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Elkanah and His Wives
1Now there was a man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2And he had two wives: the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
3Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of armies in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord there. 4When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; 5but to Hannah he would give a double portion, because he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. 6Her rival, moreover, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. 7And it happened year after year, as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, that she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat. 8Then Elkanah her husband would say to her, “Hannah, why do you weep, and why do you not eat, and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”
Samuel Is Born to Hannah