However I will not altogether take away a man of thee from my altar: but that thy eyes may faint and thy soul be spent: and a great part of thy house shall die when they come to man's estate.

And the man of thine whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to cause thine eyes to fail and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house shall die in their vigour.

And the man I cut not off of thine from Mine altar, is to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house do die men;

But one man of your family will not be cut off by my hand, and his eyes will be made dark, and grief will be in his heart: and all the offspring of your family will come to their end by the sword of men.

Yet will I not cut off every man of thine from Mine altar, to make thine eyes to fail, and thy heart to languish; and all the increase of thy house shall die young men.

And the man of yours I do not cut off from my altar will be to cause his eyes to fail and to grieve his soul, and all the increase of your house will die by the sword of men.

Yet truly, I will not entirely take away a man of you from my altar, but such that your eyes may fail, and your soul may melt away, and a great part of your house may die out, as it pertains to the state of men.

The meaning is explained by 1-Samuel 2:36. Those who are not cut off in the flower of their youth shall be worse off than those who are, for they shall have to beg their bread. (Compare Jeremiah 22:10.)
Thine eyes thine heart - For a similar personification of the tribe or family see Judges 1:2-4.

And the man of thine - Of this passage Calmet observes: "The posterity of Eli possessed the high priesthood to the time of Solomon; and even when that dynasty was transferred to another family, God preserved that of Eli, not to render it more happy, but to punish it by seeing the prosperity of its enemies, to the end that it might see itself destitute and despised. This shows the depth of the judgments of God and the grandeur of his justice, which extends even to distant generations, and manifests itself to sinners both in life and death; both in their own disgrace, and in the prosperity of their enemies."

And the man of thine,..... Of his family, which should spring from him: whom I shall not cut off from mine altar: from serving there: who though he shall not be an high priest, but a common priest, as all the descendants of Aaron were:
shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart; that is, the eyes and heart of his posterity; who though they should see of their family ministering in the priest's office, yet should make so poor a figure on account of their outward meanness and poverty, or because of their want of wisdom, and intellectual endowments, or because of their scandalous lives, that it would fill their hearts with grief and sorrow, and their eyes with tears, so that their eyes would fail, and be consumed, and their hearts be broken:
and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age; or "die men" (k); grown men, not children, when it would not be so great an affliction to part with them; but when at man's estate, in the prime of their days, perhaps about thirty years of age, the time when the priests entered upon their office to do all the work of it; the Targum is,"shall be killed young men:''it is more than once said in the Talmud (l), that there was a family in Jerusalem, the men of which died at eighteen years of age; they came and informed Juchanan ben Zaccai of it; he said to them, perhaps of the family of Eli are ye, as it is said, 1-Samuel 2:33.
(k) "morientur viri", Montanus, Tigurine version; "morientur virile aetate", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so V. L. (l) T. Bab. Roshhashanah, fol. 18. 1. & Yebamot, fol. 105. 1.

"And I will not cut off every one to thee from mine altar, that thine eyes may languish, and thy soul consume away; and all the increase of thine house shall die as men." The two leading clauses of this verse correspond to the two principal thoughts of the previous verse, which are hereby more precisely defined and explained. Eli was to see the distress of the sanctuary; for to him, i.e., of his family, there would always be some one serving at the altar of God, that he might look upon the decay with his eyes, and pine away with grief in consequence. אישׁ signifies every one, or any one, and is not to be restricted, as Thenius supposes, to Ahitub, the son of Phinehas, the brother of Ichabod; for it cannot be shown from 1-Samuel 14:3 and 1-Samuel 22:20, that he was the only one that was left of the house of Eli. And secondly, there was to be no old man, no one advanced in life, in his house; but all the increase of the house was to die in the full bloom of manhood. אנשׁים, in contrast with זקן, is used to denote men in the prime of life.

Of thine - That is, of thy posterity. Shalt grieve - Shall be so forlorn and miserable, that if thou wast alive to see it, it would grieve thee at the heart, and thou wouldst consume thine eyes with weeping for their calamities. Increase - That is, thy children. Flower - About the thirtieth year of their age, when they were to be admitted to the full administration of their office.