The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Asked” it comes from the Hebrew Word “sha’al” which means “to ask, to request.”
A childless woman prays so silently that a priest assumes she must be drunk. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is 1 Samuel 1.
Elkanah has two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah has children, but Hannah remains barren, and Peninnah provokes her bitterly year after year during their family’s trips to worship at Shiloh. Deeply grieved, Hannah weeps and refuses to eat, and when Elkanah asks why she is sad, she goes to the tabernacle and prays silently, pouring out her soul to the Lord, vowing that if He gives her a son, she will give him back to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor will touch his head.
Eli the priest, watching her lips move without hearing any sound, assumes she is drunk and rebukes her, but Hannah explains she has been “asking,” “sha’al” in Hebrew, in great anguish and grief, pouring out her soul before the Lord. Eli blesses her, praying that God would grant her request, and Hannah leaves comforted, her sadness gone.
The Lord remembers Hannah, and she conceives and bears a son, naming him Samuel, “because I have asked him of the LORD.” Once he is weaned, Hannah brings Samuel to Eli at Shiloh, along with a generous offering, and dedicates him to the Lord’s service for as long as he lives, exactly as she had vowed, explaining to Eli that this is the child she prayed for, and that she is now lending him back to the Lord.
Hannah’s deepest personal pain became the very thing she surrendered back to God the moment it was answered. Her willingness to actually give Samuel away, after years of longing for exactly this child, reveals a remarkable kind of faith, treating even her most cherished answered prayer as ultimately belonging to God rather than to herself.
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