Sunday School Lesson 21: God Will Honor Those Who Honor Him

Elkenah and his family go to the temple every year. I wonder whether he was exceptionally diligent?  Was that outside the normal expectation for an Israelite at that time?

When he was born, she called him Samuel, because I have asked him of the Lord. Oddly enough, "Asked of God" is actually the meaning of the name Saul, not Samuel. Samuel means "Name of God" or "Son of God."  

Hannah promised the Lord that There shall no razor come upon his head, indicating that he would be a Nazarite.  The original vow is found in Numbers 6. A Nazarite is holy to the lord, separate from the rest of the population.  There are different kinds of Nazarites, and anyone who wants to become one may do so for any period lasting at least 30 days.  Interestingly, modern Judaism allows fathers but not mothers to declare for their unborn children that he/she will be a Nazarite.  A Nazarite has three main restrictions that are not required by non-Nazarites: They may not drink alcohol, they may not cut their hair, they are required to avoid corpses.  Lifetime Nazarites, however, are not required to avoid corpses.  Modern Judaism allows lifetime Nazarites to cut their hair once per year. 

The point of taking a vow of this nature is the same as fasting.  Fasting is choosing to abstain from a perfectly allowable behavior in order to remind yourself of an increased devotion to the Lord. We sacrifice something that we are permitted to have or do in order to express the greater value we place on the relationship with the Lord, or our greater desire to earn a specific blessing.  A Nazarite was expressing the same desire to strengthen his relationship with the Lord by limiting specific actions in the same way.  

Elkenah was an Ephrathite, of mount Ephraim. The books of Samuel don't give any further information about his genealogy other than this opening line.  However, he definitely officiated in ordinances at the temple, performing the duties of a priest--duties restricted to Aaron's sons and the Levites. There is a reference to a Shemuel who was the son of Elkenah in Chronicles 6, and that traces back to Levi, but there is some dispute about a) whether this is actually Samuel and b) whether it was written later to try to reconcile the seeming problem with his actual genealogy through the tribe of Ephraim.  There's a whole group of people who think he was adopted into the levitical line by Eli, on the basis of the promise his mother made before she conceived him.  I'm less inclined to think that.  I think that he simply was given the Melchezidick priesthood at some point, obviating the need for him to worry about lineage when he performed ordinances.  There are other Old Testament prophets who functioned after this manner, including Elijah, who was of the Tribe of Gad, possibly Isaiah, whose tribe is unknown, and possibly Elisha, whose tribe is also unknown, but who was living where Judah's land was.

Jokes about Pregnant Women

I read a blog where a pregnant woman was ranting about how everybody makes fun of her for being pregnant. She told stories of how her awful 13 year old son would try to walk like her, how, at family reunion, people joked about how much she ate, whether she wore shirts or parachutes, how she couldn’t tie her own shoes, stuff like that. She filled a goodly amount of writing about how she could not believe that anyone would think it was funny to make fun of her for her condition. The article itself mostly irritated me because she seemed like such a whiney b..., and I don’t believe that her own family would make those comments maliciously unless she talked to them the way she blogged, in which case, she probably deserved to be treated like that.


Every time I see a pregnant woman who walks funny, though, I think of that and wonder if it’s OK to make a joke about it. Who else in society walks awkwardly? Old people. Handicapped people. Injured people.

Old people and handicapped people are an obvious no-joke zone, mostly because their conditions are not theirs by choice. (Well, technically, old age is a choice if you consider suicide a reasonable alternative, but I do not.) It is inappropriate to make fun of people for things that are out of their control and that cause them difficulty, frustration, or pain. But what about conditions of choice? I know for sure people make fun of me whenever I have a broken bone, and I not only take it in stride, but also recognize it as a form of friendship. The people who make jokes about whether I am clumsy or luckless would never make those jokes about a stranger. In a world where it is becoming ever more difficult to express platonic love, good-natured ribbing among friends is one of the bastions of loving expression. The jokes are not hurtful, primarily because I recognize that my condition is not permanent and it was probably my fault, either because of my poor judgment or lack of skill in avoiding the accident.

Because of this logic, at first I was inclined to think that pregnancy is fair game. All the pregnant people I know made a conscious decision to participate in behaviors which resulted in the condition—quite similar to me choosing to snowboard and breaking my ribs. Choice + funny consequence = fair game for good natured joking. Couple that with the familiarity of family, and it would seem to be ok. How does one express affection for an aunt or sister-in-law, anyway?

The problem I came up with today was a mild shift in perspective. If you are going to joke about a pregnant woman, the problem is not that pregnancy is the subject; the problem is that a woman is the subject. Out of respect for women, it could be considered inappropriate subject matter for joking. Women and men are disparate creatures, and while I may be able to recognize a joke as an acknowledgement of affection, a woman may perceive the same thing through an entirely different lens. The subject is still under consideration.