Wednesday Bible Study: Sing that thing

1 Samuel 2 is very long. It isn ' t clear why the monks didn ' t split it in half because the first part, Hannah ' s prayer, is really unrelated to the rest of it. The text doesn ' t say that this is sung rather than spoken, but one suspects it is intended as a song. These songs are commonly put in the mouths of women. Miriam organized an all female song and dance party after the exodus, and we see women singing and dancing on other occasions. We don ' t know the provenance of this poem or song -- nor really of any of the material so far. But it does seem anachronistic in referring to a king, since there had never been an Israelite king in Hannah ' s imagined time, nor was any king yet in prospect.Note however that in rabbinical Judaism, traditionally only men could be cantors. Reform Judaism accepted women as cantors beginning in 1975, and Conservative Judaism accepted them in 1987, but in Orthodox Judaism women can be neither cantors nor rabbis.You can read a history of liturgical singing by Jewish women here.Regarding the second part, remember that a portion of the sacrifice is reserved for the priests, plus they get a lot of other goodies such as flour, olive oil and good old money. What is happening here is that they are grabbing more than their allotted share. Since what they are entitled to is plenty, it seems very unlikely that they are hungry or otherwise particularly need this extra meat, so the sons  of Eli are basically just being dicks. That they want to eat...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs