204 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Midrash Shmuel, shown in source order. Page 2 of 5.
Listen, children, to how the Sages read the very letters of Hannah's song. "The LORD, His adversaries shall be shattered" — yet the word is written as if speaking of a single foe. ...
At Shiloh, before the fat of an offering could be burned to Heaven, the lad of the priest would arrive and demand meat for roasting. He would not accept boiled meat, only raw, and ...
When Hannah brought her son Samuel up to the sanctuary at Shiloh, she did not come empty-handed. Year by year she stitched for him a little robe and carried it to him when she came...
When Eli the priest blessed Elkanah and his wife in the sanctuary, the sages heard one prayer beneath his words: Let every child the Holy One is destined to give you come from this...
Hear how one verse holds seven women's tears. The psalmist sings, "He sets the barren woman of the house as a joyful mother of children, Hallelujah." Who is this barren woman? The ...
Why, the sages asked, does Scripture warn so darkly: "He who curses his father and his mother, his lamp will be extinguished in deep darkness"? Rabbi Yudah bar Rabbi Nachman and Ra...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai taught that the Holy One chose to unveil the reward of only two commandments in all the Torah, and He set them at the two ends of the scale. The lightest of...
Hear it again, as Kohelet sighed: "For in much wisdom is much grief." Solomon himself confessed that the more he gathered wisdom, the more sorrow he gathered with it; the more know...
Rabbi Yudah son of Rabbi Simon, in the name of Hezekiah, taught that our master read certain hard verses to the credit of the accused, never to their shame. Take the sons of Eli. S...
When word reached old Eli of his sons' corruption at the Tent, he did not roar. "Why do you do such things?" he asked. "No, my sons — for it is not a good report that I hear among ...
How fierce were the sages against the office bought with coin. Rabbi Ami would not honor a scholar appointed for silver. Rabbi Yoshiya said the prayer-shawl on such a man hangs lik...
The verse troubled the sages. Of Eli's sons it is written that they would not heed their father "because the Lord desired to put them to death." Yet Ezekiel swore in the Lord's nam...
The sages bent close over a single verse: "And there came a man of God unto Eli" (1 Samuel 2:27). Who was this nameless messenger? Elkanah, the father of Samuel, sent to rebuke the...
"Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and bringest near," sang the psalmist. But what does it mean to be chosen by Heaven? A great noblewoman pressed Rabbi Yose: by what whim does...
On the verse "I said indeed that your house should walk before Me forever" (1 Samuel 2:30), the sages noticed something strange. The word "I said" hovers twice within the promise. ...
Scripture had decreed against the house of Eli a terrible thing: "And all the increase of your house shall die as men" — struck down in their prime, never to wear gray hair. Rabbi ...
When the word of the LORD came against the house of Eli, it carried a sign: "And this shall be the sign to you" (1 Samuel 2:34). What is a sign? said Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman. It i...
"And the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD before Eli." The Sages paused over that verse. Was the child Samuel truly standing in the presence of the Shekhinah? He was standing...
When Scripture says that in the days of young Samuel "the word of the LORD was precious," the sages heard in that one word, yakar — precious — an invitation to count. For ten thing...
Scripture says of the aged priest at Shiloh, "Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim" (1 Samuel 3:2). From this single phrase the Sages drew out a hard rule:...
"And the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the Temple of the Lord." The sages read these words as a hidden law of how the righteous pass from the world...
Rabbi Pinchas, in the name of Rabbi Reuven, asks you to picture it. Two men set out, one from the far north, one from the far south, and somewhere in the wide middle of the world t...
Rabbi Yudan opened with a verse: "The high mountains are for the wild goats." And Rabbi Levi, in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, drew out its hidden mercy. Consider the hind. ...
Rabbi Levi opened with a hard truth: the Holy One knows every wonder He works for His creatures, but the creatures themselves walk through those wonders and never feel them. Three ...
Hear what Bar Kappara taught, and marvel at the reach of the Holy One, blessed be He. With three strokes He overturned the very order of nature: He made the unseen to be seen, the ...
Two Prophets, One Answer The prophet Jeremiah heard the LORD set two men above all others: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me." The Sages opened that verse like a mirror and ...
Hear the verse from Proverbs: "From the fruit of a man's mouth he shall be satisfied with good, and the recompense of a man's hands shall be returned to him." God repays measure fo...
When Ebed-melech the Cushite went down to lift the prophet Jeremiah out of the miry pit, he lowered worn-out rags and cast-off clothes to cushion the prophet's arms beneath the cor...
Rabbi Chiyya noticed a pattern hidden in the calls of Heaven. Four times the names ring out doubled: Avraham, Avraham at the binding; Yaakov, Yaakov as he set out toward Egypt; Mos...
"Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel," the Lord told the boy Samuel. And Rabbi Shmuel bar Rav Nachman revealed what the thing was: the capture of the Ark. For old Eli had no...
"And Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground." Rabbi Yehuda bar Rabbi Simon heard a promise even in death. For even after Samuel him...
"And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the LORD." How does a man earn a son like that? Listen. Abba, who dealt in silk, sent a consi...
When the Ark came into the Philistine camp and the earth shook with Israel's shout, the camp split in two. The worthy among them cried, "Woe to us! Who will save us from these migh...
"A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh that day, his clothes torn and earth upon his head" (1 Samuel 4:12). Who was this runner? The Sages teach that it was...
The runner reached Eli, who sat by the gate, his old heart trembling for the Ark of God. The messenger laid out the ruin piece by piece: Israel has fled, the slaughter is great, yo...
The sages taught a hard and tender thing: three women in Israel died in the very act of giving birth — Rachel our mother, the daughter-in-law of Eli, and Michal the daughter of Sau...
When the Philistines carried off the Ark of God after their triumph at Even-ha-ezer, why did they set it down beside the idol Dagon in their temple? Two masters of Israel turned th...
When the men of Ashdod set the captured Ark of the Covenant beside their idol Dagon, they rose at dawn to find Dagon fallen on his face before it. They propped him up and went home...
The Philistines of Ashdod had seized the Ark, and the hand of the LORD pressed heavy upon them. Scripture says He smote them with tumors. The Maggid asks: how exactly did the blow ...
When the Ark of the LORD wandered captive in the field of the Philistines for seven months, the sages traced the number seven back across the centuries — to a single covenant cut b...
When the serpent struck and Eve was deceived, every creature listened to her and ate from the forbidden tree. The verse hides it in a single word: "and she gave also to her husband...
When the Philistines sent the captured Ark back, they yoked two milk-cows to a new cart and watched. The cows "went straight," lowing as they walked in beauty — and the sages say t...
The verse says Israel gathered at Mizpah, drew water, and poured it out before the Lord. But Rabbi Simon would not let the place rest as mere geography. Is Mizpah not Shiloh, and S...
When Scripture says, "And Samuel took one suckling lamb," the sages stop to ask by what right a sacrifice could rise from a high place at all. Rabbi Yose bar Hanina ruled the princ...
As Samuel lifted the burnt-offering toward heaven, the LORD answered with thunder — a great voice that broke the Philistine ranks into terror. Rabbi Abba bar Kahana heard in that t...
When Israel clamored for a king, the LORD comforted Samuel with a hard truth: "It is not you they have rejected, but Me" (1 Samuel 8:7). Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai heard in that singl...
When the people clamored for a king, Scripture says: "But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel." Why this hard word, "refused"? Rabbi Huna and Rabbi Yirmeyah, in the...
The Sages taught a hidden rhythm in Scripture. Whenever Israel stood in need and the moment called for a deliverer, the verse that named the need was followed at once by a verse th...
