Samuel

1 Samuel 1, 3–6 (selections)

ca. 1200–332 BCE

The Birth of Samuel

Chapter 1

¹There was a man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites, in the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. ²He had two wives, one named Hannah and the other Peninnah; Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless. ³This man used to go up from his town every year to worship and to offer sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh.—Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord there.

⁴One such day, Elkanah offered a sacrifice. He used to give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; ⁵but to Hannah he would give one portion only—though Hannah was his favorite—for the Lord had closed her womb. ⁶Moreover, her rival, to make her miserable, would taunt her that the Lord had closed her womb. ⁷This happened year after year: Every time she went up to the House of the Lord, the other would taunt her, so that she wept and would not eat. ⁸Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why are you crying and why aren’t you eating? Why are you so sad? Am I not more devoted to you than ten sons?”

⁹After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose.—The priest Eli was sitting on the seat near the doorpost of the temple of the LORD.—¹⁰In her wretchedness, she prayed to the Lord, weeping all the while. ¹¹And she made this vow: “O Lord of Hosts, if You will look upon the suffering of Your maidservant and will remember me and not forget Your maidservant, and if You will grant Your maidservant a male child, I will dedicate him to the Lord for all the days of his life; and no razor shall ever touch his head.”

¹²As she kept on praying before the Lord, Eli watched her mouth. ¹³Now Hannah was praying in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard. So Eli thought she was drunk. ¹⁴Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Sober up!” ¹⁵And Hannah replied, “Oh no, my lord! I am a very unhappy woman. I have drunk no wine or other strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to the Lord. ¹⁶Do not take your maidservant for a worthless woman; I have only been speaking all this time out of my great anguish and distress.” ¹⁷“Then go in peace,” said Eli, “and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of Him.” ¹⁸She answered, “You are most kind to your handmaid.” So the woman left, and she ate, and was no longer downcast. ¹⁹Early next morning they bowed low before the Lord, and they went back home to Ramah.

Elkanah knew his wife Hannah and the Lord remembered her. ²⁰Hannah conceived, and at the turn of the year bore a son. She named him Samuel, meaning, “I asked the Lord for him.” ²¹And when the man Elkanah and all his household were going up to offer to the Lord the annual sacrifice and his votive sacrifice, ²²Hannah did not go up. She said to her husband, “When the child is weaned, I will bring him. For when he has appeared before the Lord, he must remain there for good.” ²³Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Do as you think best. Stay home until you have weaned him. May the Lord fulfill His word.” So the woman stayed home and nursed her son until she weaned him.

²⁴When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, one ephah of flour, and a jar of wine. And though the boy was still very young, she brought him to the House of the Lord at Shiloh. ²⁵After slaughtering the bull, they brought the boy to Eli. ²⁶She said, “Please, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you and prayed to the Lord. ²⁷It was this boy I prayed for; and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. ²⁸I, in turn, hereby lend him to the Lord. For as long as he lives he is lent to the Lord.” And they bowed low there before the Lord. [ . . . ]

Samuel’s Call

Chapter 3

¹Young Samuel was in the service of the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; prophecy was not widespread. ²One day, Eli was asleep in his usual place; his eyes had begun to fail and he could barely see. ³The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was. ⁴The Lord called out to Samuel, and he answered, “I’m coming.” ⁵He ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But he replied, “I didn’t call you; go back to sleep.” So he went back and lay down. ⁶Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” Samuel rose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” But he replied, “I didn’t call, my son; go back to sleep.”—⁷Now Samuel had not yet experienced the Lord; the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.—⁸The Lord called Samuel again, a third time, and he rose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹And Eli said to Samuel, “Go lie down. If you are called again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening.’” And Samuel went to his place and lay down.

¹⁰The Lord came, and stood there, and He called as before: “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.” ¹¹The Lord said to Samuel: “I am going to do in Israel such a thing that both ears of anyone who hears about it will tingle. ¹²In that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I spoke concerning his house, from beginning to end. ¹³And I declare to him that I sentence his house to endless punishment for the iniquity he knew about—how his sons committed sacrilege at will—and he did not rebuke them. ¹⁴As-suredly, I swear concerning the house of Eli that the iniquity of the house of Eli will never be expiated by sacrifice or offering.”

¹⁵Samuel lay there until morning; and then he opened the doors of the House of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to report the vision to Eli, ¹⁶but Eli summoned Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son”; and he answered, “Here.” ¹⁷And [Eli] asked, “What did He say to you? Keep nothing from me. Thus and more may God do to you if you keep from me a single word of all that He said to you!” ¹⁸Samuel then told him everything, withholding nothing from him. And [Eli] said, “He is the Lord; He will do what He deems right.”

¹⁹Samuel grew up and the Lord was with him: He did not leave any of Samuel’s predictions unfulfilled. ²⁰All Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba, knew that Samuel was trustworthy as a prophet of the Lord. [ . . . ]

The Adventures of the Ark

Chapter 4

¹[A]nd Samuel’s word went forth to all Israel. Israel marched out to engage the Philistines in battle; they encamped near Eben-ezer, while the Philistines encamped at Aphek. ²The Philistines arrayed themselves against Israel; and when the battle was fought, Israel was routed by the Philistines, who slew about four thousand men on the field of battle. ³When the [Israelite] troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh; thus He will be present among us and will deliver us from the hands of our enemies.” ⁴So the troops sent men to Shiloh; there Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were in charge of the Ark of the Covenant of God, and they brought down from there the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts Enthroned on the Cherubim.

⁵When the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord entered the camp, all Israel burst into a great shout, so that the earth resounded. ⁶The Philistines heard the noise of the shouting and they wondered, “Why is there such a loud shouting in the camp of the Hebrews?” And when they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come to the camp, ⁷the Philistines were frightened; for they said, “God has come to the camp.” And they cried, “Woe to us! Nothing like this has ever happened before. ⁸Woe to us! Who will save us from the power of this mighty God? He is the same God who struck the Egyptians with every kind of plague in the wilderness! ⁹Brace yourselves and be men, O Philistines! Or you will become slaves to the Hebrews as they were slaves to you. Be men and fight!” ¹⁰The Philistines fought; Israel was routed, and they all fled to their homes. The defeat was very great, thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell there. ¹¹The Ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

¹²A Benjaminite ran from the battlefield and reached Shiloh the same day; his clothes were rent and there was earth on his head.^a ¹³When he arrived, he found Eli sitting on a seat, waiting beside the road—his heart trembling for the Ark of God. The man entered the city to spread the news, and the whole city broke out in a cry. ¹⁴And when Eli heard the sound of the outcry and asked, “What is the meaning of this uproar?” the man rushed over to tell Eli. ¹⁵Now Eli was ninety-eight years old; his eyes were fixed in a blind stare. ¹⁶The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battlefield; I have just fled from the battlefield.” [Eli] asked, “What happened, my son?” ¹⁷The bearer of the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines and the troops also suffered a great slaughter. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured.” ¹⁸When he mentioned the Ark of God, [Eli] fell backward off the seat beside the gate, broke his neck and died; for he was an old man and heavy. He had been a chieftain of Israel for forty years.

¹⁹His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was with child, about to give birth. When she heard the report that the Ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she was seized with labor pains, and she crouched down and gave birth. ²⁰As she lay dying, the women attending her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.” But she did not respond or pay heed. ²¹She named the boy Ichabod, meaning, “The glory has departed from Israel”—refer-ring to the capture of the Ark of God and to [the death of] her father-in-law and her husband. ²²“The glory is gone from Israel,” she said, “for the Ark of God has been captured.”

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Chapter 5

¹When the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they brought it from Eben-ezer to Ashdod. ²The Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon and they set it up beside Dagon. ³Early the next day, the Ashdodites found Dagon lying face down on the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord. They picked Dagon up and put him back in his place; ⁴but early the next morning, Dagon was again lying prone on the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord. The head and both hands of Dagon were cut off, lying on the threshold; only Dagon’s trunk was left intact. ⁵That is why, to this day, the priests of Dagon and all who enter the temple of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod.

⁶The hand of the Lord lay heavy upon the Ash-dodites, and He wrought havoc among them: He struck Ashdod and its territory with hemorrhoids. ⁷When the men of Ashdod saw how matters stood, they said, “The Ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for His hand has dealt harshly with us and with our god Dagon.” ⁸They sent messengers and assembled all the lords of the Philistines and asked, “What shall we do with the Ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the Ark of the God of Israel be removed to Gath.” So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel [to Gath]. ⁹And after they had moved it, the hand of the Lord came against the city, causing great panic; He struck the people of the city, young and old, so that hemorrhoids broke out among them. ¹⁰Then they sent the Ark of God to Ekron. But when the Ark of God came to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out, “They have moved the Ark of the God of Israel to us to slay us and our kindred.” ¹¹They too sent messengers and assembled all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send the Ark of the God of Israel away, and let it return to its own place, that it may not slay us and our kindred.” For the panic of death pervaded the whole city, so heavily had the hand of God fallen there; ¹²and the men who did not die were stricken with hemorrhoids. The outcry of the city went up to heaven.

Chapter 6

¹The Ark of the Lord remained in the territory of the Philistines seven months. ²Then the Philistines summoned the priests and the diviners and asked, “What shall we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it off to its own place.” ³They answered, “If you are going to send the Ark of the God of Israel away, do not send it away without anything; you must also pay an indemnity to Him. Then you will be healed, and He will make Himself known to you; otherwise His hand will not turn away from you.” ⁴They asked, “What is the indemnity that we should pay to Him?” They answered, “Five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice, corresponding to the number of lords of the Philistines; for the same plague struck all of you and your lords. ⁵You shall make figures of your hemorrhoids and of the mice that are ravaging your land; thus you shall honor the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lighten the weight of His hand upon you and your gods and your land. ⁶Don’t harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts. As you know, when He made a mockery of them, they had to let Israel go, and they departed. ⁷Therefore, get a new cart ready and two milch cows that have not borne a yoke; harness the cows to the cart, but take back indoors the calves that follow them. ⁸Take the Ark of the Lord and place it on the cart; and put next to it in a chest the gold objects you are paying Him as indemnity. Send it off, and let it go its own way. ⁹Then watch: If it goes up the road to Beth-shemesh, to His own territory, it was He who has inflicted this great harm on us. But if not, we shall know that it was not His hand that struck us; it just happened to us by chance.”

¹⁰The men did so. They took two milch cows and harnessed them to the cart, and shut up their calves indoors. ¹¹They placed the Ark of the Lord on the cart together with the chest, the golden mice, and the figures of their hemorrhoids. ¹²The cows went straight ahead along the road to Beth-shemesh. They went along a single highroad, lowing as they went, and turning off neither to the right nor to the left; and the lords of the Philistines walked behind them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.

¹³The people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. They looked up and saw the Ark, and they rejoiced when they saw [it]. ¹⁴The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and it stopped there. They split up the wood of the cart and presented the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. A large stone was there; ¹⁵and the Levites took down the Ark of the Lord and the chest beside it containing the gold objects and placed them on the large stone. Then the men of Beth-shemesh presented burnt offerings and other sacrifices to the Lord that day. ¹⁶The five lords of the Philistines saw this and returned the same day to Ekron.

¹⁷The following were the golden hemorrhoids that the Philistines paid as an indemnity to the Lord: For Ashdod, one; for Gaza, one; for Ashkelon, one; for Gath, one; for Ekron, one. ¹⁸As for the golden mice, their number accorded with all the Philistine towns that belonged to the five lords—both fortified towns and unwalled villages, as far as the great stone on which the Ark of the Lord was set down, to this day, in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh.

¹⁹[The Lord] struck at the men of Beth-shemesh because they looked into the Ark of the Lord; He struck down seventy men among the people [and] fifty thousand men. The people mourned, for He had inflicted a great slaughter upon the population. ²⁰And the men of Beth-shemesh asked, “Who can stand in attendance on the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall He go up from us?” ²¹They sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim to say, “The Philistines have sent back the Ark of the Lord. Come down and take it into your keeping.”

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