Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite:
"Elkanah  ... an Ephraimite." Elkanah was an Ephraimite only in the sense that he lived in the hill country of Ephraim.  He was most certainly a Levite as positively indicated in the account of his ancestry given in  1 Chronicles 6:33.  Furthermore, as Keil pointed out, the very name "Elkanah" identifies him as a Levite.  "All of the Elkanahs mentioned in the O.T. (with a single exception) can be proved to have been Levites."[2]  R. Payne Smith stressed the fact that, "`Elkanah' was a name commonly used among the Kohathites, to which division of the sons of Levi Samuel belonged."[3]