Samuel Meets Yahweh – How hearing voices can be a good thing

I’m sure that Samuel was NOT schizophrenic; absolutely certain

Samuel grew up in the temple because his mom turned him over to the Lord right after he stopped nursing. He was mostly raised by the old priest Eli. One night when Samuel was still a kid he heard a voice call him right after he went to bed. The voice said, “Samuel.” Because Samuel wasn’t used to hearing unexplained voices he got out of bed, walked to Eli’s room and said, “I heard you call me. Here I am.” Eli immediately recognized this as a tactic to delay bedtime so he said, “I didn’t call you Samuel. Go back to bed. This time stay there.”

Right after Samuel lay down in his bed again he heard the same voice call, “Samuel.” Once again Samuel walked to Eli’s room and said, “I heard you call me. Here I am.” Eli was annoyed that Samuel had left his bed again, so this time he said, “Look Samuel, I didn’t call you. I’m sorry you can’t sleep but you just need to lay there in the dark. I heard somewhere that lying away in bed is almost as good as sleep anyway if you hold still and don’t make any noise.”

So Samuel went back to bed again. Just as you might expect he heard the same voice again a third time. Because Samuel didn’t want to get into any more trouble with Eli, he walked to Eli’s room and third time and once again said, “I heard you call me. Here I am.” By now Eli was getting really upset and he said, “Look kid, I haven’t been calling you. If you hear this alleged voice again you need to just stay in bed. If you’re that worried about it, you could even try talking to the voice to see if it can hear you.”

The fourth time Samuel heard this voice he stayed in bed just like Eli told him and said, “Why are you calling my name? Please tell me.” Then the voice, which turned out to be Yahweh said, “I have some important stuff to tell you Samuel. Eli’s not a very good father to his biological children. They do all sorts of bad stuff like have sex with the young women who gather outside the tabernacle and Eli hasn’t done anything to stop them. Therefore I’m going to destroy him and his children. They will never be forgiven for their crimes, and when I say never I mean it.”

The next morning when Eli was well-rested it occurred to him that maybe the reason Samuel was acting so strangely the night before was because Yahweh was trying to talk with him. Eli immediately wanted to know why Yahweh was talking with Samuel instead of with him so he called Samuel and said, “Look, I know you were talking with Yahweh last night and you are going to tell me everything he said or I will beat you until your outsides and in and your inside are out. Capisce?”

So Samuel told Eli what Yahweh told him and Eli said, “Well, if that’s what Yahweh wants to do who’s going to stop him. After all, He is the Lord.”

Yep. Definitely not schizophrenic.

Ref: 1 Samuel 3