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.)

271. Such are the angels of the third heaven because they are in love to the Lord, and that love opens the interiors of the mind to the third degree, and is a receptacle of all things of wisdom. It must be understood also that angels of the inmost heaven are still being continually perfected in wisdom, and this differently from the angels of the outermost heaven. The angels of the inmost heaven do not store up Divine Truths in the memory and thus make out of them a kind of science; but as soon as they hear them they perceive them and apply them to life. For this reason, Divine Truths are as permanent with them as if they were inscribed on them, for what is committed to the life is as something contained in it. But it is not so with the angels of the outermost heaven. These first store up Divine Truths in the memory and stow them away with their knowledge, and draw them out therefrom to perfect their understanding by them, and will them and apply them to the life, but with no interior perception as to whether they are truths. Consequently, they are in comparative obscurity. It is a notable fact that the angels of the third heaven are perfected in wisdom by hearing and not by seeing. What they hear from preachings does not enter into their memory, but enters directly into their perception and will, and becomes a matter of life. What they see with their eyes, however, does enter into their memory, and they reason and talk about it. This shows that with them the way of hearing is the way of wisdom. This, too, is from correspondence, for the ear corresponds to obedience, and obedience belongs to the life, while the eye corresponds to intelligence, and intelligence is a matter of doctrine. ¹ The state of these angels is described in different parts of the Word, as in Jeremiah:

I will put My law in their mind, and write it on their heart. They shall teach no more every one his friend and every one his brother, saying, Know ye Jehovah; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them even unto the greatest of them. Jeremiah 31:33-34.

And in Matthew:

Let your speech be Yea, yea, Nay, nay; what is more than these is from evil. Matthew 5:37.

"What is more than these is from evil" because it is not from the Lord, for the truths which are in the angels of the third heaven are from the Lord, because they are in love to Him. In that heaven love to the Lord is willing and doing Divine Truth, for Divine Truth is the Lord in heaven.

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