1 Samuel 3:21

21. The Lord appeared again Rather, continued to appear; that is, from time to time.

Revealed himself Discovered himself, or was unveiled. “The Lord uncovered the ear such is the literal expression; a touching and significant figure, taken from the manner in which the possessor of a secret moves back the long hair of his friend, and whispers into the ear thus laid bare the word that no one else may hear. It is a figure which precisely expresses the most universal and philosophical idea conveyed by the term Revelation, thence appropriated in the theological language both of East and West.” Stanley.

By the word of the Lord By communications like the one just related. Literally, the expression is, In the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord was the very element in which he lived. Thus was Samuel caused to ask of Jehovah, that is, caused to be in continued intercourse with him, as he himself might ever be reminded by his very name. See note on 1 Samuel 1:28. Accordingly, the word of the Lord was no longer so costly and rare as it had previously been in Israel, (1 Samuel 3:1,) for throughout the land Samuel was known to habitually receive communications from Jehovah. “He is, also, the first instance of a prophet gradually raised for his office from the earliest dawn of reason. His work and his life are the counterparts of each other. With all the recollections of the ancient sanctuary impressed upon his mind, with the voice of God sounding in his ears, not, as in the case of the elder leaders and teachers of his people, amidst the roar of thunder and the clash of war, but in the still silence of the tabernacle, ere the lamp of God went out, he was the more fitted to meet the coming crisis, to become himself the centre of new institutions which should themselves become venerable as those in which he had been himself brought up.” Stanley.