“And Hannah prayed and said, ‘My heart rejoices in the lord; my horn is exalted in the lord, I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation'” (I Samuel 2:1).
It must have been so miserable for Hannah to be childless and then suffer the agony of her husband’s bigamy. Yes, I know that some men in the Old Testament times took a second wife in order to get children, especially sons, but I don’t believe that this way of taking things into their own hands was pleasing to God. He had designed marriage to be monogamous. Every single man who had more than one wife had trouble which could have been avoided had he waited on the Lord. Because of the man’s selfishness there was always strife between the wives and among the descendants.
Year after year, Hannah had to put up with the taunts of Peninnah, the other wife. Peninnah had many children and she tortured Hannah with that fact constantly. Hannah was very patient with Peninnah’s cruelty. She prayed to God to give her a son. Hannah knew where children came from, even if her husband forgot.
After one of these provocations, when she was crying bitterly, Elkanah, her husband, asked her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”
I am trying really hard to put a good spin on this for Elkanah. When he and Hannah went as a family, along with the other wife and children, to offer the yearly sacrifices to God, Elkanah gave Hannah a double portion for her offering. He did this to show her how much he loved her. He was telling Hannah that she should just be content with him because he loved her. That is the most charitable explanation I can make for a man who committed bigamy in order to get what he wanted.
This makes Hannah’s devotion to him, patience in her situation, and faith in God all the more remarkable. On some level, what Elkanah said to Hannah was truly insensitive. What was going on here? Was he so busy doing other things that he did not see what was happening in the tents of his wives? If he did, then what was he saying to Hannah? “Buck up, honey. You’ve got me. I know you wanted to have a son, but don’t worry; I found another wife for that. I’m happy, so you should be happy, too.”
I’d like to think that Elkanah was a man of faith though it was weak. He faithfully worshiped God as required by the law. However, his faith did not extend to trusting God to give him children in the right way. He sinfully and selfishly took matters in his own hands and begot children with an unkind and selfish woman. As in other bigamist marriages that we see in the Scriptures there was nothing but trouble in his family.
He should have waited for God as his faithful wife did. God had a purpose for withholding children from Hannah for a period of time. The Scriptures don’t tell us the explicit reason, but we can learn from her experience. Many of the women that God blessed so marvelously had some problems or grief to bear before He made plain to them what their calling was. Abraham’s wife, Sarah, had to wait many years for her son. We do not know why God asks some women to wait so long for His blessing, but godly women know that He has a purpose and they wait on Him.
Hannah did not give up. She remained an exemplary wife to Elkanah. She followed him in obedience to all of the yearly sacrifices, worshiping God even in her disappointment. When he asked her to stop grieving, she dried her tears, ate her meal with the rest of his family, and rose and went with them to Shiloh. How hard this must have been for her. She had to travel with them enduring the taunts of Peninnah the whole way. What a shining example of godly charity and courage she is for us!
The rest of the story is well known. God hears Hannah’s prayer and visits her and gives her a son. Like Sarah before her and Mary ahead of her, she has no ordinary child.
Hannah will name her son Samuel, because she “asked for him from the Lord” (I Samuel 1:20).
God would use Samuel to help end the corruption that was rampant in Israel at this time. Samuel would be a great prophet, priest, and kingmaker.
Hannah was a woman of great faith. She knew that a sovereign God could give her a son if it was His will. She promised to give her child back to God in gratitude for blessing her. Later, the son of the man whom Samuel would anoint to be king would say, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3). This is one lesson we can learn from Hannah – All good things come from God and we should show our gratitude.
We must also admire the courage of Hannah. An immature or less pious woman would have likely turned into a nag. Sympathetic people would find it hard to blame Hannah if she turned on Peninnah and made her life as miserable as she could. How many women would find fault with her if she had retorted to Elkanah’s less than helpful remark about her childlessness with, “Well, that’s fine for you to tell me to cheer up. You have everything you want. If you really loved me, you would have settled for what God has given us with me and not gone out and found another woman!”
But, Hannah was living on a different spiritual plain than most. She had put God first in her life. She truly desired to serve Him and was obedient to her calling as a wife. She rose above her situation and proved that she could handle whatever God would send her way. She was never disrespectful to her husband nor did she ever seek vengeance on the other wife.
God rewarded her faithfulness. In her faith and gratitude she welled up in praise for YHWH and gave us one of the most beautiful prayers in the Bible. (I Samuel 2:1-10). Now she no longer needed to weep over the cruel taunts of the other woman; she could “smile at her enemies”. In her beautiful prayer she told of God’s marvelous works and she anticipated the Messiah. It is very worthwhile to compare her prayer to that of Mary’s. (The “Magnificat” is found in Luke 1:46-55.) Both women were glad to let God use them in any way He wanted.
We all experience things in our lives that we don’t understand. Let us be like Hannah and trust God and wait on Him.
