1 Samuel 1:9-20

Hannah's Prayer and its answer

9. So Hannah rose up Simply And. Hannah left the feast for which she had not heart, and went to pray.

Eli the priest Eli belonged to the house of Ithamar Aaron's fourth son, as is clear from a comparison of 1 Chronicles 24:3 with 2 Samuel 8:17 and 1 Kings 2:17, and from the omission of his name in the genealogy of Eleazar in 1 Chronicles 6:4-15. The last high-priest mentioned before him was Phinehas the son of Eleazar (Judges 20:28); but when or why the succession passed into the family of Ithamar, we are not told. The office did not return to the line of Eleazar until Solomon deposed Abiathar in fulfilment of the doom pronounced upon the house of Eli, and appointed Zadok in his place (1 Kings 2:27). Eli united the offices of Priest and Judge.

upon a seat by a post of the temple Rather, "upon the seat (or, his seat) by the doorpost of the temple." "The sanctuary itself was so encased with buildings, as to give it the name and appearance of -a house" or -temple." There was a gateway with a seat inside the doorposts or pillars which supported it. It was -the seat" or -throne" of the ruler or judge, as afterwards in the Palace of Solomon. Here Eli sat on days of religious or political solemnity, and surveyed the worshippers as they came up the eminence on which the sanctuary was placed." Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, I. 321.

the temple The Heb. word denotes a spacious and stately building: hence (a) a royal palace: (b) the temple: (c) heaven, as the true temple of Jehovah. It is applied to the tabernacleonly here and in 1 Samuel 3:3, and possibly in Psalms 5:7. Its use in the present passage may indicate that the book was written at a time when the religious nomenclature had been coloured by the construction of Solomon's temple.