Ἀλκάνης
Alkanes, Elkanas, Elkanah
Translated by Jennifer Benedict19 May 2000Vetting: high8 revisions
Translation
At the beginning of the book of the 4 kingdoms the name Elkanah occurs.1
A man2 of the middle class among the citizens lived in the city of Armathaim in the land of Ephraim and married 2 wives, [H]annah and Phenannah. By the latter he had two children, but he continued to love the other, although she was barren. Alkanes came to the city of Shiloh with his wives to sacrifice -- for there the tabernacle of God was fixed -- and when he distributed meat to the wives and children during the festival, [H]annah, seeing the other children sitting around their mother, burst into tears and prostrated herself and bemoaned herself on account of her barrenness and loneliness. And winning over her husband's encouragements with her grief, she went into the tabernacle, and she begged God to give her offspring and to make her a mother and she vowed to dedicate the first son born to her to the service of God, that his way of life should not be made like that of common men. And as she prayed, Eli the high priest came and commanded her to go away as if she were drunk, but when she said she had drunk only water and she was begging God, grieving for her difficulty getting children, he told her to take heart, declaring that God would give her children. And a child was born to her, whom they called Samuel -- "obtained from God", as one might say.
A man2 of the middle class among the citizens lived in the city of Armathaim in the land of Ephraim and married 2 wives, [H]annah and Phenannah. By the latter he had two children, but he continued to love the other, although she was barren. Alkanes came to the city of Shiloh with his wives to sacrifice -- for there the tabernacle of God was fixed -- and when he distributed meat to the wives and children during the festival, [H]annah, seeing the other children sitting around their mother, burst into tears and prostrated herself and bemoaned herself on account of her barrenness and loneliness. And winning over her husband's encouragements with her grief, she went into the tabernacle, and she begged God to give her offspring and to make her a mother and she vowed to dedicate the first son born to her to the service of God, that his way of life should not be made like that of common men. And as she prayed, Eli the high priest came and commanded her to go away as if she were drunk, but when she said she had drunk only water and she was begging God, grieving for her difficulty getting children, he told her to take heart, declaring that God would give her children. And a child was born to her, whom they called Samuel -- "obtained from God", as one might say.