Why Elkanah Took a Different Road to Shiloh Each Year

"A man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, etc." (Ecclesiastes 6:2). Rabbi Pinchas said: This measure does not apply to all human beings, but only to the one whom the Merciful One favors. "For he shall not much remember the days of his life" (Ecclesiastes 5:19) — this is Eli. "Because God answers him in the joy of his heart" (ibid.) — this is Elkanah, who, when he guided Israel and brought them up to Shiloh, would not go up in the same year by the way he had gone up in another year; rather, in each and every year he would go up by a different way, in order that Israel would hear and that he might bring them up to Shiloh. Therefore Scripture traces his lineage: "Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim" (1 Samuel 1:1).