1 Samuel part 2
Last week we did an overview of the book of 1 Samuel and tonight we are going to dive in and take closer look at this book starting in chapter 1.
1 Samuel 1:1 Now
there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, Ray-math-a-em zoe- phem of the
mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, Juh-
roe- ham the son of Elihu, eh-lie-hew the son of Tohu, toe-hoo the son of Zuph, zuff an Ephraimite. 2 And he had two wives: the name
of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah pen-nin-uh. Peninnah pen-nin-uh had children, but Hannah had no
children. 3 This man went up
from his city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the LORD of hosts in
We have just had glimpse
in to the family life of Elkanah and what it can be like when living in
polygamous relationship. They lived in high country of Ephraim and we can see
that Elkanah had two wives. Now it has never been Gods intention for a man to
have multiply wives instead Gods law originally designed for there to be only
one wife for a man. We can see this in
fact that God only made Adam one wife. When Noah and his sons got onto the ark
in Gen. 7:13 we see that each of them only had one wife. Also notice what Jesus
taught about marriage.
Matthew 19:4 And He
answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at
the beginning 'made them male and female,'
5 "and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh'? 6 "So then, they
are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let
not man separate."
Jesus is reminding his
audience about how things were setup since the beginning of time in regards to
marriage and he makes it clear that one man is to marry one women and how the
become one flesh and that marriage is to last a life time. You cannot find any
room for a man to have multiple wives. Paul also confirms this in:
1 Corinthians 7:2 Nevertheless,
because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each
woman have her own husband.
Besides this good ole
common sense will tell you that having more than one wife is just asking for
trouble and we can see that Elkanah was experiencing some of the problems. We
learn that Hannah was barren at this time but his other wife Peninah pen-nin-uh had given birth to sons and
daughters. Now every year they would go up as a family to Shiloh to worship and
sacrifice to God. But as we see in our story Elkanah does something that make
tension between his wives even greater. We he made his offering he would give a
portion of it to his children and to his
wife Peninah pen-nin-uh but then he
would give Hannah a double portion. Now in my in own mind I see Peninah pen-nin-uh thinking to herself saying
her I am providing my husband with all of these children and yet he is giving
her a double portion of his offering that is not fair. The text makes it very
clear to us that Peninah pen-nin-uh doesn’t
care for Hannah and she considerers her as an adversary. Now verse 6 and 7 let
us know that Peninah pen-nin-uh didn’t
play around when it came to putting Hannah down. Notice how she perfectly timed
her verbal attach on her so that it would have the deepest impact. She would
wait until they were at the holy place to worship God and she would rake over
the coals about how God has closed her womb. I can just see her towering over
Hannah and bragging how God had blessed her with children and telling her how
much better she was than Hannah. This of course caused Hannah to break out in tears
because she would love to be able to give her husband children. This hurt her
so bad that she did not feel like eating. Now along comes the Elkanah and he
want to know why Hannah is in such distress. This implies to me that Hannah has
not told her husband of the cruelty that Peninah pen-nin-uh has put her through. All he knows is that he treated her
very well and cannot understand why she is so upset.
1 Samuel 1:9 So
Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in
Here we see that Hannah
was really suffering and she knew that all she could do was to pour her soul
out to God and to hope that it would be his will to fulfill her prayer. Not
only does she just pray for a son she also makes a vow that she will dedicate
her son to the Lord for the rest of his life. Now it also interesting that she
said that no razor shall come upon his head because this implies that she
intends for her son to be a Nazirite for life. Now I will say this that Bible
doesn’t ever specifically call Samuel a Nazirite but most agree that he was
since a razor was not suppose to touch his head. The only other 2 men that we
see in the Bible named that were Nasserites for life was Sampson in Judges 13
and John the Baptist in Luke 1. In the case of John the Baptist he is not ever
specifically called a Nazirite either but he was not to drink wine or strong
drink which are things that Nazirites were to avoid. Now in the case of Sampson
the angel of the lord tells his parents that he will be a Nazirite for life but
in all 3 instance it was the parents that made sure their young men held these
vows throughout their childhood. Now making such a vow would take great
discipline for the parents and for the child.
Now the more common
Nazirete vow was a temporary one and it is described in great detail in Numbers 6:2 – 21.
A man would decided that
he would separate himself to the Lord and then he must one must abstain from
wine, grapes, or intoxicating liquors, he could not cut his hair, or come near
any dead body. Now if they messed up there were certain things they had to do
to resolve the issues again please read Numbers 6 to see the details.
When the vow terminated
he had to offer up 2 lambs and a ram for sin offering, burnt offering and peace
offering. A meal and drink offering was made. He then cut off his hair that had
grown all this time and burned it on the fire under the peace offering sacrifice.
Then the priest would make a wave
offering.
However we see that men
like Samuel would have to keep their vows their whole lives.
1 Samuel 1: 12
And it happened, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli watched her
mouth. 13 Now Hannah spoke in
her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli
thought she was drunk. 14 So
Eli said to her, "How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from
you!"
We see 2 things happening
here first we see Hannah praying but she wasn’t doing so from her mouth she was
doing so from her heart. You see we don’t have a God that we have to yell out
to get his attention nor do we have speak aloud some beautiful words to turn
his head our way like the Pharisees were trying to do in the 1st
century. No our God can understand our very thoughts as if we had spoken them
from our own mouth.
Psalm 94:11 The LORD
knows the thoughts of man …
Hebrews 4:12 For the
word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden
from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we
must give account.
So
you see God can hear us loud and clear even if our lips are not moving and
certainly heard Hannah’s prayer.
The
second think we see from our text is that this Eli jumps to conclusion as he
accuses Hannah of being drunk simply because she wasn’t praying out loud. Again
I cant help but point out how easy it is to jump to conclusion by simply
looking at appearances. This seems to be a natural thing for people to do but
as Christians we need to learn not to be like Eli and jump to conclusions based
on appearances. Notice Hannah’s response to Eli.
1 Samuel 1:15 And
Hannah answered and said, "No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful
spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out
my soul before the LORD. 16
"Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance
of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now." 17 Then Eli answered and said,
"Go in peace, and the God of
Hannah
wants Eli to know that she is some wicked women who is drunk she was just a
women with a sorrowful spirit. When Eli realize that he made a bad judgment
call he basically tells her the he hopes what she was praying for will come to
pass. So now we see that Hannah came poured her soul out to God and she found
peace in life after doing this and now she was no longer sad and she was able
to eat.
There
is a great lesson for us to learn here. Whenever we have problems come up in
our life and they make us extremely sad let us never forget to pray. As
Christians we should know that we have access to thrown of God by means of
prayer. No matter how big our problem may be we to can pour out our soul to God
and realize that we have put our problems into his hands. It should give peace
from our sadness knowing that God will take care of our problems in his way. If
we can learn to be more like Hannah and to leave our problems with God we can
all experience peace in our lives even if the wall are falling down around us
because we know that God is on our side.
1 Samuel 1:19 Then
they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD, and returned and
came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD
remembered her. 20 So it came
to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called
his name Samuel, saying, "Because I have asked for him from the
LORD." 21 Now the man
Elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the LORD the yearly sacrifice and
his vow. 22 But Hannah did
not go up, for she said to her husband, "Not until the child is
weaned; then I will take him, that he may appear before the LORD and remain
there forever." 23 And
Elkanah her husband said to her, "Do what seems best to you; wait until
you have weaned him. Only let the LORD establish His word." So the woman
stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
Here we see the Hannah’s
prayer was answered and she bore a son and she called him Samuel. Now before
she gave her son over to the Eli she was going to take care of until he was
weaned. Now this could have been any were from 3 to 5 years of age. Her husband
agreed that she could keep him until that time. At least she was able to have a
close relationship with her son during the first years. Today they say that the
first 5 years of a child’s life will greatly influence the kind of person they
will turn into and he certainly would have good influence with a mom like
Hannah.
1 Samuel 1:24 Now
when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, one ephah e-fa of
flour, and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD in Shiloh.
And the child was young. 25
Then they slaughtered a bull, and brought the child to Eli. 26 And she said, "O my lord!
As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here,
praying to the LORD. 27
"For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition which I
asked of Him. 28
"Therefore I also have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives he shall
be lent to the LORD." So they worshiped the LORD there.
We can only imagine how
hard this was for Hannah after all she was barren for a long time and all she
could think about was to give her husband a son and now she finally had one and
had spent the last few years taking care of the Samuel and now she would be
giving him up and would only get to see him occasionally but she was a women
who kept her promise. At least she could be happy that he would be raised up to
serve God.
Now we can learn from
this that if we make a promise to God we should keep it. To many people today
will pray to God and say if you will make this happen I will do this or that
and then when that happens that person doesn’t do what they said they would do.
Now I am no way suggesting that we should go around making vows to God but I am
saying if we tell him that we will do something then we should do our best to
keep our word. Not only should we keep our promises to God we should also keep
our promises that we make to other people as long as those promises don’t
violate the word of God.
Now after Hannah gives
her son to Eli she rejoices in God through prayer. I want you to listen
carefully as read her prayer.
1 Samuel 2:1 And
Hannah prayed and said: "My heart rejoices in the LORD; My horn is exalted
in the LORD. I smile at my enemies, Because I rejoice in Your salvation. 2 "No one is holy like the
LORD, For there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like
our God. 3 "Talk no more
so very proudly; Let no arrogance come from your mouth, For the LORD is the
God of knowledge; And by Him actions are weighed. 4 "The bows of the mighty men
are broken, And those who stumbled are girded with strength. 5 Those who were full have
hired themselves out for bread, And the hungry have ceased to hunger. Even
the barren has borne seven, And she who has many children has become
feeble. 6 "The LORD
kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. 7 The LORD makes poor and makes
rich; He brings low and lifts up. 8
He raises the poor from the dust And lifts the beggar from the ash heap,
To set them among princes And make them inherit the throne of glory.
"For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, And He has set the
world upon them. 9 He will
guard the feet of His saints, But the wicked shall be silent in darkness.
"For by strength no man shall prevail.
10 The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken in pieces;
From heaven He will thunder against them. The LORD will judge the ends of the
earth. "He will give strength to His king, And exalt the horn of His
anointed." 11 Then Elkanah
went to his house at Ramah. But the child ministered to the LORD before Eli the
priest.
You see even though this
was a difficult time of giving up her son she did not have a self pity party or
complain about the promise she made instead she rejoiced in what God had done
for her. She was satisfied with fact that she was able to have a son and that
she was able to spend at least some time with him. Sometime Christians get
caught up in the self-pity game but we need to be more like Hannah and be thankful
for the time we had our blessing or to learn to be satisfied with we have. Paul
understood this concept.
Philippians 4:11 I have learned in whatever state I am, to be
content: 12 I know how to be
abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned
both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me.
All
Christians should learn to be content. Now I want finish up tonight lesson
with:
1 Samuel 2:18 But
Samuel ministered before the LORD, even as a child, wearing a linen
ephod. 19 Moreover his mother
used to make him a little robe, and bring it to him year by year when
she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. 20 And Eli would bless Elkanah and
his wife, and say, "The LORD give you descendants from this woman for the
loan that was given to the LORD." Then they would go to their own
home. 21 And the LORD visited
Hannah, so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile
the child Samuel grew before the LORD.
Every year Hannah would
go see her son and she would make him a new robe every year. However God was
not finished blessing this godly women as he opened her womb again and she bore
3 more sons and 2 daughters. This is another great example of how God sheds his
wonderful blessings on those who faithfully seek after him. I hope this lesson
tonight has encouraged you to be more prayerful and to put your problems into
God’s hands and allow him to deal with them so that you can pe ace in your life.