Now Eli was ninety-eight years old; and his eyes were set, so that he could not see.
      I. How the city received it. Eli sat in the gate (1 Samuel 4:13; 1 Samuel 4:18), but the messenger was loth to tell him first, and therefore passed him by, and told it in the city, with all the aggravating circumstances; and now both the ears of every one that heard it tingled, as was foretold, 1 Samuel 3:11; 1 Samuel 3:11. Their hearts trembled, and every face gathered blackness. All the city cried out (1 Samuel 4:13; 1 Samuel 4:13), and well they might, for, besides that this was a calamity to all Israel, it was a particular loss to Shiloh, and the ruin of that place; for, though the ark was soon rescued out of the hands of the Philistines, yet it never returned to Shiloh again; their candlestick was removed out of its place, because they had left their first love, and their city dwindled, and sunk, and came to nothing. Now God forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, they having driven him from them; and the tribe of Ephraim, which had for 340 years been blessed with the presence of the ark in it, lost the honour (Psalms 78:60; Psalms 78:67), and, some time after, it was transferred to the tribe of Judah, the Mount Sion which he loved, as it follows there (Psalms 78:68; Psalms 78:68), because the men of Shiloh knew not the day of their visitation. This abandoning of Shiloh Jerusalem is long afterwards reminded of, and told to take warning by. Jeremiah 7:12, "Go see what I did to Shiloh. From this day, this fatal day, let the desolations of Shiloh be dated." They had therefore reason enough to cry out when they heard that the ark was taken.