Who was Elkanah in the Bible?

The descent of Samuel opens the book. The names are of striking significance. Elkanah means "acquired of God." He was the son of Jeroham (tenderly loved), the son of Elihu (my God is He), the son of Tohu (prostration), the son of Zuph (honeycomb). They were pious generations from which the great man came. Elkanah had two wives. Hannah (grace) the much beloved was barren; Peninnah (pearl) had children. The fact that Hannah's name stands first makes it probable that her barren condition led Elkanah to marry a second wife. (See Deut. 21:15.) Elkanah was an Ephraimite. But from 1 Chronicles 6:20-28 we learn that Samuel and his father were of levitical descent. This has been pointed out as a discrepancy. It is however not at all inconsistent with the statement that Samuel's father was of Ephraim. He was one of those Levites to whom cities were assigned in the portion given to the tribe of Ephraim (Josh. 21:20).

Each year Elkanah went to Shiloh to sacrifice unto the LORD of Hosts. It is noteworthy that the name of God as "LORD of Hosts" (Jehovah Zebaoth) appears here for the first time in the Bible. (It is found 281 times in the Bible. It is not found in the Pentateuch; it occurs some 80 times in Jeremiah and 50 times in Zechariah.) It is the name of God as the Lord of power, the Lord of all the hosts of heaven and earth. That it is used the first time in the book which reveals the Kingdom is especially appropriate.

From 1 Chronicles 6:22-28 we learn that Elkanah was a Levite of the sons of Kohath. The names of four of his forebears are recorded in verse 1, which in order of descent are Zuph (meaning "observer"); Tohu ("low, sunk down"); Elihu ("my God is He"); Jeroham ("he is tenderly loved"); resulting in Elkanah ("God has purchased"). These meanings give some indication of the working of God in view of accomplishing His own will in the eventual outcome seen in His servant Samuel.

The two wives of Elkanah, Hannah and Penninah, remind us of Jacob's wives, Rachel and Leah. Though Jacob loved Rachel, she did not bear children, while Leah did so. Hannah means "she was gracious," and Peninnah, "glittering."

This godly Israelite was a descendant of the rebellious Korah. (See 1 Chron. 6:27, 34, 37). It is that Korah who, for his "gainsaying" in the wilderness, was destroyed with all his company. "Notwithstanding," we read, "the children of Korah died not" (Num. 26:11). "A debtor to mercy alone," he had good cause to worship. Others might go up to sacrifice, merely, but Elkanah both worshiped and sacrificed. It was no formal or meaningless ceremony with him, for he knew that to Jehovah's distinguishing grace he owed not only the blessings of his life, but his very existence as a descendant of one of the spared children of Korah. It is the knowledge, and acknowledgment of grace, that produces worship and obedience in the believer's life. The law of commandments never produces a loving, willing obedience in the soul; it is the salvation-bringing grace of God that teaches us to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:11-12). Elkanah's dwelling was at Ramathaim-zophim of mount Ephraim, but was originally of Ephratah (as "Ephrathite" signifies), near to Bethlehem-judah. The times were troublous and unsettled; famine, too, at times prevailed. But if it was under the pressure of circumstances that he left the home of his ancestors, he did not, like the family of Elimelech (who were also Ephrathites, see Ruth 1:1-2), seek relief in the idolatrous land of Moab, but ascended toward Shiloh, nearer to the tabernacle of his God. He seems to have acted on the principle enunciated in that well-known, though little heeded, saying of our Lord, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness;" and, according to promise, "all things" were added unto him. Thus, instead of suffering loss and affliction under God's displeasure, as did Elimelech and his sons, he prospered both in his soul and in his circumstances, as is indicated by his generous offering of three bullocks at the presentation of Samuel to the service of the Lord. John, the beloved apostle wished the hospitable Gaius health and prosperity, even as his soul prospered (3 John 2). The first is of little value without the last; and under the Mosaic economy, they were generally inseparable from a godly walk. It was a dispensation of blessings in "basket and store," associated with "the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush" (the burning bush, see Acts 7:30); they were "the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and the precious things put forth by the moon, and the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the precious things of the lasting hills, and the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof" (Deut. 33:14-16). Not always was this the case, however, as the 73rd psalm shows. And in this dispensation we know that the Christian's blessings are "in the heavenly places" — not here upon earth (Eph. 1:3).

Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. It was a divided family, and to quote the quaint observation of Matthew Henry, "the divisions of it carried with it both guilt and grief." So we read:

"When the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: but unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons?" (vers. 4-8).

The custom among the Israelites of sometimes taking a second wife was not always based on motives of the lower nature; in many cases it was the desire for children, denied to the first wife. This was the probable reason for Elkanah's double marriage. But "from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:5-8). The institution of marriage originally contemplated but a single companion for man; and plural marriages. appear never to have worked well in practice, as witness the humiliating discord in Abraham's family over the inferior Hagar; in Jacob's, the bitter jealousies between the two' sisters, Rachel and Leah. Here, too, it breeds strife and vexation of spirit shameful to behold. What otherwise might have presented an ideal Hebrew home is marred by the bitter provokings of the elated Peninnah, and the consequent sorrow of her barren rival.

Nor were things right in the household from which Samuel sprang. His father was a Levite, descended from Korah, whose children were so mercifully spared from destruction in the day of their father's rebellion (Num. 26:11), and who were afterwards made doorkeepers and singers in the house of Jehovah. Such grace should have filled their hearts with the deep gratitude to God, and should have disposed them to be devoted to His will. But what do we find? Elkanah "had two wives the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah" (1 Sam 1:2). Did he not know better than this. It bred unhappiness in the home, reminding us of the unrest in Abraham's surroundings when he took Hagar in addition to Sarah.

Elkanah was a Levite. Eli was the high priest; thus we are on the ground of the priesthood. Had the priesthood remained faithful, there would have been no occasion for a change of dispensation; therefore it was necessary, first of all, to ascertain that it was ruined before the true king should enter the scene, for God could not remain in relationship to the people through the medium of a corrupted priesthood.

Elkanah was a godly Israelite who made a habit of appearing every year to sacrifice to the Lord at Shiloh. In verse 3 is the first time the expression is used in scripture, "the Lord of hosts." It is used five times in 1 Samuel and six times in 2 Samuel. It is only mentioned that Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, were there. Eli evidently took the place of high priest (though not called that), but left the duties of priesthood to his sons. Though we are told "every priest standeth daily" (Heb.10:10), Eli is not spoken of as standing but twice as sitting (ch.1:9; 4:13) and once as lying down (ch.3:2).

In sacrificing, Elkanah did not forget his wives and the children of Peninnah, but was more favorable toward Hannah because of his love for her. The Lord had, in His wisdom, withheld her from childbearing. On the other hand, Peninnah had children, and became an adversary, provoking Hannah evidently with the taunt that she had none. But Hannah was to learn the lesson, as we all ought to, that "that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual" (1 Cor.15:46). The Lord allows mere human nature to have its way at first in order to prove its own vanity: then He introduces what is altogether superior to it just as Adam was the first man, Christ the second Man.

This is not accomplished in us without exercise of soul, for what is merely fleshly must be judged as worthless. Hannah is therefore seen weeping and fasting because of her inability to bear fruit. Elkanah was a kind, considerate husband, but did not understand the intensity of her grief, for he thought she would consider him better to her than ten sons. However, to apply this spiritually, even though the Lord Himself is sufficient to satisfy out hearts, yet He has implanted within every believer a desire to bear fruit for Him this is only normal and right.

The commencement of the story presents a God-fearing Levite with two wives; one fruitful and the other barren. The barren woman mourns her condition before the Lord and is persecuted by the fruitful wife. Elkanah goes up yearly to worship and to sacrifice before the Lord at Shiloh. There we find Hophni and Phinehas, two wicked men, as we know from 1 Samuel 2:12, officiating as priests of the Lord. Eli, the high priest, with much personal piety, comes before us as an enfeebled old man sitting by a post of the temple (verse 9) and mistaking the exercises of a godly soul for the vagaries of a drunken woman (13). Sitting where God had provided no seat would indicate a lack of spiritual energy; his mistake in regard to Hannah, a lack of spiritual discernment.

Like Sarah, the wife of Elkanah "through faith received strength to conceive seed," and the happy mother at last held in her arms "the son of her vows." Elkanah himself, though of less energy of faith than his wife, says, "The Lord establish His word;" it would indicate that he shared with his wife, in some measure, at least, an expectation of blessing coming to Israel through the child of Hannah's prevailing prayer. The words imply the hope of some special mission to be committed to Samuel, and in common with his noble wife, some expectation that better days would come to God's people through the birth of this son.

It was a tender word from Elkanah to his weeping wife, when he said, "Am not I better to thee than ten sons?" intending to console her in her sorrow; and Hannah, doubtless, appreciated fully the love and sympathy that prompted them, but would not be put off by this from still desiring earnestly from the Lord the only gift that could satisfy the longings of her aching heart — a man child. He evidently did not share her yearnings for a son; he seemed satisfied with children by Peninnah, and Hannah prayed and bore her grief alone. Hers was not a natural longing, merely; she did not cry impatiently like Rachel, "Give me children, or else I die!" (Gen. 30:1). It was not offsprings simply that she desired, nor did she, like the "beautiful and well-favored" Rachel, reproach her husband for her lack of fruitfulness; she poured out her complaint to God, and asked, not for a child, merely, but "a man child."

And why a man child? Was it merely a partiality for boys? No; a higher motive moved her — God's glory and the good of His erring people she seems to have had in view. She knew well the condition of Israel; and the doings of the sons of Eli, in highest position, told the sad and undeniable tale of "Fallen! fallen!" and her earnest desire goes up to God for a son who might grow up under the blessing of Jehovah to be a deliverer in Israel.

(1) Nothing, in fact, could be much simpler than is Samuel's genealogy here, or the steps by which we reach the Nazarite prophet. Reading the five names in reverse order, and remembering that we have thus to read the numerical order also backwards, we find in the fifth place, under the number of responsibility, Zuph, "the watcher," or "observer." It is the only name of which the meaning is at all doubtful. Most, perhaps, would render it "honeycomb," the Hebrew word standing for this. On the other hand, the derivation is as simple for the other meaning; and the alternative reading in Chronicles (Zophai in 1 Chr. 6:26, and Zuph or Ziph in verse 35), with its presumed connection with Ramathaim-zophim, leads us back to the former, also. In its spiritual connection, certainly, to be an "observer" in the sphere of responsibility is the beginning of all blessings. Zuph is an Ephrathite, therefore "fruitful"; and we cannot wonder that his son Tohu, under the number of experience, speaks of being "low, sunk down," — humiliation; and this being ever the way of blessing and of the knowledge of the Lord, the next name, under the number of manifestation, is Elihu, "my God" — or my Mighty One — "is He." Still, in the way of progress, and under the salvation number, we have then Jeroham, "he is tenderly loved"; and we end here, under that of obedience and divine sovereignty, with Elkanah, whom "God has purchased," or "acquired." How easily, of such a stock as this, comes forth a Samuel!

Elkanah's town is that of Samuel afterwards, — Ramah, or ha-Ramah, "the height." The name we have had elsewhere, but not the place, which here we find in its full title to have been Ramathaim-zophim, "the two heights of the watchers." The prophet's place was always that of a watcher, and the prophet's face always toward the slowly coming dawn; and the "height" is in natural connection with the place: those who are in it are, by that very fact, lifted up out of the world. All this is in perfect keeping with Samuel's association with Ramah. For us, also, the connection of the dawn with the kingdom for which still we wait is necessary and obvious: but why "two heights"? May it not be that there is the positional height of our place in Christ, of which other Ramahs have already spoken to us (pp. 133, 150), and the spiritual elevation answering to this? Certainly God has thus provided for the Elkanahs, His "purchased" ones today; and this is the place for a Samuel — should there be any now to exercise the judge's office in Israel. For any right judgment of things at large, the coming of the Lord must be before us, we must be watchers for Him! Is not the state of Christendom, and the cause of that state also, depicted in His own words, — "but if that evil servant shall say, in his heart, My Lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken" (Matt. 24:48-49)? How unutterably solemn the warning that follows!

We are next told of Elkanah's two wives, who repeat in some respects the story of Sarah and Hagar. If Sarah be, as we have seen in its place, the principle of grace, the very name of Hannah is "grace." And she, too, is naturally a barren woman. Peninnah differs, however, in many ways, from Hagar. She is no bondwoman, and would not seem to stand for the principle of law; but is, on the other hand, the "adversary" of her rival, which could not in the same way be said of Hagar. Similarly she flourishes while Hannah is barren, but grows feeble after she has become fruitful. Her name, Peninnah, is of doubtful meaning, but probably signifies "shining, glittering"; and she may represent the earthly objects which so easily distract the heart even of Christians from that which should alone hold it. Would that Elkanah's bigamy were less easily to be applied to Christians! That it was openly indulged as lawful, instead of marring, this does in fact only make the lesson more forcible: "happy is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth." After all, Elkanah did love Hannah: but grace cannot be reconciled to a barren love without fruit.