Women of the Bible
Hannah in the Bible
A childless woman at Shiloh whose vow and whose song stand at the opening of the books that give Israel a king.
Read the passages first
Loading 1 Samuel 1:9-20…
Loading 1 Samuel 2:1-10…
1 Samuel opens in a broken sanctuary. The at Shiloh is corrupt, 1 Samuel 2:12, Israel has no , and the first chapter puts a grieving woman at the centre of the frame.
Her prayer is not a technique and her song is not a thank you note. 1 Samuel 2:10 ends with a word about a and an one, before Israel has either. The book is telling the reader where its whole story is going.
Where Scripture speaks of her
Every passage in view
- 1 Samuel 1:2
Introduced as one of two wives, and the text says plainly that she had no children.
- 1 Samuel 1:5-8
Her provocation by Peninnah, her weeping, and Elkanah's question.
- 1 Samuel 1:10-11
She prays and vows that the child will be given to the LORD all his life.
- 1 Samuel 1:13-16
Eli mistakes her for a drunk woman, and she answers him.
- 1 Samuel 1:20
Samuel is born and she names him.
- 1 Samuel 1:24-28
She brings him to Shiloh and gives him to the LORD, keeping the vow.
- 1 Samuel 2:1-10
Her song: reversal, God's knowledge, the poor lifted, and a given strength.
- 1 Samuel 2:19-21
She makes him a coat each year, and other children are born to her.
Kept apart on purpose
What the text says, what it allows, what it withholds
What Scripture says outright
- The LORD had shut up her womb, 1 Samuel 1:5, and the narrator says it twice.
- She prayed silently, with her lips moving, 1 Samuel 1:13.
- She vowed to give the child back for his whole life, 1 Samuel 1:11, and she kept the vow, 1 Samuel 1:28.
- Her explanation to Eli names her grief without hiding it, 1 Samuel 1:15-16.
- Her song speaks about the bows of the mighty broken, the hungry filled, the barren bearing, and the LORD raising and bringing low, 1 Samuel 2:4-8.
- The song ends with a and an one, 1 Samuel 2:10.
What we are drawing from it
- History
Shiloh was the central sanctuary in this period, and the tabernacle stood there before Jerusalem became the place of worship, Joshua 18:1 and Jeremiah 7:12.
Where this comes from
- Language
The name Samuel is explained in 1 Samuel 1:20 with reference to asking or hearing. Commentators discuss the Hebrew wordplay, which is not as tidy as English translations sometimes suggest.
Where this comes from
- Debated
Whether Luke deliberately shaped the Magnificat after Hannah's song, or whether both draw on a shared vocabulary of Israel's praise, is discussed by scholars on both sides. The overlap of themes is not in doubt.
What Scripture does not tell us
- Scripture does not tell us her age, how many years she waited, or where she came from.
- It does not record any conversation between her and Peninnah.
- It does not describe what it cost her to leave Samuel at Shiloh, beyond the coat she brought each year.
- It never says her prayer was answered because of the way she prayed.
Her place in the biblical story
The books of Samuel move Israel from judges to . That transition needs a prophet, and the prophet needs to come from somewhere other than the failing at Shiloh.
So chapter one is not a warm opening before the real history. It is the history. Samuel will Saul and then David, 1 Samuel 10:1 and 1 Samuel 16:13, and the reason there is a Samuel at all is a vow made by a woman nobody at was paying attention to.
Her song is larger than her answered prayer
Read 1 Samuel 2:1-10 looking for her own circumstances. They are there, in 1 Samuel 2:5, but they occupy one line. The rest is about God: what he knows, what he overturns, who he raises, who he brings down, and finally the he will strengthen.
That is why God answers prayers is too small a summary. Her son is an answer to a prayer, and the song she sings about it is a theology of how God governs the world.
What God does in the story
He closes the womb, 1 Samuel 1:5, and he remembers her, 1 Samuel 1:19. Scripture assigns both to him without embarrassment.
He receives a child into his service and raises up a prophet in a place where the was rotting, 1 Samuel 2:26 and 1 Samuel 3:19-20.
And he begins, through this household, the line of events that will bring Israel a after his own heart.
The heart revealed in the story
Her prayer is honest and specific. She asks for a son and offers him back in the same breath, 1 Samuel 1:11.
Her answer to Eli, 1 Samuel 1:15-16, is neither meek nor angry. She corrects a who has misjudged her, and then she goes home and eats and is no longer sad, 1 Samuel 1:18, before anything has changed.
Trace the story
Hannah's song to Mary's song
Luke never names Hannah. The connection is drawn from a real and detailed overlap of themes, so the Luke nodes are labelled as a comparison rather than a citation.
Scripture interprets Scripture
How later passages read her account
Loading Luke 1:46-55…
Mary's words share Hannah's subject: a God who reverses the order of the world and keeps with his people. There are differences too. Hannah's song ends looking forward to a ; Mary's song is sung because the King is already on the way.
Not smoothed over
The hard parts of this account
Did she bargain with God?
1 Samuel 1:11 is a vow, and vows are a normal part of Israel's worship, Numbers 30 and Psalms 66:13. That is not the same as trading.
The chapter offers no comment on her motives. It records the vow, the birth and the keeping of the vow.
God shut up her womb
The narrator says it directly, 1 Samuel 1:5. Scripture does not present her barrenness as an accident or as a punishment, and no reason is offered.
Any explanation that assigns a cause is going beyond the text. What the text gives is that God was involved and that God remembered her.
Questions the text can answer
Take these back to Scripture
How much of her song is about her own situation?
Look at 1 Samuel 2:5. Read 1 Samuel 2:1-10 and mark every line that refers to her. Then read what fills the rest.
What does she do before the child is born?
Look at 1 Samuel 1:18. Notice the order of 1 Samuel 1:17-19. Her countenance changes before her circumstances do.
What do Hannah and Mary say about the same God, and where do the two songs differ?
Look at Luke 1:52. Read 1 Samuel 2:4-8 and Luke 1:51-55 side by side. Note both the overlaps and what each song is looking toward.
Pray it back
A prayer from this account
LORD of hosts, you looked at a woman whose grief a had misread, and you remembered her.
Teach us to pray honestly, without arranging our words, and to hand back what you give us.
You raise the poor from the dust and you set the pillars of the earth. Do not let us reduce your government of the world to whether we got what we asked for.
We thank you that the song of a childless woman ended in a , and that the King who came is your Christ. Amen.
Sources consulted
Themes in this account
- Prayer. Speaking to God plainly, including out of grief.
- Suffering. Loss, waiting and hardship that Scripture does not explain away.
- Motherhood. Children, barrenness and household life as Scripture treats them.
- Covenant. God's promises to Abraham and to David, carried forward.
- Leadership. Judging, speaking for God, and guiding others.
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