1 Samuel 1:1-2:11
"There was a certain man...whose name was Elkanah...He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none." 1 Samuel chapter 1, part of verse 1 and verse 2
This is always an emotional story for me. I can feel Hannah's pain, and my heart hurts for her. It was sad enough for Hannah that she had no children. Barrenness was considered a tragedy and a disgrace for an Israelite woman. Worse, she had to watch Elkanah's other wife as she became pregnant, then cuddled and nursed her babies and played with her older children. The rivalry between two wives must have been fierce, and Peninnah made things worse by taunting Hannah. This went on day after day and year after year. To top it off, Elkanah didn't understand Hannah's longing for children. He loved her and was very generous to her, which he thought should be enough. When he took his wives to Shiloh to worship God every year, Peninnah provoked Hannah until she wept and would not eat. Elkanah would say to her, "Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?" 1 Samuel 1:8
One year when they were at Shiloh, Hannah prayed in deep anguish, sobbing as she prayed. She made a vow to God that if He would give her a son, she would give him back to the Lord. After they returned home from this trip, God indeed gave her a son whom she named Samuel. Imagine how she must have enjoyed this baby for whom she had longed and prayed for such a long time. But always in the back of her mind must have been her vow to give him back to God, which, for her, meant taking him to Shiloh and allowing him to live in the temple there.
God doesn't require us to make vows to Him, but if we make a vow, He expects us to keep it. Numbers 30:2, "When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said."
Hannah kept Samuel at home until she weaned him. Mothers in her culture often nursed their babies until they were around three years old because of lack of refrigeration for milk, so perhaps Samuel was about this age when Hannah took her precious baby and left him at the temple with Eli the priest. How hard this must have been but, amazingly, Hannah did not cry but sang a song of praise to the One she loved even more than she loved her little son. What an example for us. Hopefully our hearts will praise God in every situation we encounter.
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