The story begins with a man called Elkanah, who has two wives called Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah has children but Hannah has none, and yet it is Hannah who Elkanah loves most and favours with a double portion at the time of the sacrifice, and this causes great tension and jealousy between the two women. Peninnah provokes Hannah until she weeps and refuses to eat, and so Elkanah seeks to comfort his beloved wife by asking if he does not mean more to her than ten sons, but she is not consoled and so it seems that he does not. This is a deeply unhappy family, but their troubles are partly of their own making. Of course Peninnah cannot help her fertility any more than Hannah can help her childlessness, but they can both help the way they respond to their situation and to each other; and Elkanah cannot help Hanna's sadness or Peninnah's malice, but he could help having more than one wife in the first place.
Hannah finally seems to realise that even if she cannot change her circumstances she can change her response, and so she prays that God will look on her misery and give her a son. Like we so often do when we are desperate, she tries to bargain with God, saying that if he will give her a son then she will dedicate the boy to him. I think it's interesting that she does not ask for sons plural, the first of whom she will give back to God, but for a son singular. Perhaps she is only seeking to be modest in her request, but if she gives her only child back to God she will still be effectively childless, and so it's almost as if she wants a son because she feels she should have one, not because she yearns to be a mother. Perhaps she felt she had failed her husband by not giving him a son, or perhaps in a culture where she could only be a wife and mother she felt she must be both in order for her life to mean anything, or perhaps she just couldn't take any more of Peninnah's taunting, but none of these are reasons to have a child. It is entirely possible that I have misunderstood Hannah's prayer, but I can't help finding it a little distasteful. A child is to be loved and nurtured, not used as a weapon or a status symbol; and my mum brought me up to believe that motherhood is a privilege, not a right.
The priest Eli sees Hannah praying in the temple, and she is obviously praying with great fervour because he initially thinks she's drunk. When we express ourselves openly and honestly we may risk making fools or spectacles of ourselves, but it is usually a risk worth taking. The risk certainly pays off for Hannah, as Eli blesses her and she soon has a son, who she names Samuel. She tells her husband that she will take Samuel to the temple when he has been weaned, and he simply tells her to "do what seems best". He has to respect her oath because the law and his faith demand it, but his detachment suggests to me that he is not entirely happy about the fact that she has given away the son they have waited so long for. I think Hannah was incredibly selfish to make a pact with God without talking to Elkanah, not because she needed his permission but because it was a decision they should have made together. I think we can be so caught up in the idea of the maternal instinct that we forget how important the father is.
Once Samuel has been weaned, Hannah takes him to Eli, who accepts him into the temple. Hannah then prays again, but this time she prays with joy and worship, not in anguish and grief. She revels in the might of the Lord but warns against human pride and speaks of a reversal of fortune, possibly a dig at her rival Pinennah, suggesting that her prayer is not perhaps as holy as it may seem. She speaks of the Lord as all powerful and in control, and declares that "it is not by strength that one prevails", recognising that it is not by her own power but by God's that her prayers have been answered. And she prophesies judgement on those who oppose the Lord and the coming of a king, setting up the events that are to come.
The story gets a bit jumbled here so I'll try to take each sequence of events separately to make it a little clearer. Elkanah and Hannah visit Samuel once a year when they visit the temple to make the sacrifice, and I can only imagine how strange it must have been for him to know these people were his parents and yet not know them at all, and how sad it must have been for Elkanah and Hannah to miss so much of their son's life. Eli blesses the couple and Hannah has three more sons and two daughters, so that she does at last become a mother, although it is interesting that is not her but Eli who prays for these children.
Samuel grows in stature and favour in the eyes of God and men, but Eli's sons prove themselves to be wicked men, abusing their priestly privileges and showing no respect for the god who so honoured them. Eli hears of his sons' sin and rebukes them, but they do not listen and he appears to do no more, so that their wickedness continues. A man of God prophesies against the house of Eli, saying that because they have not respected all that God has done for them, they and their ancestors will all die young, and Eli's sons will die on the same day. He also says that God will no longer keep his promise that they would minister forever, but instead he will raise up a faithful priest. I'm not sure how things develop from here, but it seems that this is where the priesthood first becomes a profession based on merit rather than a duty inherited by birth. I also think it's interesting that we see God change his mind, and not for the first time. Divine simplicity has whitewashed God's character, but the God of the Old Testament was as complicated and as changeable as your or I. Where else do you think we got it from?
We are told now that one night the boy Samuel is lying by the Ark of the Covenant when he hears a voice calling him. He goes to Eli but Eli says he did not call him, and so Samuel goes back to his place and lies down again. You may have guessed by now who is calling Samuel, but this happens three times before anyone in the story figures it out. Samuel may be excused as he is young, and we are told that even though he serves in the temple he does not know the Lord yet, a reminder that we may know of God but we must experience him before we can truly know him. We might have expected better from Eli, but we have already been told that visions were rare in these days and he has perhaps been deadened by habit and forgotten his Lord's voice, a warning to us not to do the same. When the priest does finally work out what is happening, he tells Samuel to answer the Lord if he calls again, which of course he does.
God tells Samuel that he will do something that will "make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle", which I think it an amazing phrase. More specifically, he says that he will do what he has already said he will do to the house of Eli. Samuel is understandably reluctant to pass on the message but Eli tells him not to hide anything, and so Samuel speaks the word of God for the first time. Eli may have his faults, but now he is humble enough to recognise the power and justice of God, and simply says "he is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes". It is the simplest and yet most difficult prayer, because it requires us to acknowledge the sovereignty of God, trust in his wisdom, and hope for his grace; and while he deserves all of those things, we are often reluctant to give them. From then on, God is with Samuel and reveals himself to him, so that Samuel is recognised as a prophet and his word comes to all of Israel.
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