Zitat Kommentar zu Schemuel I 2:22

Tanchuma Chayey Sarah 2 claims that there are four possible causes why premature old age suddenly settles on a person. 1) because he lives in fear of something; 2) because he is angry at his children; 3) because he is married to an evil person; 4) because of being involved in waging wars. The respective verses from Scripture quoted by that Midrash to support its claim are 1) Chronicles 1 21,30 “and David was unable to go to it to worship the Lord because he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the Lord.” We also have a verse in Kings I, 1,1 “and King David was old, advanced in years.” As to the anger caused to a person by his children aging him, we read in Samuel I 2,22: now Eli was very old. When he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel, etc.” We have proof that being engaged in constant warfare ages a person from Joshua 13,1: “Joshua was old, advanced in years.” Concerning a husband’s aging prematurely due to being married to bad women, we find a verse in Kings I 11,4 “it was when Solomon grew old because his wives had turned his heart, etc.” On the other hand, we know that Avraham’s wife had always honoured him and not caused him any grief, for even when she referred to him as old (Genesis 18,12), she still called him אדוני, “my lord.”

The sated must hire out for bread: Those who were sated at the beginning became hungry, to the point that they must hire themselves out to work for the sake of bread. And those who were hungry at the beginning and hired themselves out, stopped hiring themselves out and exerting themselves. For they became sated through the will of the Creator, may He be blessed, until the will of the Creator came to this. And the providence is to the point that someone who was barren like me gave birth to seven; and one who was the mother of many like my rival, Peninah, is now forlorn [and] cut off - meaning to say that her sons died. And that which she said, "seven," is not precise, but rather this is a [general] amount. As this is the way of Scripture - when it wants to say, many, it says, seven, as in (Jeremiah 15:9), "Forlorn is the one who gave birth to seven"; (Leviticus 26:21) "seven times like your sins"; (Proverbs 24:16) "seven times does a righteous one fall and arise." As the world is with seven - seven planets, seven days of the week. And Channah said this about herself, as she had sons and daughters - as it is written (I Samuel 2:22), "For the Lord remembered Channah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters."

וישכב את בלהה, “he slept with Bilhah.” Our sages in Shabbat 55, describe this act as בלבל מצעו של אביו, “he disturbed the couch of his father.” When his father referred to the incident on his deathbed (Genesis 49,4), he too used the same expression, saying אז חללת יצועי עלה, “then you desecrated Him who mounted my couch.” Yaakov did not criticize Reuven for sleeping with Bilhah but for mounting the couch on which his father used to sleep with. her.
You find something similar in Samuel I 2,22 where the sons of the High Priest Eli are accused of sleeping with the women (married women) who performed certain tasks at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Eli reprimanded his sons after the rumors had come to his attention. The Talmud in Shabbat there also explains that this verse is not to be taken at face value but that what the sons of Eli did made them subject to such accusations being leveled against them. What is described there as the severe sin of the sons of Eli is the fact that they delayed offering the bird-offerings of women who had either been ritually impure through having given birth or had suffered the disease known as זבה. By delaying these offerings, these women’s husbands were effectively prevented from sleeping with their wives until the matter of the offerings had been taken care of. The prophet Samuel accounts this for the sons of Eli as if they had prevented these husbands from sleeping with their wives because they themselves had slept with these wives.