Mourning & Weeping

[1 Sam. 4:11] And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
Ritual mourning and weeping was common practice mourning at personal tragedies, at the death of personal friends, relatives, and national heroes, and over national calamities. As a sign of deep grief clothes were rent. The head was not anointed with oil, but ashes or dust was put on the head. Fasting and lying on the ground were also used. Messengers of sad news arrived in mourning clothes.
13-22 deals with the news of the capture of the ark being brought to Eli and the people in Shiloh and its impact on Eli’s house. It is possible that these verses come from a different hand. Since these various sources all refer to the same historical incident, the historicity of that incident is thereby enhanced.
The fact that the destiny of the house of Eli is closely tied up with the ark indicates that this narrative in its present form should have come from the time of David, when the Zadokite priesthood of Eli’s lineage was still in active service. That also explains the positive attitude to the house of Eli here, as different from what is said in chp. 2 and 3. This means that the Eli account here is independent of the account in chp. 2 and 3.
Eli is presented here not only as the priest but also, for the first time, as the judge who judged Israel forty years. Seat himself daily in a spacious recess at the entrance gate of the city. In his intense anxiety to learn the issue of the battle, he took up his usual place as the most convenient for meeting with passers-by. His seat was an official chair, similar to those of the ancient Egyptian judges, richly carved, superbly ornamented, high, and without a back. The calamities announced to Samuel as about to fall upon the family of Eli (2:34) were now inflicted in the death of his two sons, and after his death, by that of his daughter-in-law, whose infant son received a name that perpetuated the fallen glory of the church and nation (4:19-22). The public disaster was completed by the capture of the ark. Poor Eli! He was a good man, in spite of his unhappy weaknesses. So strongly were his sensibilities enlisted on the side of religion, that the news of the capture of the ark proved to him a knell of death; and yet his overindulgence, or sad neglect of his family - the main cause of all the evils that led to its fall - has been recorded, as a beacon to warn all heads of believing families against making shipwreck on the same rock.
All the city cried out which perhaps refers to the national mourning. The news of the capture of the ark causes the immediate death of Eli, for his heart trembled for the ark of G-d. On hearing the shocking news of the capture of the ark and the death of her husband and father-in-law, Eli’s daughter-in-law, Phinehas wife, who was in full pregnancy, was overcome by pains and delivered of a son, whom she named before dying as Ichabod. This means literally no glory. This name was supposed to indicate that the glory has departed from Israel. The women greeted Eli’s daughter-in-law about the time of her death with the words fear not, for you have borne a son. These words seem to imply that because she had given birth to a son she could now die in peace, for she had achieved the purpose of her life. Bearing a male heir to the husband was regarded as the primary role of women in Israelite society. This was obviously the intention of the institution of levirate marriage (Gen. 38:1).
Naming children with symbolic meanings which have national, as well as cultic, significance was a practice known in Israel (Hos. 1:3-9). Naming the child in Israelite society was normally the privilege of the father; in later days, however, the woman also seemed to have had a say in the matter (Lk. 1:59-63). Here Phinehas’ wife named her child during a crisis when the father was no more and she herself was about to die.