3:1–21. The account of Samuel’s vocation is a good example of a divine calling to perform a special mission: it shows both the attitudes that the person called should have and the demands that the divine call implies. Firstly (vv. 1–3), we are introduced to the protagonists (the Lord, Eli, Samuel) and the circumstances in which the action occurs—night-time when everyone is asleep, the temple, the ark, and the lamp of God still burning; all this shows that something exceptional is