204 passagesc. 11th century CE (medieval aggadic compilation on Samuel)HebrewPublic Domain
David dug for the Temple and woke the abyss, cursed Joab and doomed his own heirs. Midrash Shmuel says a king's words bind the dynasty.
A barren woman at Shiloh reached for a title of God no mouth had ever spoken, and heaven answered by counting her children like an army.
Amos swore God never moves without warning his prophets first. Midrash Shmuel turns that single line into a roll call of everyone who heard the secret early.
Israel's first king was anointed from a fragile flask, and a medieval midrash insists the vessel itself already knew his crown would shatter.
Individual passages from Midrash Shmuel, shown in source order. Page 1 of 5.
The sages opened the book of Samuel with a verse from the Psalms: "It is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah." Rabbi Natan flipped it: when people void the Tora...
"The memory of the righteous is for a blessing, but the name of the wicked shall rot," teaches Solomon (Proverbs 10:7). Rabbi Yitzchak presses the verse hard: name a righteous pers...
Picture a king with two storehouses, both heaped with the same fine seed. Rabbi Pinchas and Rabbi Chilkiyah, in the name of Rabbi Simon, taught the parable. The king took seed from...
Rabbi Shimon taught that Scripture knows two ways to set down a name. Sometimes it mentions and praises; sometimes it mentions and disgraces. The same lineage can crown one man and...
Rabbi Pinchas opened with a verse from Ecclesiastes: "A man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor." Such a gift, he taught, is not granted to everyone. It rests only upon the...
"There was a certain man." Hear how the Sages weighed those words, said the Maggid. For wherever Scripture opens with this phrase, it is reckoned as if thirty-one righteous men sto...
Hear how the sages weighed a single verse. "And he had two wives, the name of one was Hannah" — does Scripture begin with praise or with shame? Rabbi Yitzḥak said it opens only wit...
On the festival day of Atzeret, taught Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, Elkanah came up to sacrifice. He gave portions to Peninnah and to every one of her sons and daughters. But to Hannah...
When Hannah would not eat and could not stop her weeping, her husband Elkanah spoke a single tender word that the sages would not let pass: "Am I not anokhi, better to you?" He did...
Hannah stood barren before the Holy One and did not whisper a timid plea. "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it," the verse promised, and the sages taught: one does not ask for ...
It is written, Jacob "vowed a vow, saying" (Genesis 28:20). And the sages asked: what is that little word, "saying"? Rabbi Yitzchak the Babylonian taught that to vow is itself to p...
When Hannah vowed her vow at Shiloh, the sages heard in it an echo of the verse, "Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine in the recesses of your house." For women, they taught, are ...
"And she vowed a vow." When Hannah stood at Shiloh, barren among the multitudes, the sages heard in her silent prayer the whole reasoning of a desperate heart. Rav taught how she a...
When Hannah stood and poured out her soul, she reached for a name of God that no mouth had ever spoken before her: "Lord of Hosts." From the first day of creation, taught Rabbi Yeh...
When Hannah poured out her vow, she did not merely plead — she bargained, reading the doubled word of her own prayer like a binding decree. "If You will surely look," she said. If ...
When Hannah poured out her vow, the sages weighed every word. "You will remember me," she said — and they heard: with sons. "Do not forget Your maidservant" — and they heard: with ...
When Chana vowed her son to the LORD, she swore "no razor shall come upon his head." What did that promise make of him? Rabbi Nehorai taught that it made Shmuel a Nazirite, just as...
"And it came to pass, as she prayed long before the LORD" — and from Hannah's long prayer the sages drew a rule: whoever prays at length is answered. So taught Rabbi Yochanan and R...
What Hannah's Moving Lips Taught the Sages Where, the Sages asked, does Scripture command us to pray at all? In Deuteronomy it is written: serve the LORD "with all your heart." But...
When Eli the priest mistook her silent, trembling prayer for drunkenness, Hannah answered without flinching: "No, my lord. I am a woman of hardened spirit." The Maggid hears in tho...
When Hannah rose from her silent prayer, Eli the priest sent her off with a blessing: "Go in peace." But he was careful to weigh his own words. "This peace," he told her, "is only ...
How long is a moment? When the Psalmist sang, "For His anger is but a moment, His favor is life; weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning," the sages bent clos...
Rabbi Yitzchak opened his teaching with a verse from the giving of the Torah: "An altar of earth you shall make for Me." From these few words he drew out a chain of reasoning, a ka...
"And it came to pass at the turn of the seasons" — and after two turnings Hannah conceived. Elkanah went up to the house of the LORD, but Hannah did not go up. Here the Maggid paus...
"Do what is good in your eyes," said Elkanah to his wife. "Stay until you have weaned the boy—only may the LORD fulfill His word." What word was Elkanah waiting to see fulfilled? R...
When Hannah had weaned her boy, she carried him up to the house of the LORD at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:24). But hold these two verses together. One calls Shiloh a house, "the house of t...
When the bullock was brought to Shiloh, the people stood frozen over the sacrifice, waiting for a priest to do the slaughtering. A child of two years pushed through. Samuel — for "...
Hannah brought her child to the sanctuary, and Scripture says, "And he worshipped there before the LORD." From that single bow of a young boy, Rabbi Yitzchak drew out a thread that...
"The fining pot is for silver, the furnace for gold, but the LORD tries the hearts." Rav taught that the commandments were given to refine Israel as a smith refines gold, passing i...
When Hannah stood to pray, she did not begin with petition. Rav teaches that she first arranged her words alongside confession, ordering her heart before she dared open her mouth. ...
When Hannah stood before the LORD with her son granted at last, she did not merely give thanks. She sang, "My horn is exalted in the LORD" — and the sages heard in that single word...
When Hannah finally sang, her words climbed higher than her own joy. "My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation," she cried — and the sages leaned i...
"Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands." Over this verse the great houses split. The House of Hillel taught that earth came first,...
"His head is finest gold," sings the Song. The sages read it as a riddle of Torah. The head? The Torah herself, "the beginning of His way." The fine gold? Her words, more precious ...
How does anyone swallow the whole Torah? Rabbi Chanan answered with a mound of earth. The fool stares at it and groans, "Who can ever clear this away?" The clever one says, "Two ba...
The sages took a scribe's quill and held it over the whole of creation. So fragile is the world, they taught, that a single careless stroke could topple it. Consider the verse Isra...
Hannah stood before the Holy One and sang, "There is none holy as the LORD, for there is none beside You." The sages bent their ears to that final word, biltecha, and heard within ...
When Hannah sang, "There is no Rock like our God," the sages heard another word inside the Hebrew: there is no Fashioner like our God. And so they unrolled the wonder. A craftsman ...
The verse warns, "Speak not so very high, high" (1 Samuel 2:3) — and the sages read into it a rebuke aimed at Nebuchadnezzar. For when he cast Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego into...
Hannah prays, "Let arrogance come out of your mouth" (1 Samuel 2:3), and Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, speaking in the name of Rabbi Levi, hears in the word for arrogance, atak, anoth...
"For the LORD is a God of knowledge," Hannah sang. The sages bent close to that verse and marveled at the worth of da'at, knowledge. Rabbi raised a puzzle: how did the Sages dare t...
"By Him deeds are weighed," sang Hannah. But which deeds—those turned toward the Holy One, or those that stray? The verse in Psalms answers: He made known His deeds to the children...
Listen, and hear how Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Yose read Hannah's song into the wombs of our mothers. "Those who were sated with bread have hired themselves out." Who was so full of s...
When Hannah stood and poured out her thanksgiving, she sang, "The LORD kills and makes alive, He brings down to Sheol and raises up." The sages heard in those few words an old quar...
A great Roman lady, a matrona, came to Rabbi Yose ben Halafta with a sharp question. "In how many days did your God make the world?" she asked. "Six," he answered, "as it is writte...
When Hannah stood and sang, she declared that God "raises up the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dunghill, to seat them with princes and make them inherit a throne ...
Hannah sang, "For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and He has set the world upon them." Upon that verse Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai built a daring teaching: so long as Israel b...
When Hannah sang that the Holy One "guards the feet of His faithful one," the sages heard a single name in that singular word: Joseph. He is the faithful one whose footing God watc...
