1 Samuel 1:12

The family had come up to Shiloh as they did every year, to worship and sacrifice. Every year Peninnah, who had children, provoked Hannah, who had none, until “she wept, and did not eat”, and her husband Elkanah’s love could comfort her only so far (1 Samuel 1:1–8). “So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk.” While the others feasted, she got up with a purpose, and she went to seek the LORD himself.

Her name, Channâh, comes from a root meaning favour or grace. For years it stood beside a sorrow that looked like the opposite of favour, and in this passage God begins to show his favour to her.

Shiloh, in the tribal land of Ephraim, was Israel’s central sanctuary in the time of the judges, before there was a king and long before the temple was built in Jerusalem. The tabernacle and the ark of the covenant were there, and families came each year to sacrifice and to pay their vows as the law of Moses directed. God had told Moses to have Israel make him a sanctuary so that he might dwell among them (Exodus 25:8), and in Hannah’s day that sanctuary stood at Shiloh. The verse calls it “the temple of the LORD”. The Hebrew word, hêykâl, means a palace or temple, a large public building, and here it names the LORD’s house at Shiloh, where his people came before him.

Eli enters the story seated. He “sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD”, and the word for post, mᵉzûwzâh, is a doorpost or gatepost. From there he could see those who came and went, Hannah among them. He was the priest at Shiloh, the high priest of Israel in that day, and Malachi says that the priest’s lips should keep knowledge and the people should seek the law at his mouth (Malachi 2:7). Hannah rises to act while Eli sits and watches, and what he makes of her is the turn of the story.

“And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.” The word for her bitterness is mar, the plain Hebrew word for bitter, and the soul is nephesh, the breathing self, her life and her whole person. “Bitterness of soul” (mar nephesh) means the sorrow had reached all of her.

Barrenness weighed heavily on a woman in Israel. Children, and sons especially, were received as a blessing from God that carried on the family line and its inheritance, and a childless wife could be thought to lie under God’s displeasure. In a household with two wives, the one with children could use them to wound the other, as Peninnah did. Other women in Scripture knew this grief. Rachel cried out to Jacob for children in her distress (Genesis 30:1–2), and Sarah waited long for the son God promised her (Genesis 18:10).

Hannah took her bitterness to the LORD. The verb for her praying is pâlal, which in this form means to pray or to intercede. And she “wept sore”. The Hebrew says bakoh tibkeh, doubling the verb bâkâh, to weep, bemoan or lament: an infinitive set before the finite verb, which makes the action stronger. She wept hard and long before God, and her tears were part of her prayer.

God had told his people, “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50:15). Hannah called on him, and she lived to glorify him, first in the words of 1 Samuel 1:27 and then in her song of praise in 1 Samuel 2.

“And she vowed a vow.” The noun neder and the verb nâdar come from the same root, so the Hebrew says that she vowed a vow, which marks the weight of what she did. A neder is a solemn promise made to God, or the thing promised, and God requires that it be paid. Ecclesiastes warns that a vow made to God must be paid without delay (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5), and the psalmist goes into God’s house to pay the vows his lips spoke when he was in trouble (Psalm 66:13–14). Hannah’s vow has the same “if” and “then” as Jacob’s at Bethel, where he promised that if God would be with him and keep him, then the LORD would be his God (Genesis 28:20–22). The rest of 1 Samuel 1 tells how she kept it.

She calls on God as “O LORD of hosts”, Yᵉhôvâh tsâbâʼ. Yᵉhôvâh is God’s own name, the self-existent and eternal LORD, and tsâbâʼ is a host, a great company of persons, especially an army. The title sets him over the armies of heaven and over all creation, and Hannah appeals to that power for something only he could give. The seraphim cry the same name in Isaiah’s vision: “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3).

Her plea is that God will “look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid”. To remember, zâkar, is to call to mind, and when Scripture says that God remembered someone, his help follows. “God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb” (Genesis 30:22), and the LORD visited Sarah and did for her as he had spoken (Genesis 21:1–2). Hannah asks God to do for her what he did for them. “Thine handmaid” comes three times in verse 11. She names herself the LORD’s servant, humble before him and wholly dependent on his grace.

Then come the request, “a man child”, and the promise: “then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life”. She asks for the thing she longs for most and promises in the same breath to give it back to God. That son would be Samuel, the prophet and judge who would anoint Israel’s first kings.

“And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.” The word behind “continued” is râbâh, to make many or to increase. Hannah multiplied her praying, staying long before the LORD, and pâlal is the verb again. “Before the LORD” uses pânîym, the face, a word plural in form and always used as a singular, which also means presence. She prayed in the presence of Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant God, at his own house.

Eli, ʻÊlîy, “marked her mouth”. The verb shâmar means to keep, guard or watch, and here it means to watch closely. He fixed his eyes on her mouth, peh, and on what he could see of her praying.

Hannah’s prayer was silent. “Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.” She spoke, dâbar, the ordinary verb for speaking, and she spoke in her heart, lêb, the inner person with its thoughts and feelings. Her lips, sâphâh, moved (nûwaʻ, to move or waver), and that was all anyone could see. The words were real words, addressed to God, and he alone heard them.

People ask why Hannah prayed silently. The likeliest reason is the weight of her anguish, which came out in words meant for God alone. Prayer in Israel was often audible, with cries and visible lament, as many psalms show, so a woman praying in silence was unusual enough to catch the priest’s eye.

“Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.” Châshab means to think, reckon or regard, and shikkôwr means drunk. Eli saw a woman in distress, her lips moving in silence, and he reckoned it up wrongly. Then he spoke: “How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.” The verb shâkar is to become drunk, yayin is wine, and çûwr is to turn aside or remove. His question accused her of going on in drunkenness, and his command told her to be rid of the wine, all before he had asked her what was wrong.

Drunkenness at the sanctuary would have been a real offence, and Scripture condemns it: “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging” (Proverbs 20:1). Eli may well have met drunken worshippers before. His fault lay in judging by what he saw. “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” (Proverbs 18:13), and Jesus said, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24). He also told us to take the beam out of our own eye before we deal with the mote in our brother’s (Matthew 7:1–5).

The priest whose lips should keep knowledge misread a woman at prayer in his own sanctuary. This was the time of the judges, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25), and the next chapter shows the state of Eli’s own house. His sons sinned in the very handling of the sacrifices (1 Samuel 2:12–17), and a man of God came to Eli with the word that the LORD would judge his house (1 Samuel 2:27–36). Eli’s quick judgment of Hannah is the first sign of a dullness in him that the rest of the story makes plain. Yet he listened when she answered, and he blessed her.

“No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.” Hannah answers the priest with respect, calling him “my lord”, and she answers plainly.

“Sorrowful spirit” is qâsheh rûwach, literally hard of spirit. Qâsheh means hard or severe, and rûwach is spirit or breath, so hers was a spirit weighed down by hardship. “Poured out my soul” joins shâphak, to pour out or shed, with nephesh, the soul. She had emptied her inmost self before the LORD, all of it. The psalm calls every one of God’s people to do the same: “Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.” (Psalm 62:8). And “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18).

“Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.” Again she calls herself “thine handmaid”, as she did before the LORD. The word for complaint, sîyach, means musing or complaint, a pouring out of what fills the mind, and grief, kaʻaç, is vexation and provocation, the turmoil that Peninnah’s taunts had stirred in her. “Abundance” says how full it was. Her words came from a heart overflowing with sorrow, and she had been speaking to God from it “hitherto”, up to that very moment.

Hannah meets a false charge with respect and clarity, defending her name gently and leaving her cause with God. Jesus told of a publican who prayed with downcast eyes, “God be merciful to me a sinner”, and went down to his house justified (Luke 18:9–14). God receives the humble who come to him honestly, as Hannah came.

“Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.” Once Hannah has explained herself, Eli’s rebuke becomes a blessing. Shâlôwm is completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety, so “Go in peace” sends her away whole and in God’s keeping. “Grant” is nâthan, to give, a verb with a very wide range of use, here of God giving what she asked. “Petition” is shᵉʼêlâh, a request or the thing requested, from the verb shâʼal, to ask.

That verb runs through the chapter. When the son was born, Hannah named him Samuel, “Because I have asked him of the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:19–20), a name that sounds like “asked of God” or “heard of God”. When she brought him to Shiloh, she said, “For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him” (1 Samuel 1:27).

Eli calls on “the God of Israel”, the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who brought his people out of Egypt and kept his promises to them. Hannah’s private grief is laid before the God of the whole nation, and Scripture speaks of him as the God who answers. “Verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19). “Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you” (Jeremiah 29:12). “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).

“And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.” Grace, chên, is favour or graciousness. Hannah asks for the priest’s good will, thanking him for his kindness and taking his word as a word from the LORD.

Then she ate, ʼâkal. At the feast she had wept and refused her food, and now she sits down to eat again. Her countenance, pânîym, her face, had shown her sorrow for all to see, and now it was sad no more.

Her circumstances were the same as before. She was still childless, Peninnah was still at home, and the son was months away. What had changed was that she had laid her burden before the LORD and received a word of peace, and she believed it. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Isaiah says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3), and Paul promises that when we bring our requests to God, “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7). God’s work for Hannah began in her heart, and the son followed in his time, when “the LORD remembered her” and she bore Samuel.

Hannah came to a high priest who misjudged her. We come to a High Priest who reads every heart. Jesus “knew what was in man” (John 2:25), and he is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, having been “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). So we “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16), to the one who “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25) and who is at the right hand of God interceding for us (Romans 8:34).

Jesus knew sorrow of soul himself. In Gethsemane he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death”, and he prayed that the cup might pass from him, yielding to his Father: “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:38–39). “Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). On the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Isaiah calls him “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and in the English of the KJV the Servant shares Hannah’s phrase: “he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). He too bore a false accusation.

The tabernacle at Shiloh, where Hannah sought God’s presence, was a shadow of a greater dwelling. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and John’s word for “dwelt” means that he tabernacled, or pitched his tent, among us.

The son God gave Hannah looks ahead to the Son God gave the world. The God who opened a barren womb at Shiloh later gave a son to a virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost (Luke 1:34–35), and “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son”, so that we might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 4:4–7). Hannah’s barrenness pictures our own emptiness before God, which his grace alone makes fruitful. Those who receive Christ are born of God (John 1:12–13), born again of water and of the Spirit (John 3:3–5), and abiding in him they bring forth much fruit (John 15:5). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The peace Eli spoke over Hannah, Christ gives in full: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). Being justified by faith, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1), and all the promises of God are yea and amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

In these verses the LORD of hosts, who commands the armies of heaven, bends to the grief of one childless woman at his door. He looks on affliction and he remembers. He hears words spoken only in the heart, and he knows the truth about a person when even his own priest has it wrong. He receives bitterness of soul as prayer, and he answers the woman who pours out her soul before him with peace first and a son afterward.

The passage also gives us Hannah herself. She brought her sorrow to God in his house, she offered back to him the gift she longed for, she answered a false charge gently, and she went home and ate while the promise was still unseen. The invitation of the psalm she lived out stands open to all God’s people: “pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8). The apostle says the same of the God who heard her: “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). He is the Father of mercies and “the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).