A Prayer Nobody Else Can Hear

Ramathaim-zophim is a dual form, “the two heights”, of the town called Ramah from verse 19 on; “zophim” recalls the ancestor Zuph. The Book of Judges opened its last two episodes with “a man of mount Ephraim” (17:1, 19:1), and 1 Samuel opens the same way. Chronicles lists Elkanah’s line among the Levites (1 Chronicles 6:26–27); “Ephrathite” here most likely means Ephraimite.

Hannah is named first, so she is probably the first wife, and Peninnah taken later for children. Hannah means “grace” or “favour”; Peninnah may mean “coral” or “pearl”. Polygamy in Genesis produced the same rivalry, Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah, and in each case the loved wife is the barren one.

“The LORD of hosts”, YHWH tsevaoth, appears here for the first time in the Bible, and Hannah is the first person to pray to God by it (verse 11). Shiloh held the tabernacle from Joshua’s day (Joshua 18:1). Hophni and Phinehas are introduced in a single clause, which is all the warning the chapter gives.

The sacrifice was a peace offering, shared in a meal; the worshipper received portions of the meat to divide among his household (Deuteronomy 12:17–18). “Sons and daughters” are listed for Peninnah in the plural, a full table set beside Hannah’s empty place.

“A worthy portion” is a hard phrase in Hebrew, literally “one portion of two faces”. It is usually read as a double portion, though some take it as a single portion given with a sad face. Either way the gift cannot give her what she lacks.

“Adversary” is tsarah, rival wife, the technical term used for a co-wife in Leviticus 18:18. “Make her fret” is literally “to make her thunder”, to provoke her to distress. The chapter repeats the reason, “the LORD had shut up her womb”, word for word from the verse before.

The provocation came “when she went up to the house of the LORD”, so the worst of it happened at worship. Weeping and refusing food at a sacrificial meal was a public refusal of the feast, visible to the whole family.

Elkanah asks three questions and then a fourth that answers them for her. Ten was a round number for fulness. He means kindly, but his question assumes that her grief is about him, and it is not.

Eli is introduced sitting, on the kisse, the word that will later mean throne; he is old and heavy (4:18). “Temple” is heykal, the palace or hall, implying by this time a more permanent building at Shiloh with doorposts, not only a tent.

“Bitterness of soul” is marat nefesh, the root mar that gave Naomi the name Mara (Ruth 1:20). The verse sets three verbs together: bitter, prayed, wept. She prays “unto the LORD”, over Eli’s head, so to speak.

She says “thine handmaid” three times in one sentence. “Look on the affliction” echoes Leah naming Reuben in Genesis 29:32, “the LORD hath looked upon my affliction”. No razor on his head is a Nazirite mark, a lifelong vow like Samson’s (Judges 13:5), though she offers it rather than receiving it.

“Marked her mouth” is literally “was watching her mouth”, shamar, the verb for keeping guard. Eli watches the one part of her that tells him nothing.

Prayer in Israel was ordinarily spoken aloud, so silent moving lips were unusual. “Spake in her heart” is the Hebrew idiom for inner speech. Later Jewish teaching (Berakhot 31a) took this verse as the model of how prayer should be offered: lips moving, voice low.

“How long wilt thou be drunken?” is literally “Until when will you make yourself drunk?”. Drunkenness at feasts in Shiloh was evidently common enough for the priest to assume it; Isaiah 28:7 later accuses priests themselves of reeling with strong drink.

“A woman of a sorrowful spirit” is literally “hard of spirit”, weighed down. Strong drink, shekhar, was beer or any fermented drink other than wine. She answers wine with the image of pouring: she has poured out, not poured in.

“A daughter of Belial” means a worthless woman, one with no regard for law or God. “Complaint” is siach, meditation or anxious musing, the word for a troubled mind talking to itself (Psalm 55:2).

“Go in peace” is shalom, a dismissal and a blessing. “Petition” is she’elah, from sha’al, to ask; the root will run through the rest of the chapter, and it sounds in the name Saul, Sha’ul, “asked for”.

She calls herself handmaid once more, this time to Eli. “Her countenance was no more sad” is literally “her face was no longer to her”, meaning her fallen face was gone. She eats, which reverses verse 7.

The family rises early and worships before leaving, the first time the chapter reports them worshipping together. “Knew” is yada, the idiom for marital union. “The LORD remembered her” answers “remember me” from verse 11, zakar, the verb used of God remembering Noah (Genesis 8:1) and Rachel (Genesis 30:22).

“When the time was come about” is literally “at the circuits of the days”, the turn of the year, a full cycle from the feast. Samuel sounds like “heard of God” or “his name is God”, and Hannah’s explanation, “asked”, fits the name Saul more exactly; the Book of 1 Samuel lets the two names brush together.

“His vow” suggests Elkanah had also vowed something, perhaps a promise joined to Hannah’s, or a thank offering for the child. Numbers 30:6–8 gave a husband the power to confirm or cancel a wife’s vow, and by going up with a vow he appears to confirm hers.

Weaning in ancient Israel could come at two or three years; 2 Maccabees 7:27 speaks of nursing three years. “Appear before the LORD” was the phrase for the pilgrim feasts (Exodus 23:17). “For ever” means the whole of Samuel’s life, as verse 28 explains.

“Only the LORD establish his word” is puzzling since the LORD had given no word; the Greek and a Qumran scroll read “your word”, meaning Hannah’s vow. The verse closes with the ordinary picture of her nursing him, the pause between the vow and its keeping.

Three bullocks is lavish for a family offering; the Greek and the Qumran scroll read “a bullock three years old”, which fits verse 25, where one bullock is slain. An ephah of flour is about a bushel. “The child was young” is literally “the child was a child”, na’ar na’ar, a doubling that stresses how small he still was.

The offering comes before the child is given; the gift of Samuel is set inside an act of worship. The verse says simply that they brought him to Eli, as if he were one more offering.

“As thy soul liveth” is an oath on Eli’s own life, a formal way of holding his attention. “Stood by thee here” places the moment exactly: the same spot, the same man, perhaps three years later.

Two forms of sha’al come close together: the petition which I asked. The verse is almost a definition of the boy’s name as she understood it.

“Lent” is hish’iltihu, from the same root as asking: “I have made him asked”, that is, granted him on request. The pun is thick: asked of the LORD, now “asked” back to the LORD, sha’ul, for life. “He worshipped” may refer to Elkanah or to the child himself; the Hebrew does not specify.