Hello, welcome back to First and Second, Samuel the rise of the Davidic Kingdom. Let's begin in prayer. The name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, Amen. And the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Okay, so the second lesson is entitled Samuel Priest, Prophet and Judge. He's also a kingmaker but that's not going to happen until the next lesson because we're talking about chapters one through seven here.
We're going to be looking at Samuel's origin story, his miraculous birth and his upbringing, all these great things as Samuel becomes the chief head honcho, the grand puba for the period of Israel during this time. So we're going to look at chapters one through seven. Let's begin with chapter one verse one and get the story kicked off here. We are introduced to his parentage.
There was a certain man of Ramatha, Eames of Fim, the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah, the son of Johorim, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuf and Ephraimite. All right, we'll just hop here really quickly. It says that Samuel's Father was an Ephraimite. Well, we've got to clarify something here.
If you go to First Chronicles chapter six verses 33 and 34, you understand that he's not going to be a co-hified family, he's from the co-hified family, the clan of Levite. So what's going on is that he's actually a Levite who lives in Ephraim. So you might know that Levites kind of scattered all over the promised land there, living in different cities and territories that Joshua had given to them way back when. And so he's an Ephraimite in the sense that he lives in Ephraim, but the ancestry is that he is a Levite.
That's really important because Samuel is going to be functioning as a priest because he's a Levite. So Ephraimites cannot be priests. A lot of people get confused and they don't understand why is it that he is able to offer sacrifices and not get in trouble if he's just from the clan of Ephraim. And this is the reason why, just to clarify this right out of the gate, he is actually a Levite.
All right, so that being said, let's move on and look at, I'm going to read verses two through eight for you. He had two wives, the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Pena-na. Pena had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophne, and Phineas were priests of the Lord.
On the day when Elkina sacrificed, he would give portions to Pena, his wife, and to all of her sons and daughters. And although he loved Hannah, he would give Hannah only one portion because the Lord had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her sorely to irritate her because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her.
Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. And Elkina, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad?
Am I not more to you than ten sons? All right, we'll stop here. That's a beautiful little story of this man, Elkina, who really loves Hannah. I found that glass of verse by the way, verse eight.
Am I not more to than ten sons? The very tender thing. Like, am I not enough for you? I don't think he's being mean or cruel in any way.
I think he's just being very tender hearted. That's the my take on anyways. So he loves her and Hannah's name means grace or favor. She loves her dearly, clearly that's the case, even though she's barren.
And then the second wife, Pena, her name means fruitful, very symbolic there because she has many children. So she's very fruitful. And the problem is that Pena is her rival and provokes her, irritates her and she's really cruel. Pena, her rival, her enemy, she's very, very cruel.
And so you got this issue of bigamy. Polygamy is many wives, bigamy is two wives. So this guy, Elkina is not a polygamist, he's a bigamist. And so you have to ask the question, why does he have two wives?
And what's a concession in the ancient world? Polygamy was, and bigamy because of the sinfulness of the people of Israel, that's a discussion that we had in the book of Deuteronomy. But as you're kept in the introduction, excuse me, your Ignatius Catholic study Bible says, most likely Elkina married Hannah first, but then when she proved to be infertile, he took peninizing the second wife in the hope of fathering and error. So that seems like that total conjecture, it's possible, I suppose.
I don't think there's any evidence in the text. But that is very reminiscent of things that we've seen before, the patriarchs. When you study the book of Genesis, for example, all about the patriarchs. You see there's bigamy and polygamy and you got rival wives and you've got barren wives and all of these things happen when God was bounding his people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all of their lives there.
And so now it's happening again. So if you go back to the story of Abraham, just look at a couple of fun little examples here. In Genesis chapter 16, you have the story of when Sarah approaches Abraham and says, all right, enough is enough, the Lord closed my womb. Why don't you take Hagar to your bed?
Abraham listens to his wife and he sleeps with Hagar and Hagar conceives. And then now there's a rivalry going on because in verse four, it says that after she conceived, she looked on contempt with contempt on her mistress on Sarah. So she's basically, I don't know if you're looking with contempt, what exactly does that mean? Taunting Sarah, acting more arrogant.
Like I can conceive, I'm the young woman, I can conceive and you can't tease and hear all these different things. So there's got the story of Abraham himself taking on another woman in order to have an error and that woman who conceives is cruel to the other woman, just like what we have here with Elkhana and Hannah. Also think of Jacob, Jacob really loved Rachel. Rachel was the woman for him and we can't get into the whole story, but you know how Jacob was duped himself.
Jacob was Jacob. He was supplanted. His uncle still a little switcheroo on the lives there. He married Leah and Leah was the fruitful one, but Rachel, the woman that he loved, was not fruitful, just like we have here in our story with Elkhana and Hannah and Pena, same exact thing that's going on.
And those two women were rivals as well. Rachel was greatly provoked. She was distressed. Let me flip back here to Genesis 30.
There's this great line, chapter 30 and 31 is all about the many children that Jacob had through Rachel and Leah and the other two mistresses there. But at one point Rachel saw that she bore Jacob their children as chapter 31 and she envied her sister and said, give me children or I shall die. You can see the tension here. I can imagine for Jacob saying, sweetheart, I'm trying as best as I can, right?
I'm doing everything that I possibly can to have children and it's really not up to God and I'm not up to him, up to God as he will then say. So fascinating echoes of the matriarchs and the patriarchs of Israel. Now you're seeing the same thing being played out here with Elkhana and his two wives who are rivals. I think Hannah is definitely the victim here.
She doesn't seem to be cruel. She doesn't respond to cruelness with her own cruelness. But it's interesting. And so another quote from the New Bar Bible will say on this point, Hannah follows in the line of Sarah and Rachel and the mother of Samson, and certainly in terms of being infertile.
But I think I wanted to bring out to you the tension between the wives as well, the one provoking the other. That also is part of these parallels. But it goes on. So the mother of Samson and other women in whom the action of God could be seen very clearly when he took away the stigma of their barrenness.
But above all, she's the prototype of the devout woman who perseveres in prayer convinced that it will be heard. All right. So you have these echoes of the matriarchs. Also, Samson, as this quote will point out, Samson's mother and father could not have children.
Then an angel appears to Samson's mother and says that she's going to have a child. You could actually even talk about Elizabeth and Zachariah and the New Testament, same thing. They're barren and they're old and they can have a child and an angel appears to them. And it's really interesting because in all of these stories, you've got a barren woman and they bear sons who are going to be significant players in Salvation History.
That's certainly the case with Samuel here too. But Hannah is persistent in prayer. I think that's really, really beautiful and we're going to see that in chapter 2 verse 1 through 10 with her beautiful song. So here's the situation.
Here's the tension. Here's the strife, the rivalry between the women. I think the tender heart of Elkana is trying to soothe Hannah, but she definitely wants a child. Now, this is a godly family and certainly in terms of following the Mosaic law, it says that every single year Elkana went up with his family to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.
Shiloh is where the tabernacle is at this time. Not Jerusalem. That's not going to be the case until David comes on the scene. But right now it's at Shiloh and it's really interesting that God is called the Lord of hosts here for the very first time in the Old Testament.
Now, you might have heard that expression. It's very common from this point on that God is called the Lord of hosts. And what that means basically is that God is the commander of Israel. He's the commander of the angelic hosts.
He is the Lord and God of all creation essentially. So this title is often connected to the Ark of the Covenant. As of one example, in this very book, if you look at chapter 4 verse 4, you'll see this line here that the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. So remember that the Ark, we're going to talk a lot about the Ark in chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 here really soon.
But the Ark is the throne of God. He is the mercy seat is where God is enthroned upon the angelic hosts right there. So the cherubim are there, I think for a lot of reasons, but one of them is to say that God is superior to all of the angels and the spiritual beings. This is actually going to touch upon the theme of the letter to the Hebrews later on, where Christ is superior to the angels.
Anyway, so I'm going to get on a tangent there. But my point is that the Ark is the chariot, the throne of God, and he rules amongst the people and the midst of his people. And so that's kind of what the expression is all about. The Lord of hosts is an expression of his power, of his might, of his justice, of his righteousness, things like that.
So I just want to clarify that. Now, when they travel every single year to offer sacrifice to God, that could be one of the three feasts. There were three pilgrimage feasts that the Israelites had to observe, Passover, Pentecost, which was 50 days after Passover, and then the feast of booths. So we don't know from the text, actually, which feast they went to.
There are theories out there. I don't have an opinion on this one way or another at all. If they're faithful, they're going to go to all three of the feasts. And that might be one of the reasons why, just according to me right now, why does the text not specify because they're faithful and they go to all of the feasts?
Anyways, there's other theories as to what goes on in the text and what feasts it could possibly be, but that's all conjecture at that point. So here we got our God of holy family observing the law. You got the tension between the wives. The one is arrogant and proud and the other is humble and meek and she is desiring a child.
And that brings us to chapter one, verse nine, as Hannah is going to pray a deep, powerful, beautiful, intimate prayer to God, and she's going to swear. Oh, so let's keep reading on verse nine. And when they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.
She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed of out saying, Oh, Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me and not forget me, your maidservant, but will give to your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life and no razor shall touch his head. All right, really quickly here. So she's praying with her whole heart and her whole soul as she's actually going to tell Eli and just, you know what, let me keep reading here and then it'll make a little sense as I explain what's going on.
And verse 12, to keep going, she's praying before the Lord and Eli is observing her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart and only her lips moved and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. And Eli said to her, How long will you be drunken?
Put away your wine from you and Hannah answered, No, my Lord, I am a woman sorely troubled. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your maidservant as a base woman. For all along, I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.
And then Eli answered, Go in peace and the God of Israel grant your petition, which you have made to him. And she said, let your maidservant find favor in your eyes and she went on her way. Okay, so there's a lot of beautiful things in here. As I was saying a moment ago, she's really praying with her whole being, her whole heart, she says, this text says she's pouring out her soul to the Lord.
There's some echoes to the book of Deuteronomy of love, the Lord of God, of all your heart, of all your soul, of all your strength. I think that's important because she is a righteous woman and she is obedient to God, obedient to the law, of the Mosaic law. And so she does love God with all of her heart and all of her soul. And she's pouring out her whole heart and her soul, her lavab and nephesh are the two Hebrew words here to the Lord.
And she says, I'm going to, I'm going to, if you give me a gift, I'm going to give it right back to you, which is incredible. She just wants a child and she's willing to give that child right back to God. She swears this oath saying, if you give me a son, no razor, she'll touch his head. This if you didn't know is the vow of the Naz right.
If you go back to Numbers chapter six, Moses gives all the laid tribes away in which they can consecrate themselves to God because the, the, all the tribes used to be priestly tribes. They used to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation as the book of Exodus says, but they screw everything up horribly with a golden calf. And now the Levites are the only ones who could be priests. Well, Moses gives this opportunity for any man or woman, young or old temporarily or perpetually to consecrate themselves to God.
And that would be for the Nazarite vow, which is a threefold vow, no razor would touch their head. So they can't cut their hair. They got to be rastafarian. And then number two, they cannot drink any strong drink or wine or even really eat any fruit, any fruit from the vine.
So no raisins or grapes or nothing. Partly that's because, you know, there is an occasion of sin there. If you're eating the grapes, like, who would this be like in liquid form? It's kind of a little bit going on there.
And then third is they can't touch a corpse because God is the author of all life. If you're consecrated to God, then you should have no, you should not be touching death, right? So this is the Nazarite vow that she is saying from his birth, Samson is going to be consecrated to God. All right.
Now, Elkana later is going to agree to this. And this is another thing I have this reference for you in Numbers 30. If a woman swears a series of out like this, her husband has got to agree or her father's got to agree. And that's all in the book of Numbers 30.
Elkana certainly agrees to this in verse 23. So this Nazarite vow is a big deal. It echoes, in fact, let me just read this quote to you from your Catholic study Bible saying, Samuel, like Samson before him and John the Baptist after him is born by a miracle to childless parents and is consecrated from the womb to follow a Nazarite way of life. So in his referencing Samson, and if you study judges with me or you know about his life, Samson was an absolute abject failure in so many ways.
You know, you could argue that he died a holy death or at least a worthy death, but Samson is the story of somebody who is unfaithful to his vows. One after another, and in the book of Judges, I explain how Samson's like a little microcosm of all of Israel. All right. So Samson is an awful Nazarite.
Samuel is going to be a fantastic Nazarite. Now, then John the Baptist as well is a Nazarite for his whole life. And it's actually kind of interesting because Samuel, he evokes so many people. I'm going to share with you in a moment.
He evokes Moses. He's a type of Jesus. He's also a type of John the Baptist as well because Samuel is the king maker. He anoints, Saul, but especially David.
And in the same way, John the Baptist is a king maker as well, so to speak, because he anoints Jesus at the baptism of our Lord and the Jordan River. It's really John the Baptist anointing him. The Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove. It's really awesome.
So Samuel is the pre-figurement of David and John the Baptist is the pre-figurement. I shouldn't say pre-figurement, but the forerunner. That's a better word. The forerunner.
So same with the forerunner of David and the one who anoints David just like John the Baptist is the forerunner of the Messiah and anoints Jesus at his baptism. It's fantastic. So this is the vow that she swears. And Eli sees her praying and she's doing this amazing trick where she's praying from her heart.
Her lips are moving, but there's no sound that comes out because typically as I understand it in the ancient world, if you read something, you're reading it out loud. You didn't really read in your head, silently in your head like that. So the fact that she is praying in her soul, but not no sound comes out, makes Eli suspicious that maybe she's drunk and of course she's not. She's just praying for the blessing of God.
This also echoes to my mind. I still need to iron out all these thoughts here. This reminds me of another story in which God is doing something great for his people who are at prayer and then other people think that they're drunk. That's of course going to be Pentecost.
At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down. They're speaking in tongues. So we got out of the parallel there of Hannah is speaking to God, but she's kind of speaking in her mind and not out loud, but in Pentecost. Everybody is speaking other languages out loud and the people at Pentecost from all different nations think that the apostles are drunk just like Eli thinks that Hannah is drunk.
There's a parallel there and I'm just going to have to spend some time and iron all that out, but I still never less wanted to share that with you. So he thinks that she's drunk and he's rationally judging her. He doesn't really know what's going on. This is a big theme in the books of First and Second Samuel, really all of the Bible.
Don't judge by exterior appearances. And we fall into this all the time. We really do. I would imagine everybody does to be honest because we're all sinners and so we judge hastily.
We think that we can assess the situation immediately and we're often wrong because we don't have all the data. So we need to be careful, not be like Eli and judging her where she's extremely mournful and sad and pouring out her heart and soul to God in this most beautiful way. And he is dead wrong about her. And luckily he kind of corrects himself and gives her a great blessing.
He blesses her and then as we're going to see she goes and can see is later on he's going to bless her again and there's going to be beautiful reactions to that too. So he does bless her but judging by the exterior appearances and not knowing the internal situation of a person not knowing their heart keep that in mind because we're going to come back to that many, many times and I think that we can learn from it as well. All right. So let's look at the birth and dedication of Samuel in the second half of chapter one.