1. Samuel was still the young apprentice, learning from Eli and subject to him. Nothing indicated that the Lord was about to inaugurate a new era; indeed the word of the Lord was rare (Heb. yāqār, ‘highly valued’); times of greater blessing had evidently been known, when people had more readily received guidance from the Lord. As it was, Samuel had not had opportunity to experience the receiving either of an oracle or of a vision. 2–4. At that time … the Lord called is the sense; the description
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