Category Archives: Samuel

Study with Penina 1 Samuel 5-7 October 19, 7:30pm

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Study with Penina Announcement

                                

1 Samuel Chapters 5-7
Wednesday, October 19, 7:30pm to 9pm.  Eitz Chayim library. 
Bring your tanach, snacks, wine.
RSVPs appreciated
 
No prior study or knowledge of text study or Hebrew is required! 
Books provided if you don’t have your own.
Review and study material can be found on Penina’s blog

Throughout the year we will meet each 1st and 3rd Wednesday evening to study the book of Samuel.

And they placed the Coffer of YHWH on the wagon,
along with the chest and the gold mice and the images of their tumors.
And the cows went-straight on the road, on the road to Bet Shemesh:
on one path they went, going-along (and) lowing,
but they did not turn right or left.
—1 Sam 6:11-12 (Fox translation)

“Against the spareness and swift efficiency of normal Hebrew narrative style, the writer here lavishes synonyms and repetitions in order to highlight the perfect geometry of the miracle: against all conceivable distractions of biology or sheer animal unknowingness, the cows pursue an arrow-straight…trajectory… [T]he milch cows…are going strenuously against nature: their udders full of milk for the calves they have been forced to leave behind.”
—Robert Alter, The David Story

October 5, 2011 Study Session

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Study with Penina Announcement

                                

1 Samuel Chapters 3-5
                                 
Wednesday, October 5, 7:30pm to 9pm.  Eitz Chayim library. 
Bring your tanach, snacks, wine.
 
No prior study or knowledge of text study or Hebrew is required! 
Books provided if you don’t have your own.

Throughout the year we will meet each 1st and 3rd Wednesday evening to study the book of Samuel.

YHWH said to Shemu’el:
Here, I am about to do a thing in Israel
such that all who hear of it – their two ears will ring!
—1 Sam 3:11 (Fox translation)

I will do such things,–
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.
—King Lear

Leaders fail in Samuel, “and it is in confronting their failures that the reader is empowered to ponder the meaning of responsibility and leadership for our own time.  The narratives…unfold in a way that cautions human beings about the exercise of power and takes offenders to task.”
—Everett Fox

“Women play a larger role in the books of Samuel than in most of the rest of the Bible… It has, in fact, been suggested that one of the major themes of the stories of David and his family is precisely the unavoidable link between public and private life within a ruling family.”
—Jo Ann Hacket

Notes from Class 9/7/11 – Deeper look at Nefesh and “After she/they ate”

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Nefesh – Beth related Hannah’s bitter nefesh to Creation –
The actual language in Gen 1:7 is that God breathes into the nostrils of the adam the breath of life: nishmat chayyim. This life force that comes from God is not so different from nefesh perhaps, so the idea that Beth expressed, that Hannah’s bitter nefesh comes from feeling she is without God’s lifegiving force is still an informative connection.
1 Samuel 1:9: 
וַתָּקָם חַנָּה, אַחֲרֵי אָכְלָה בְשִׁלֹה וְאַחֲרֵי שָׁתֹה
This verse is translated in several ways:
Robert Alter The David Story
And Hannah arose after the eating in Shiloh and after the drinking.

Alter says (The Art of Biblical Narrative, note on page 83): “I vocalize ‘eating’ differently than does the Masoretic text, which seems to make Hannah the subject, something contraindicated by the indication that she is breaking a fast in verse 18.”
Everett Fox Give us a King (no annotation)
Hannah arose after eating at Shiloh and after drinking.
JPS Tanakh (no annotation)
After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah arose
Artscroll Tanach (no annotation)
Hannah arose after eating in Shiloh and after drinking.
Etz Hayim (note: “Literally, ‘After she had eaten (akh’lah),’ namely Hannah”)
After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah arose
אַחֲרֵי אָכְלָה : Acherei ach’lah – this is the Hebrew in our text and is a simple feminine past tense in Modern Hebrew.  We would think it should be translated “after she ate.”  However, all of our translators read either “after eating” or “after they ate.” 
According to P.Kyle McCarter in 1 Samuel (Anchor Bible), the Septuagint reads “after eating. ”
This is the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, also called LLX, from about 300 BCE to 100 CE, which is thought in some cases to reflect an older Hebrew text than the Masoretic Text, or MT, from about 7th to 10th centuries CE.
 וְאַחֲרֵי שָׁתְתָה: After she drank – Acherei shat’tah – this is the simple Hebrew past but it is NOT the Hebrew in our text. 
The Hebrew in our text is
וְאַחֲרֵי שָׁתֹה.  V’acharei shatoh. This is known as the infinitive absolute form of the verb, but is used in a peculiar way. 
Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, in reference to this verse, states that
וְאַחֲרֵי שָׁתֹה” is impossible Hebrew, and as the LXX shows, a late addition.”  In other words, it is violating all the rules of grammar.
I would conclude that our translations, do not say “After she ate and after she drank” for the following reasons:
·         There is an immediate textual problem because one verb is in past tense and one verb is in a verb form which is “impossible in Hebrew.”   Therefore, one cannot simply give both verbs as “She ate and she drank.”
·         According to LLX, “after eating” is the original form of ach’lah.
·         According to verse 18, Hannah eats after her prayer is completed and after Eli has given her his peace blessing.
·         It would appear that in order to make sense of verse 18, and in order to make sense of some impossible Hebrew, and in keeping with the LLX translation, our modern translators have chosen to translate either “they ate and drank” or “after eating and drinking.”  The latter translation, chosen by Alter, Fox and Artscroll preserves the ambiguity of the text, because it does not state clearly who ate and drank.  The JPS and Etz Hayim translations, “After they had eaten and drunk” do not give you the flavor of the ambiguity.

The Rabbis on Hannah as an example of prayer

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Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Berakoth 
(31a) R. Hamnuna said: How many most important laws can be learnt from these verses relating to Hannah! [I Sam. I, 10ff]   Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart🙁עַל-לִבָּהּ) from this we learn that one who prays must direct his heart. Only her lips moved: from this we learn that he who prays must frame the words distinctly with his lips. But her voice could not be heard: from this, it is forbidden to raise one’s voice in the Tefillah. Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken: from this, that a drunken person is forbidden to say the Tefillah.

Hannah – Marat Nefesh (bitter soul) and Ani (affliction)

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I Samuel 1:10-11 says of Hannah (my translation and emphasis)
10 With a bitter soul she prayed to [against, upon] the Lord and wept copiously.
11She vowed a vow, saying: Lord of Hosts, if seeing, You will see the affliction of Your handmaid, and remember my request and not forget Your handmaid, and You will grant to your handmaid male seed, I will give him to YHVH all the days of this life, and a razor will not go on his head.
Bitter soul in the Hebrew is marat nafesh.  Marat  is a form of the word mar, meaning bitter, and nafesh  is translated sometimes as soul, spirit, or life-source.
The word translated as affliction is ani. 
In “Reading Ruth” Aviva Zornberg discusses the uses of the word mar (bitterness) and ana ( a form of ani – affliction) in relationship to Naomi.  Zornberg’s interpretations can help us to understand Hannah. 
We start by listening to Naomi say Hashem ana vi, which may be translated as “God afflicted me.”  Zornberg discusses what this means. 
What exactly does “afflict” mean?  Rashi says, “He testified against me, that I had been guilty in his presence.”  I had been guilty of something.  He testified against me, that I am incriminated of some unknown crime.  Then Rashi quotes another reading.  Ana vi: midat hadin, God’s faculty of judgment has afflicted me.  God in his role as judge, as punisher, has come out and afflicted me.  So ana vi can mean to afflict, to impose pain on me, or it can mean to testify against me. (pg 68).
Naomi’s bitterness comes both from suffering the losses of her husband and the sons she has borne and raised, and from feeling humiliated that God is afflicting her.  Zornberg goes on to say
Naomi assumes that all who witness her suffering know she must be guilty.  In interpreting Hashem ana vi– God has born witness against me – Ibn Ezra supports this translation by reference to a verse in Job.  [He] refers us to Job 10:17: techadesh edekha negdi – you are constantly sending new witnesses against me.  The chapter of bitter complaint in which Job says this begins by his saying, adabra bemar nafshi, let me speak in the bitterness (mar) of my spirit. 
[JPS translation of Job 10:1 is I am disgusted with my life;  I will give rein to my complain, t Speak in the bitterness of my soul]
The word mar, of course, echoes one of the words Naomi uses regarding herself several times.  What does Job say in the bitterness of his spirit?  “I say to my God, don’t condemn me.  Let me know why you quarrel with me” (Job 10:2).  Let me know why You have it in for me.  I feel there is a mystery in the destiny You have imposed upon me.  I must be guilty – I assume I must be guilty – but I am not clear why.  At least tell me exactly what it is that justifies this terrible suffering.  “If I am wicked, woe to me.  But if I am righteous, yet I still can’t lift up my head: (Job 10:15).  In the next phrase, listen carefully to the Hebrew: Seva kalon u-reeh onyi – because I am filled with shame, and look upon my affliction.  Onyi – from the same root as ana in Naomi’s ana vi.  I’m filled with shame as I look on my affliction knowing that the affliction must mean guilt.  (pg 69-70)
How does this help us to understand Hanna’s bitter sprit and her affliction?
Naomi calls herself mara, bitter.  Job refers to speaking bemar nafshi, out of the bitterness of his sprit.  And Hannah is in marat nafesh, bitterness of spirit.  The midrash interprets that the use of a common word in different verses suggests a common meaning.  Naomi and Job both find themselves feeling that God is witnessing (testifying) against them.  The are both afflicted (ana or onyi) and their bitterness arises out of their affliction.  Right after Hannah mentions her marat nafesh she asks God to “look upon her affliction (oni)”  We have learned from Ruth and Naomi that the affliction is related to feeling that God is punishing them for something;  although neither of them may know why, they do feel the weight of the punishment.  Hannah, in her “affliction” feels punished by God as well.  God has sealed up her womb.  Hannah does not know why.  Her bitterness of spirit may come, therefore, not from being childless per se, but from feeling that God has punished her for some unknown reason by sealing up her womb.

Supplemental Texts – more detailed:

BITTER  mar –  Hannah’s bitter soul
1 Sam 1:10 With a bitter soul
v’hee marat nafesh
 וְהִיא, מָרַת נָפֶשׁ
On my part, I will not speak with restraint;
I will give voice to the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. (במר נפשי) (b’mar nafshi)
Job 7:11
I am disgusted with life;
I will give rein to my complaint,
Speak in the bitterness of my soul. (במר נפשי) (b’mar nafshi)
I say to God, “Do not condemn me;
Let me know what you charge me with.”
Job 10:1-2
“Do not call me Naomi,” she replied.  “Call me Mara, for Shaddai has made my lot very bitter.  I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.  How can you call me Naomi, when the Lord has dealt harshly with me (ו’הוה ענה ב’) (Adonai ana vi), when Shaddai has brought misfortune upon me!”
Ruth 1: 20-21
Oh, no, my daughters!  My lot is far more bitter than yours מר-ל’ מאד)) (mar li meod), for the hand of the Lord has struck out against me.
Ruth 1:13
AFFLICTION   ani   – Hannah’s affliction
1 Sam 1:11 You will see the affliction of Your handmaid
tirah ba’oni amateyha
תִרְאֶה בָּעֳנִי אֲמָתֶךָ
Aviva Zornberg talks about affliction in relationship to Naomi and Job (in Kates, Judith A. and Twersky Reimer, Gail, eds.  Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.).
Naomi uses this strange expression: Hashem ana vi, God afflicted me.  What exactly does “afflict” mean?  Rashi says, “He testified against me, that I had been guilty in his presence.” I had been guilty of something.  He testified against me, that I am incriminated of some unknown crime.  Then Rashi quotes another reading.  Ana vi: midat hadin, God’s faculty of judgement has afflicted me.  God in his role as judge, as punisher, has come out and afflicted me.  So ana vi can mean to afflict, to produce pain, to impose pain upon me, or it can mean to testify against me.    Zornberg, pg 68
In interpreting Hashem ana vi – God has borne witness against me – Ibn Ezra…refers us to Job 10:17: techadesh edekha negdi – you are constantly sending new witnesses against me.   Zornberg, pg 69
So sated am I with shame,
And drenched in my misery. (עניי) (anyi)
Job 10:15
You keep sending fresh witnesses against me.
Job 10:17