Elkanah

“ And now the childless one folds in her arms a child of the covenant. New joy fills the heart of Elkanah. Their son was new to them every day; yet not alone as theirs, but His who answered prayer.
"The time now draws near for them to go again to Shiloh. The happy father does not forget God in his mercies. He appears before the Lord with his thank offering;—a noble example to us. He asks Hannah to go with him: not in a voice of harsh command, but in love he said, 'Will you go?' and it was, doubtless, a gentle voice that answered, 'Not now, for then I must bring Samuel back with me. ”

“ These principles being dominant, the accretions to the enormous fabric of interpretation went steadily on. Typical is the fact that the Venerable Bede contributed to it the doctrine that, in the text mentioning Elkanah and his two wives, Elkanah means Christ and the two wives the Synagogue and the Church; even such men as Alfred the Great and St. ”

“ My father, Elkanah, was one of the faithful in Israel, and he went up yearly to Shiloh; my mother, Hannah, was his beloved wife, though it was Peninnah who had given him children. I was born in answer to a prayer which my mother prayed in bitterness of soul, and she vowed that if she should have a man child he should be the Lord's all the days of his life; no razor should come upon his head, neither should he drink strong drink. My mother redeemed her vow, and I was taken to Shiloh, and there I ministered before the Lord. ”

“ Elkanah’s offering at Shiloh. When Elkanah heard his wife’s plan with reference to Samuel, he simply acquiesced, bade her remain at Shiloh, “only the Lord establish His word.” What word? Literally, the Lord had spoken no word about Samuel, unless the word of Eli to Hannah “The God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him” could be regarded as a word from God. That word, however, had already been fulfilled; and Elkanah’s prayer meant, The Lord bring to pass those further blessings of which the birth of Samuel was the promise and the prelude ”

“ The First Book of the Kings
1:1 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: 1:2 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.
1:3 And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there. ”

“ Jehovah had not lent the son to Hannah, but had given him (see 1Sa 1:11) ; still less could a man lend his son to the Lord. The last clause of 1Sa 1:28, “and he worshipped the Lord there,” refers to Elkanah, qui in votum Hannae consenserat, and not to Samuel. On a superficial glance, the plural ישׁתּחווּ, which is found in some Codd., and in the Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic, appears the more suitable ”

“ Against them will He thunder in heaven; The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; And He will give strength unto His king, And exalt the horn of His anointed. 11And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest.
12Now the sons of Eli were base men; they knew not the Lord. 13And the custom of the priests with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his band; 14and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot ”

“ With a stick and a steaming coffee can.
“Now, mister,” allowed Elkanah, “sence
It’s a special breakfus’ it’s thutty cents.”
When the feller paid, as meek’s a pup,
And stuttered “Now, can I be put up?”
“Why, sartin, mister,” Elkanah said;
“Ye can go to tophet or back to bed;
There hain’t hard feelin’s, no, none at all,
But when a feller he leaves a call
At the Atkinson House for an early meal,
He gits it served right up genteel,
An’ when it’s served, wal, now you bet
There hain’t no peace till that meal’s been et. ”

“ Thus, in the formal controversy between Elijah, as prophet of Jehovah, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, to demonstrate by fire, to Ahab and the people, which was supreme, whether Jehovah or the Baal was the Elohim to be worshipped and obeyed; Elijah proposed that each party should offer a sacrifice of animals, and let it be seen which would be miraculously consumed, and said: “Call ye on the name of your Elohe,”—rendered here and elsewhere erroneously gods in the plural, as if there were more than one Baal,—“and I will call on the name of Jehovah ”

“ It is necessary both to be honest and to do the will of our heavenly Father. After water had been poured over the other sacrifice till it ran down and filled the trench around the altar, Elijah called on Jehovah, and in response to his petition "the fire of Jehovah fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench." Elijah then took the false prophets down to the brook Kishon, at the base of the mountain, and killed them. Acre is the Acco of the Old Testament, and lies around the bay, twelve mile from Haifa. ”

“ And Elcana, her husband, went up, and all his house, to offer to the Lord the solemn sacrifice, and his vow.
1:22. But Anna went not up: for she said to her husband: I will not go till the child be weaned, and till I may carry him, that he may appear before the Lord, and may abide always there.
1:23. And Elcana, her husband, said to her: Do what seemeth good to thee, and stay till thou wean him: and I pray that the Lord may fulfil his word. So the woman staid at home, and gave her son suck, till she weaned him. ”

“ The Pharaoh, who was anxious to prevent the Israelites from going the pilgrimage, proposed that they should sacrifice in Egypt instead. Moses refused on the plea that their doing so might be interpreted as sacrificing the “abomination,” i.e. tampering with a sacred-nome animal of Egypt (Exod. viii. 26) . When the Pharaoh, further wrought upon, said that the people alone might go, Moses insisted that they must have wherewith to sacrifice, and that there must be cattle, since “we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither” (Exod. x. 26) .
Fig. 14.—Men in Burning Bush. ”

“ This is forty years; for so long were they in passing from Egypt to Canaan, which was the type of their coming out from among the nations to the Holy Land under the generalship of Elijah, the Lord's harbinger to the Ten Tribes. The "marvellous things" to be shown them will not be performed in private, but will be as notorious as the plagues of Egypt; for "the nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. ”

“ He is not designated as the power to effect the great revolution which should root out idolatry and destroy the house of Omri; but Jehu, an unscrupulous yet jealous warrior, was to found a new dynasty, and the king of Syria was to punish and afflict the ten tribes, and Elisha was to be the mouth-piece of the Almighty in the court of kings. It would appear that Elijah did not himself anoint either the general of Benhadad or of Ahab as future kings,--instruments of punishment on idolatrous Israel,--but on Elisha did his mantle fall. ”

“ Various allusions render it probable that the cult of Yahveh was peculiar to the Kenites whose home lay in Edom. Jethro, who befriended Moses, was at once a priest of Midian and a Kenite (Judges i. 16) .
The representative of the Divinity from the Burning Bush commanded Moses to persuade the elders of Israel to bring forth the people out of Egypt, in order to serve God on the mountain, going three days into the wilderness in order to sacrifice to the Lord, the women bringing with them all available jewels of silver and jewels of gold (Exod. xi. 2, xii. 35) . ”

“ Enoch, or Edris,154 as he is called by the Arabs, was born in Hindostan, but he lived in Yemen. He was a prophet. In his days men worshipped fire, being deceived by Eblis. When God sent Enoch to his brethren to turn them from their false worship, they would not believe him.
Idolatry began in the times of Jared, son of Mahalaleel, and it spread to such an extent that, when Noah was born, there were not eighty persons who worshipped the true, and living, and only God. Jared fought Satan, the prince of demons, and captured him, and led him about in chains wherever he went. ”

“ Is it because there is no God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? 4Now therefore thus saith the Lord: Thou shalt not come down from the bed whither thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.' And Elijah departed. 5And the messengers returned unto him, and he said unto them: 'Why is it that ye are returned?' 6And they said unto him: 'There came up a man to meet us, and said unto us: Go, return unto the king that sent you, and say unto him: Thus saith the Lord: Is it because there is no God in Israel, that thou sendest to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? ”

“ He had anointed Elisha, son of Shaphat, of Abel-Meholah, to be prophet in his room; [149] and Elisha had anointed Hazael to be king over Syria; [150] the third and more dangerous commission, involving nothing less than the overthrow of the mighty dynasty of Omri, remained still unaccomplished.
If the name of Jehu ("Jehovah is He") [151] had been actually mentioned to Elijah, the dreadful secret must have remained buried in the breast of the prophet and in that of his successor for many years. ”

“ He justifies himself. But strengthened, comforted, uplifted by the exaltation of the consciousness of God's presence, Elijah feels his resilient powers again upspringing. His courage returns; his perceptions grow sharp again; the inspiration of a new line of action opens up to him. He hears the word of the Lord: "Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus; and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat to be prophet in thy room. ”

“ The members of the prophetic school founded by the prophet lived by the work of their own hands. After Elijah's disappearance, the disciples being without a leader, Elisha placed himself at their head. In the beginning of his career he followed closely in the footsteps of his master, keeping aloof from all men, and living chiefly on Mount Carmel. Gradually, however, he accustomed himself to mix with the people, especially after he had succeeded in rousing an energetic man to destroy the house of Omri, and put an end to the worship of Baal. ”

“ But we know that there were nebhīīm among the Canaanites; the “prophets” of Baal appear in the history of Elijah as men who sought to attract their god by wild orgiastic rites. In fact the presence of an orgiastic character is as marked a feature in Canaanite religion as the absence of it is in the oldest religion of Israel; but the new Hebrew enthusiasts had at least an external resemblance to the devotees of the Canaanite sanctuaries and this would be enough to determine the choice of a name which in the first instance seems hardly to have been a name of honour. ”

“ Elxai obtained it from the Serians in Parthia and communicated it to the Sobiai, probably from שֹׁבְעַ; then the Syrian Alcibiades brought it from Apamea to Rome in the third century. The doctrinal system of the Elkesaites was very variable, and is represented by the Church Fathers referred to as a confused mixture of Christian elements with the legalism of Judaism, the asceticism of Essenism, and the naturalism of paganism, and exhibiting a special predilection for astrological and magical fancies. ”

“ The grotto of Elijah is shown in the hill, and the monks who inhabit the convent regard themselves as the successors of an unbroken succession of holy occupants since the days of the great prophet. Their sumptuous quarters would no doubt excite the indignation of Elijah and Elisha, who would not properly discriminate between the modern reign of Mammon and the ancient rule of Baal. Haifa itself is only a huddle of houses on the beach. ”

“ And whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. 18 And I have a remnant of seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to the Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.
19 And he went from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. And Elijah passed by him, and throw his mantle onto him. 20 And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Please, let me kiss my father and my mother, and I will follow you. ”

“ He met a venerable man, who bade him use him as a slave. The Jew engaged to build a palace for a prince with the assistance of his slave, for ten thousand thalers. The mysterious stranger labored hard and angels assisted him, so that the mansion was completed with astonishing rapidity. When the Jew had received the money, the old man announced that he was Elijah, who had come to assist him, and vanished.
After the Arabs had captured the city of Elvan, Fadhilah, at the head of three hundred horsemen, pitched his tents, late in the evening, between two mountains. ”

“ Azrael replied, “I cannot grant thy petition without the consent of God.”
But the All-Merciful, when he heard the request of his servant, consented that it should be even as he desired. So the angel bore Enoch into Paradise. And when they had reached the gates, the keeper, Ridhwan, refused to open, saying to Enoch, “Thou art a man, and no man can enter Paradise who has not tasted death.”
Then Enoch replied, “I also have tasted death; the soul that I have will dwell eternally with me; God has resuscitated me from death.” ”