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In 1 Sam 3:18b, Eli responds to a prophetic judgment with the phrase “it is the Lord, may he do what is good in his eyes.” Most commentators understand this response as an example of pious acceptance of divine judgment. The claim of this article is that a plausible case can be made for reading Eli’s response as culpably passive. This case will be made following two lines of evidence. First, I will examine an oracle of judgment against an individual and the response as a type-scene in Samuel-Kings. Second, I will examine how this culpable passivity fits with the characterization of Eli in 1 Samuel 1-3.
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Ryan Cook (2018) studied this question.
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