Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb. Because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s house. In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”
As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”
“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”
When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”
“Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.
The opinions of your rivals are not the opinions of God. People can make you feel miserable for something about which the Lord has the opposite opinion. Penenniah was probably insecure, seeing her husband favor the other wife. She was successful in the eyes of the people around her, increasing Elkanah's family with numerous happy events. But still he preferred her and gave her the special attention, like the double portion of the meat from the offering. So she took the one thing that was different between them-the ability to readily bear children-and attempted to make it the prime attribute by which Elkanah, her husband, should use to judge between them. Further, she used it as the attribute to continually remind Hannah aboutn And it was the attribute that the people around her would use as a sign that God was surely blessing her--not that other woman. She was insecure and used what she had to push Hannah down and it worked, making Hannah feel trapped and helpless and miserable. So she prayed.
One of the remarkable things about Hannah's response was that she wanted the answer to the prayer, but when she got it, she did not try to hold on so tightly. It reminds me of the way that Abraham was so desperate for a son that he manipulated things to try and get one in a way not ordained by God, using other people to try and make it happen. But at the end, when God demanded that he give Isaac as a sacrifice, he set out the next day to do it. He had learned to let go.
So Hannah kept the child Samuel but then let him go. In many ways, that is what we do with children anyway. We raise them and then have to give them over to God. If we fail to do that, then we hurt them and dishonor God in thinking that he's not capable of raising them. I don't know that I would be as brave as Hannah at such a young age for my children, but I do hope I can be brave enough to trust him now.
