4:19-22 The wife of Phinehas seems to have been a person of piety. Her dying regret was for the loss of the ark, and the departure of the glory from Israel. What is any earthly joy to her that feels herself dying? No joy but that which is spiritual and divine, will stand in any stead then; death is too serious a thing to admit the relish of any earthly joy. What is it to one that is lamenting the loss of the ark? What pleasure can we take in our creature comforts and enjoyments, if we want God's word and ordinances; especially if we want the comfort of his gracious presence, and the light of his countenance? If God go, the glory goes, and all good goes. Woe unto us if he depart! But though the glory is withdrawn from one sinful nation, city, or village after another, yet it shall never depart altogether, but shines forth in one place when eclipsed in another.

Verses 19-21. - His daughter-in-law. The death of Eli's daughter-in-law is equally tragic with his own. The news of the terrible calamity that had befallen the ark of God brought on a premature delivery; but when she had given birth to a son, the attendant women naturally hoped that the good tidings would cheer the mother's heart. They haste, therefore, to tell her; but she answered not, neither did she regard it. This does not mean that she was already dead; if so, the women would not have told her. It means that no private joy could compensate her for the loss of the outward sign and proof that the covenant of Jehovah was with her and her people. The loss of the ark seemed to her to signify the overthrow of her national religion. But she heard, for immediately There is she named the child I-chabod. There is some doubt as to the exact meaning of the word. It may mean Alas! the glory; but more probably it signifies No glory - the glory of Israel is no more. In the reason given by the narrator for her sorrow, as summed up in the name given to her child, the deaths of Eli and of Phinehas are included, but her own words refer only to the ark. Literally they are, "The glory is gone into captivity from Israel." There is possibly a reference to this in Psalm 78:64, where, speaking of the fall of Shiloh, the Psalmist says, "Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation." Others, it may be, like the wife of Phinehas, felt that there was no room for private grief at a time of so great national distress and humiliation.

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 (k); denoting that her time to bring forth was completed and filled up; though Josephus (l) 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" (m); 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 (n), 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" (o); 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" (p), 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.

(k) "absolvere, consummare, perficere", Buxtorf. (l) Ut supra, (Antiqu. l. 5. c. 3.) sect. 4. (m) "ad ululandum", Montanus; so some in Munster; "ad ejulandum", as some in Vatablus. (n) Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. 1. c. 14. (o) "versae erant", Pagninus, Montanus. (p) "Quoniam inversi sunt super eam eardines ejus", Munster; so Jarchi; Vid. T. Bab. Becorot, fol. 45. 1.

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