1 Samuel 1:1

Now there was a man of Ramathaimzophim, of Mount Ephraim,.... Ramathaim is a word of the dual number, and signifies two Ramahs; the city consisted of two parts, being built perhaps on two hills, and

Now there was a certain man of Ramatha'im-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: A certain man of

1 SAMUEL CHAPTER 1. Elkanah goeth yearly up to the feast at Shiloh with his two wives: Hannah is barren; Peninnah upbraideth her, 1 Samuel 1:1-6. Hannah prayeth fervently to the Lord for a son; promising to separate him a Nazarite unto God, 1 Samuel 1:7-12. Eli thinking her drunk rebuketh her; upon her answer, blesseth her, 1 Samuel 1:13-18. She returneth home with Elkanah, and conceiveth; beareth Samuel; offereth her sacrifice; performs her promise concerning him, 1 Samuel 1:19-28. Ramathaim-zophirn, called Ramah, 1 Samuel 1:19, and here is the dual number Ramathaim, i.e. double Ramah, probably because it consisted of two parts, whereof the one might be called the old city, the other the new, both being united into one; and the additional title of Zophim, which signifies watch-towers, or watchmen, may note either the height of its situation, which made it fit for that use; or that the prophets, who are called watchmen, as Ezekiel 3:17, had a school or college there. An Ephrathite, i.e. one of Bethlehem-judah, Rth 1:2, to wit, by his birth and habitation, though by his original a Levite. Thus divers Jews by nation are called Medes, Elamites, Cretians, &c., Acts 2:9-11, because they were born and bred there.

1 Samuel 1:1 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name [was] Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: Samuel was in the number of those few in Scripture, that lived and died with glory. His birth, life, and acts take up a great part of this book, which seemeth to have been written by some disciple of his, who, in honour of his master, called it by his name. Like Anna Comnena, daughter of Alexius Comnenus the Emperor, wrote the history of her father’ s deeds and called it Alexias. Ver. 1. Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim.] Called also Ramah, and Arimathaea. The Hebrews say it was a school of prophets, who are frequently in Scripture called Zophim, that is, watchmen, and that Elkanah himself was a prophet, as being of the sons of Korah, who are called prophets. See 1 Chronicles 6:22; 1 Chronicles 6:27; 1 Chronicles 6:33, compared with those titles of Psalms "to" or "of the soils of Korah." Of that gainsaying "sinner against his own soul," came Samuel, Homo ille virtute simillimus. An Ephrathite.] So called, because he dwelt in the tribe of Ephraim, as Judges 12:5; likeas those Jews are called Cretes and Arabians, Elamites and Parthians, &c., because they sojourned in those countries. Chald. Paraph., Kimchi, Ben-Gerson.

(1) Now there was a certain man.—Literally, And there was, &c. These introductory words do not signify that this history is the continuation of the Book of Judges or of any preceding writing. It is a common historical introductory formula. We find it at the commencement of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Kings, Esther, Ezra, Ezekiel, &c. The circumstances under which this record was probably compiled are discussed elsewhere. Of Ramathaim-zophim.—The name Ramathaim—literally, The Two Ramahs—is the dual of the well-known Ramah, the appellation by which this city is usually known. The old city was, no doubt, built on two hills, which looked one on the other: hence perhaps the name Zophim, the watchers. Possibly at an early date watch-towers or outlooks, to enable the citizens to guard against surprise, were built on the summit of these hills. Either of these suppositions would account for the suggestive name by which Ramah was once known, the “Ramahs of the Watchers.” Others would connect the appellation “Zophim” with the family of Zuph, from whom Elkanah descended. (See 1 Chronicles 6:35, and 1 Samuel 9:5, where the land of Zuph is mentioned.) An interesting. though fanciful, derivation refers Zophim, watchers, to the “prophet-watchmen” of the house of Israel, as Ramah in after years was a school of the prophets. On the whole, the simplest and least strained explanation is the one given above, which refers the name to the hills so placed that they watched one another, or better still, to the watch-towers built at an early date on the two summits. Ramah lay among the mountains of Ephraim, which extended into the territory of Benjamin, in which tribe the city of Ramah lay. His name was Elkanah.—Elkanah, the father of the future prophet-judge, was a Levite of the family of Kohath (compare the genealogy given here with 1 Chronicles 6:22). He is here termed an Ephrathite: that is, an Ephraimite, because, as far as his civil standing was concerned, he belonged to the tribe of Ephraim. Some have found a difficulty in reconciling the Levitical descent of Samuel with his dedication to the Lord by his mother, supposing that in the case of a Levite this would be unnecessary; but the dedication of Samuel, it should be remembered, was a life-long one, whereas the Levitical service only began when the Levite was twenty-five years old; and even then the service was not continuous.

THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL -Year from the Creation, 2833. -Year before the Incarnation, 1171. -Year before the first Olympiad, 395. -Year before the building of Rome, 418. -Year of the Julian Period, 3543. -Year of the Dionysian Period, 351. -Cycle of the Sun, 15. -Cycle of the Moon, 9. CHAPTER I Some account of Elkanah and his two wives, Peninnah and Hannah, 1, 2. His annual worship at Shiloh and the portions he gave at such times to his wives, 3-5. Hannah, being barren, is reproached by Peninnah, especially in their going up to Shiloh; at which she is sorely grieved, 6, 7. Elkanah comforts her, 8. Her prayer and vow in the temple, that if God would give her a son, she would consecrate him to His service, 9-11. Eli, the high priest, indistinctly hearing her pray, charges her with being drunk, 12-14. Her defence of her conduct, 15, 16. Eli, undeceived, blesses her; on which she takes courage, 17, 18. Hannah and Elkanah return home; she conceives, bears a son, and calls him Samuel, 19, 20. Elkanah and his family go again to Shiloh to worship; but Hannah stays at home to nurse her child, purposing, as soon as he is weaned, to go and offer him to the Lord, according to her vow, 21-23. When weaned, she takes him to Shiloh, presents hear child to Eli to be consecrated to the Lord, and offers three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a bottle of wane, for his consecration, 24-28. NOTES ON CHAP. I Verse 1. Ramathaim-zophim] Literally, the two high places of the watchman; these were, no doubt, two contiguous hills, on which watchtowers were built, and in which watchmen kept continual guard for the safety of the country and which afterwards gave name to the place.

THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL, CALLED, THE FIRST BOOK OF THE KINGS Ch. 1 Samuel 1:1-8. Elkanah’s household and devotion 1. Now] And. The conjunction implies that the book of Samuel is a continuation of the history contained in the book of Judges which it immediately follows in the order of the Hebrew Bible, Ruth being placed among the Hagiographa. Ramathaim-zophim] The name Ramathaim (= “the two heights”) is found here only, and is no doubt another name for Ramah (= “the height”) the birthplace (1 Samuel 1:19), residence (1 Samuel 7:17), and burial-place (1 Samuel 25:1) of the prophet Samuel. Its site “is the most disputed problem of sacred topography.” Probably it is to be placed either (a) at Er-Ram, a conical hill about 5 miles due north of Jerusalem, in which case it will be identical with Ramah of Benjamin (Joshua 18:25): or (b) at Neby Samwil (= “the prophet Samuel”) a conspicuous eminence 5 miles N. W. of Jerusalem, on which is still shewn the traditional tomb of Samuel: or (c) at Ram Allah, east of Beth-horon on the western slopes of Mount Ephraim. The epithet Zophim distinguishes the town from others of similar name, as Ramathaim in Zuph (1 Samuel 9:5), a district probably named after Elkanah’s ancestor, Zuph or Zophai (1 Chronicles 6:26). Ramathaim is possibly the same as Arimathaea in the N. T. The form Armathaim in which it appears in the LXX. gives the link of connexion between the names. of mount Ephraim] The central mountainous district of Palestine, in which the tribe of Ephraim settled (Joshua 17:15), was “a good land.” The limestone hills are intersected by fertile valleys, watered by innumerable fountains, and still remarkable for their fertility. See Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, p. 229, ff. The name extended southwards to the territory of Benjamin in which Ramah lay. Thus Deborah’s palm tree was “between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim” (Judges 4:5). Elkanah] In 1 Chronicles 6:22-28; 1 Chronicles 6:33-38, Samuel’s descent from Kohath the son of Levi is given at length. Shemuel in 1 Chronicles 6:33 is the Hebrew form of the name for which the E. V. usually substitutes the Latinized form Samuel. The discrepancies in these genealogies may be partly due to corruptions of the text, partly to the same individuals bearing different, though in some cases synonymous, names. an Ephrathite] The Levite Elkanah is called an Ephrathite, i.e. Ephraimite, because his family had originally belonged to the Kohathite settlements in the territory of Ephraim (Joshua 21:20). It is suggested in the Speaker’s Commentary, that as Salmon, the 7th from Judah, entered Canaan with Joshua, Zuph, who was the 7th from Levi, according to the genealogy in 1 Chr., may very probably have lived at the time of the settlement of the land. The genealogy would naturally stop with the first settler in Canaan, who gave his name to “the land of Zuph” (1 Samuel 9:5). If so, we must suppose that he at once migrated from the residence assigned him in the tribe of Ephraim.

Ramathaim-zophim may signify “the two hills 1 Samuel 9:11-13 of the watchmen,” so called from its being a post from which the watchmen looked out.

1. Ramathaim-Zophim — The name means, the double height of the watchers, and was probably so called because of two heights on which the city stood, or with which it was in some way associated.