Yahweh called Samuel again the third time. He arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for you called me. Eli perceived that Yahweh had called the child.
 Accordingly God acts in a way altogether unexpected by either. The reasoning of the Israelites assumed that God would never permit any harm to happen to that ark before which Jordan had fled away, least of all for uncircumcised hands to capture it. Why not then get behind the ark, and thus be safe? God will surely interfere for those who have His ark. How little they knew His mind! for what they counted an impossibility was precisely what He intended. The throne of His presence in Israel  was  to go into captivity. Why keep up the sign of His glory in the midst of those who could stake it against the Philistines? What were Hophni and Phinehas, who accompanied it, but the gravest misrepresenters of the true God in Israel? And what the state of the people? Like priest, like people. The time was fast approaching when God must put humiliation on Israel. How could He chasten them more effectually than by depriving them of that sign of His presence, in which they had trusted, without a thought of His will or of His glory? Instead of walking in faith, which purifies the heart and works by love; instead of the conscience justifying God, it was a purely selfish superstition; the more guilty because found in the people expressly separated to the true God from such vanities. It was inevitable therefore that their open sin should bring as open a rebuke from Jehovah.
