In those days God spake to Phinehas: "Thou art one hundred and
twenty years old, thou hast reached the natural term of man's life.
Go now, betake thyself to the mountain Danaben, and remain there
many years. I will command the eagles to sustain thee with food,
so that thou returnest not to men until the time when thou lockest
fast the clouds and openest them again. Then I will carry thee to
the place where those are who were before thee, and there thou
wilt tarry until I visit the world, and bring thee thither to taste of
death." (140)

ELKANAH AND HANNAH

The period of the Judges is linked to the period of the Kingdom by
the prophet Samuel, who anointed both Saul and David as kings.
Not only was Samuel himself a prophet, but his forebears also has
been prophets, (1) and both his parents, Elkanah and Hannah, were
endowed with the gift of prophecy. (2) Aside from this gift,
Elkanah possessed extraordinary virtue. He was a second
Abraham, the only pious man of his generation, who saved the
world from destruction when God, made wroth by the idolatry of
Micah, was on the point of annihilating it utterly. (3) His chief
merit was that he stimulated the people by his example to go on
pilgrimages to Shiloh, the spiritual centre of the nation.
Accompanied by his whole household, including kinsmen, he was
in the habit of making the three prescribed pilgrimages annually,
and though he was a man of only moderate means, (4) his retinue
was equipped with great magnificence. In all the towns through
which it passed, the procession caused commotion. The lookers-on
invariably inquired into the reason of the rare spectacle, and