Rejoice and Weep No More (1 Sam. 1-2)

Year after year. It goes on. Year by year. Nothing changes. All remains steady (and not in a good way).

The ebb and flow of life can seem endlessly the same, especially when suffering is involved. When the heart is involved and nothing changes, hope can easily disappear. 

This is Hannah’s situation in 1 Samuel 1. Even though her husband loves her and tries to comfort his wife, the circumstances she finds herself in outweighs all he tries to do for her to show his love and bring her comfort. Words in the first eleven verses are telling: rival, closed womb, vexation, anxiety; irritate, provoke, wept, not eat, prayed; sad, deeply distressed, bitterly, and grievously all find prominence in Hannah’s life as her situation continues without any relief in sight.

How long has this been going on? the Bible offers no way to be sureA, but any bitterness of soul and pinching of circumstances is long enough when weighed by the human heart. This one that has set herself against Hannah, the one who has formed herself into a "rival" is Peninnah. Peninnah intentionally makes Hannah’s life bitter, miserable, seemingly unendurable at the point of this story. Peninnah has children, as in multiple. Even if it were only two, that’s a period of at least two years if she has them close together. The point is the situation feels desperate, feels overwhelming, feels beyond her ability to bear any longer. When we live in our feels, we often can easily feel defeated.

So Hannah leaves the people after not having eaten the meal before the LORD in their annual trip to Shiloh, and she goes to the door of the temple of the LORD. She intentionally goes as near to God as she has the ability to go; she goes to the place where He has said He would meet with His children, and it is there she stands pouring out her heart to Him, weeping loudly, bitterly. Before the temple of the LORD, after pouring out her heart to the LORD alone, she makes a vow before God that I cannot even imagine making, one that involves leaving the blessing she is asking for, the very change of circumstance, at that doorstep on a day in the very near future (y’all know how fast small children grow and change, do you not?). 

Hannah’s request acknowledges God as sovereign and powerful, as the only One who can change the circumstance in which she finds herself. She acknowledges God as the “LORD of hosts” (which appears in 1 Samuel for the first time in the Bible), as the One they bring their sacrifices to yearly. This idea of host contains the idea that the LORD is the God of “plentifulness,” of “numberlessness.” He is the God of all the armies of Israel. He is the LORD of all the angels in heaven, of all the heavenly bodies He has created both within and beyond human sight. Hannah acknowledges the power that God alone has, He who is her LORD, to change her human circumstances, and she desperately wants her circumstances to change; however, in her vow before the LORD, she vows to give up the gift of the change of circumstance she so desperately desires if God will grant it. But giving to God is never losing. Stop a minute and chew on that. 

Giving to God is never losing. It is only gain.

Hannah’s lips move silently after her vow as she continues to speak in her heart to God (v 13). She gives no voice to her prayer, but she lifts her prayer in faith knowing that God, who has created her and placed her within her circumstances, knows her heart which He has fashioned within her being. She needs no earthly priest to intercede for her, as becomes evident when Eli, a priest at Shiloh, sits and watches and judges her incorrectly as being drunk when she is simply pouring out a broken, contrite soul before the LORD at the doorpost of His temple. Eli blesses her petition when he realizes his error in judgment, and she leaves believing God will act on her behalf for her good and His glory. 

She leaves with a face that is no longer sad (v. 18) because the focus of her heart has now changed. She worships God with her extended family and goes back home to the seemingly same circumstances and a situation that has not changed outwardly in any way at that point. 

It has not changed, but Hannah’s perception of it has, and that is key. Hannah quits looking at the circumstances in and of themselves and begins looking to the God who has allowed her to be in those exact circumstances; the God whose sovereignty she has acknowledged in making her request placed her in this hard place. 

Hannah within the next year holds her precious gift from the LORD close, nursing it as God has designed, and early in Samuel's life, she and her husband acknowledge before Eli the LORD’s fulfillment of her petition to Him made previously in that place with an offering. She says to Eli, “For this child I have prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to Him [here before you--do you remember me?]. Therefore, I have lent him to the LORD. As long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD. And he [Samuel] worshiped the LORD there" (27-28, ESV). And she leaves and goes back to her circumstances with empty arms but a heart full of what God can do. And it is enough.

Hannah’s prayer to God before leaving for home is full of worship instead of grief because Hannah trusts God with the most precious gift she has ever received from Him. Hannah gives the precious gift she has so long longed for back to God. Hannah prays in exultation of the LORD who has exalted her in giving her this child. Hannah rejoices in HIS salvation (2:1).

In the most bitter complaints of our souls, in the hardest circumstances of our lives, in the situations that seem so far out of our control as to be life-crushing, God knows and is worthy of our worship even if nothing ever changes here. Hannah’s situation shows her faith in the God she serves, and she goes back to a situation that seems outwardly unchanged, but her heart has shifted towards the God she serves and off of her circumstances. Hannah’s situation is about more than her comfort and happiness; it is about the birth of a man who God will use in raising up a king and establishing a kingdom for His glory, a kingdom that points to the Messiah to come, the One through whom ultimate salvation will come. 

Hope in Christ will serve to shift our eyes off of our circumstances and onto Him who is able to deliver us from the biggest problem of our lives, the sinful state in which we dwell, the state that will cause us eternal separation from God apart from Christ’s intervention--The gift of a child. The Savior of the world. Christ among us living the perfect life in less than perfect circumstances that we have no hope of living. Christ: Dead. Buried. Raised to life. In heaven beside the Father intervening on our behalf. Returning soon--Rejoice and weep no more!