1 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite: 2 and he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. 3 This man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice to Yahweh of Armies in Shiloh. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, priests to Yahweh, were there. 4 When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: 5 but to Hannah he gave a double portion; for he loved Hannah, but Yahweh had shut up her womb. 6 Her rival provoked her severely, to make her fret, because Yahweh had shut up her womb. 7 (as) he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of Yahweh, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat. 8 Elkanah her husband said to her, "Hannah, why do you weep? Why don't you eat? Why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" 9 So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his seat by the doorpost of the temple of Yahweh. 10 She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to Yahweh, and wept bitterly. 11 She vowed a vow, and said, "Yahweh of Armies, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your handmaid, and remember me, and not forget your handmaid, but will give to your handmaid a boy, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor shall come on his head." 12 It happened, as she continued praying before Yahweh, that Eli saw her mouth. 13 Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. 14 Eli said to her, "How long will you be drunken? Put away your wine from you." 15 Hannah answered, "No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before Yahweh. 16 Don't count your handmaid for a wicked woman; for I have been speaking out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation." 17 Then Eli answered, "Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of him." 18 She said, "Let your handmaid find favor in your sight." So the woman went her way, and ate; and her facial expression wasn't sad any more. 19 They rose up in the morning early, and worshiped before Yahweh, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and Yahweh remembered her. 20 It happened, when the time had come, that Hannah conceived, and bore a son; and she named him Samuel, (saying), "Because I have asked him of Yahweh." 21 The man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer to Yahweh the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. 22 But Hannah didn't go up; for she said to her husband, "Not until the child is weaned; then I will bring him, that he may appear before Yahweh, and stay there forever." 23 Elkanah her husband said to her, "Do what seems good to you. Wait until you have weaned him; only may Yahweh establish his word." So the woman waited and nursed her son, until she weaned him. 24 When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, and one ephah of meal, and a bottle of wine, and brought him to Yahweh's house in Shiloh. The child was young. 25 They killed the bull, and brought the child to Eli. 26 She said, "Oh, my lord, as your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here, praying to Yahweh. 27 For this child I prayed; and Yahweh has given me my petition which I asked of him. 28 Therefore also I have granted him to Yahweh. As long as he lives he is granted to Yahweh." He worshiped Yahweh there.
Some account of Elkanah and his two wives, Peninnah and Hannah, 1-Samuel 1:1, 1-Samuel 1:2. His annual worship at Shiloh and the portions he gave at such times to his wives, 1-Samuel 1:3-5. Hannah, being barren, is reproached by Peninnah, especially in their going up to Shiloh; at which she is sorely grieved, 1-Samuel 1:6, 1-Samuel 1:7. Elkanah comforts her, 1-Samuel 1:8. Her prayer and vow in the temple, that if God would give her a son, she would consecrate him to His service, 1-Samuel 1:9-11. Eli, the high priest, indistinctly hearing her pray, charges her with being drunk, 1-Samuel 1:12-14. Her defense of her conduct, 1-Samuel 1:15, 1-Samuel 1:16. Eli, undeceived, blesses her; on which she takes courage, 1-Samuel 1:17, 1-Samuel 1:18. Hannah and Elkanah return home; she conceives, bears a son, and calls him Samuel, 1-Samuel 1:19, 1-Samuel 1:20. Elkanah and his family go again to Shiloh to worship; but Hannah stays at home to nurse her child, purposing, as soon as he is weaned, to go and offer him to the Lord, according to her vow, 1-Samuel 1:21-23. When weaned, she takes him to Shiloh, presents hear child to Eli to be consecrated to the Lord, and offers three bullocks, an ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, for his consecration, 1-Samuel 1:24-28.
This chapter gives an account of the parents of Samuel, of the trouble his mother met with from her rival, and comfort from her husband, 1-Samuel 1:1, of her prayer to God for a son, and of her vow to him, should one be given her, 1-Samuel 1:9 of the notice Eli took of her, and of his censure on her, which he afterwards retracted, and comforted her, 1-Samuel 1:12 of her conception and the birth of her son, the nursing and weaning of him, 1-Samuel 1:19 and of the presentation of him to the Lord, with a sacrifice, 1-Samuel 1:24.
(1-Samuel 1:1-8) Elkanah and his family.
(1-Samuel 1:9-18) Hannah's prayer.
(1-Samuel 1:19-28) Samuel, Hannah presents him to the Lord.
I. History of the People of Israel Under the Prophet Samuel - 1 Samuel 1-7
The call of Samuel to be the prophet and judge of Israel formed a turning-point in the history of the Old Testament kingdom of God. As the prophet of Jehovah, Samuel was to lead the people of Israel out of the times of the judges into those of the kings, and lay the foundation for a prosperous development of the monarchy. Consecrated like Samson as a Nazarite from his mother's womb, Samuel accomplished the deliverance of Israel out of the power of the Philistines, which had been only commenced by Samson; and that not by the physical might of his arm, but by the spiritual power of his word and prayer, with which he led Israel back from the worship of dead idols to the Lord its God. And whilst as one of the judges, among whom he classes himself in 1-Samuel 12:11, he brought the office of judge to a close, and introduced the monarchy; as a prophet, he laid the foundation of the prophetic office, inasmuch as he was the fist to naturalize it, so to speak, in Israel, and develope it into a power that continued henceforth to exert the strongest influence, side by side with the priesthood and monarchy, upon the development of the covenant nation and kingdom of God. For even if there were prophets before the time of Samuel, who revealed the will of the Lord at times to the nation, they only appeared sporadically, without exerting any lasting influence upon the national life; whereas, from the time of Samuel onwards, the prophets sustained and fostered the spiritual life of the congregation, and were the instruments through whom the Lord made known His purposes to the nation and its rulers. To exhibit in its origin and growth the new order of things which Samuel introduced, or rather the deliverance which the Lord sent to His people through this servant of His, the prophetic historian goes back to the time of Samuel's birth, and makes us acquainted not only with the religious condition of the nation, but also with the political oppression under which it was suffering at the close of the period of the judges, and during the high-priesthood of Eli. At the time when the pious parents of Samuel were going year by year to the house of God at Shiloh to worship and offer sacrifice before the Lord, the house of God was being profaned by the abominable conduct of Eli's sons (1 Samuel 1-2). When Samuel was called to be the prophet of Jehovah, Israel lost the ark of the covenant, the soul of its sanctuary, in the war with the Philistines (1 Samuel 3-4). And it was not till after the nation had been rendered willing to put away its strange gods and worship Jehovah alone, through the influence of Samuel's exertions as prophet, that the faithful covenant God gave it, in answer to Samuel's intercession, a complete victory over the Philistines (1 Samuel 7). In accordance with these three prominent features, the history of the judicial life of Samuel may be divided into three sections, viz.: 1 Samuel 1-2; 3-6; 7.
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