Curse of Putting Children First

[1 Sam. 1:29] Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?
Eli was chosen by G-d to be His priest, to serve as a mediator betweren G-d and His people; but in this calling Eli and his house failed.
Consequently words of judgment came upon them.
Election, according to the O.T. is not for privilege but for responsibility. Failure to fulfill one’s responsibility makes one doubly accountable to G-d (Amos 3:2).
Eli exercises his responsibility as father in warning his children against their evil practices in the Temple. How he is charged for not restraining his sons.
Eli’s posterity will be cut off.
Israelites seem to have believed in some kind of an ongoing existence remembrance through their posterity, through male progeny.
That is why they saw the need for the levirate marriage system, which covered the case of a man dying without issue.
To have one’s posterity cut off was considered to be a great curse and a terrible misfortune.
By the withdrawal of the high priesthood from Eleazar, the elder of Aaron's two sons (after Nadab and Abihu were destroyed, (Numbers 3:4), that dignity had been conferred on the family of Ithamar, to which Eli belonged, and now that his descendants had forfeited the honor, it was to be taken from them and restored to the elder branch.
To die in old age was a sign of G-d’s blessings in Israel, but to die prematurely was considered to be a curse.
So much importance has always, in the East, been attached to old age, that it would be felt to be a great calamity, and sensibly to lower the respectability of any family which could boast of few or no old men.
The prediction of this prophet was fully confirmed by the afflictions, degradation, poverty, and many untimely deaths with which the house of Eli was visited after its announcement (4:11, 14:3, 22:18-23, 1 Kings 2:27).
Enemy in my habitation, a successful rival for the office of high priest shall rise out of another family (2 Samuel 15:35, 1 Chronicles 24:3, 29:22).
All the young men of Eli’s house are to fall by the sword.
Anticipates that some of the priest who still survive from Eli’s line will play a subordinate role in the new order.
The conditions that prevailed after the centralization of worship in Jerusalem, when the priest of the local Sanctuaries lost their jobs and sought subordinate positions in the Jerusalem Temple.