A mysterious voice echoes through the Tabernacle in the dead of night, leading to a crucial turning point. After repeated interruptions, the elderly priest finally pieces together the puzzle and realizes his young apprentice is experiencing a Divine revelation.
Over the course of the night, Eli's perception gradually shifts. Initially, he assumed the boy was simply imagining things in his sleep [רד״ק]. By the second occurrence, a lingering doubt began to surface that this might actually be the word of God [אלשיך]. However, when the call repeated for a third consecutive time and Samuel approached him completely awake, Eli realized with absolute certainty that this was no illusion, but a genuine prophetic call [רד״ק, ביאור שטיינזלץ, אלשיך]. He deduced this from the fact that Samuel heard a clear, tangible voice while he himself heard nothing. Eli recognized this specific phenomenon, in which the Divine voice is heard exclusively by the intended recipient while bystanders hear nothing, as an established method of prophecy [רד״ק, אברבנאל].
Why did God choose such a roundabout way to reveal Himself, causing the boy to mistakenly run to his master again and again? The primary approach among commentators is that this was done intentionally to draw Eli into the event. Had the prophecy come to Samuel in a direct and obvious manner, the young boy would likely have been too ashamed and frightened to share the harsh news regarding the downfall of his master's family. The repeated trips back and forth forced Eli to realize that something extraordinary was happening, which ultimately led him to demand that Samuel reveal the entire vision the next morning [אברבנאל, מלבי״ם].
Building on this idea, [מלבי״ם] adds another layer to the explanation. He notes that this was not a standard prophetic mission intended to inspire repentance, because the judgment against Eli's family had already been sealed with an oath and could not be reversed. Consequently, Samuel received the prophecy merely as an informational notice, carrying no formal obligation to deliver the message. Precisely for this reason, God orchestrated the night's events so that Eli would sense the Divine encounter and place Samuel under oath to share it. In this way, the devastating news reached the old priest even though the young prophet was not bound by his mission to deliver it.