The priest and judge at SHILOH in Samuel's boyhood. He blesses the praying Hannah (after first mistaking her for a drunk) and raises the child Samuel at the sanctuary — but he fails to restrain his own wicked sons, HOPHNI and PHINEHAS, who defile the priesthood, and a man of God pronounces the end of his house (ch 2). Old and blind, he dies falling from his seat when word comes that the ark of God has been captured and his sons killed (ch 4) — the collapse of the old order that Samuel's rise replaces.