[380]. It would seem from 1 Sam. iii. 3, as compared with Exod. xxvii. 21, and Lev. xxiv. 3, that there was no veil at the time in ‘the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.’
[381]. ‘The priest’ of the narrative is equivalent to ‘high priest’: see above, p. 219. Eli’s two sons were naturally not on a level of equality with himself. It has been gravely maintained that there were only three priests at Shiloh at the time, because nothing is said about any others; had the narrative not required the mention of Hophni and Phinehas we should have been told there was only one. Such trifling with historical documents is unfortunately only too characteristic of the so-called ‘literary criticism.’
[382]. It has been assumed that ‘the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation’ (Exod. xxxviii. 8, 1 Sam. ii. 22) were religious prostitutes like the qedashoth in the Phœnician temples (see Deut. xxiii. 17, 18). But the fact that the intercourse of the sons of Eli with them was a sin in the eyes of both Yahveh and the people proves the contrary. Here, as in other cases, an old institution of Semitic religion was retained among the adherents of the Mosaic law, but it was deprived of its pagan and immoral characteristics.
[383]. 1 Sam. ix. 9.
[384]. 1 Sam. xix. 23. Nâbî is not of Arabic derivation as is often supposed, as, for example, by Professor Cornill, The Prophets of Israel, pp. 8-10, where it is erroneously stated that the Babylonian nabû does not mean ‘to pronounce’ or ‘proclaim.’ The name of Nebo shows to what antiquity the Babylonian nabium in its special sense of ‘prophet’ reaches back. The modern Arabic nebi is borrowed from the Hebrew nâbî. Nâbî corresponds with the Greek προφήτης ‘forth-speaker,’ as distinguished from μάντις or ‘diviner,’ the Babylonian asipu. In Babylonia the asipu performed the offices which the Hebrew roeh had once fulfilled; he determined whether an army should move or not, whether victory would be on its side, whether an undertaking would be prosperous or the reverse. While, therefore, the asipu and the nabiu continued to exist side by side, performing the functions which had been combined in the Hebrew roeh, and at the outset in the Hebrew nâbî, among the Israelites the roeh disappeared, and the nâbî alone remained with purely prophetical attributes.
[385]. Towards the end of Samuel’s life, however, a Naioth or ‘monastery’ grew up around him at Ramah, which must have closely resembled the Dervish colleges of the modern Mohammedan world; see 1 Sam. xix. 23. This monastery will have taken the place of Shiloh, and become a veritable ‘school’ of prophetical training and instruction.
[386]. Gad, however, still retained the title of ‘seer’ (1 Chron. xxix. 29), and one of the histories of the reign of Solomon was contained ‘in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam’ (2 Chron. ix. 29). Even Isaiah’s history of Hezekiah was called ‘the vision of Isaiah the prophet’ (2 Chron. xxxii. 32). But the title was merely a survival.
[387]. We must, however, distinguish between Samuel’s authority as a seer, which did not excite the jealousy of his Philistine masters, and his authority as a dispenser of justice. That was confined to a small area in the heart of Mount Ephraim. Each year, we are told (1 Sam. vii. 16) he went on circuit like a Babylonian judge, ‘to Beth-el and Gilgal and Mizpeh.’ This is the Mizpeh of Benjamin.
[388]. Ramah, ‘the height,’ is identified in 1 Sam. ii. 11 with Ramathaim, ‘the two heights.’ The village evidently stood on two hills. For the possible site of Aphek, see G. A. Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 224. Eben-ezer is identified with the great stone at Beth-shemesh (1 Sam. vi. 14, 18) by M. Clermont-Ganneau (Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1874, p. 279; 1877, pp. 154 sqq.), but this is questionable.
[389]. See my Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, p. 154; and above, p. [196].