Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call you, that you shall say, Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
In 1 Samuel 3:11-14, God restated for Samuel what the prophet had told Eli concerning the fate of Eli’s house in the near and far future (1 Samuel 2:27-36). The reference to people’s ears tingling occurs only here at the beginning of the monarchy and at its end in the Old Testament (2 Kings 21:12; Jeremiah 19:3). Under the Mosaic Law the penalty for showing contempt for the priesthood, for disobeying parents, and for blasphemy, was death (Deuteronomy 17:12; Deuteronomy 21:18-21; Leviticus 24:11-16; Leviticus 24:23). This was what Hophni and Phinehas would experience (cf. 1 Samuel 4:11). The cutting off of Eli’s line happened about 130 years later (cf. 1 Kings 2:27; 1 Kings 2:35).