Eli’s family suffers disaster as well (4:12–22). A messenger with “his clothes torn and dust on his head” brings news of Israel’s defeat to Shiloh (4:12). When Eli hears the commotion, he asks what has happened. According to verse 13, Eli had serious misgivings about taking the ark to battle. Old and feeble at age ninety-eight, Eli falls off his chair and breaks his neck when he hears the extent of the catastro…