Bede : Now Eli was ninety-eight years old, etc. The legal priesthood at that time lacked two perfections that lead to life, namely faith and works. Therefore his eyes, that is, his announcements, were clouded in understanding, and they could not see Christ in the law. For there was a veil over their heart, which is removed in Christ. — Commentary on Samuel Gregory the Dialogist : 17. For his old age would have been perfect if he had completed the full number of one hundred years in living. Since two years are seen to be lacking from this number, what else does this signify except that he would have been of perfect maturity if he had recognized the twofold mystery in the incarnation of our Redeemer, namely true divinity in his humanity and true humanity in his divinity? But now, because he rightly understands much from the old law and very many things from the heavenly commandments, he is ninety-eight years old. And while he believes in God, and that he could be born of a Virgin in the flesh, yet refuses to accept the nature of his humanity in the divinity, he is not one hundred years old. Hence also, having heard the report of the man, he justly dies, because without faith in the Redeemer the good things he knows and other things profit him nothing. And because by the deep and incomprehensible judgment of God the blindness of ignorance is struck upon his mind, he is recorded to have grown dim and to have been unable to see. There follows: (Verse 16.) And he said to Eli: I am the one who came from the battle, I am the one who fled from the line of battle today. — Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 3, Chapter 2