Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings — these are the four books of the former prophets. Samuel is One Book. It is intended to be read as ONE BOOK, not two. There is no Biblical reason to divide the book into two, it is only divided that way for length. (Note that Ruth is one of the writings in the next section of the canon.)
The English name of the book “Samuel” refers to the primary prophet in the book, like the name of Joshua. Samuel counted himself as one of the judges of Israel. See 1 Samuel 7:15-17 and 1 Sam 12:11. Like how Deborah (a prophetess who also acted as a judge) commanded Barak to fight Sisera, Samuel commanded Saul to fight Amalek.
Leithart proposes the following chiasm for the book, which he sees as somewhat of a stretch at times, but this is helpful as an overview and we will see that the book of Samuel does follow this well:
Leithart notes the following points of correspondence among other comparisons between the related sections:
A and A’ both have poetry and the poems in the latter celebrate the fulfillment of Hannah’s hope in the former. Both also have reference to a temple location. The climax of the chiasm has the other poem.
B and B’ are related because the division between Samuel and Eli’s sons foreshadows the division of Israel and Judah in Sheba’s rebellion. Eli and David both have wicked sons highlighted.
C and C’ both contain an exodus and return story suggesting a parallel between the ark and David.
D and D’ highlights the analogies of Saul and Absalom. While they are similar in many ways the analogy makes Saul in his early years sound better than Absalom.
E and E’ both have a king sinning and a prophet rebuking them.
F and F’ both show David as a warrior. In the former he is Saul’s servant and in the latter he is the king of Israel.
G and G’ is rather obvious from the titles (Saul vs. David and House of Saul vs. House of David).
Thus Leithart sees the hinge of the book as the death of Saul. The poetry in the book is the key to seeing this structure as there are poems at the beginning and ending sections and here in the middle. Thus Leithart says, “Described in sacrificial terms in the text, Saul’s death cleansed the land and cleared the way for a new king to assume the throne.”
We might add that how the story unfolds in the rest of the book is rather disappointing on purpose because David is not Jesus, he only points to Jesus.
In this book we will see the transition from the tribes bowing to the leadership of Ephraim to the leadership of Judah. It is fitting, therefore, that the book begin in the hill country of Ephraim. The stage is set for a conflict with the first sentence of the second verse: “He had two wives.” And so we know that there will be issues of jealousy and competition and those will likely be related to the bearing of children. The allusions to Rachel and Leah are obvious. And then it says, “Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.”
As we would expect the barren wife is the favored wife. Hannah actually means “favored one.” But her condition of barrenness contradicts her name and status of being favored. Hannah is simply following in the steps of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel before her. And like those matriarchs, she represents Israel – a favored nation that is strangely barren or fruitless. Or worse yet, those who are persecuting the faithful (like how Peninnah is persecuting Hannah) are doing well and those who are the faithful are barren.
Elkanah was a righteous man and he would make the necessary trips to Shiloh, which was where the altar of YHWH was at that time. And the passage describes him dividing up the portions of the sacrifice that the family gets to eat (recall Leviticus). Verse 5 is somewhat problematic to translate – the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain, the early Syriac translation says “But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though YHWH had closed her womb” whereas the early Greek translation says, “And, although he loved Hannah, he would give Hannah only one portion, because YHWH had closed her womb.” The former seems more likely.
Thus Elkanah is saying that Hannah is favored even though YHWH closed her womb. And it was because YHWH closed her womb that Peninnah “her rival” would provoke her and irritate her. Peninnah would do this every year when they went for these sacrifices. This is supposed to be a worship setting, but Peninnah is persecuting Hannah. And Hannah would weep and could not eat because of the abuse. Her husband says to her, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (in other words, ‘Am I not more to you than a full number of sons.’)
And so Hannah went to the temple of YHWH in Shiloh. They were no longer using a tabernacle but had built a more permanent structure. And Eli the priest was unable to tell that she was praying and mistook her for a drunken woman. Either Eli was simply not very discerning, which is the very task of priests – to discern the clean from the unclean, or he simply did not recognize her actions because it was so rare for people to come and pray emotionally to God. Either way Eli is not looking very heroic. She made a vow there during her prayer that if she would have a son then he would be dedicated to YHWH for life as a Nazirite.
It was normal to take a Nazirite vow only for a prescribed period of time. It is unusual for a mother to undertake such a vow for an unborn and at this point not yet even conceived baby. But there were three life-long Nazirites in the Scriptures. And all three were born to barren women. The first was Samson who is in many respects the anti-Samuel. The second is Samuel. The third is John the Baptist. Samuel will be King David’s John the Baptist.
And Hannah tells Eli, “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman…” She in fact was a worthy woman – a favored woman. But was being mistaken by Peninnah and now Eli as a worthless woman. This in contrast to his own sons who acted as priests who were worthless fellows like the worthless fellows we saw in Gibeah of Benjamin in Judges.
And Eli gave her a favorable answer. “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition.”
We find out that YHWH did grant her petition as “Elkanah knew Hannah his wife and YHWH remembered her” (1:19). This language of remembering is resurrection language. God resurrected her dead womb and “in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name, Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked for him from YHWH’” (1:20). This begins the theme of asking in Samuel. His name sounds like “heard of God.” In other words, God heard her prayer.
The next time that Elkanah went to offer the yearly sacrifice Hannah stayed behind. She would only return to offer sacrifice when Samuel was weaned and she brought him to be lent to YHWH’s service and thus to service at YHWH’s house at Shiloh.
This time she prayed again. And this prayer is recorded for us as a poem in 1 Sam 2:1-10. The prayer is the model for Mary’s Magnificat recorded in Luke 1:46-55. Hannah’s poetic prayer is solidly orthodox. She says, “There is none holy like YHWH, there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God” (2:2). Her prayer acknowledges that God exalts and humbles. YHWH takes from the dust and makes princes. Her prayer looks beyond her own personal vindication to the vindication of Israel. “YHWH will judge the ends of the earth; He will give strength to His king and exalt the power of His anointed.”
After the prayer is a brief epilogue, “Then Elkanah went home to Ramah. And the boy ministered to YHWH in the presence of Eli the priest.”
Eli essentially adopts Samuel as a son. The theme of an adopted child rather than a biological child being the one through whom the promise goes begins here. This theme climaxes with the adoption of Jesus by Joseph.
By contrast to the adopted son Samuel, the biological sons of Eli were “worthless men.” The book comes out and says clearly, “They did not know YHWH” (2:12). These are the priests at the house of YHWH and they did not have a relationship with YHWH.
And so it is no surprise to see them then not acting properly (not following the instructions of Leviticus) regarding sacrifices. 1 Sam gives us a few examples of this. The summary review in 1 Sam 2:17 gives a wholly negative appraisal of these two sons.
Samuel wore appropriate priestly garb (a linen ephod). His mother would make one for him each year and bring it when they brought their sacrifice. And Eli would pronounce blessing upon them, “May YHWH give you children by this woman for the petition she asked of YHWH” (2:20). The text tells us that she did conceive and bear three sons and two daughters.
The text continues with Eli’s folly. “Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing in all Israel…” (2:22). He had a responsibility as a priest to stop his sons from doing these things, even a responsibility to put these sons to death. The example now given is not simply regarding sacrifices but sex – “and how they lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting.” These women were supposed to be virgins, but the sons of Eli were treating them like cult prostitutes. And these sons refused to repent when rebuked by their father.
We will later discover the names of Eli’s sons are Hophni and Phinehas. Phinehas is obviously named for the hero of Numbers. But the hero of Numbers was a hero because he had killed a man and woman who were sinning sexually. And it was for that reason that his household received a covenant of perpetual priesthood. But we will discover that now this covenant would no longer apply to Eli’s household because Eli failed to show the same zeal and because the anti-Phinehas and Hophni were sinning sexually with the virgins at the temple as well as being unfaithful in all their priestly duties.
That they would not obey their father is said to be “for it was the will of YHWH to put them to death” (2:25).
By contrast, the text says, “Now the young man Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with YHWH and also with man” (2:26).
And a prophet, “a man of God” came to Eli and pronounced judgment upon the household. All of his descendants would die by the sword or at least not see old age, his two sons both on the same day. The rejection of the house of Eli as priest foreshadows what will happen to the house of Saul as king. Here an unnamed prophet declared that the house was being abandoned by YHWH to the priest.
Chapter 3 begins reminding us, “Now the young man Samuel was ministering to YHWH under Eli” and adds, “And the word of YHWH was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision” (3:1). Prophets receive visions and/or dreams. Thus we are prepared for one or the other.
So we have the famous call of Samuel. “Samuel was lying down in the temple of YHWH, where the ark of God was” (3:3). The text tells us that the lamp had not gone out (it was always supposed to be lit) but this suggests that it was close to going out. And YHWH called Samuel, but Samuel thought it must have been Eli and goes to Eli and says, “Here I am.” But Eli says he did not call for him. The text tells us, “Now Samuel did not know YHWH, and the word of YHWH had not yet been revealed to him” (3:7). This happens three times and Eli takes the hint that it is YHWH speaking to Samuel and tells Samuel.
And when YHWH speaks to Samuel He tells him that the words of the man of God are about to be fulfilled and Samuel should tell Eli that this would happen to his house “for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them” (3:13). The second prophecy shows the future is set (cf. Joseph). When Samuel did tell Eli, Eli’s response was, “It is YHWH. Let Him do what seems good to Him” (3:18). This is in direct contrast to what his sons and their predecessors had done – “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Samuel has become the seer, and Eli was going blind.
The text tells us that from this point forward, Samuel was a prophet of YHWH. The idiomatic expression for Samuel’s prophetic word not failing to be true is the second half here: “YHWH was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground” (3:19). And during this period Samuel became well-known throughout Israel as a prophet of YHWH. YHWH revealed Himself to Samuel by His word to him at Shiloh. The priests had not been faithful and so they could not discern God’s will, but the prophet Samuel would reveal God’s will to Israel.
And all this took place for Samuel in the midst of the mess created by Eli’s sons. A mess that Eli benefited from more indirectly than directly (he got fat on the food the sons took). A failure to restrain sons for the right reasons will be a theme in the book. Saul rebuked Jonathan for his good works, David failed to restrain the wicked works of his sons. It is worth noting that while Judges had the polemic purpose of advocating for David and not Saul’s son Ishboseth. The book of Samuel has no such polemic purpose and is quite open about David’s sins.
But for now the text is showing us that the transition from Eli and his sons to Samuel is about to begin. After all, Eli had been sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of YHWH when Hannah went in to pray (1:9), and then Eli’s sons had been laying with the women at the entrance to the tent of meeting (1:22), and now Samuel “opened the doors of the house of YHWH” (3:15) on a new day.
[This post relies, even where not cited explicitly, on the commentary mentioned.]
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