Elkanah

Father of Samuel, living at Ramah (I Sam. i. 19, ii. 11; comp. xxviii. 3), in the district of Zuph. Hence in I Sam. i. 1 his ancestral line is carried back to Zuph (comp. I Sam. ix. 5 et seq.). The word  in I Sam. i. 1 should be emended to  ("the Zuphite"), the final mem being a ditto-gram of that with which the next word, , begins; as the LXX. has it, Σειφὰ. Elkanah is also represented in I Sam. i. 1 as hailing from the mountains of Ephraim, the word  here denoting this (comp. Judges xii. 5; IKings xi. 26)—if indeed  is not a corruption for "Ephraimite"—and not, as in Judges i. 2 and I Sam. xvii. 12, an inhabitant of Ephrata (see Lxx.). His genealogy is also found in a pedigree of the Kohathites (I Chron. vi. 3-15) and in that of Heman, his great-grandson (ib. vi. 18-22). According to the genealogical tables, Elkanah was, a Levite, a fact otherwise not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah (Judges xvii. 7).

E. G. H. E. K.