Notes and Queries/Series 7/Volume 12/Number 295/Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible'
SMITH'S 'DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE':
SAMUEL IN THE TEMPLE.
If, as is thought by Mr. Lynn, a new edition of Smith 'Dictionary of the Bible' is in progress, it may be useful to direct attention to a passage in the late Dean Stanley's article on Samuel. Writing of the early years of Samuel, spent in ministering at the Temple, and describing his habits at that time, the dean says, "He [Samuel] seems to have slept within the Holiest Place." I once called the attention of the late Rev. H. B. W. Churton, of Icklesham, who was a competent Hebrew scholar, to this, as it appeared to me, highly gratuitous observation, and asked him whether, from his knowledge of the Hebrew text in 1 Samuel iii., he should consider that such an idea was proper to be entertained; whether, in fact, there was anything in the Hebrew text which rendered necessary such a supposition. In a letter which he was so kind as to send me in reply he expressed a clear opinion that Eli and Samuel were sleeping at the time the Voice was heard not in the Holiest Place, but most probably in the Court of the Levites; and he stated that the Jews take it so in the Rabbinical Synopsis of the Abendanah. He further observes in his letter on the subject, which now lies before me, that the traditional pointing of the Masorites in 1 Samuel iii. 3 carefully guards against any such idea as that of Samuel sleeping in the Most Holy Place. They take the clause "and Samuel was laid down to sleep" parenthetically, and mark it as such by a longer stop than ordinary, thus connecting the words "in the Temple of the Lord" not with Samuel's sleeping-place, but with the mention of the still-burning lamp. Dean Stanley, under 1 Samuel iii. 3, refers to the Septuagint; but the rendering in this version gives no countenance to the supposition we are considering. Dr. Gill's 'Commentary' may be usefully consulted. From him and his authorities Mr. Churton gathered that Eli and Samuel were undoubtedly sleeping not far from one another; that the candlestick of seven branches was not in the same place where the Ark of God was, but in a portion of the Tabernacle apart from and exterior to it; finally, he cited the well-known opinion that the Divine Voice sounded first from the mercy seat, secondly from some part of the Tabernacle exterior to the Most Holy Place, and thirdly from the Court of the Levites; I confess the expression in. verse 10, "as time after time" ("as at other times" in the English version), appears to fall in with this opinion. On the whole, I conclude Dean Stanley must have been misled by the use of the word ναὸς in 1 Samuel iii. 3 by the LXX., forgetting at the moment that this word is not to be limited as if it only signified shrine, inasmuch as it is continually used for temple in general.S. Arnott.
- The Vicarage, Gunnersbury, W.