Similarities between the birth of Isaac and Samuel

[Isaac Fried]

In 1Sam. 2:22 we become privy to some unsavory news:
ועלי זקן מאד ושמע את כל אשר יעשון בניו לכל ישראל ואת אשר ישכבון את הנשים הצבאות פתח אהל מועד
KJV: "Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation."

Could be that they were actually dispensing favors. In fact with the tacit consent of their, protein and fat satiated, portly father.

An older man takes a young second wife. At first she is too young to conceive, and then, when she is ready, the husband's virility has declined to the point where he is unable to produce anymore healthy babies. She is stigmatized as barren, but still yearns for children.

Today, the woman goes to a fertility clinic where she is shown a catalog full of a variety of healthy, good looking, and gifted young man to choose from, who are ready to help in this predicament. They are said now to be "donors" --- papa is a donor.

In old times the young woman would go to Shiloh to have the cover of a miracle. She prayed there good and hard, and upon returning home would become pregnant, and eventually have a houseful of cheerful children, all from a good and reliable source. The tender poetess חנה had eventually, according to 1Sam. 2:21, three boys and two girls, and this after God "had tied up her womb".

As long as he hung upon her bosom, mother XANAH kept שמואל at home, but then, she possible started to worry that God might "appear" to her good husband אלקנה ELKANAH, and command him to sacrifice the boy. So, as soon as he נגמל, she delivered the boy to the the house of God in Shiloh to learn the line of business of his grandfather.

Eventually, this boy became one of greatest man of Israel.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

One would do well to read, in this connection, the remarkable story of the great woman of שונם $UNEM, in 2 Kings 4:8-37.

Isaac Fried, Boston University