?1115
? 1O90
Kohalh
Izhar
or Amminadab
Koiah
Assir I
Elkanah I
Ebia^aph
Assir II
Tahath
Uriel
orZephaiiiah
Uzziah
or Azariah
Shanl
or Joel I
Elkanah 11
Mahath
or Ahiinoth?
Elkanah III
Znph
or Zophai
Nahath
or Toah
Eliab
or Eliel
Jerohani
Elkanah IV
Samuel
or Shemnel
Joel II
or Vashni
Henian
sionally incorporated into the tribes among whom they dwelt. The question, however, is of no practical im- portance, because, even if Samuel were a Levite, he cer- tainly was not a regular priest by descent. In virtue of his semi-sacerdotal lineage as a Levite, and especially by the authority of his office as a prophet, he hesitated not to perform priestly functions, like Elijah and others. The ojiinion was, nevertheless, in former times very cur- rent that Samuel was a priest — nay, some imagine that he succeeded Eli in the pontificate. Many of the fathers inclined to this notion, but Jerome afiirms (Adcejs. .fofin.), "Samuel projihcta fuit, Judex fuit, Levita fuit, non pontifex, ne sacerdos quidem" (Ortlob, " Samuel Ju- dex et Propheta, non Pont, aut Sacerd. Sacrificans," in the Thesaurus Novus T/ieol. Philol. Hasaei et Ikenii, i, 587 ; Selden, De Success. <id PontiJ}'. lib. i, c. 4). The American translator of De Wette's Introduction to the Old Testament (ii, 21) says he was a priest, though not of Levitical descent, slighting the information of Chroni- cles, and pronouncing Samuel at the same time to be only a mythical character.
Samuel's birthplace is one of the vexed questions of sacred geography, as his descent is of sacred genealogv. See Ramathaui-zophim. All that apijears with cer- tainty from the accounts is that it was in the liills of Ephraim, and (as may be inferred from its name) a double height, used for the purpose of beacons or out- lookers (1 Sam. i, 1). At the foot of the hill was a well (xix, 22). On the brow of its two summits was the city. It never lost its hold on Samuel, who in later life maiie it his fixed abode.
The combined family must have been large. Penin- nah had several children, and Hannah had, besides Sam- uel, three sons and two daughters. But of these noth- ing is known, unless the names of the sons are those enumerated in 1 Chron. vi, 26, 27. It is on the mother of Samuel that our chief attention is fixed in the ac- count of his birth. She is described as a woman of a high religious mission. Almost a Nazarite by practice (1 Sam. i, 15), and a prophetess in her gifts (ii, 1), she sought from God the gift of the child for which she longed with a passionate devotion of silent prayer, of which there is no other example in the Old Test.; and when the son was granted, the name which be bore, and thus first introduced into the world, expressed her sense of the urgency of her entreaty — Sunmel, "■' the asked, or heard, of God." Living in the great age of vows, she had before his birth dedicated him to the of- fice of a Nazarite. As soon as he was weaned, she her- self, with her husband, brought him to the tabernacle at Shiloh, where she had received the first intimation of his birth, and there solemnly consecrated him. The form of consecration was similar to that with which the irregular priesthood of Jeroboam was set apart in later times (2 Chron. xiii, 9) — a bullock of three years old (Sept.), loaves (Sept.), an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine (1 Sam. i, 24). First took place the usual sac- rifices (Sept.) by Elkanah himself; then, after the in- troduction of the child, the special sacrifice of the bul- lock. Then his mother made him over to Eli (vers. 25, 28), and (according to the Heb. text, but not the Sept.) the child himself performed an act of worship. The hj'mn which followed on tliis consecration is the first of the kind in the sacred volume. It is possible that, like many of the psalms, it may have been enlarged in later times to suit great occasions of victory and the like. But ver. 5 specially applies to this event, and vers. 7, 8 may well express the sense entertained by the prophet- ess of the coming revolution in the fortunes of her sou and of her country.
From this time the child is shut up in the tabernacle. The priests furnished him with a .sacred garment, an ephod, made, like their own, of white linen, though of inferior quality, and his mother every year, apparently at the onlv time of their meeting, gave him a little mantle reaching down to his feet, such as was worn only by high personages, or women, over the other dress, and
SAMUEL
318
SAMUEL
such as he retained, as his badge, till the latest times of his life. He .■^ecnis to have slept near the holj' place (1 Sam. iii, 3), and his special duty was to put out, as it would seem, the sacred candlestick, and to open the doors at sunrise.