SAMUEL 6t.nnt7); Sept. ZakcoutjX), the last of those extraordinary regents that presided over the Hebrew commonwealth under the title of Judges. The circumstances of his birth were ominous of his future career. His father, Elkanah of Ramathaim-Zophim, of Mount Ephraim, 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 usual effect of polygamy was felt in Elkanah's household. The sterility of Hannah brought upon her the taunts and ridicule of her conjugal rival, who 'provoked her sore, to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb' (r Sam. i. 6). The jealousy of Peninnah was excited also by the superior affection which was shown to Hannah by her husband—' To Hannah he gave a worthy portion ; for he loved Hannah' (i. 5). More especially at the period of the sacred festivals did the childless solitude of Hannah create within her the most poignant regrets, when she saw her hus band give portions to all the sons and daughters of Peninnah, who, in maternal pride, took advantage of thcse seasons to subject the favourite wife to a natural feminine retaliation. IIannah's life was embittered—' she wept and did not eat' (i. 7). On one of these occasions, during the annual so lemnity at Shiloh, whither Elkanah's family had travelled, to worship and to sacrifice,' so keen was the vexation of Hannah, that she left the do mestic entertainment, went to the tabernacle, and wept sore,' while in the extremity of her anguish she implored Jehovah to give her a man-child, ac companying her supplication with a peculiar pledge to dedicate this gift, should it be conferred, to the service of Jehovah ; vowing to present the child in entire unreserved consecration to the Lord all the days of his life, and at the same time to bind him to the special obligations and austerities of a Na zarite. In her agony of earnestness her lips moved, but articulated 110 words, so that Eli, the high priest, who had observed her frantic appearance from his seat by a post of the temple, thought she had been drunken,' and sharply rebuked her. Her touching explanation removed his suspicion, and he gave her his solemn benediction. Her spirit was lightened, and she 'went her way.' The birth of a son soon fulfilled her hopes, and this child of prayer was named, in memory of the pro digy, SAMUEL, HEARD OF GOD. In consequence of his mother's vow, the boy was from his early years set apart to the service of Jehovah, under the immediate tutelage of Eli. Hannah brought him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh, and intro ducing herself to the pontiff, recalled to his memory the peculiar circumstances in which he had first seen her. So Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod' (ii. IS).
The degeneracy of the people at this time was extreme. The tribes seem to have administered their affairs as independent republics, the national confederacy was weak and disunited, and the spirit of public patriotic enterprise had been worn out by constant turmoil and invasion. The theocratic influence was also scarcely felt, its peculiar ministers being withdrawn, and its ordinary manifestations. except in the routine of the Levitical ritual, having ceased ; the word of the Lord was precious in those clays, there was no open vision' r). The young devotee, the child Samuel.' was selected by Jehovah to renew the deliverance of his oracles. As he was laid down in his chamber adjoining the sacred tent, the Lord. by means adapted to his juvenile capacity, made known to him his first and fearful communication—the doom of Eii's apostate house. Other revelations speedily followed ; the frequency of God's messages to the young prophet established his fame ; and the exact fulfilment of them secured his reputation. Thc oracle of Shiloh
became vocal again through the youthful hiero pliant (iii. 19-21). The fearful fate pronounced on the head and the family of the pontificate was soon executed. Eli had indulgently tolerated, or leni ently palliated, the rapacity and profligacy of his sons. Through their extortions and impiety, men abhorred the offering of the Lord,' and Jehovah's wrath was kindled against the sacerdotal trans gressors. They became the victims of their own folly ; for when the Philistines invaded the land a panic seized the Hebrew host, and they clamoured for the ark to be brought out to the camp and into the field of battle. Hophni and Phinehas, Eli's sons, indulging this vain superstition, accompanied the ark as its legal guardians, and fell in the terrible slaughter which ensued. Their father, whose sin seems to have been his passive and quiescent temper, sat on a sacerdotal throne by the wayside, to gather the earliest news of the battle, for his heart trembled for the ark of God ;' and as a fugitive from the scene of conflict reported to him the sad disaster, dwelling with natural climax on its melancholy particulars—Israel routed and flee ing, Hophni and Phinehas both slain, yea, and the ark of God taken—this last and overpowering in telligence so shocked him, that he fainted and fell from his seat, and in his fall, from the imbecile corpulence of age, 'brake his neck and died' (iv. 1S). When the feeble administration of Eli, who had judged Israel forty years, was concluded by his death, Samuel was too young to succeed to the regency, and the actions of this earlier portion of his life are left unrecorded. The ark, which had been captured by the Philistines, soon vindicated its majesty, and after being detained among them seven months, it was sent back to Israel. It did not, however, reach Shiloh, in consequence of the fearful judgment of Bethshemcsh (vi. 19), but rested in Kirjath-jearim for no fewer than twenty years (vii. 2). It is not till the expiration of this period that Samuel appears again in the his tory. Perhaps during the twenty years succeeding Eli's death, his authority was gradually gathering strength, while the office of supreme magistrate may have been vacant, each tribe being governed by its own hereditary phylarch. This long season of national humiliation was to some extent im proved. All the house of Israel lamented after the Lord,' and Samuel, seizing upon the crisis, issued a public manifesto, exposing the sin of idolatry, urging on the people religious amend ment, and promising political deliverance on their reformation. The people obeyed, the oracular mandate was effectual, and the principles of the theocracy again triumphed (vii. 4). The tribes wcre summoned by the prophet to assemble in Mizpch, and at this assembly of the Hebrew comitia Samuel seems to have been elected regent ; at all events, his official pre-eminence was formally recognised (vii. 6). Some of the judges were raised to political power, as the reward of their military courage and talents, but Samuel seems to have been raised to the lofty station of judge, from his prophetic fame, his sagacious dispensation of justice, and his success as a patriotic restorer of the true worship. His government, founded not on feats of chivalry or actions of dazzling enterprise, which great emergencies only call forth, but resting on more solid qualities essential to the growth and development of a nation's resources in times of peace, laid the foundation of that prosperity which gradually elevated Israel to the position it occupied in the days of David and his successors.