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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 2:18 - 2:18
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Samuel's service before the Lord. - 1Sa 2:18. Samuel served as a boy before the Lord by the side of the worthless sons of Eli, girt with an ephod of white material (בַּד, see at Exo 28:42). The ephod was a shoulder-dress, no doubt resembling the high priest's in shape (see Exo 28:6.), but altogether different in the material of which it was made, viz., simple white cloth, like the other articles of clothing that were worn by the priests. At that time, according to 1Sa 22:18, all the priests wore clothing of this kind; and, according to 2Sa 6:14, David did the same on the occasion of a religious festival. Samuel received a dress of this kind even when a boy, because he was set apart to a lifelong service before the Lord. חָגוּר is the technical expression for putting on the ephod, because the two pieces of which it was composed were girt round the body with a girdle.
1Sa 2:19
The small מְעִיל also (Angl. “coat”), which Samuel's mother made and brought him every year, when she came with her husband to Shiloh to the yearly sacrifice, was probably a coat resembling the meïl of the high priest (Exo 28:31.), but was made of course of some simpler material, and without the symbolical ornaments attached to the lower hem, by which that official dress was distinguished.
1Sa 2:20
The priestly clothing of the youthful Samuel was in harmony with the spiritual relation in which he stood to the high priest and to Jehovah. Eli blessed his parents for having given up the boy to the Lord, and expressed this wish to the father: “The Lord lend thee seed of this woman in the place of the one asked for (הַשְּׁאֵלָה), whom they (one) asked for from the Lord.” The striking use of the third pers. masc. שָׁאַל instead of the second singular or plural may be accounted for on the supposition that it is an indefinite form of speech, which the writer chose because, although it was Hannah who prayed to the Lord for Samuel in the sight of Eli, yet Eli might assume that the father, Elkanah, had shared the wishes of his pious wife. The apparent harshness disappears at once if we substitute the passive; whereas in Hebrew active constructions were always preferred to passive, wherever it was possible to employ them (Ewald, §294, b.). The singular suffix attached to לִמְקֹומֹו after the plural הָלְכוּ may be explained on the simple ground, that a dwelling-place is determined by the husband, or master of the house.
1Sa 2:21
The particle כִּי, “for” (Jehovah visited), does not mean if, as, or when, nor is it to be regarded as a copyist's error. It is only necessary to supply the thought contained in the words, “Eli blessed Elkanah,” viz., that Eli's blessing was not an empty fruitless wish; and to understand the passage in some such way as this: Eli's word was fulfilled, or still more simply, they went to their home blessed; for Jehovah visited Hannah, blessed her with “three sons and two daughters; but the boy Samuel grew up with the Lord,” i.e., near to Him (at the sanctuary), and under His protection and blessing.