(Part 1)

JBTM Robert D. Bergen
30
unrelenting humiliation and degradation. But from the pain of childlessness Hannah also
learned one of the most important truths any would-be parent could ever learn—children
are a gift that can come only from God. And while parents have the joy of nurturing and
raising them, children are God’s property, lent to parents for only a few years.
The Lord understood Hannah and her pain. Sadly, the greatest religious leader of her day
did not.
12
While she continued praying in the Lord’s presence, Eli watched her lips. 13 Hannah was praying
silently, and though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard. Eli thought she was drunk
14
and scolded her, “How long are you going to be drunk? Get rid of your wine!” 15 “No, my lord,”
Hannah replied. “I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been
pouring out my heart before the Lord. 16 Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from
the depth of my anguish and resentment.” 17 Eli responded, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel
grant the petition you’ve requested from Him. “And may your servant find favor with you,” she
replied. Then Hannah went on her way; she ate and no longer looked despondent. (1 Sam 1:12–17)
Like Eli, sometimes God’s people—ministers and caring laypersons alike—fail to hear or
understand the desperate heart cries of our neighbors. We want to help the people around
us, but we don’t know enough about their hidden hurts to craft an appropriate response. As a
result, our well-intended words fail to directly address a needy person’s desperate condition.
However we, like ignorant Eli, can still do two helpful things: we can speak a caring word—
“Go in peace”—and we can affirm and undergird their efforts to reach out to God for help—
“May the God of Israel grant the petition you’ve requested from Him.”
Hannah had an encounter that day with the God who listens and acts. More than that,
she was touched by the words of a supportive, if inadequate, servant of God. And these
experiences changed her: “She no longer looked despondent” (v. 17b). Hannah left God’s
house with hope, and her life would forever be better.
19
The next morning Elkanah and Hannah got up early to bow in worship before the Lord. Afterward,
they returned home to Ramah. Then Elkanah was intimate with his wife Hannah, and the Lord
remembered her. 20 After some time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him
Samuel, because she said, “I requested him from the Lord.” (1 Sam 1:19–20)
At the end of the family’s religious celebration at Shiloh, they returned to their home in
Ramah. In the course of time the loving relationship between Elkanah and his first wife was
visited with the joy of a divine miracle as “the Lord remembered” Hannah.
The Hebrew word translated remembered in v. 19 deserves some special attention. When
the subject is God, the term does not mean that God had temporarily forgotten something,
but now just happened to have it return to His conscious thought. Instead, this verb was used
by biblical narrators to clue readers and listeners in on the fact that God was about to act in a
decisive and beneficial way to fulfill a commitment He had previously made. The verb is used