Eli

Eli, high-priest at Shiloh, before whom the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord (1 Sam. i.-iv.). He also judged Israel for forty years (according to the Hebrew text; the Septuagint has twenty years); and in his old age had to bear the curse that followed his culpable negligence in not restraining the evil dispositions of his sons Hophni and Phinehas. He fell from his seat and died on hearing that the ark of Jehovah had been taken by the Philistines.