(credit: Varsha Salome)
One wife, “two” many!
Elkanah had two wives! That is the beginning of all problems. You can have six children, five friends, four cats and three dogs and enjoy them all, but two wives? That can never be a blessing. Yet many men derive great delight in being described as being married to their work, music, game or whatever. If the wife is listening in, all that she can manage is a wan smile and wistfulness. And the thoughtless macho man swells with pride and is blissfully unmindful of the havoc he is causing in his own household by his misplaced priorities.
And when there are indeed two women as wives and only one of them has children, the situation gets extremely complicated. These are precisely the kind of problems that were racking the home of the Ephraimite.
It is foolish to attempt riding two horses at the same time!
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11 January 2023, setting 1 January as Day 1