of Christian families against making shipwreck on the same rock.