1 Samuel 1:24 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 1:24
And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the LORD in Shiloh: and the child was young.
to treat a person (well or ill) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
up
וַתַּעֲלֵ֨הוּva.ta.'a.Le.hu
H5927
to ascend · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
three
שְׁלֹשָׁה֙she.lo.Shah
H7969
three · noun, common both genders singular absolute
bullocks
בְּפָרִ֤יםbe.fa.Rim
H6499
a bullock (apparently as breaking forth in wild strength · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
one
אַחַ֥ת'a.Chat
H259
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct
ephah
וְאֵיפָ֨הve.'ei.Fah
H374
an ephah or measure for grain · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
flour
קֶ֙מַח֙ke.mach
H7058
flour · noun, common masculine singular absolute
bottle
וְנֵ֣בֶלve.Ne.vel
H5035
a skin-bag for liquids (from collapsing when empty) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
wine
יַ֔יִןYa.yin
H3196
wine (as fermented) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
brought
וַתְּבִאֵ֥הוּva.te.vi.'E.hu
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
house
בֵיתveit-
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Shiloh
שִׁל֑וֹshi.Lo
H7887
Shiloh · proper noun, a place name
child
וְהַנַּ֖עַרve.ha.Na.'ar
H5288
(concretely) a boy (as active) · conjunction + definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
young
נָֽעַרNa.'ar
H5288
(concretely) a boy (as active) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 15:9-10 Then shall he bring with a bullock a meat offering of three tenth deals of flour mingled with half an hin of oil.
Joshua 18:1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And…
1 Samuel 4:3-4 And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Le…
Deuteronomy 12:5-6 But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek…
Deuteronomy 12:11 Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command…
Deuteronomy 16:16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened brea…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 1:19–end
Here is, I. The return of Elkanah and his family to their own habitation, when the days appointed for the feast were over, Sa1 1:19. Observe how they improved their time at the tabernacle. Every day they were there, even that which was fixed for their journey home, they worshipped God; and they rose up early to do it. It is good to begin the day with God. Let him that is the first have the first. They had a journey before them, and a family of children to take with them, and yet they would not stir till they had worshipped God together. Prayer and provender do not hinder a journey. They had spent several days now in religious worship, and yet they attended once more. We should not be weary o…
three bullocks--The Septuagint renders it "a bullock of three years old"; which is probably the true rendering.
Next: 1 Samuel Chapter 2
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 1:24
With three bullocks - The Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, read, a bullock of three years old; and this is probably correct, because we read, Sa1 1:25, that they slew את הפר eth happar, The bullock. We hear of no more, and we know that a bullock or heifer of three years old was ordinarily used, see Gen 15:9.
One ephah of flour - Seven gallons and a half.
A bottle of wine - נבל יין nebel yayin, a skin full of wine. Their bottles for wine and fluids in general were made out of skins of goats, stripped off without being cut up; the places whence the legs were extracted sewed up, as also the lower part; and the top tied. She the notes on Gen 21:14, and Mat 9:17. These three things, the ox…
And when she had weaned him,.... At the usual time of weaning children; See Gill on 1 Samuel 1:23 some refer this not only to the milk of the breast, from which he was weaned, but to such food as was common to children, and so supposes him grown up to nine or ten years of age:
she took him up with her; to the tabernacle at Shiloh, at a yearly festival: with three bullocks; for three sorts of offerings, burnt offering, sin offering, and peace offering; or since one only is spoken of as slain, that is, for sacrifice, the other two might be for food to entertain her family and friends with while there; or as a present to the high priest, to whose care she committed her son:
and one ephah of f…
The Church Fathers
The boy, however, was still a little child, etc. The people of the nations had recently converted to the faith and produced not a few martyrs, who with unanimous devotion shed their blood for Christ, and grafted the wild olive tree onto the good olive tree; this was done by ministers of the word.
Considering all these things, and whatever else the Lord shall have made known to you in this matter, which either does not occur to me or would take too much time to state here, strive in prayer to overcome this world: pray in hope, pray in faith, pray in love, pray earnestly and patiently, pray as a widow belonging to Christ. For although prayer is, as he has taught, the duty of all his members, that is, of all who believe in him and are united to his body, a more assiduous attention to prayer is found to be specially enjoined in Scripture upon those who are widows. Two women of the name of [Hannah] are honorably named there—the one, Elkanah's wife, who was the mother of holy Samuel; the other, the widow who recognized the Most Holy One when he was yet a babe. [Hannah], though married, prayed with sorrow of mind and brokenness of heart because she had no sons; and she obtained Samuel and dedicated him to the Lord, because she vowed to do so when she prayed for him.
And she brought him with her, after she had weaned him, etc. The Church brings up her children, to whom she reasonably and without deceit administered milk, and has now advanced them from the rudiments of the new man to more perfect things, having educated them. She brings, I say, those whom the assisting grace of Christ has made strong in understanding to the fellowship of those who have already been made the temple of God through the observance of the divine law. But she brings them in three persons, namely, those who are married, the continent, and the teachers, who by the purity of their lives are fit for divine sacrifices, having bodies prepared to die for Christ, possessing a heart contrite through the mill of fear and hope, and embracing with a full mind the fervent love of spiritual grace to be inebriated with a sober chalice. For since an amphora is a kind of measure, it indicates the measure of love, by which each one is commanded to love his neighbor as himself. And because it holds three measures, it is rightly applied to the aforementioned three persons, by whom the whole Church consists.
Dictionary and topics
Child — This word has considerable latitude of meaning in Scripture. Thus Joseph is called a child at the time when he was probably about sixteen years of age (Gen. 37:3); and Benjamin is so called when he…
Flagon — Heb. ashishah, (2 Sam. 6:19; 1 Chr. 16:3; Cant. 2:5; Hos. 3:1), meaning properly “a cake of pressed raisins.” “Flagons of wine” of the Authorized Version should be, as in the Revised Version, “cakes…
Hannah — Favour, grace, one of the wives of Elkanah the Levite, and the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 1; 2). Her home was at Ramathaim-zophim, whence she was wont every year to go to Shiloh, where the tabernacle…
Weights And Measures — A. WEIGHTS.—The general principle of the present inquiry is to give the evidence of the monuments the preference on all doubtful points. All ancient Greek systems of weight were derived, either…
Bottles · Used for holding: Wine — Used for holding: Wine
Children · .Samuel — .Samuel
Church · HOUSE OF THE LOR — HOUSE OF THE LOR
Consecration · .Hannah, of Samuel — .Hannah, of Samuel
Eli · Officiates when Samuel is presented at the tabernacle — Officiates when Samuel is presented at the tabernacle
Hannah · Samuel born to, — Samuel born to,
Measure · about a bushel and a half — about a bushel and a half
Samuel · Consecrated to God before his birth — Consecrated to God before his birth
As soon as the boy was weaned, Hannah brought him, although still a נער, i.e., a tender boy, to Shiloh, with a sacrifice of three oxen, an ephah of meal, and a pitcher of wine, and gave him up to Eli when the ox (bullock) had been slain, i.e., offered in sacrifice as a burnt-offering. The striking circumstance that, according to Sa1 1:24, Samuel's parents brought three oxen with them to Shiloh, and yet in Sa1 1:25 the ox (הפּר) alone is spoken of as being slain (or sacrificed), may be explained very simply on the supposition that in Sa1 1:25 that particular sacrifice is referred to, which was associated with the presentation of the boy, that is to say, the burnt-offering by virtue of which t…
Elkanah could have overridden Hannah’s promise (Num 30:12-14), but instead he affirmed and supported it.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 1:24
One eiphah of flour. I heard in the name of Rabbi Yitzchok Halevi, that she brought one eiphah of flour, the equivalent of three seahs, from which to extract three tenths of an eiphah of fine flour, the required amount for one bull.41See Bamidbar 15:8-9. As we learned in the Mishnah:42Maseches Menachos 76b. The showbread was made of twenty-four tenths of an eiphah from twenty-four seahs; i.e., one tenth part of an eiphah of fine flour from each seah of wheat.
And a flask of wine. For a libation.
Though the child was still a lad. The Targum renders, 'though the child was still young.'
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Shiloh · .Tabernacle lo — .Tabernacle lo
Tabernacle · Called the: House of the Lord — Called the: House of the Lord
Vows · Recorded in scripture: Of Elkanah — Recorded in scripture: Of Elkanah
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
