And his daughter in law, Phinehas's wife, was with
child,
near to be delivered
Was near her time, as it is commonly expressed. Ben Gersom
derives the word from a root which signifies to complete and
finish F11; denoting that her time to bring
forth was completed and filled up; though Josephus F12 says
that it was a seven months' birth, so that she came two months
before her time; the margin of our Bibles is, "to cry out"
F13; and so Moses Kimchi, as his
brother relates, derives the word from a root which signifies to
howl and lament, and so is expressive of a woman's crying out
when her pains come upon her:
and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was
taken:
which is mentioned first, as being the most distressing to her:
and that her father in law and her husband were
dead;
her father-in-law Eli is put first, being the high priest of God,
and so his death gave her the greatest concern, as the death of
an high priest was always matter of grief to the Israelites; and
next the death of her husband, who should have succeeded him in
the priesthood; for though he was a bad man, yet not so bad as
Hophni, as Ben Gersom observes; and therefore the priesthood was
continued in his line unto the reign of Solomon; and no notice is
taken by her of the death of her brother-in-law:
she bowed herself, and travailed;
put herself in a posture for travailing; perceiving she was
coming to it, she fell upon her knees, as the word used
signifies; and we are told F14, that the Ethiopian women,
when they bring forth, fall upon their knees, and bear their
young, rarely making use of a midwife, and so it seems it was the
way of the Hebrew women:
for her pains came upon her;
sooner it is very probable than otherwise they would, which is
sometimes the case, when frights seize a person in such
circumstances: or were "turned upon her" F15; they
ceased, so that she could not make the necessary evacuations
after the birth, which issued in her death; some render it, "her
doors were turned" F16, or changed; the doors of her womb,
as in ( Job 3:10 )
, though these had been opened for the bringing forth of her
child, yet were reversed, changed, and altered, so as to prevent
the after birth coming away, which caused her death, as follows.
F11 (hlk) "absolvere, consummare, perficere", Buxtorf.
F12 Ut supra, (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 3.) sect. 4.
F13 (tll) "ad ululandum", Montanus; so some in Munster; "ad ejulandum", as some in Vatablus.
F14 Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. 1. c. 14.
F15 (wkphn) "versae erant", Pagninus, Montanus.
F16 "Quoniam inversi sunt super eam eardines ejus", Munster; so Jarchi; Vid. T. Bab. Becorot, fol. 45. 1.