Hannah – 1 Samuel 1:1 - 2:21
Have you ever wanted something so badly that you prayed to God for it, promising God you’d give it back to Him if He granted your request? Sounds extreme, doesn’t it? But this is exactly what Hannah did. She was an amazing woman of great faith and is a role model for all of us. Hannah was one of the wives of Elkanah. After years of being barren, Hannah was miserable. She prayed for a son, promising God that she would give him to the Lord. The Lord answered her prayer and blessed Hannah with a son she named Samuel. When he was no longer nursing, Hannah kept her promise by bringing him to Eli the priest in Shiloh, where he grew up serving the Lord. In 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hannah’s song of praise was inserted in the narrative later. It introduces several themes that appear in the books of Samuel. It also serves as a model for the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. Mary, Elizabeth and Hannah have a lot in common. All became pregnant in miraculous ways. All dedicated their sons (Jesus, John the Baptist, Samuel) to God’s service. The Magnificat and Hannah’s Song were offered in response to God’s gift of these sons and they repeat the theme of God’s reversal of fortune by bringing down the powerful and raising up the lowly.
1 samuel 1:1 - 2:31
1 Samuel
Samuel’s Birth and Dedication
There was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year after year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah said to her, ‘Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?’
After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. She made this vow: ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.’
As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.’ But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.’ Then Eli answered, ‘Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.’ And she said, ‘Let your servant find favour in your sight.’ Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.
They rose early in the morning and worshipped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked him of the Lord.’
The man Elkanah and all his household went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and to pay his vow. But Hannah did not go up, for she said to her husband, ‘As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him, that he may appear in the presence of the Lord, and remain there for ever; I will offer him as a nazirite for all time.’ Her husband Elkanah said to her, ‘Do what seems best to you, wait until you have weaned him; only—may the Lord establish his word.’ So the woman remained and nursed her son, until she weaned him. When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was young. Then they slaughtered the bull, and they brought the child to Eli. And she said, ‘Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.’
She left him there for the Lord.
Hannah’s Prayer
Hannah prayed and said, ‘My heart exults in the Lord;
my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies,
because I rejoice in my victory.
‘There is no Holy One like the Lord,
no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly,
let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honour. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
and on them he has set the world.
‘He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,
but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness;
for not by might does one prevail. The Lord! His adversaries shall be shattered;
the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth;
he will give strength to his king,
and exalt the power of his anointed.’
Eli’s Wicked Sons
Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, while the boy remained to minister to the Lord, in the presence of the priest Eli.
Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord or for the duties of the priests to the people. When anyone offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come, while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot; all that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the one who was sacrificing, ‘Give meat for the priest to roast; for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.’ And if the man said to him, ‘Let them burn the fat first, and then take whatever you wish’, he would say, ‘No, you must give it now; if not, I will take it by force.’ Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord; for they treated the offerings of the Lord with contempt.
The Child Samuel at Shiloh
Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, ‘May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord’; and then they would return to their home.
And the Lord took note of Hannah; she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.
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