Today we begin 1 Samuel Chapter 1.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE.
For the King James Version, click HERE.
“There was a man from Ramatayim-Tzofim, in the hills of Efrayim, whose name was Elkanah the son of Yerocham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tochu, the son of Tzuf, from Efrat.”-1 Samuel 1:1
Chapter 1 of 1 Samuel kicks off by telling us the specific location of where our tale begins.
The name of the region was RAMATHAIM-TZOFIM.
This was a pretty common name and literally means “two hills” or “double heights”.
But what about the TZOFIM part?
That’s actually referring to the clan name.
So in plain English, we could translate this as “the clan territory of ZUPH located in the place of two hills” or something like that.
However, later on, we’ll be told this same man (Elkanah) hailed from a place called RAMAH.
This word is actually referring to the same place…
It’s just an abbreviated version of RAMATHAIM-TZOFIM.
You can actually visit Samuel’s tomb in Ramah today…
Take a look at the map I posted above and you can see it’s not too far from Jerusalem.
Later Jeremiah would mention the city of Ramah in the following prophecy:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
-Jeremiah 31:15
Of course, this line was repeated in the New Testament in Matthew 2:18 referring to Herod’s act of killing all the Hebrew baby boys under the age of 2.
In this verse, “Rachel” represents all the mothers of Israel as they weep and cry for the death of their children.
I find it interesting that Rachel was barren for the first 14 years of her marriage until God gave her the power to have children.
And how we’ll see that Elkanah’s wife Hannah who is from RAMAH was also barren until the Lord gifted her with a son.
One takeaway that’s popping into my mind right now is that many children who were specially anointed by God came about through divine intervention.
In other words, Adonai Himself brought back to life the dead wombs of the mothers of those children who would go on to do great things for the Lord.
We see this with Isaac, Rachel’s children and Hannah’s son Samuel.
And of course, let’s not forget Yeshua who the NT tells us was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Herod tried to prevent his birth by killing all the male babies in Ramah.
He failed.
Over and out.
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