I IANGING 222 HAPIITARA west of the Nile, near the parallel of Benisuef. Elkanah, and mother of Samuel. The family The great objection to this theory is the distance lived at Ramathaim-zophint. and, as the law quired, there was a yearly journey to offer fices at the sole altar of Jehovah, which was then at Shiloh. \ Vomen were not bound to attend ; but pious females often did so, especially when the husband was a Levite. On one of these visits t,, Shiloh, while Hannah prayed before returning home she vowed to devote to the Almighty the son w'hich she so earnestly desired (Num. xxx. 1, seg.) Before the end of that year Ha.nnah became the rejoicing mother of a son, to whom the name of Samuel was given, and who was from his birth placed under the obligations of that condition of Nazariteship to which his mother had vowed him.
B.C. r171.
Hannah went no more to Shiloh till her child was old enough to dispense with her maternal ser vices, when she took him up with her to leave him there, as, it appears, was the custom when one already a Levite was placed under the additional obligations of Nazariteship. When he was pre.
sented in due form to the high-priest, the inothet took occasion to remind him of the former transac tion : For this child,' she said, I prayed, and the Lord bath given me my petition which I asked of him' (I Sam. i. 27). Hannah's gladness after wards found vent in an exulting chant, which fur nishes a remarkable specimen of the early lyric poetry of the Hebrews, and of which many of the ideas and images were in after times repeated by the Virgin Mary on a somewhat similar occasion (Luke i. 46, seq.) After this Hannah failed not to visit Shiloh every year, bringing a new dress for her son, who re mained under the eye and near the person of the hi,gh-priest [SAmum..1.—J.