“And now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim, of the hill-country of
Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the
son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. And he had two wives. The name of
the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had
children, but Hannah had no children.”
The Book of Samuel, Abravanel notes, begins with the word “And.” What do we learn from this
conjunction, he asks? This is more than a petty or picayune point of grammar; it teaches much.
Let us dive into it.
Conjunctions such as ‘and’ convey a connection to that which preceded the current subject.
That is, the Book of Samuel needs to be seen as a link to the conclusion of the Book of Judges.
Recall, the final chapters in Judges recorded a most egregious crime (s), the gang rape and
murder of the concubine from Gibeah. She had been married to a Levite, hailing from “the hill
country of Ephraim.” What, then, is the nexus between that Levite and Elkanah? Furthermore,
what is the significance of the connection?
Judges concluded with a national calamity, really, a scourge. Forefront were a Levite and his
concubine whose storyline takes place in the backdrop of “the hill country of Ephraim” a place
associated with disgrace. The Book of Samuel is the Book of Judge’s antidote. “And now there
was a certain man of…the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah…” Elkanah and
Hannah gave birth to Samuel, a boy who will become a sterling personality of, well, Biblical
proportions. Hence, Elkanah, a pious Levite (as we will show), restored the prestige of the
Levites, a tribe whose reputation had been battered and tarnished due to a series of lapses
detailed in the closing chapters of Judges. Furthermore, the “hill country of Ephraim”, too,
regains its splendor owing to Elkanah and his family. Accursed and stigmatized, the territory of
Ephraim no longer is, for God blesses it.
Abravanel learns more about Elkanah’s lineage, information gleaned from the Book of
Chronicles. Elkanah belonged to the tribe of Levi. Because of that tribal bearing, Hannah
enlisted her son Samuel to work in Shiloh’s Tabernacle until his dying day. Of course, not all
Levites gave themselves over to lifetime employment in the Tabernacle. Most resided in Israel’s
forty-two Levitical cities (not counting the six cities of refuge).
Abravanel cites commentators who shed more light on Elkanah and Samuel’s illustrious
forebears, as intimated by our lead verse: “And now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-
zophim…” In Hebrew, both words (Ramathaim” and ‘zophim”) literally mean lofty, exalted, and
visionaries. These writers understand that both father and son descended from prominent men
of renown, renown for having merited prophecy. All of Elkanah and Samuel’s forbears feared
God and sought truth. Their Hebrew names illustrate as much.
Who was Samuel, Abravanel sums up? Here was a man who had descended from a profoundly
religious family, men who garnered intimacy with the Creator, awarded with prophecy. Samuel,
we will see, earned the same, gaining entrée to his Maker’s inner-sanctum.