Chapter 3 tells the beautiful story of the “Call of Samuel.” Young Samuel hears a voice calling him in the night, as he lies down to sleep. Samuel thinks that Eli, who is old and blind, must be calling him. So he runs to Eli and asks what he wants. Eli says that he didn't call, and tells Samuel to go back to bed. This happens two more times, and each time Samuel hears the voice calling, he goes to Eli. The third time this happens, Eli realizes that it must be the Lord's voice that Samuel is hearing. So, Eli tells Samuel to answer the voice with the words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” When the Lord calls him again, this is how Samuel answers.

God’s words to Samuel are clear. Eli’s sons had done bad things, and Eli had not stopped them. No sacrifice could now keep them from the consequences of their sins. In the morning, Eli begs Samuel to tell him what the Lord said. After Samuel tells him God’s message, Eli accepts that the Lord would do to him and his family what was He knew was good.

There is much that we can learn from the story. The Lord calls Samuel three times before Samuel realizes who is really calling, and answers Him. Numbers in the Bible have symbolic meanings. In this story, the number three represents completeness. When Samuel is called three times, it represents a personal process that is complete, and that gives Samuel a new ability to receive God’s message. (See Apocalypse Revealed 505.)

To “hear” means to perceive, to learn and to come to understand. When Samuel hears and replies to the Lord, he is showing that he is willing to listen to and understand God. It is similar for us. We may not hear the voice of God calling in the night, but we can make space in our lives to try to tune in to His message, in the Word, and in good, wise people we can learn from.

The expression “to hear” can also mean to obey. Someone says, “Do you hear me?” What do they mean? They are asking if you are going to obey. In this story we can see Samuel accepting his role as prophet, i.e. to understand and obey God. So, too, we can recognize God’s messages and begin to obey them in our lives. (See Apocalypse Explained 14.)

The literal story seems to suggest that the Lord would punish Eli and his sons for the wrongs they had done. However, Swedenborg’s Writings teach that the truth is that the Lord never destroys, or is even angry. Instead, evil distances a person from the Lord’s protection and that leaves them vulnerable to the destruction that comes from the evil itself. (See Arcana Coelestia 588.)

6299. 'Saying, In you will Israel bless, saying, May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh' means so that its own spiritual may reside in the truth of the understanding and the good of the will. This is clear from the representation of 'Israel' as spiritual good, dealt with in 5801, 5803, 5806, 5812, 5817, 5819, 5826, 5873; and from the representation of 'Ephraim' as truth belonging to the understanding, and of 'Manasseh' as good belonging to the will, both dealt with above. So that the spiritual, which is 'Israel', may reside in them is what the words 'In you will he bless' and 'May God make you' mean.

[2] What this really means - that the spiritual, represented by 'Israel', may exist within the truth of the understanding and the good of the will, which are 'Ephraim and Manasseh' - is that the spiritual good represented by 'Israel' is the spiritual part of the internal Church, whereas the truth and good represented by 'Ephraim and Manasseh' are part of the external Church, see above in 6296. So that what is internal may be the internal part of the Church it must of necessity reside in the external part of it, for the external serves as the foundation on which the internal must stand and is the receptacle into which the internal must flow. For this reason the natural, which is the external, must of necessity be regenerated, for if it is not, the internal has no foundation or receptacle; and if it has no foundation or receptacle it is completely destroyed. This then is what is meant by 'its own spiritual may reside in the truth of the understanding and the good of the will'.

[3] Let the following example serve to shed light on this particular matter. The actual affection that charity arouses, that is to say, the calm and blissful feeling a person enjoys when he does good to his neighbour without thought of any reward, is the internal aspect of the Church. But willing it and doing it out of concern for truth, that is, because the Word prescribes it, are the external aspect of the Church. If the natural or the external is not in accord, that is, does not will or perform that action because it sees no reward and so nothing for itself in it - for such self-interest resides in the natural or external man through heredity and his own actions - the internal has no foundation or receptacle in harmony with it. Instead it has that which either turns aside, perverts, or smothers its inflow, and for that reason the internal is destroyed. That is to say, it is closed and blocked off, so that nothing from heaven can come through by way of the internal into the natural, apart from some ordinary degree of light through chinks all around which enables the person to think, will, and speak. But that ability acts in accord with what is in the natural, thus in favour of what is evil and false opposing what is good and true, to which end it makes that ordinary degree of spiritual light flowing in through the chinks all around subservient to itself.