Hannah

I wish I could have witnessed the love story unfold between Hannah and Elkanah! Oh to know the secrets to this beautiful pair. Was she simply beautiful? Was it her sweet spirit? Was her voice charming or her hair glamorous? Those are some of the things we just don’t know.

Hannah was a young woman married to a man called Elkanah. He loved her tenderly and she loved him. But he had another wife, Penin'nah, not loved so much but remarkably fertile. While Hannah had never had a child, Penin'nah was surrounded by both sons and daughters.

Penin'nah saw her numerous children as her glory, and indeed they were. She thought they should have made her the apple of her husband's eye. They did not. Elkanah was deeply in love with the barren wife Hannah, instead of the fertile Penin'nah.

One can sympathise with her pain. But jealousy can make a woman cruel, and Penin'nah was no exception. She tormented Hannah about her lack of children. The Bible text says she provoked Hannah severely, irritating her constantly by mocking Hannah's lack of children. This went on for years, especially at those time that Hannah prayed for children at the holy temple at Shiloh, about twenty miles north of Jerusalem.

One year when these three people were at Shiloh, Elkanah tried clumsily to comfort Hannah: 'aren't I more to you than ten sons?' he asked. Hannah's response is not recorded. But once again she presented herself at the temple and began her prayer.

The temple had seats beside the door, and on one of these sat Eli, the temples priest. When Hannah began to pray he saw her deep distress, but she prayed silently so that he did not hear her prayer.

The vow at Shiloh  1 Samuel 9-19

Why did she pray silently? Because she was making a vow to God. At that time a husband could rescind any vow his wife made if he did so within a day of the vow being made. Hannah, desperate, did not want this to happen, so she mouthed the words without actually speaking them aloud.

What was this vow to which Elkinah might have objected? That if God gave her a son, she would give this son back to God by dedicating him as a Nazirite, a holy man sworn to serve God all his life. 'He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.' Verse 11.

If Elkanah had heard this vow, he would surely have objected. The boy after all would be his son as well as hers. So she mouthed the words silently.

Eli the priest, watching her, assumed she was drunk  - there was a fair amount of feasting at festival time. He was outraged that she would approach the temple intoxicated, and said so, telling her she was making a drunken spectacle of herself. Not so, she replied. She was deeply unhappy but certainly not drunk.

Mollified, Eli blessed her and prayed that her request might be granted. His words seemed to have a profound effect on her. She was convinced she would conceive at last. And indeed she did. In due time she bore a son.

Only then did she tell her husband Elkinah about her vow. As well she might, because according to the words of the vow she was obliged to hand over this newborn baby to the priests at the shrine.

She honours her promise  1 Samuel 19-28, 2:1-10, 18-21

Elkinah's reaction can only be imagined.

It cannot have been favourable. Perhaps to mollify him, she made a compromise. She would keep the baby until he was weaned at about three years. This would give him a better chance of surviving the separation from his family.

This she did. When the time came that the little boy was weaned, she took him to Shiloh, just as she had promised, and dedicated the boy to God's service in a special ceremony. Even at this stage she could have redeemed her vow by paying a sum of money to the priests at Shiloh, but she did not choose to do this. She was a woman who knew her own mind, and so she stuck to her original intention.

At the time, Hannah made a special prayer of thanksgiving to God see the Song of Hannah.

That was not the end of the story. The Bible records that Hannah used to visit her son at Shiloh every year, taking a special gift she had made herself a little linen ephod for the boy, presumably in a bigger size each year. Wearing this garment marked Samuel as being of a priestly status. And she was blessed with more children three sons and two daughters, no less. There is no further mention of Penin’nah. And just like her that is how we are supposed to forget about those things that brought misery in our lives.