THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL.

CHAPTER I. VERSES 9-17.

So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk: (now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord :) 10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. 12 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. 13 Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken: put away thy wine from thee. 15 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. 16 Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. 17 Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

14

and after they had

V. 9. AFTER THEY HAD DRUNK] The LXX. has meta to phagein autous, 'after they had eaten,' adding the words, not in our Hebrew text, and she stood before the Lord.' Codex A and the Complutensian edition give also, drunk,' and the Complut. ed. omits and she stood before the Lord.' The V. has postquam comederat et biberat, after she had eaten and drunk.' So reads the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel.

V. 11. I WILL GIVE HIM UNTO THE LORD ALL THE DAYS OF HIS LIFE] This was in effect a dedication of her wished-for son to a life-long Nazaritism. The LXX. has a clause not found in the Hebrew text or V. version-kai oinon kai methusma ou pietai, and of wine and strong drink he shall not drink.' Philo quotes this clause, and pointedly refers to Samuel as 'chief of kings and prophets,' and as a Nazarite for life.

V. 13. THEREFORE ELI THOUGHT SHE HAD BEEN DRUNKEN] Hebrew, leshikorah, 'for a drunken woman.' So the LXX., eis methuousan; and the V., temulentiam (from temetum, the old Latin word for intoxicating wine).

V. 14. HOW LONG WILT THOU BE DRUNKEN ?] Hebrew, ad-mathi tishtakkahrin; LXX., heōs pote methustheesee; V., usquequò ebria eris?

PUT AWAY THY WINE FROM THEE] Hebrew, hahsiri eth-yāynāk maahlaik; the LXX., perielou ton oinon sou [Codex A adds apo sou] kai poreuou ek prosōpou kuriou, 'put away thy wine and depart from the presence of the Lord'; the V. has digere paulisper vini quo mades, 'get rid quickly of the wine in which thou art steeped.' V. 15. I HAVE drunk neither WINE NOR STRONG DRINK] Hebrew, ve-yayin vě-shakar lo shathithi, 'wine and strong drink I have not drunk'; the LXX., kai oinon kai methusma ou pepōka, 'and wine and strong drink I have not drunk'; the V., vinumque et omne quod inebriare potest non bibi, 'and wine and whatever is able to inebriate I have not drunk.' The Ts. read, 'new wine and old I have not drunk.'

A devout Hebrew matron, sorrowful from want of offspring and the exultation of a rival wife, goes up to the tabernacle to pour out her soul before God. Eli, the high priest, observing that her lips moved, and that she was under deep excitement, suspects her of intoxication, a suspicion which he bluntly expresses, jealous no doubt for the honor of the holy place. She respectfully repudiates the charge, and with so much evident sincerity that Eli not only credits her statement, but bestows on her his pontifical benediction. It may be noted,—

I. That the readiness with which Eli concludes as to Hannah's inebriation indicates a prevailing corruption of morals, which had taken this peculiar form, and had deeply infected even the female population.

2. That Hannah's disclaimer was associated with a conclusive proof of her innocence I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink.' Where this statement can be truly made, drunkenness, in all its degrees, is impossible. The importance of being able to declare this is not small, for the speaker is then sure (as otherwise he may not be) that he is entirely free from alcoholic excitement, which, if short of intoxication, is injurious to body and soul. I am not excited by drink,' is a conviction only attainable by abstinence, and not a little consoling under reproach. Hannah, be it noted, did not resort to intoxicating liquor to drive out or drown her sorrows-a striking contrast to the supposed permission in Prov. xxxi. 6, 7. (See Note on that passage.) She sought comfort not in potations, but in prayer,—'I have poured out my soul unto the Lord,'-and she received her reward. Would that all our women were like her!

3. When Hannah desired not to be counted 'a daughter of Belial '—i. e. a daughter of wickedness or destruction—she presented a vivid description of every female drunkard, who is so corrupted by drink as to lose all womanly virtue, and to be prepared for every shameful deed. Drunkenness in women is peculiarly odious and horrible, and when it becomes confirmed is well-nigh incurable, except by forcible deprivation of the raging liquor. In order to arrest the spread of this corrosive vice among the women of Christendom, should Christians esteem abstinence from its physical cause too great a sacrifice to be volunteered?

CHAPTER I. VERSE 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.

AND A BOTTLE OF WINE] Hebrew, vě-nabel yayin, and a bottle of wine.' This was as an offering, together with the flour and the three bullocks (or as the Lxx. reads, 'one bullock of three years old'). The Lxx. retains the Hebrew word in kai nebel oinou, and a nebel of wine.' The V. has et amphora vini, 'and an amphora of wine.' The Roman amphora was a two-handled jar commonly holding seven English gallons, but the word is here used without any intention of defining the size of the Hebrew nebel.

CHAPTER VIII. VERSE 14, 15.

15 And

14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

YOUR VINEYARDS] Hebrew, karmaikem, ‘your vineyards.'

CHAPTER X. VERSE 3.

Then shalt thou go on forward from thence, and thou shalt come to the plain of Tabor, and there shall meet thee three men going up to God to Beth-el, one carrying three kids, and another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine.

A BOTTLE OF WINE] Hebrew, nabel yayin. The Lxx. gives askon oinou, ‘skinbag of wine'; the V., lagenam vini, 'flagon of wine.'

CHAPTER XIV. VERSE 2.

And Saul tarried in the uttermost part of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron: and the people that were with him were about six hundred men.

A POMEGRANATE TREE] Hebrew, Rimmon. The Lxx. has hupo teen rhoan, 'under the pomegranate'; the V., sub malogranato, 'under the malegranate.' But by Rimmon in this passage is probably meant a fortified place which had derived its name from the growth of the pomegranate. Concerning this tree the 'Treasury Bible' observes, "It is, according to the Linnæan system, a genus of the Icosandria Monogynia class of plants, and is a low tree growing very commonly in Palestine and other parts of the East. It has several small angular boughs, very thick and bushy, covered with a reddish bark, and some of them armed with sharp thorns. Its blossoms are large, of an elegant red color inclining to purple, composed of several stalks resembling a rose, in the hollow of the cup; this cup is oblong, hard, purple, having a figure somewhat like that of a bell. It is chiefly valued for its fruit, which is exceedingly beautiful, of the form and size of a large apple, with a reddish rind, and red within; being full of small kernels, with red grains, replenished with a generous liquor, of which, Sir John Chardin informs us they still make considerable quantities of wine in the East, particularly in Persia." [See Note on Song of Sol. viii. 2.]

CHAPTER XVI. VERSE 20.

And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul.

AND A BOTTLE OF WINE] Hebrew, ve-nod yayin, 'and a bottle of wine.'

CHAPTER XXII. VERSE 7.

Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds ?

AND VINEYARDS] Hebrew, u-krahmin, ‘and vineyards.'

II

CHAPTER XXV. VERSES 11, 18, 36-38.

11 Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?. . . 18 Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.

36 And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light. 37 But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD smote Nabal, so that he died.

V. II. AND MY WATER] Hebrew, v'è-eth-mamai, 'and my waters'—a Hebrew idiom which the V. preserves, et aquas meas. The Lxx. singularly reads, kai ton oinon mou, 'and my wine.' Did the Lxx. translators think that Nabal, being a sot, ironically or figuratively spoke of wine as 'my water'? Aquila gives amphoreis, 'jars.' The T. of Jonathan and the Arabic have 'my drink.'

V. 18. TWO BOTTLES OF WINE] Hebrew, ushnaim nivlai yayin. The Lxx. has duo angeia oinou, 'two vases (or vessels) of wine'; the V., duos utres vini, 'two leathern bags of wine.'

A HUNDRED CLUSTERS OF RAISINS] Hebrew, umuah tzimmuqim, 'and a hundred raisin-clusters'-from tsahmaq, 'to dry up.' The Lxx. reads, kai gomor hen staphidōn, 'and one homer of raisins'; but other copies have kai hekaton endesmous, and a hundred bunches.' The V. gives et centum ligaturas uva passæ, and a hundred bunches of dried grapes.'

V. 36. A FEAST] Hebrew, mishteh; the Lxx. potos; the V., convivium.

HIS HEART WAS MERRY] The Hebrew has the idiomatic 'his heart was good to him.' The Lxx. is literal, agathee, 'good'; the V., jocundum, ‘jocund' 'or gay.'

FOR HE WAS VERY DRUNKEN] The Hebrew is shikkor ad měod, 'drunken (or drenched) with force '-i. e. excessively; the LXX., kai autos methuōn heōs sphodra, 'and he was being drunk, even exceedingly'; the V., erat enim ebrius nimis, ‘for he was drunk very much.'

V. 37. WHEN THE WINE WAS GONE OUT OF NABAL] Hebrew, v'tzath hayyayin min Nabal, in the going out of the wine from Nabal'; Lxx., hōs exeneepsen apo tou oinou Nabal, when Nabal had become sober from the wine.' The phrase here employed for 'becoming sober' is remarkable; it literally signifies becoming as an abstainer'—as those are who drink not. The word was often used by the Apostles in after times. [See Notes on the New Testament.] The V. has here cum digessisset vinum Nabal, when Nabal had digested the wine.'

The phrase 'going out' is singularly accurate, for though perhaps merely intended to describe the subsidence of the intoxication produced by the wine, it exactly accords with the most recent discoveries of science, that intoxication passes off because the alcoholic spirit does go out of the body-being expelled from it by all the excretory organs as an intruder into and disturber of the living house which God has 'fearfully and wonderfully made.'

Nabal may have been prone to folly by his natural temperament and disposition, but his habits of life made the folly chronic and incurable. Free drinking had not disposed him to generosity or justice, and in the morning, after a debauch, having learnt the danger he had incurred, his nervous system was too enfeebled to recover from the shock it received, and so in ten days he died.

CHAPTER XXVI. VERSE II.

The LORD forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the LORD'S anointed: but, I pray thee, take thou now the spear that is at his bolster, and the cruse of water, and let us go.

And the CRUSE OF WATER] Hebrew, vě-eth-tzappakhath_ham-maim, ‘and the cruse of the waters' the water-skin. The LXX. has ton phakon tou hudatos, 'the lentil-shaped vase of water.' Aquila has angos, 'a vase'; Symmachus, nuktopotion, a night-drinking vessel'; the V., scyphum aquæ, ‘a goblet of water.'

The king of Israel did not disdain to carry with him a water-vessel on this expedition, and the statement (ver. 12) that David took it from Saul's bolster, proves the value attached to it by the royal traveler.

CHAPTER XXX. VERSES II, 12.

And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water; 12 And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins: and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.

V. 12. AND TWO CLUSTERS OF RAISINS] Hebrew, ushnai tzimmuqim, 'and two raisin clusters.' Codex B of the Lxx. omits this clause, but Codex A has kai