1 Samuel 4:19 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 4:19
And his daughter in law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered: and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father in law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and travailed; for her pains came upon her.
gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
taken
הִלָּקַח֙hi.la.Kach
H3947
to take (in the widest variety of applications) · verb, niphal infinitive construct
law
חָמִ֖יהָcha.Mi.ha
H2524
a father-in-law (as in affinity) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
husband
וְאִישָׁ֑הּve.'i.Shah
H376
a man as an individual or a male person · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
dead
וּמֵ֥תu.Met
H4191
to die (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
bowed
וַתִּכְרַ֣עva.tikh.Ra'
H3766
to bend the knee · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
travailed
וַתֵּ֔לֶדva.Te.led
H3205
to bear young · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
pains
צִרֶֽיהָtzi.Rei.ha
H6735
a hinge (as pressed in turning) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
came
נֶהֶפְכ֥וּne.hef.Khu
H2015
to turn about or over · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
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).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 4:19–end
We have here another melancholy story, that carries on the desolations of Eli's house, and the sorrowful feeling which the tidings of the ark's captivity excited. It is concerning the wife of Phinehas, one of those ungracious sons of Eli that had brought all this mischief on Israel. It cost her her life, though young, as well as that of her father-in-law, that was old; for many a green head, as well as many a hoary head, has been brought by sorrow to the grave: it worketh death. By what is here related of her it appears,
I. That she was a woman of a very tender spirit. Providence so ordered it that, just at this time, she was near her time; and our Saviour hath said, Woe to those that are wi…
ELI HEARING THE TIDINGS. (Sa1 4:12-22)
Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside--The aged priest, as a public magistrate, used, in dispensing justice, to seat himself daily in a spacious recess at the entrance gate of the city. In his intense anxiety to learn the issue of the battle, he took up his usual place as the most convenient for meeting with passers-by. His seat was an official chair, similar to those of the ancient Egyptian judges, richly carved, superbly ornamented, high, and without a back. The calamities announced to Samuel as about to fall upon the family of Eli [Sa1 2:34] were now inflicted in the death of his two sons, and after his death, by that of his daughter-in-law, whose infa…
And his daughter-in-law - This is another very affecting story; the defeat of Israel, the capture of the ark, the death of her father-in-law, and the slaughter of her husband, were more than a woman in her circumstances, near the time of her delivery could bear. She bowed, travailed, was delivered of a son, gave the child a name indicative of the ruined state of Israel, and expired!
John Gill on 1 Samuel 4:19
The Church Fathers
Now his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, etc. The Synagogue, entrusted with the children of the legal priesthood to govern, indeed received the seed of the word from the teachers and was near to producing the fruit of faith, which it had long sought, at the Lord's preaching. However, she too, after the fall of the teachers, turned away from the uprightness of living, and although she bore not a small crowd of people, she herself, because she killed the Author of life, gave birth to death.
"Their priests fell by the sword and their widows were not mourned." We read that during the captivity the sons of the priest Eli were put to the sword by the foreigners. The wife of one of them thus widowed suddenly gave birth and prematurely died. So it happened that his widow went wholly unmourned, since they were all preoccupied by the widespread deaths. We must believe that this fate befell many widows among the people, since divine authority has cited a plurality of widows, and we know that no detail recorded is useless.
Let us read the Scriptures, and we will never find that holy women, except Rachel, gave birth with pain: because she was on the way and in the hippodrome, that is, in the race of horses, which are sold in Egypt, she gave birth to a son of pain, whom later the father called the son of his right hand. Eve, expelled from paradise and hearing: "In pain you will bring forth children," is said to have given birth in pain. The wife of Phineas, contracted and unable to straighten herself, like the woman whom the devil bound in the Gospel, gave birth after she learned of the capture of the ark of God and the ruin of the people. But Sarah, because she was holy and had ceased to menstruate, after the birth of Isaac said: "God has made me laugh; whoever hears will laugh with me." Therefore, those who occupied the tower of the flock, they are pains of the underworld and pains of death, who indeed surrounded and encircled even the Savior; but they were by no means able to obtain him, as he himself speaks in the seventeenth Psalm: Pains of death surrounded me, and rivers of iniquity troubled me, and pains of hell enclosed me.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Fast — The sole fast required by the law of Moses was that of the great Day of Atonement (q.v.), Lev. 23:26-32. It is called “the fast” (Acts 27:9). The only other mention of a periodical fast in the Old…
Ichabod — When the tidings of the disastrous defeat of the Israelites in the battle against the Philistines near to Mizpeh were carried to Shiloh, the wife of Phinehas “was near to be delivered. And when she…
Philistines — (Gen. 10:14, R.V.; but in A.V., “Philistim”), a tribe allied to the Phoenicians. They were a branch of the primitive race which spread over the whole district of the Lebanon and the valley of the…
Phinehas — Mouth of brass, or from old Egypt, the negro. (1.) Son of Eleazar, the high priest (Ex. 6:25). While yet a youth he distinguished himself at Shittim by his zeal against the immorality into which the…
Tabernacle — (1.) A house or dwelling-place (Job 5:24; 18:6, etc.). (2.) A portable shrine (comp. Acts 19:24) containing the image of Moloch (Amos 5:26; marg. and R.V., “Siccuth”). (3.) The human body (2 Cor.…
Judgments · Eli’s house — Eli’s house
Parents · Involved in children’s wickedness — Involved in children’s wickedness
Patriotism · .Phinehas’ wife — .Phinehas’ wife
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).
And his daughter in law, Phinehas's wife, was with child, near to be delivered,.... Was near her time, as it is commonly expressed. Ben Gersom derives the word from a root which signifies to complete and finish (k); denoting that her time to bring forth was completed and filled up; though Josephus (l) says that it was a seven months' birth, so that she came two months before her time; the margin of our Bibles is, "to cry out" (m); and so Moses Kimchi, as his brother relates, derives the word from a root which signifies to howl and lament, and so is expressive of a woman's crying out when her pains come upon her:
and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken: which is mentione…
The judgment which fell upon Eli through this stroke extended still further. His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was with child (near) to be delivered. ללת, contracted from ללדת (from ילד: see Ges. 69, 3, note 1; Ewald, 238, c.). When she heard the tidings of the capture (אל־הלּקח, "with regard to the being taken away") of the ark of God, and the death of her father-in-law and husband, she fell upon her knees and was delivered, for her pains had fallen upon her (lit. had turned against her), and died in consequence. Her death, however, was but a subordinate matter to the historian. He simply refers to it casually in the words, "and about the time of her death," for the purpose of givi…
Eli fell backward: Either he was startled or he had a heart attack when he heard the message. Eli’s fatal fall symbolizes his family’s fall from the priesthood and the end of the abomination that his sons began (2:12-17). • Israel’s judge: Priesthood and judgeship were not incompatible (cp. Exod 18:13-26; Deut 17:8-13). Samuel replaced Eli as Israel’s judge and provided leadership that Eli had failed to provide (see 1 Sam 7:12-17). • The phrase for forty years incorporates Eli’s career into the conceptual and temporal framework of the book of Judges (cp. Judg 3:11; 5:31; 8:28; 13:1).
Rashi on 1 Samuel 4:19
To give birth. Obviously [this word] means 'to give birth.' There is no similar form [in Scriptures]. However, Menachem8Menachem was an authority on grammar and is often quoted by Rashi. placed this verb in the section dealing with the word יְלָלָה 'wailing,' because her birth pangs came upon her with wailing. The root of 'יְלָלָה' is the 'ל' alone.
Came suddenly. Differed from what normally occurs, therefore she died.
Her labor pains. [צִרֶיהָ=hinges], i.e., 'the hinges of the doors of her womb';9 See Bechoros 45a.chardonel in O. F.
