1 Kings 4:18
And when he had named the ark of God, he fell from his stool backwards by the door, and broke his neck, and died. For he was an old man, and far advanced in years: and he judged Israel forty years.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Cumque ille nominasset arcam Dei, cecidit de sella retrorsum juxta ostium, et fractis cervicibus mortuus est. Senex enim erat vir et grandævus : et ipse judicavit Israël quadraginta annis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς ἐμνήσθη τῆς κιβωτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ ἔπεσεν ἀπὸ τοῦ δίφρου ὀπισθίως ἐχόμενος τῆς πύλης, καὶ συνετρίβη ὁ νῶτος αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀπέθανεν, ὅτι πρεσβύτης ὁ ἄνθρωπος καὶ βαρύς· καὶ αὐτὸς ἔκρινεν τὸν Ἰσραὴλ εἴκοσι ἔτη.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִ֞י כְּהַזְכִּיר֣וֹ אֶת אֲר֣וֹן הָאֱלֹהִ֗ים וַיִּפֹּ֣ל מֵֽעַל הַ֠כִּסֵּא אֲחֹ֨רַנִּ֜ית בְּעַ֣ד יַ֣ד הַשַּׁ֗עַר וַתִּשָּׁבֵ֤ר מַפְרַקְתּוֹ֙ וַיָּמֹ֔ת כִּֽי זָקֵ֥ן הָאִ֖ישׁ וְכָבֵ֑ד וְה֛וּא שָׁפַ֥ט אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Named the ark, &c. There is great reason, by all these circumstances, to hope that Heli died in the state of grace; and by his temporal punishments, escaped the eternal. (Challoner)
But many of the Fathers condemn him, and the Scripture says nothing of his conversion, or of that of his children, so that the matter is doubtful. (Calmet)
Years. Hebrew, "and heavy."
Forty. Septuagint, "twenty," in which they are followed by many Fathers. (Eusebius; Sulpit., &c.)
Some reconcile the two texts by saying, that Heli and Samson judged together for twenty years. But the Septuagint is probably corrupted, as the other versions agree with the original. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter XVI
For even if He does prefer “the works of righteousness,” still not without a sacrifice, which is a soul afflicted with fasts. He, at all events, is the God to whom neither a People incontinent of appetite, nor a priest, nor a prophet, was pleasing. To this day the “monuments of concupiscence” remain, where the People, greedy of “flesh,” till, by devouring without digesting the quails, they brought on cholera, were buried. Eli breaks his neck before the temple doors, his sons fall in battle, his daughter-in-law expires in child-birth: for such was the blow which had been deserved at the hand of God by the shameless house, the defrauder of the fleshly sacrifices. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Sabinianus
10. But possibly you flatter yourself that since the bishop who has made you a deacon is a holy man, his merits will atone for your transgressions. I have already told you that the father is not punished for the son nor the son for the father. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Samuel too had sons who forsook the fear of the Lord and “turned aside after lucre” and iniquity. Eli also was a holy priest, but he had sons of whom we read in the Hebrew that they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of God, and that like you they shamelessly claimed for themselves the right to minister in His sanctuary. Wherefore the tabernacle itself was overthrown and the holy place made desolate by reason of the sins of those who were God’s priests. …
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, That the ruler should be, through humility, a companion of good livers, but, through the zeal of righteousness, rigid against the vices of evildoers
Supreme rule, then, is ordered well, when he who presides lords it over vices, rather than over his brethren. But, when superiors correct their delinquent subordinates, it remains for them anxiously to take heed how far, while in right of their authority they smite faults with due discipline, they still, through custody of humility, acknowledge themselves to be on a par with the very brethren who are corrected; although for the most part it is becoming that in our silent thought we even prefer the brethren whom we correct to ourselves. For their vices are through us smitten with the vigour of discipline; but in those which we ourselves commit we are lacerated by not even a word of upbraiding. …