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preparing other instrumentalities - a prophet, who should receive and speak His
Word, and another Nazarite, voluntarily devoted to God by his mother, and who
would prevail not in the strength of his own arm, but by the power of prayer, and by
the influence of the message which he brought from God. That prophet, that Nazarite
was Samuel His birth, like that of Samson, was Divinely announced; but, in
accordance with the difference between the two histories this time by prophecy, not
as before, by angelic message. Samuel was God-granted, Samson God-sent; Samuel
was God-dedicated, Samson was God-demanded. Both were Nazarites; but the one
spiritually, the other outwardly; both prevailed-but the one spiritually, the other
outwardly. The work of Samson ended in self-indulgence, failure, and death; that of
Samuel opened up into the royalty of David, Israel's great type-king.
Up in Mount Ephraim, due west from Shiloh,^7 lay Ramah, "the height," or by its full
name, Ramathaim Zophim, "the twin heights of the Zophites."^8 From Joshua 21:20,
we know that, amongst others, certain districts within the tribal possession of
Ephraim were assigned to the Levitical families which descended from Kohath.
One of these - that of Zophai or Zuph (1 Chronicles 6:25, 35) -had given its name to
the whole district, as "the land of Zuph" (1 Samuel 9:5). From this family sprang
Elkanah, "the God-acquired," or "purchased," a name which characteristically occurs
in the Old Testament only in Levitical families.^9 It was not in accordance with what
"was from the first," that Elkanah had two wives,^10 Hannah ("favor," "grace") and
Peninnah ("pearl," or "coral"). Perhaps the circumstance that Hannah was not
blessed with children may have led to this double marriage. "Yearly" - as has been
inferred from the use of the same peculiar expression in Exodus 13:10 - "at the Feast
of the Passover,"^11 the one above all others to which families as such were wont to
"go up" (Luke 2:41), Elkanah came to Shiloh with his household for the twofold
purpose of "worshipping" and of "sacrificing" peace-offerings according to the law
(Exodus 23:15; 34:20; Deuteronomy 16:16).
Although, Eli being old, the chief direction of the services devolved upon his
unworthy sons, Hophni and Phinehas, yet these were joyous occasions
(Deuteronomy 12:12; 16:11; 27:7), when the whole household would share in the
feast upon the thank-offering. At that time Elkanah was wont to give to Peninnah
and to her children their "portions;" but to Hannah he gave "a portion for two
persons,"^12 as if to indicate that he loved her just as if she had borne him a son.
Whether from jealousy or from malevolence, Peninnah made those joyous seasons
times of pain and bitter emotion to Hannah, by grieving and trying to make her
dissatisfied and rebellious against God. And so it happened each year: Hannah's
sorrow, as time passed, seeming ever more hopeless. In vain Elkanah tried to
comfort her by assurance of his own affection. The burden of her reproach, still
unrolled from her, seemed almost too heavy to bear.
(^)