What Does 1 Samuel 1:4 Mean?
And when the day came that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:THE KEY
The Hebrew for “gave” also carries “place,” so provision arrives as something set before each person in a concrete share.
THE MEANING
The verse shows giving taking tangible form: a share reaches a wife and her children. Provision is placed, apportioned, and received within the life of a household.
THE ROOT
וְנָתַן
venatan
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, put, or set in place.
“he gave” in this verse is venatan. The root carries the sense of giving and of placing something in position. Here, provision reaches the named recipients as a tangible share.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, put, set.
נָתַן
The root form holds giving together with placing something where it can be received.
natun: Given, set in place.
נָתוּן
This form shows what giving leaves behind: something placed and available.
netinah: Giving; an act of giving.
נְתִינָה
The noun keeps the verse’s act of giving connected to the root’s concrete sense of placing.
מָנוֹת
manot
GROWS FROM
מנה
To count, appoint, or assign a share.
The word for portions belongs to a root that also means counting or assigning. The shares are not an indistinct gift; they are apportioned to particular people.
ALSO GROWS
manah: A portion or share; to count or assign.
מָנָה
The singular form names the share that the plural portions distribute.
nimneh: Counted; numbered among.
נִמְנֶה
This form connects a portion to being counted within a group, as the verse names the wife and children receiving shares.
וַיִּזְבַּח
vayyizbach
GROWS FROM
זבח
To sacrifice, slaughter an animal for an offering.
The verb translated “offered” shares its root with the sacrifice itself and the altar. The household portions belong to a giving that is bound to sacrifice.
ALSO GROWS
zevach: A sacrifice or sacrificial offering.
זֶבַח
This noun names the offering from which the verse’s act of giving begins.
mizbeach: Altar.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar shares the root consonants and locates the sacrifice within a concrete act of offering.
THE PATTERN
Provision takes communal shape when what is given is apportioned into shares people can receive.
And when they measured it with an omer, the one who gathered much had nothing over, and the one who gathered little had no lack. Each one gathered according to his eating.She rises while it is still night, and gives torn food to her house, and a portion to her maidens.And they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them among all, as each one had need.THE THREAD
But to Hannah he gave a double portion, for he loved Hannah, yet the LORD had shut her womb.The portions here are מָנוֹת (manot), and the next verse gives Hannah a מָנָה (manah), from the same root מנה, “to assign a share.” The repeated root turns a household distribution into Hannah’s particular portion, held alongside the verse’s unsoftened statement that her womb is closed.
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