1 Kings 1:20
And it came to pass when the time was come about, Anna conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel: because she had asked him of the Lord.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et factum est post circulum dierum, concepit Anna, et peperit filium : vocavitque nomen ejus Samuel, eo quod a Domino postulasset eum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ συνέλαβεν, καὶ ἐγενήθη τῷ καιρῷ τῶν ἡμερῶν καὶ ἔτεκεν υἱόν, καὶ ἐκάλεσεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Σαμουὴλ καὶ εἶπεν Ὅτι παρὰ Κυρίου θεοῦ σαβαὼθ ᾐτησάμην αὐτόν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִי֙ לִתְקֻפ֣וֹת הַיָּמִ֔ים וַתַּ֥הַר חַנָּ֖ה וַתֵּ֣לֶד בֵּ֑ן וַתִּקְרָ֤א אֶת שְׁמוֹ֙ שְׁמוּאֵ֔ל כִּ֥י מֵיְהוָ֖ה שְׁאִלְתִּֽיו
Haydock's commentary
About, at the expiration of the year, which term the ancients frequently allowed between the conception and the nativity, Genesis xviii. 10.
Samuel. This name imports, asked of God. (Challoner)
Some letters are omitted for the easier pronunciation, as the Hebrews would now write it, Saul-meel; (Calmet) or it may signify, "God placed him," sum-hal. (Tirinus)
Shaal means, "to ask." But Vatable thinks that Anna retained only the first letter. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter VII
Through this attendant of mourning, and (this) hunger, even that sinful state, Nineveh, is freed from the predicted ruin. For repentance for sins had sufficiently commended the fast, keeping it up in a space of three days, starving out even the cattle with which God was not angry. Sodom also, and Gomorrah, would have escaped if they had fasted. This remedy even Ahab acknowledges. When, after his transgression and idolatry, and the slaughter of Naboth, slain by Jezebel on account of his vineyard, Elijah had upbraided him, “How hast thou killed, and possessed the inheritance? In the place where dogs had licked up the blood of Naboth, thine also shall they lick up,”, he “abandoned himself, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and slept in sackcloth. …
St Gregory Nazianzen Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia
73. Further, to run over the Judges, or the most illustrious of the Judges, there is “Samuel among those that call upon His Name,” who was given to God before his birth, and sanctified immediately after his birth, and the anointer with his horn of kings and priests. But was not Basil as an infant consecrated to God from the womb, and offered with a coat at the altar, and was he not a seer of heavenly things, and anointed of the Lord, and the anointer of those who are perfected by the Spirit? Among the kings, David is celebrated, whose victories and trophies gained from the enemy are on record, but his most characteristic trait was his gentleness, and, before his kingly office, his power with the harp, able to soothe even the evil spirit. …