1 Samuel 1:1

Samuel’s birth

1 Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite^[a] from the highlands of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah. He was from the tribe of Ephraim, and he was the son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph.

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1 Samuel 1:1 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 1:1

Now there was a man of Ramathaimzophim, of Mount Ephraim,
&c.] Ramathaim is a word of the dual number, and signifies two Ramahs; the city consisted of two parts, being built perhaps on two hills, and were called Zophim; because, as the Rabbins say, they looked one to another; or rather, because situated on eminences, there were watchtowers in them, where watchmen were placed; or because they were inhabited by prophets, who were sometimes called watchmen, ( Ezekiel 3:17 ) and here is thought to be a school of the prophets, see ( 1 Samuel 19:19-24 ) and which seems to be countenanced by the Targum, in which the words are paraphrased thus, "and there was one" man of Ramatha, of the disciples of the prophets; or, as others think, the sense is this, this man was one of the Ramathites, the inhabitants of Ramah, and of the family of Zuph, or the Zuphites, which gave the name to the land of Zuph, and the grand ancestor of Elkanah is in this verse called Zuph, see ( 1 Samuel 9:5 ) . According to Jerom ^F5, this is the same with Arimathaea, of which Joseph was, ( Matthew 27:57 ) for thus he writes,

``Armatha Sophim, the city of Helcanah and Samuel, in the Thamnitic region near Diospolis (or Lydda), from whence was Joseph, who in the Gospels is said to be of Arimathaea;''

but Reland ^F6 thinks it cannot be the same that was about Lydda, which was all a champaign country; whereas this was in the mountains of Ephraim, which must be sought to the north of Jerusalem, and not the west, and so it follows:

of Mount Ephraim:
which is added to distinguish it from other Ramahs in several tribes, as in Benjamin, Naphtali though this may refer not to the situation of Ramathaim, but to the country of this man, who was originally of Mount Ephraim, as was the Levite in ( Judges 19:1 ) who was the cause of much evil to Israel, as this was of great good, as Kimchi observes:

and his name was Elkanah;
which signifies "God hath possessed"; that is, possessed him, or he was in possession of God; he had an ancestor of the same name, ( 1 Chronicles 6:23 ) . This man was a Levite, one of the Kohathites, and a descendant of Korah; so that the famous prophet Samuel was of the sons of Korah:

the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of
Zuph;
the three last of these names are somewhat differently read in ( 1 Chronicles 6:26 1 Chronicles 6:27 ) , where they are Eliab, Nahath, Zophai; and in ( 1 Chronicles 6:34 1 Chronicles 6:35 ) . Eliel, Toah, Zuph:

an Ephrathite;
which appellation is to be connected, according to Kimchi, not with Elkanah, but with Zuph; though neither of them were so called from Bethlehemjudah, the inhabitants of which were indeed called Ephrathites from Ephratah, another name of it; so Elimelech, and his sons Mahlon and Chilion, being of that city, were so called, ( Ruth 1:2 ) not from their being of the tribe of Ephraim, as Jeroboam of that tribe is called an Ephrathite, ( 1 Kings 11:26 ) , see ( Judges 12:5 ) for these were Levites, the descendants of Kohath, in the line of Korah; but because they sojourned in Mount Ephraim, or dwelt there, as Elkanah did; and it is well known that the Kohathites had cities given them in the tribe of Ephraim, ( Joshua 21:5 Joshua 21:21 ) .

FOOTNOTES:

F5 De loc. Heb. fol. 88. K.
F6 Palestin. Illustrat. tom. 2. p. 581.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

1 Samuel 1:1 In-Context

1 Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the highlands of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah. He was from the tribe of Ephraim, and he was the son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph.

2 Elkanah had two wives, one named Hannah and the other named Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah didn't.

3 Every year this man would leave his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD of heavenly forces in Shiloh, where Eli's two sons Hophni and Phinehas were the LORD's priests.

4 Whenever he sacrificed, Elkanah would give parts of the sacrifice to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters.

5 But he would give only one part of it to Hannah, though he loved her, because the LORD had kept her from conceiving.