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1 Samuel
Chapter One
1 Samuel 1
Chapter Contents
Elkanah and his family. (1-8) Hannah's prayer. (9-18)
Samuel, Hannah presents him to the Lord. (19-28)
Commentary on 1 Samuel 1:1-8
(Read 1 Samuel 1:1-8)
Elkanah kept up his attendance at God's altar,
notwithstanding the unhappy differences in his family. If the devotions of a
family prevail not to put an end to its divisions, yet let not the divisions
put a stop to the devotions. To abate our just love to any relation for the
sake of any infirmity which they cannot help, and which is their affliction, is
to make God's providence quarrel with his precept, and very unkindly to add
affliction to the afflicted. It is evidence of a base disposition, to delight
in grieving those who are of a sorrowful spirit, and in putting those out of
humour who are apt to fret and be uneasy. We ought to bear one another's
burdens, not add to them. Hannah could not bear the provocation. Those who are
of a fretful spirit, and are apt to lay provocations too much to heart, are
enemies to themselves, and strip themselves of many comforts both of life and
godliness. We ought to notice comforts, to keep us from grieving for crosses.
We should look at that which is for us, as well as what is against us.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 1:9-18
(Read 1 Samuel 1:9-18)
Hannah mingled tears with her prayers; she considered the
mercy of our God, who knows the troubled soul. God gives us leave, in prayer,
not only to ask good things in general, but to mention that special good thing
we most need and desire. She spoke softly, none could hear her. Hereby she
testified her belief of God's knowledge of the heart and its desires. Eli was
high priest, and judge in Israel. It ill becomes us to be rash and hasty in
censures of others, and to think people guilty of bad things while the matter
is doubtful and unproved. Hannah did not retort the charge, and upbraid Eli
with the wicked conduct of his own sons. When we are at any time unjustly
censured, we have need to set a double watch before the door of our lips, that
we do not return censure for censure. Hannah thought it enough to clear
herself, and so must we. Eli was willing to acknowledge his mistake. Hannah
went away with satisfaction of mind. She had herself by prayer committed her
case to God, and Eli had prayed for her. Prayer is heart's ease to a gracious
soul. Prayer will smooth the countenance; it should do so. None will long
remain miserable, who use aright the privilege of going to the mercy-seat of a
reconciled God in Christ Jesus.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 1:19-28
(Read 1 Samuel 1:19-28)
Elkanah and his family had a journey before them, and a
family of children to take with them, yet they would not move till they had
worshipped God together. Prayer and provender do not hinder a journey. When men
are in such haste to set out upon journeys, or to engage in business, that they
have not time to worship God, they are likely to proceed without his presence and
blessing. Hannah, though she felt a warm regard for the courts of God's house,
begged to stay at home. God will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Those who are
detained from public ordinances, by the nursing and tending of little children,
may take comfort from this instance, and believe, that if they do that duty in
a right spirit, God will graciously accept them therein. Hannah presented her
child to the Lord with a grateful acknowledgment of his goodness in answer to
prayer. Whatever we give to God, it is what we have first asked and received
from him. All our gifts to him were first his gifts to us. The child Samuel
early showed true piety. Little children should be taught to worship God when
very young. Their parents should teach them in it, bring them to it, and put
them on doing it as well as they can; God will graciously accept them, and will
teach them to do better.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 1 Samuel》
1 Samuel 1
Verse 1
[1] Now
there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was
Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of
Zuph, an Ephrathite:
Ramathaim-zophim —
Called Ramah, verse 19.
Eparathite —
That is, one of Bethlehem-judah, by his birth and habitation, though by his
original a Levite.
Verse 2
[2] And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the
other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
Two wives — As
many had in those ages, tho' it was a transgression of the original institution
of marriage. And it is probable that he took his second wife, namely, Peninnah,
because Hannah was barren.
Verse 3
[3] And
this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the
LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the
priests of the LORD, were there.
Yearly — At
the three solemn feasts, when he, together with all other males were obliged to
go to worship God in the place appointed; and at other times, when he as a
Levite, was to go thither in his course.
To sacrifice —
Not in his own person, which the Levites could not do, but by the priests.
Were there —
Or, were the priests of the Lord there, under their father Eli, who is
generally conceived to have been the high-priest, but being very old and
infirm, his sons ministered in his stead. This is the first time in scripture,
that God is called the Lord of hosts or Armies. Probably Samuel was the first
who used this title of God, for the comfort of Israel, at the time when their
armies were few and feeble, and those of their enemies many and mighty.
Verse 4
[4] And
when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to
all her sons and her daughters, portions:
Portions —
Out of the sacrifice of his peace-offerings, the greatest part whereof fell to
the offerer, and was eaten by him, and his friends or guests, before the Lord.
And out of this he gave them all portions, as the master of the feast used to
do to the guests.
Verse 5
[5] But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the
LORD had shut up her womb.
Shut up her womb —
Yet Elkanah did not withdraw his love from her. To abate out just love to any
relation, for the sake of any infirmity which they cannot help, is to add
affliction to the afflicted.
Verse 6
[6] And
her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD
had shut up her womb.
Her adversary —
Peninnah: so her envy or jealousy made her though so nearly related.
Verse 7
[7] And
as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, so she
provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.
When she went-This circumstance is noted as
the occasion of the contention, because at such times they were forced to more
society with one another, by the way, and in their lodgings; whereas at home
they had distinct apartments, where they might be asunder; and then her
husband's extraordinary love and kindness was shewed to Hannah, whereby
Peninnah was the more exasperated; then also Hannah prayed earnestly for a
child, which hitherto she had done in vain; and this possibly she reproached
her with.
Did not eat —
Being overwhelmed with grief, and therefore unfit to eat of the sacred food.
Which they were not to eat in their mourning.
Verse 8
[8] Then
said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou
not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?
Ten sons —
Oughtest thou not to value my hearty love to thee, more than the having of as
many sons as Penninah hath? She would willingly change conditions with thee.
Verse 9
[9] So
Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now
Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.
A seat —
Or, throne; for it is manifest it was raised higher than ordinary, chap. 4:18. Here he might sit, either as the judge; or
rather as high-priest, to hear and answer such as came to him for advice, and
to inspect and direct the worship of God.
Temple —
That is, of the tabernacle, which is frequently so called.
Verse 10
[10] And
she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.
Bitterness — That
is, oppressed with grief.
Prayed unto the Lord — They had newly offered their peace-offerings, to obtain the favour of
God, and in token of their communion with him, they had feasted upon the
sacrifice: and now it was proper to put up her prayer, in virtue of the
sacrifice. For the peace-offerings typified Christ's mediation, as well as the
sin-offerings: since by this not only atonement is made for sin, but an answer
to our prayers obtained.
Verse 11
[11] And
she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the
affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid,
but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the
LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
Give him —
That is, consecrate him to God's service in his temple.
No razor —
That is, he shall be a perpetual Nazarite.
Verse 12
[12] And
it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her
mouth.
Continued —
Heb. multiplied to pray. By which it appears that she said much more than is
here expressed. And the like you are to judge of the prayers and sermons of
other holy persons recorded in scripture, which gives us only the sum and
substance of them. This consideration may help us much to understand some
passages of the bible.
Verse 13
[13] Now
Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not
heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
Drunken —
Because of the multitude of her words, and those motions of her face and body,
which the vehemency of her passion, and the fervency in prayer occasioned.
Verse 16
[16]
Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of
my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.
Count not, … —
Thus when we are unjustly censured, we should endeavour not only to clear
ourselves, but to satisfy our brethren, by giving them a just and true account
of that which they misapprehended.
Verse 18
[18] And
she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her
way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
Find grace —
That favourable opinion and gracious prayer which thou hast expressed on my
behalf, be pleased to continue towards me.
Sad —
Her heart being cheared by the priest's comfortable words, and especially by
God's spirit setting them home upon her, and assuring her that both his and her
prayers should be heard, it quickly appeared in her countenance.
Verse 19
[19] And
they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and
returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife;
and the LORD remembered her.
Remembered —
Manifested his remembrance of her by the effect.
Verse 20
[20]
Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had
conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I
have asked him of the LORD.
Samuel —
That is, Asked of God.
Verse 21
[21] And
the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the LORD the yearly
sacrifice, and his vow.
His house —
Hannah only and her child excepted.
His vow — By
which it appears, though it was not expressed before, that he heard and
consented to her vow, and that he added a vow of his own, if God answered his
prayers.
Verse 22
[22] But
Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the
child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD,
and there abide for ever.
Weaned —
Not only from the breast, but also from the mother's knee and care, and from
childish food; 'till the child be something grown up, and fit to do some
service in the tabernacle: for it seems that as soon as he was brought up he
worshipped God, verse 28, and presently after ministered to Eli, chap.
2:11.
Verse 23
[23] And
Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou
have weaned him; only the LORD establish his word. So the woman abode, and gave
her son suck until she weaned him.
His word —
His matter or thing; the business concerning the child, what thou hast vowed
concerning him, that be may grow up, and be accepted and employed by God in his
Service.
Verse 24
[24] And
when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one
ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the
LORD in Shiloh: and the child was young.
Three bullocks —
One for a burnt-offering, the second for a sin-offering, and the third for a
peace offering; all these sorts being expedient for this work and time.
Flour —
For the meal-offerings belonging to the principal sacrifices, which to each
bullock were three tenth-deals, or three tenth parts of an ephah, and so nine
parts of the ephah were spent, and the tenth part was given to the priest.
Wine —
For drink-offerings.
Verse 25
[25] And
they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli.
A bullock —
The three bullocks mentioned verse 24, the singular number being put for the
plural, which is frequent.
Verse 26
[26] And
she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by
thee here, praying unto the LORD.
Soul liveth — As
surely as thou livest. Which asseveration seems necessary, because this was
some years after it.
Verse 28
[28]
Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be
lent to the LORD. And he worshipped the LORD there.
Lent him —
But not with a purpose to require him again. Whatever we give to God, may upon
this account be said to be lent to him, that tho' we may not recall it, yet he
will certainly repay it, to our unspeakable advantage.
He worshipped —
Not Eli, but young Samuel, who is spoken of in this and the foregoing verse,
and who was capable of worshipping God in some sort, at least with external
adoration.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 1 Samuel》
01 Chapter 1
Verses 1-18
And he had two wives.
The folly of polygamy
Abraham’s domestic peace was embittered, so that he was at length
compelled to dismiss Hagar; and Jacob saw much strife arise amongst his
household whose interest polygamy had divided. It is probable that the same
feeling which operated with Abraham for taking Hagar influenced Elkanah in
taking Peninneh, for Hannah seems to have been the first wife. There was
doubtless an impatient desire of children; but in this case, as in those
already alluded to, Elkanah’s deviation from the original law of marriage,
though in a manner then tolerated, conduced not at all to his domestic peace
and comfort. (T. E. Redwar, M. A.)
Polygamy not primeval
There can have been no polygamy when as yet there was only a
single pair, or when there were several single pairs widely separated from each
other. The presumption, if not the certainty, therefore, is that primeval man
must have been monogamous. It is a presumption supported by the general
equality of the sexes in respect to the numbers born, with only just such an
excess of the male sex as tends to maintain that equality against the greater
risks to life arising out of manly pursuits and duties. Thus the facts of
Nature point to polygamy as in all probability a departure from the habits of
primeval times. (Argyll, Unity of Nature.)
The name of the one was Hannah.
Hannah the matron
Outraged and disgraced by the crimes of its ministers, religion sank
into public contempt, and, almost mortally “wounded in the house of its
friends,” seemed ready to expire. At first indignant, and in the end
demoralised, the people deserted the house of God and abandoned the profession
of a religion which the crimes of its priests had made to stink in their
nostrils. “Wherefore,” alluding to Hophni and Phinehas, it is said, “Wherefore
the sin of the young men was great before the Lord, for men abhorred the
offering of the Lord.” But even in those days God did not leave himself without
a witness. There were some who felt that His, like other good causes, has never
more need of support than when it is betrayed by its supporters. Such an act
closed the life of Colonel Gardener, the grand old Christian soldier, who,
deserted by his own regiment on the fatal field of Prestonpans, and seeing a
handful of men without an officer bravely maintaining the fight, spurred his
horse through a shower of bullets to place himself at their head, and fall a
sacrifice to truth and loyalty. Such an act also was the women’s who openly
followed our Lord with tears when no disciple had the courage to show his face
in the streets. We cannot perhaps apply to the father of Samuel and husband of
Hannah the saying, “Faithful among the faithless only he”; yet to Elkanah
certainly belongs the honour of resisting the current of popular opinion, and,
in an age of all but universal defection, clinging to the cause and the house
of God. When its ministers had brought dishonour on the service of God, and their
crimes had made the people abhor it, he felt that there was the more need for
him to stand by it. He was not the man to desert the ship. To divine grace, his
steadfastness to duly against the popular influence and amid almost universal
defection was mainly due. Yet I cannot doubt, that in the bold and faithful
part he acted, Elkanah owed much to Hannah. When adherence to principle
involved painful sacrifices, men have found such support in gentle women as I
have seen the green and pliant ivy lend the wall it clothed and clung to, when
that, undermined or shaken, was ready to fall. Such was the spirit of Hannah.
I. Her patience--“There is a
skeleton in every house!” The grim monitor that stands in every house to teach
us that unmingled pleasures are to be sought in heaven, Hannah found in here.
Happier than some that have been unequally yoked with unbelievers, she had a
pious husband. Never was wife more prized and more loved than she. In what
esteem Elkanah held her, how fondly he cherished her, and how kind he was to
her, appears in the very strong and tender terms with which he essays to soothe
her grief, saying, “Why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy
heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons?” As is indicated by that
question, her great trial was to be childless. But her trial, like a wound into
which cruel hands rub salt, or some other smarting thing, turning ordinary pain
into intolerable torture, wan greatly aggravated by the happier fortune and
insolent reproaches of a rival. Elkanah was a polygamist. To his own
misfortune, not less than to Hannah’s, he had another wife besides her. In some
kind and gentle women Hannah’s misfortune would have excited feelings of
sympathy. But the other wife, who had children--a rude, coarse, proud, and
vulgar woman--turned it into an occasion for triumphing over her, and
embittering all the springs of her life. In these circumstances--circumstances
to which the adage, so generally true, applies with peculiar force, “Speech is
silvern, but silence is golden”--Hannah teaches us how to bear our trials,
whatever their nature be; and how to seek, and where to find relief.
II. Her meekness--A singular
phenomenon has sometimes been noticed at sea. In a gale, when the storm,
increasing in violence, has at length risen into a hurricane, the force of the
wind has been observed to actually beat down the waves, producing a temporary
and comparative calm; and similar is the effect occasionally produced by
overwhelming trials--these, by their very power and pressure on the heart,
abating both the violence and the expression of its feelings. But what is
equally remarkable and still more observable in trials is, that we can more
easily bear a heavy blow from God’s hand than a light one from man’s. Smarting
under the cruel reproaches of her rival, to use the very words of Scripture,
“in bitterness of soul,” she lingers in the temple behind the rest, and there
alone, as she supposed, pours out her tears and prayers before the Lord. His
eyes dim as well as his head grey with years--Eli--too much accustomed in these
evil times to see abandoned women--thought she was drunk; and more ready, like
other indulgent fathers, to reprove sin in others than in his own sons, he
addresses her sharply, saying, “How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy
wine from thee:” A very offensive accusation! Under such a charge, and in the
rapid alternation with which the mind passes from one passion to another, who
would have been astonished had her grief suddenly changed to anger? The
meekness of Moses has become a proverb; and justly so. But did he, did any man
or woman, ever show a milder, gentler, lovelier spirit, a more magnanimous
example of how to suffer wrong, than Hannah? No wonder that Eli, perceiving the
wrong he had done, should have turned his reproaches on himself; and touched
with Hannah’s grief, answered and said, “Go in peace: and the God of Israel
grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.”
III. Her faith--I know an
island that stands crowned by its ancient fortalice in the middle of a lake,
some good bow shots from the shore With the walls of the old ruin mantled in
ivy, and its tower rising grim and grey above the foliage of hoary elms, it
serves no purpose now but to recall old times and ornament a lovely landscape.
But once that island and its stronghold were the refuge and life of those whose
ordinary residence was the castle that, with gates, and bulwarks, and many a
tower, and floating banner rose in baronial pride on the shore. When in the
troublous times of old that wait beleaguered, and its defenders could hold out
no longer against the force and fury of the siege, they sought their boats,
and, escaping by the postern gate over waters too deep to wade and too broad to
swim, threw themselves on the island--within the walls of the stout old keep to
enjoy peace in the midst of war, and safe beyond the shot of cross bow, to
laugh their enemies to scorn. In their hardest plight, and against the greatest
numbers, this refuge never failed them. Such a refuge and relief his people
find in God. Hence the confidence and bold language of the Psalmist, “Truly my
soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my
salvation; He is my salvation: I shall not be greatly moved.” Hence, also, in allusion
to the security such strongholds offered in the East, as well as here, in olden
times, the Bible says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, into which the
righteous runneth, and is safe.” And thus, as prayer is our way of access to
God, and the means by which we place ourselves under His protection, it is a
resource that never fails. There is no burden too heavy for the back of prayer
to carry, nor wound too deep for its balm to heal. Hannah sought her comfort in
prayer. Let her case teach us that the way to get anything is first to get
faith--“all things are possible to him that believeth.” There are people, who
claim to be philosophers, that laugh such hopes to scorn. According to them God
leaves all events to the operation of what they call “the ordinary laws of
nature,” without guiding, controlling, or interfering with them in any way
whateverse No wonder that with such views the Divine Being is to them neither
an object of reverential worship nor of filial affection. How should they fear,
or love God? Their God is a Sovereign, who, parting with his sceptre though he
retains his crown, is denuded of all authority--a Father who, careless of their
fate, casts his children out on the world, like the poor babe a guilty mother
exposes, which, though it may perchance be pitied and protected by others, is
cruelly forsaken by the author of its being. How dark and dreary such a
philosophy! All nature, and every religion, Pagan as well as Christian, revolts
against it. Someone has said of prayer, It moves the hand that moves the world.
A grand truth! to a poor conscience-stricken sinner, to an alarmed soul, to an
anxious, weary, trembling spirit, a truth more precious than all science and
philosophy. Hannah behaved it. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
But Hannah had no children.
Anomalies of Providence
Inside Elkanah’s house we see two strange arrangements of
Providence, of a kind that often moves our astonishment elsewhere. First, we
see a woman eminently fitted to bring up children, but having none to bring up.
On the other hand, we see another woman, whose temper and ways are fitted to
ruin children, entrusted with the rearing of a family. In the one case a
God-fearing woman does not receive the gifts of Providence; in the other case a
woman of a selfish and cruel nature seems loaded with His benefits. In looking
round us, we often see a similar arrangement of other gifts; we see riches, for
example, in the very worst of hands; while those who from their principles and
character are fitted to make the best use of them have often difficulty in
securing the bare necessaries of life. How it this? Does God really govern, or
do time and chance regulate all? If it were God’s purpose to distribute His
gifts exactly as men are able to estimate and use them aright, we should doubtless
see a very different distribution; but God’s aim in this world is much more to
try and to train than to reward and fulfil. All these anomalies of Providence
point to a future state. What God does we know not now, but we shall know
hereafter. In many cases home affords a refuge from our trials, but in this
case home was the very scene of the trial. There is another refuge from trial,
which is very grateful to devout hearts--the house of God and the exercises of
public worship. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Childless parents
Abraham and Sarah had no children. Isaac and Rebekah had no
children. Jacob and Rachel had no children. Manoah had no children. Hannah had
no children. The Shunamite had no children. Zacharias and Elizabeth had no
children. Till it came to be nothing short of a mark of a special election, and
a high calling, and a great coming service of God in Israel to have no
children. Time after time, till it became nothing short of a special
Providence, those husbands and wives whose future children were predestinated
to be patriarchs, and prophets, and judges, and forerunners of Jesus Christ in
the house of Israel, began their married life having no children. Now, why was
that? Well, we may make guesses, and we may propose reasons for that perplexing
dispensation, but they are only guesses and proposed reasons. All the more--Why
is it? Is it to spare and shield them from the preoccupation and the dispersion
of affection, and from the coldness and the rudeness and the neglect of one
another that so many of their neighbours suffer from? And is it to teach them a
far finer tenderness, and a far rarer honour, and a far sweeter solicitude for
one another? Or, on the other hand, is it out of pure jealousy on God’s part?
Is it that He may be able to say to them, Am I not better to thee than ten
sons? Or again, is it in order to make them meet, long before His other sons
and daughters around them are made meet, for that life in which they shall
neither marry nor be given in marriage? Which of all these reasons, or what
other reason, has their God for what He does with so many of His best saints?
But all this time we have been intruding into those things of which He says to
us--What is that to thee? And, then, those whose concern this is, and those who
are deepest down in God’s counsels, they are just the men and the women, they
are just the husbands and the wives, who will not once open their mouths to
publish abroad to a world that fears not God what all this time God is doing
for their souls. (A. Whyte, D. D.)
Verse 3
And this man went up out
of his city yearly to worship.
--
The pilgrimage to Shiloh
Great personages are
prepared for before they arrive. Our blessed Lord, the greatest of all
personages who seer appeared on earth, was prepared for long before He came. In
the first nineteen verses of this chapter we are told of the circumstances
which prepared the way for Samuel, which led up to his birth. These
preparations were made at a holy season, and in a holy place, These pilgrimages
the men and boys among the Israelites were bidden in the law to make three
times a year, at the great festivals. (Deuteronomy 16:16.) But the time of the Judges was a lawless and irregular time,
and probably the custom then crept in of going up only once a year to worship
at the tabernacle. These yearly journeys to the place of public worship were
not without difficulties and dangers. The country had no regular roads through
it, or, at all events, no roads like ours--nothing but tracks of caravans, or
companies of travellers who bad gone that way before. It was not rid of wild
beasts. Wolves and hymens prowled about at night, and lions had their lair in
the jungle which lined part of the course of the, Jordan. Then there were
robbers in the hill fastnesses, ever ready to pounce upon undefended
travellers, and strip them of all they possessed, even to their clothes--a
calamity which happened to the poor man in our Lord’s parable, who was
afterwards relieved by the good Samaritan. These pilgrimages of the Israelites
to the place of God’s worship ought to remind us of the pilgrimage on which we
ourselves are, or ought to be, bound, and in which every day of our lives we
ought to make some progress. We, too, are “going up” to God’s heavenly temple.
We are going up thither through the wilderness of this world. There are great
dangers and difficulties to be encountered on the road. We have two great helps
and comforts on our way. One is the society of people who are going the same
road, who have the same hope before them of reaching the heavenly temple. The
other help is the public worship of God upon earth, which is intended to keep ever
fresh and alive in us the thought and desire of His heavenly worship. Ask
yourself continually, and force your conscience to answer the questions, “Am I
indeed going up to God’s heavenly temple? Have I reason to think year by year
that I am getting any nearer to it?” He who finds that he is not going up may
assure himself that he is going down. (Dean Goulburn.)
Verse 7
And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the House of
the Lord, so she provoked her.
The House of God
You must remember, that at the time when Elkanah was living, there
was but one temple or church for all the worshippers of the true God; and those
who lived at a great distance from this temple could not have the privilege of
worshipping there, at most, above three times a year. Have you ever considered
the mercy of being born in a country where there are so many places of public
worship? places which have that honourable and blessed name of “the house of
God”? When you draw near to a town, you see several of these precious
buildings, higher than all the houses prepared for man to live in, beside many
other smaller places of public worship: and you can scarcely find a village
without some building in it where the people of God may assemble together. Now,
you observe, that pious Elkanah and his family have to take a long journey once
a year for the privilege of the public worship of God. What does all this say
to you who have God’s house standing open for you within a very, very little
distance, perhaps within a few steps, and yet you think it too much trouble to
get there! You would not treat a nobleman so, if he invited you to his house;
particularly, if you were very dependent upon him; and if you saw him standing
at the door of his house, watching to see who accepted his invitation, and who
slighted it. I have heard many people say, “I can read my book at home, and I
don’t know but I get as much good as by going to church or meeting.” But let me
tell you, I do know that you cannot. If, indeed, you are confined at home by
sickness, and your heart is right with God, He can and will be a little
sanctuary to you, and will enable you to say, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall
not want”: but when you idly stay at home, from the idea that you can get as
much good there so in a place of public worship, you trample upon God’s express
command, and expect that which He has not promised. (Helen Plumptre.)
Hannah
To know persons completely, it is necessary to view them in
various situations and conditions. Character is not only displayed by trials,
but it very much results from them. Both prosperity and adversity are states of
acknowledged temptation; and few can equally encounter such opposite dangers.
Hannah first comes before us in circumstances of disappointment and
mortification. Her affliction was aggravated by reproach, for “her adversary
provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb”
But who was this adversary? She was one of her own household, for Elkanah, her
husband, had two wives. And in the case before us was the conduct of Elkanah
justified by the result? Let us read and see. In the days of Malachi this evil
practice abounded; and observe how the prophet speaks of it. “The Lord hath
been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast
dealt treacherously: yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
And did not he make one? Yet, had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore
one? That he might seek a godly seed.” Here we find that marriage was
originally confined to a single pair: end we see the reason. It was not from
want of power or kindness in God. He could have made more than one Eve for
Adam, and would have done it had his welfare required it. But it was because of
the advantage derivable from individual union, especially with regard to the
children who should arise from it, and be trained up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. Hannah’s adversary seems peculiarly unprincipled and
ill-disposed. A noble mind is always generous and sympathising if it possesses
any exclusive advantages, it will not be forward to display and boast of them;
and if it sees a fellow creature in a humbler situation, it will not labour to
increase his sense of deficiencies, but rather to diminish and soften it. “The
spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy.” But we may observe, that though
envy loves to expose the defects of another, it springs from his excellencies
or advantages, end feeds upon some real or imaginary privilege. Accordingly, we
are born informed of the occasion of this woman’s present malevolence. At this
season Elkanah treated Hannah with peculiar attention and distinction. “And
when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to
all her sons and her daughters, portions; but unto Hannah he gave a worthy
portion.” There is a considerable difference between the feeling and the
expression of partiality; the one is much more in our power than the other. The
display of it is commonly prejudicial to the object. Who does not remember the
“coat of many colours”? The blame we attach to a man is not always so much for
acting wrong, as for bringing himself into circumstances and conditions which
will hardly allow of his acting right. Piety says, “In all thy ways acknowledge
Him and He shall direct thy paths”; and Prudence says, “Ponder the path of thy
feet, and let all thy ways be established.” Elkanah forgets this, and his folly
fixes him in a state that leaves him not the possibility of escaping evil and
reproach. What could Peninnah think of approaching the altar of the God of
peace and love with a temper full of envy and malice, and a tongue “set on fire
of hell”? How much better is omission than perversion, and neglect than
inconsistency? Shall blessing and cursing proceed out of the same mouth? “Keep
thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to
give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil”
“Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy
brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go
thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”
Year after year Hannah had been accustomed to bear ell this provocation, and
till now she seems to have endured it patiently But where is the mind that
always continues in one frame? (W. Jay.)
Womanly endurance
Patience is of two kinds. There is an active, and there is a
passive endurance. The former is a masculine, the latter, for the most part, a
feminine virtue. Female patience is exhibited chiefly in fortitude; in bearing
pain and sorrow meekly without complaining. In the old Hebrew life female
endurance shines almost as brightly as in any life which Christianity itself
can mould. Hannah under the provocations and taunts of her rival, answering not
again her husband’s rebuke, humbly replying to Eli’s unjust blame, is true to
the type of womanly endurance. For the type of man’s endurance you may look to
the patience of the early Christians under persecution. They came away from the
Sanhedrim to endure and bear; but it was to bear as conquerors rushing on to
victory, preaching the truth with all boldness, and defying the power of the
united world to silence them. These two divers qualities are joined in One, and
only One of woman born, in perfection. One there was in whom human nature was
exhibited in all its elements symmetrically complete. (F. W. Robertson.)
Provocations in domestic life
A garden has a great many flowers in it. Some of them are weeds,
some of them are purslane, and some of them are nettles, which are not very
desirable for bouquets. In the garden, however, we can take our choice; but in
the family we cannot. There we have to take all. If there is a complaining one,
we have to take that one; if there is a weak and dull-eyed one, we have to take
that one; if there is a moody and morose one, we have to take that one; and it
takes but one bitter lemon to spoil the whole of your lemonade. If of
half-a-dozen lemons five are perfectly good, and the other is bad, the whole
mixture is bad; for the nature of this one bad lemon enters into it. So one
person may spoil the pleasure of twenty. A mother may keep a cloud resting on
the whole household from morning till night; thank God she sleeps at nights. A
father may fret and worry the whole household; and therefore Paul says,
“Fathers, provoke not your children.” They are apt to make the children cross,
or to create in them an unrestful, unquiet disposition. It does not take more
than one smoky chimney in a room to make it intolerable. (H. W. Beecher.)
A religious use of annoyance
The remarkable thing is: A religious use of a daily provocation.
Peninnah persecuted Hannah daily; laughed at her, mocked her. It was a
religious use. She prayed unto the Lord; she rose up and went forward that she
might pray mightily before God; she spake in her heart and she poured out her
soul before God. That was conquest,--that was victory! There is a possibility of
having a daily annoyance, and yet turning that daily annoyance into an occasion
of nearer and nearer approach to God. Let us then endeavour to turn all our
household griefs, family torments into occasions of profound worship and loving
homage to God. It was in human nature to avenge the insult; to cry out angrily
against the woman who delighted in sneering and in provoking. But there is
something higher than human nature, something better. (J. Parker, D. D.)
And she was in bitterness
of soul and prayed unto the Lord.
The success of Hannah’s
prayer, and the reasons for it
1.Both Jacob’s prayer and Hannah’s prayer are very short. Hannah’s
consists of a single verse. It is quite clear that the much speaking has
nothing to do with being heard.
2. Both Hannah’s prayer and Jacob’s were offered when the offerer was
in trouble. Jacob was flying from the face of Esau. Now observe the wonderful
graciousness and tenderness of God, that He makes a special promise to prayer
offered up in distress, whether of mind, body, or estate. “Call upon me,” says
He, “in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.”
Hannah mixed tears with her prayers, for she “prayed unto the Lord, and wept
sore.” Christ mixed tears with His prayers in the garden, “Who in the days of
His flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears,
unto Him that was able to save Him from death.”
3. Again, Hannah’s prayer was secret. It was not spoken in articulate
language. “Now, Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her
voice was not heard.”
4. Hannah fully looked for and expected a result from her prayer. I
gather this from the fact of her making a vow. When you are vexed, anxious,
thwarted, troubled about anything, try to tell the story in the simplest words
to God, asking deliverance from the trouble, if it be His good pleasure to
grant it; if not, asking patience under it, and to be kept from going wrong,
and acting in any way contrary to His will. Seek to be perfectly open, and to
tell everything that is upon your mind,--your temptations, the difficulties you
find in keeping your temper and conduct right, and what your special wishes are
under the circumstances. Our Heavenly Father, our Divine Friend, is pleased and
honoured by the confidence we repose in Him. He would have our prayer to be not
only an act of homage, but an act of confidence; not only an abasemeant of the
heart before His majesty, but a pouring forth of the heart before His fatherly
goodness. (Dean Goulburn.)
Prayer at the point of
agony
Understand what prayer is;
prayer is the utterance of agony. There is a flippant way of praying, which
means nothing, which God never hears. We cannot always pray at the point of
agony. There are indeed some whole days upon which I cannot pray at all. I can
say my prayers, I can put myself into a certain reverent attitude; but all
power of prayer has gone away from me; and then upon other days I could pray
from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and have conscious
influence with God. Hast thou ever an hour in thy poor, blank, barren life,
when thou seemest to have influence in heaven? Employ every golden moment of
that hour, and in the strength of God’s answer thou shalt go many days. (Joseph
Parker, D. D.)
God sought in trouble
You know, when you have
been walking out with your father or mother, if you come to a pretty meadow,
you can leave their side, run about, pick flowers, and hardly care whether your
father and mother are near you or not. But if you should run a thorn into your
finger, or hurt yourself in any way, how eagerly would you run to tell them all
your trouble, and to seek their help! Now God has just such children: when all
is smooth and easy around them, they care not much for their Father’s company;
but let pain or trouble come, they are glad to run to him, and to pour out
their hearts before him. If it had not been for Hannah’s trouble, Hannah would
never have known so much of prayer and praise. (Helen Plumptre.)
Verse 11
And she vowed a vow.
About setting our hearts upon things
And Hannah,--what shall we say of her passionate longing and
prayer for a child? Was this sinful, like the longing of the Israelites for
gross and stimulating food? or was it foolish, and wanting in judgment, like
good King Hezekiah’s prayer for a longer life? There are traces in the story of
its having been neither the one nor the other. In the first place, the granting
of her request turned out thoroughly well; it turned out not only for her own
happiness and honour, but for the good of the Church and people of God, which
does not look as if God was displeased with it. Then look at the mind of the
woman herself--what a holy and good woman she seems to have been. Then observe,
too, how little of herself there is in her petition, as it is expressed in her
vow. She vows that she will give the child Unto the Lord “all the days of his
life.” Her child, as being a Levite, would, in the ordinary course of things,
be bound to the service of the tabernacle from the age of twenty to the age of
fifty; but Hannah vows that she will give him up to the service of the Lord
from his earliest childhood. And so she did. It was clear that she had great,
disinterested, patriotic views for the child, altogether distinct from any
consideration of her own comfort in him; and probably in making her vow she
must have been guided by some intimation from the Holy Spirit that a great
honour was in store for her, but that she must seek it in the appointed way in
which all blessings are to be had--in prayer and sacrifice of the mere natural
inclinations. (Dean Goulburn.)
Now Hannah, she spake in
her heart.
Hannah as a worshipper
The strength of Hannah’s
moral character is manifested in her temple service. She possessed a force of
soul which lifted her above trouble. Many in her circumstances would have hid
the tears of their graceful nature in attic solitude; but Hannah goes to the
temple to supplicate the aid of Heaven, and where so likely to be obtained as
at its Shiloh Porch?
1. Hannah was a tearful worshipper. “Wept sore” (1 Samuel 1:10). The worshippers of modern days scorn the idea of weeping in the
sanctuary; they call it “sentimentalism,” an “immoderate display of feeling,”
which should be concealed from public gaze.
2. Hannah was a soulful worshipper (1 Samuel 1:11). Trouble had intensified her feelings, and rendered her capable
of more fervent volition. Her prayer was a vow which bound to duty and to God.
Her soul was in its deepest action, stretching out its hand for blessing
3. Hannah was a silent worshipper. “Spake in her heart” (1 Samuel 1:13). Her prayer was so pungent that it savoured more of emotion than
voice. Yes! inside the temple at Shiloh there was a smaller sanctuary, whose
floor echoed not to the unhallowed footsteps of Eli’s wicked sons--that temple
was Hannah’s heart; Christ was its Ruler Priest.
4. Hannah was a constant, an observed, and a slandered worshipper
(verse 12-14). We should be careful in censuring the devotions of others.
People are too ready with “enthusiast,” or “zealot.”
5. Hannah was a successful worshipper (verse 17-18). Upon the next
festival Hannah remained from the temple on account of domestic duties (1 Samuel 1:22). Women were not obligated to attend any of these feasts, and
that Hannah went with her husband before shows their earnest piety. Never
remain from the temple unless, like this good mother, duty demands you to. In
this chapter we find home life and temple worship in very intimate association.
The one greatly influences the other. When the homes of the world are one with
the temple in the nature of its sacrifices, and the purity of its life, the
great object of redemption will have been accomplished. At length Samuel is
born, and Hannah performs her vow (1 Samuel 1:24) And all who come to the Christian temple must come through
sacrifice, through the death of Christ. The mother felt that her all was due to
God for the child. Wows made in sorrow must not be forgotten in song. What a
motto for mothers, “I have lent him to the Lord.” God pays good interest for
the loan of young children. Hannah made a good investment both for herself and
her son--today she is known not as the wife of Elkanah but as the mother of
Samuel. Why? Because she lent him to the Lord
Lessons:
1. Never deride personal affliction. It is from the Lord. (ver 5)
2. Families living at Rama should remember the temple at Shiloh.
3. Children taken to the temple in youth are likely to turn out
prophets, as Samuel did.
4. The discord of home may be hushed by a visit to the temple. (J.
S. Exell, M. A.)
Prayer in the heart
The sufferings of
Elizabeth Fry as she drew near her end were sometimes very great, and once she
said that if it was to last no one could wish for her life. In her worse pain,
however, her faith and hope burned clearly. “Prayer is always in my heart, if I
may say so, it is my life,” was among her sayings. (The Quiver.)
Therefore Eli thought she
was drunken.
Of the sinfulness of rash
judgments
This was not the first
time, nor will it be the last that God’s true servants have been mocked and
falsely accused for actions which have been really pious and devout. They are
“a peculiar people”--peculiar, that is, to the world, who cannot understand
their ways If you resolve to be a Christian, indeed, you must be prepared to be
misunderstood, and to have things said about you which are not true. Eli’s
judgment of Hannah was a rash one. He should not have censured her for
intemperance, without much better grounds to go upon. And the fault was all the
worse in him, because he was high priest; and, as God’s minister, he ought,
even supposing her to have gone astray to have shown some pity and gentleness
in reproving her. If Eli had judged himself and his own house, seriously taking
himself to task for his weak partiality to his sons, and giving them such a
rebuff for their vileness as should have restrained them, he would not have
been judged by God. The sin of rash judgment and censoriousness is a very
serious one, however lightly we may be disposed to think of it. This is evident
both from reason and from the Bible. As we have plenty of faults to find at
home, it must be the height of presumption to go out of ourselves, and to pass
judgment upon our neighbour.
Then, again, we have not
the material for judging our neighbour fairly, His conduct, indeed, is under
our eyes; but how can we know what have been his motives and intentions?
Lastly, judgment, like vengeance, belongs to God, and to God only. Having
committed himself to a false accusation, Eli did the best thing he could to
repair it. (Dean Goulburn.)
On judging others
The ordinary cannot judge
the extraordinary. A man when he has all his senses about him, and would
therefore feel himself in his most judicious mood, cannot reach certain
cases--they lie mile on mile beyond him. Only grief can understand grief; only
poetry can understand poetry; only love can interpret love; and only a woman in
Hannah’s mood can understand the trembling of Hannah’s lips. We should be
careful how we judge one another. Priests do not always understand people.
Official persons seldom do understand extra officials. Eli had been accustomed
to look upon persons, and to see them behave themselves under certain limits;
he had observed them displaying certain decorums when they came into the
neighbourhood of the holy place. But here is something he never saw before; and
the priest of the living God, ordained and consecrated--who ought to have had a
word of charity for the lowliest creature beneath his feet--instantly, with
that little remnant of devil that is in the best men, says, “Thou art drunken!”
Oh, when will priests be charitable! When shall we put the better and not the
worse construction on extraordinary signs and tokens! When shall we speak
hopefully! “Men would be better if we better deemed them.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
Hannah
The following circumstances
attending this prayer are recorded, and worthy of attention:--
1. It
was accompanied with a vow, expressed in language the most suitable and pious,
Are we desiring anything of God? We ought to think of Him, as well as of
ourselves. It is thus we pray according to His will, and then we may know that
He heareth us.
2. Observe
the manner of her devotion. “Now Hannah, she spake in her heart,” etc. There
are things which we may not be at liberty to communicate to the nearest
relation, or to the dearest friend; but to God only. Hereby she testified her
belief that God was omniscient. She knew that words were not necessary to
inform a Being to whom all hearts are open It is better to want language than
disposition when we address Him, Who “seeketh such to worship Him as worship in
spirit and in truth.” It showed also that in dealing with God, she desired the
notice of none besides Him. Jehu said, “Come see my zeal for the Lord of
hosts.” The Pharisees prayed in the corners of the streets, and to be seen of
men. “But,” says the Saviour, “thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,”
etc.
3. Observe
the misconception and censure to which it gave rise. This was the very reproach
which Peter and his fellows met with on the day of Pentecost. The multitude “mocking,
said, These men are full of new wine.” But this reproach came from enemies But
here we find a good man, even the priest of the Most High God, issuing an
equally rash censure Some err in judging by the effects of constitutional
temperament They find a man of great vivacity, and loquaciousness, and ready to
speak on all occasions, and to every one he meets, concerning his own
experience and the things of God; and they set him down as a very lively
Christian, and of great spirituality They see another shrinking from
observation, and seemingly afraid to open his lips, lest he should utter more
than he feels; and they consider him as a lifeless soul, and under the fear of
man. But if they duly reflected, and judged properly, they would ascribe much
to the mercury of the one and the phlegm of the other, which affect them in all
other things as well as in religion. Many are too much biased in their judgment
by real faults and failings. These need not be pleaded for; but through natural
infirmity there may be much irregularity, where there is also not a little
share of sincerity. Especially let us guard against vilifying or censuring the
devotion of others, or the mode of their worship; lest we deem as hypocrisy, or
fanaticism, or superstition, what is truly conscientious and accepted of God.
It is probable that Eli had seen many abuses of this kind, some even in his own
family, and he may have stationed himself by a part of the temple to observe,
and endeavour to repress such scandals. The guilty often occasion suspicions
and reproaches with regard to the innocent. When a disease is epidemical, many
are feared who are not infected.
4. Observe
the manner in which Hannah received the sad and insulting rebuke. She makes no
rash appeal to Heaven, such as is often the effect and proof of hardened guilt.
She utters no bitter complaint against her accuser. She does not bid him to
look at home, and upbraid him with the conduct of his own sons. She does not
tell him how ill and unbecoming it was for one, in his place and office, to
abuse a poor disconsolate woman at the footstool of divine mercy. She knew that
a proper representation of her condition and conduct in respectful language
would be the best argument in her favour. Eli was an imperfect character, yet
there were in him traces of real excellencies, and his ingenuousness is one of
them. He is open to conviction, and willing to acknowledge himself mistaken,
and ready to make amends for the injury he had done her, by his blessing and
his prayers. A lively writer has said, “I was mistaken” are the three hardest
words to pronounce in the English language. Yet it seems but acknowledging that
we are wiser then we were before to see our error, and humbler than we were
before to own it. But so it is; and Goldsmith observes that Frederic the Great
did himself more honour by his letter to his senate, stating that he had just
lost a great battle by his own fault, than by all the victories he had won.
5. Observe
her relief and satisfaction. “And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in
thy sight. So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no
more sad.” Her satisfaction arose from two things. First, the rectifying Eli’s
mistake concerning her, and the blessing he had pronounced upon her; for whet
can be more consoling than to stand fair in the judgment of those we value? “To
live in the estimation of the wise and good,” says Robinson, “is like walking
in an eastern spice grove.” Secondly, the confidence in God, which is derived
from prayer. (W. Jay.)
Mistaken judgment
Ah! how different is the
eye of God and the eye of man! While Eli rebukes Hannah as a drunken woman, God
is holding secret communion with her as a praying saint. I was once passing by
the seaside, where there was a great variety of beautiful and valuable stones.
I understood little or nothing about them, and was for picking up those which
appeared the prettiest to me. I took them to a person who understood stones; he
smiled, and told me they were only fit to mend the road with; and then he showed
me some which he had been cutting asunder, and which were indeed beautiful: but
when I took them in my hand and examined the outside, I could not but
acknowledge that they were almost the last that I should have thought of
picking up. These stones then preached a useful sermon to me, and their text
seemed to be this, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous
judgment.” (John
7:24.) (Helen
Plumptre.)
Christian charity in
estimating others
“When Bernard chanced to
espy a poor man meanly apparelled, he would say to himself, ‘Truly, Bernard,
this man hath more patience beneath his cross than thou hast;’ but if he saw a
rich man delicately clothed, then he would say, ‘It may be that this man, under
his delicate clothing, hath a better soul than thou hast under thy religious
habit!’” This showed an excellent charity! Oh, that we could learn it! It is
easy to think evil of all men, for there is sure to he some fault about each
one which the least discerning may readily discover; but it is far more worthy
of a Christian, and shows much more nobility of soul, to spy out the good in
each fellow believerse This needs a larger mind as well as a better heart, and
hence it should be a point of honour to practise ourselves in it till we obtain
an aptitude for it. Any simpleton might be set to sniff out offensive odours;
but it would require a scientific man to bring to us all the fragrant essences
and rare perfumes which lie hid in field and garden. Oh, to learn the science
of Christian charity! It is an art far more to be esteemed than the most
lucrative of human labours. This choice art of love is the true alchemy.
Charity towards others, abundantly practised, would be the death of envy and
the life of fellowship, the overthrow of self and the enthronement of grace. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 15-16
Hannah answered and said,
No, my Lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit.
A woman of a sorrowful
spirit
The special cause of
Hannah’s sorrow arose from the institution of polygamy, which, although it was
tolerated under the old law, is always exhibited to us in practical action as a
most fruitful source of sorrow and sin. The worse the woman the better she
could get on with the system of many wives, but the good woman, the true woman,
was sure to smart under it. But enough sources of grief remain; and there is
not in any household, however joyous, the utter absence of the cross. The
worldling say, “There is a skeleton in every house.” I know little about such
dead things, but I know that a cross of some sort or other must be borne by
every child of God. The smoking furnace is part of the insignia of the heavenly
family, without which a man may well question whether he stands in covenant
relationship to God at all. Much that is precious may be connected with a
sorrowful spirit. Note well the precious things which went in Hannah’s case
with a sorrowful spirit. She was a godly woman. As we read the chapter, we are
thoroughly certified that her heart was right with God. Many of the sweetest
flowers in the garden of grace grow in the shade, and flourish in the drip.
True, there are children of the tropical sun, whose beauty and fragrance could
only be produced by having bathed themselves in the golden flood, and these, in
certain respects, must always stand in the forefront, yet are there choice
flowerets to whom the unshaded sun would be death. They prefer a sheltered
bank, or a ravine in the forest, under the shadow of the thick boughs, where a
softened, mellowed light developes them to perfection. I am persuaded that he
“who feedeth among the lilies” has rare plants in his flora, fair and fragrant,
choice and comely, which are more at home in the damps of mourning than in the
glaring sun of joy. I have known such, who have been a living lesson to us all,
from their broken-hearted penitence, their solemn earnestness, their jealous
watchfulness, their sweet humility, and their gentle love.
2. Hannah was a lovable woman.
3. In Hannah’s case, too, the woman of a sorrowful spirit was a very
gentle woman.
4. There was more, however, than I have shown you, for Hannah was a
thoughtful woman, for her sorrow drove her first within herself, and next into
much communion with her God. That she was a highly thoughtful woman appears in
everything she says. The product of her mind is evidently that which only a
cultivated soul could yield.
5. Remember, also, that though she was a woman of a sorrowful spirit,
she was a blessed woman. It is now clear that much that is precious may go with
a sorrowful spirit.
Much that is precious may
come out of a sorrowful spirit: it is not only to be found with it, but may
even grow out of it.
1. Observe, first, that through her sorrowful spirit Hannah had
learned to pray. In too many cases ease and health bring a chill over
supplication, and there is a needs be for a stirring of the fire with the rough
iron of trial. Many a flower reserves its odour till the rough wind waves it to
and fro, and shakes out its fragrance. As a rule the tried man is the praying
man, the angel must wrestle with us in the night before we learn to hold him,
and cry, “I will not let thee go.”
2. In the next place, Hannah had learned self-denial. This is clear,
since the very prayer by which she hoped to escape out of her great grief was a
self-denying one. She desired a son, that her reproach might be removed; but if
her eyes might be blessed with such a sight she would cheerfully resign her
darling to be the Lord’s as long as he lived.
3. Another precious thing had come to this woman, and that was, she
had learned faith.
4. Still more of preciousness this woman of a sorrowful spirit found
growing out of her sorrow: she had evidently learned much of God. Driven from
common family joys she had been drawn near to God, and in that heavenly
fellowship she had remained a humble waiter and watcher. In seasons of sacred
nearness to the Lord she had made many heavenly discoveries of his name and
nature, as her song makes us perceive.
much that is precious will
yet be given to those who are truly the Lord’s, even though they have a
sorrowful spirit.
1. Hannah had her prayers answered.
2. Not only did there come to Hannah after her sorrow an answered
prayer, but grace to use that answer.
3. Hannah had acquired another blessing, and that was the power to
magnify the Lord.
4. Moreover, her sorrow prepared her to receive further blessings,
for after the birth of Samuel she had three more sons and two daughters, God
thus giving her five for the one that she had dedicated to him. This was grand
interest for her loan: five hundred per cent. Last of all, it was by suffering
in patience that she became so brave a witness for the Lord, and could so
sweetly sing, “There is none holy as the Lord, neither is there any rock like
our God.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Hannah’s gracious
disposition
Hannah still found prayer
and patience the best anodynes and antidotes for assuaging her grief; cold
patience must quench her corrival’s fiery contumely, and hot fervent prayer
must quicken and prevail with God to grant her desire; and to animate her
devotion the more she adds warm tears thereunto, and, as if all this were not
enough, she subjoins likewise her solemn vow to God, saying, If thou wilt give
thine hand maid a man child, then will I give him to the Lord all the days of
his life. The judge misjudged, and misconstrued her true devotion, as was that
of those Primitive Christians (Acts 2:13). Thus also both ancient and modern martyrs have been misjudged
in all ages, and if we be so in our age, God is not leading us through any
untrodden paths; many better than we have tons before us in that way, but our
comfort is the day of judgment will judge over again all that are misjudged. (Psalms 37:6). Hannah is silent, touching the taunts of Peninnah, that was so
peevish to her; and though she could not be so to Eli’s taunts here, but
answers them, yet she setteth not up a loud note at him, calling him a false
accuser; nor doth she twit him in the teeth, with bidding him to look better to
those drunken whoremasters, his own sons, saying vies corrects sin, as many
pert dames would have done in her circumstances; but she gives him a milder
answer to his reproaches than the blessed Apostle could scarcely give to the
High Priest in his day (Acts 23:5) calling him a whited wall, etc., but she here gives the high
priest good words, patiently bearing his unjust censurings of her.
3. Here is her prudence, as well as patience, she seeketh to satisfy
him against his false judgment. Saith she, I am a woman, in whom drunkenness is
more abominable than in men; and thereupon the Romans punished it with death,
as well as adultery, and that she was a woman of a troubled spirit, so more
likely to be drunk with her own tears (whereof, good soul, she had drunk
abundance) rather than with any intoxicating liquors.
4. Behold here, her humility and modesty together with her patience
and prudence, none of which could have shined so forth in her, had she been
really drunk according to Eli’s over-severe sentence; notwithstanding Eli’s
rash severity in so misjudging her, yet she useth no railing accusation against
him, as is said of Michael against the Devil (Jude verse 9) in calling him an
unjust judge. (C. Ness.)
Verse 17
Thy petition that thou hast asked of him.
Specific objects in prayer
To make prayer of any value there should be definite objects for
which to plead. We often ramble in our prayers, we chatter about many subjects,
but the soul does not concentrate itself upon any object. Imagine an archer
shooting with his bow and not knowing where the mark is! Would he be likely to
have success? Conceive a ship, on a voyage of discovery, putting to sea without
the captain having any idea of what he was looking for! Would you expect that
he would come back laden either with the discoveries of science or with
treasures of gold? In everything else you have a plan. You do not go to work
without knowing that there is something that you designed to make. How is it
that you go to God without knowing what blessing you designed to have? (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 19
And they rose
up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord.
Early morning prayer
The fragrance
of the morning prayer lingers with us throughout the day. A man cannot free
himself from the farewell kiss of his wife and little one throughout his day of
toil. They urge him to his best endeavour. In the moment of peril they haunt
him like a guardian angel. In like manner the fragrant protection of God’s
morning kiss upon the soul lingers with and fortifies it for its duties, be
they never so varied and exacting. His blessing rests upon us from our morning
prayer, and quickens our homeward footsteps when the day is done, for we hunger
for His more immediate presence again.
Verse 23
And Elkanah her husband said unto her.
The father must take his part in the spiritual culture of children
It is a poor manhood and a dishonourable, neglectful fatherhood
that leaves all the religious life and devotion of children to the mother or to
others, and it must be disreputable before the Lord. Nor is the blameworthiness
avoided by the habit of urging the claims of the busy life of our days. If any
father thinks that saving a little more money for the children, or in order to
give them better social position and appearance, is of greater importance than
his own careful nurture of them in the love of Christ and in consecration to
the Lord, then to God he will have to answer for the folly of his judgment and
the evil of his practice and neglect. If the father does not hope in God for
the children, as well as the mother tend them for the Lord, life must have
sorrowful mistakes, if not miserable wrecks. The mother at home watches over
the child for the Lord’s sake in many homes, stud what does the father do? Is
it only careless, irreverent agreement that he gives to the life plans of the
mother for the souls of the sons and daughters; or, recognising in the mother’s
love and devotion the will of God, does he at least lift up all his heart in
prayer to God that the Lord would establish His word of promise by accepting,
for all rims and eternity, the little ones whom He has given? We--men and
fathers--have our part in the consecration of the children as well as the
mothers who watch them through the perils of their infancy; and if our hands do
not touch the children so often as do the mother’s, in watchfulness and
guidance, yet should our hearts the more wait on God in longing for the
establishment of His word of hope. No father can without sin delegate all the
spiritual nurture of his children to their mother; still less can he, without
guilt, hand it over to a stranger in school or church. (G. B. Ryley.)
Early training of children
He would be a foolish gardener who never pruned or nailed up a
delicate fruit tree till the branches carried their young leaves and open
blossoms. No! train and guide for the coming blossoming time; and when it comes
the sweet growth of hearts accepted in the Beloved and in the covenant will be
provided by the Spirit of life. Thus Hannah trained her little Samuel to
recognise himself as dedicated to the Lord; and, as we shall soon see, she had
not long to wait for the child’s ratification of her vow. (G. B. Ryley.)
Verses
24-28
And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three
bullocks.
The duty of presenting children to God in the way of religious
education
There is nothing more characteristic of Christianity than the
tenderness and sympathy which it inspires. The Bible delights in domestic
scenes; and it presents to us the pious mother in her anxieties, in her
prayers, in her vows, and then in the dedication of the child obtained by
prayer to the Lord her God.
I. The first question we
purpose to consider is, at what age do we propose to commence the education of
children? And I answer, at the age at which Samuel was brought by Hannah to the
Lord; “when she had weaned him”--when “the child was young.” Now, the reason
why we begin with children so early, even under the age of seven years, is
important. The reason, therefore, why we begin so early is, because their
depravity begins to manifest itself so early: the disorder begins early, and we
must begin early to apply the remedy.
2. And, also, because habits are early formed.
3. Because, also, in early age they are most susceptible.
4. Also, because in this age juvenile depravity abounds.
5. But it may be asked, not only at what age do we begin, and why do
we begin so early; but, how do we apply ourselves to the work? I answer, we
seize on the natural vivacity and buoyancy of children, and aim to improve it
to good purposes.
II. The object we have
ultimately in view. And that is, their dedication to God; we lend them to the
Lord, that, as long as they live, they may be His.
1. Instruction in the elements of the Christian religion. The first
thing that Eli would probably do with the young Samuel, would be to instruct
him in the history of the Old Testament.
2. But there would be a danger, even in religious instruction, if the
children were not early taught to deny themselves; if they were not duly
disciplined, and made to practise self-government.
3. But beside this, due regard must be paid to the great sacrifice of
the Christian system. I gather this from the first verse of the text. When
Hannah took the young child to the house of God, she took with her “three
bullocks.”
4. There is the hope that these children will be brought to dedicate
themselves to God all the days of their lives. “As long as he liveth, he shall
be lent unto the Lord.”
5. And then, all this must be accompanied by fervent prayer.
III. The motives we have to
encourage us. The first is gratitude, looking back to the past; the next is
hope, looking forward to the future. (D. Wilson.)
And the child was young.
Of infant baptism and of childlike children
In the Hebrew of this passage, the word translated “young” is the
same as that translated “child,” so that the literal rendering of the words is,
“and the child was a child.” This may have two meanings, both of which are very
instructive. The first meaning is that the child was young in age, when he was
dedicated to the Lord by his parents. Very likely the words before us, “the
child was young,” are put in as a sort of explanation, as much as to say: “He
was entirely dependent upon his mother and father; so young that he could not
have gone up to Shiloh by himself; if he could walk a little, it was all he
could do; he could not have brought himself to Eli, or into the house of the
Lord.” But the words, “and the child was young,” may bear another and perhaps a
more satisfactory meaning. It would be high praise if it were said of a man,
“and the man was a man”; we should understand by it that he was brave, outspoken,
fearless, upright, possessed of all manly virtues. And when it is said, “the
child was a child,” perhaps we are to understand that the little Samuel had all
childlike graces, was gentle, teachable, humble, submissive to his parents, and
those set over him. And this may lead us to think how the young people of our
own days have too often none of those graces, which should distinguish young
people; the children are too often children no more--in forwardness, in
conceit, in insubordination, in want of respect for parents and elders, they
are like persons three or four times as old as themselves: a very bad sign of
the times, and only matching too well with others which we see around us. (Dean
Goulburn.)
Verse 27-28
For this child I prayed;
and the Lord hath given me my petition.
Parentage and piety
“The Hand of God in
History” might be the appropriate title of many of the hooks of Scripture, for
the sacred records largely illustrate the agency of God in the affairs of men.
As an engineer adjusts all the parts of his machine to accomplish one result,
and by a touch of his hand can direct their motion; so has God arranged the
events of time, harmonised their diversities, and gathered into unity their
manifold influences. Great events have often been originated by most trivial
causes, and great men have been developed in most unlikely ways. The stain left
on paper by the bark in which Lawrence Foster had rudely cut his name, led to
the invention of printing--a power of mightiest influence on the world. The
fall of an apple in the garden of Sir Isaac Newton suggested to that great
philosopher the law of gravitation, till then unknown, but which is now
recognised as the security of creation. To the Ishmaelite merchants, and to the
captain of Pharaoh’s guard, it was an ordinary affair of commerce to buy or
sell a slave, yet from the Hebrew boy, the subject of their traffic, what
marvellous events transpired, of vast importance to the temporal welfare of a
nation, and to the Church, in whose memory Joseph is forever embalmed! That
child, at the mercy of the Nile and its crocodiles, found so timeously by
Pharaoh’s daughter, was to attain a greater eminence than the king who fostered
him, and to become the first historian and lawgiver of the world. In Israel of
old it would excite no wonder that a wedded wife longed to be a mother; for, by
the promise of Jehovah, the woman’s seed was to be the great Deliverer. Nor
would it seem unbecoming that a godly wife should cry to God for offspring; yet
that simple Hannah on her knees became the link of a chain in the revival of
piety and patriotism in the Promised Land. Though by no means without light,
the Church of Israel had been favoured with no direct prophecy since the death
of Joshua. Religion during the long interval had its ebbings and flowings--less
and less marked, and had evidently declined. There was a lack of patriotism in
the decline of piety; for among the Hebrews, religious and patriotic sentiments
were essentially conjoined, and mutually stimulative. The ritual of the chosen
people had become formal, and their worship often idolatrous. True worshippers
were isolated during this dark age of the Church of Israel. Though they kept
the candle of the Lord from going out, they did not arrest the national
degeneracy. To keep religion lively, it is not enough for individual souls to
wait upon the Lord. Activity is one of the most salutary means of spiritual
health. Unless we become the means of reviving others, they will deaden us.
Like bodies in nature, where the heat of one either warms the other or is
cooler by the contact, so a living piety raises the standard of others, and a
languid devotion is lowered to the level of the contiguous death. The true
worshipper was not called upon to absent himself, or separate, though ministers
of the sanctuary were unworthy. The priesthood then was by descent of blood,
not by piety. In the New Testament dispensation it is otherwise. There has been
occasional necessity for protesting and seceding from the professing Church.
When Christianity was established, the Church seceded from the Jewish Temple;
when it was reformed, it was by a protest against the errors of the Papacy; and
when it has been purified still further, there have been secessions from
Establishments for conscience sake. But Elkanah was obedient to the divine call
when he went to Shiloh. He honoured the ordinances that were appointed by God,
and waited at the place where Jehovah had put his name, and where he met his
people. Let us now turn to Samuel’s mother. Hannah was a pious and prayerful
woman. Year after year, at the solemn feasts, did Peninnah reproach the
sensitive Hannah. With intense earnestness of soul did she cry to God and
wrestle at the throne of grace, though not a word escaped her lips. Hannah went
home without her sadness, and buoyant with the expectation of answered prayer.
Faith triumphed over nature, and in this earnest realised the blessing. Nor was
her faith misplaced or unrewarded. She saw the Divine gift in the child of her
affection, and received a lesson of gratitude and dependence in his every smile
and tear. Hannah’s piety did not cool when her wish was gratified. She regarded
her child as a sacred deposit to be returned to God. She had asked him from
Heaven; and, ere he saw the light, she had written many prayers on his behalf
in the book of God’s remembrance.
1. This family scene speaks to all Christian parents. In the diary of
a mother who lived in a secluded spot of Long Island, America, was inscribed
this record some forty years ago: “This morning I rose very early to pray for
my children, and especially that my sons may be ministers and missionaries of
Jesus Christ.” Her life corresponded with her piety, and her influence upon her
children was blessed. Her prayers on their behalf were abundantly answered. Her
eight children were all trained up for God. Her five sons became ministers and
missionaries of Jesus Christ. The others are well known in the American Church.
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is another of these fruits of a mother’s prayers.
Begin the dedication and Christian training of your children early, and
continue them with earnest prayer, confiding faith, and hopeful perseverance.
“Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling. Let him
see thee speaking to thy God; he will not forget it afterward. When old and
grey he will feelingly remember a mother’s tender piety; and the touching
recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man in his sin.” Train
their imitative powers--so strong in childhood--to copy a good example seen in
your own daily life. Watch the first growth of grace with eagerness as intense
as the first step, or the earliest articulation of a father or a mother’s name.
2. This family scene speaks to sons and daughters. It shows the
blessed estate of children who have been dedicated to the Lord by parental
prayer, and whose careful training has been the improvement of that privilege.
Such is the testimony of an American statesman, who was exposed to much
spiritual danger at the period of the French Revolution in the eighteenth
century when a strong tide of unbelief rolled over the civilised world: “I
believe I should have been swept away by the flood of French infidelity if it
had not been for one thing--the remembrance of the time when my sainted mother
used to make me kneel by her side, taking my little hands in hers, and cause me
to repeat the Lord’s Prayer.” Nor is the case of John Randolph a solitary example.
It is the blessing promised to all praying and believing mothers.
3. This family scene speaks to those who remember with bitterness
their neglect of youthful opportunities, and their sad misimprovement of a
mother’s fondest wishes, and a father’s solid counsels. (R. Steele.)
Asked and heard of the
Lord
Nor are we to marvel that
the Book of God should concern itself here and elsewhere with matters that are
sometimes the occasion of silly smiles in the unreverent, or meet only with
profane disregard in the shallow. Rather, let us in our hearts and homes thank
God for a Book that, coming from Him, so hallows our human affections, deals so
reverently and tenderly with a woman’s disappointments and a man’s affection,
and also with his pity for her sadness, as that it opens the history of the
first, and in some things the greatest of the prophetical order, with the story
of Hannah’s grief and Elkanah’s effort at consolation. The God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ does not laugh any human hope or grief to scorn. Now,
this earnestness, this very agony of deep desire in Hannah, is an instance of
God’s forerunning grace; the grace that blesses us even before we see the light
of this world; that blesses us in our ancestry, in our homes and kindred, in
our father and mother--the grace that sanctifies us by a mother’s piety, and by
the prayers offered to God before she knows a mother’s joy. God’s best men and
women have been from mothers’ prayers and vows, and from fathers’ solemn
consecration. Blessed unspeakably is, or ought to be, that life of man or
woman, boy or girl, that has been heralded into the world not only by pain, but
also by prayer, and its advent into these “lower parts of the earth” prefaced
by the hand of father or mother laying hold upon God. God’s forerunning,
preparing grace is not the cold supervision of an Almighty One who deals with
human tears or joys only as incidents in the outworking of His inscrutable
will; but it is the loving, gentle touch of a Father who takes a woman’s
tearful longings, or a man’s joys and hopes; and by the longing and the hope,
by the tears and joys of father and mother, prepares greatly consecrated men
and saintly women of God. So was it with Samuel the asked and heard of God.
Thus was it with Jeremiah and Timothy and Augustine, and that other early
teacher of the Church of whom it is told that often, when he slept the sleep of
babyhood, his devoted father would bend over him and reverently kiss the little
breast that by consecration of father and mother had become the temple of the
Holy Ghost. In her grief she was a reproach to the feast of tabernacles, at
which all were to be happy. Her grief was no nobler than ours is ofttimes, but
just as human; and like ours, too, in this--that a strain of fretfulness ran through
it. Yet there is in Hannah’s grief one feature that more than redeems it from
commonness. After years of repining she has at last dared to share her trouble
with the God of Israel, and pour it forth as into the bosom of the Lord of
Hosts. That is now a blessedness in her bitterness. She has, at length, gone
where alone it is well to weep, grieve, regret, or be bitter; to the mercy
seat. For it is safe and blessed to pour out life’s bitterness only where you
can pray: and that is not to the sympathy of men and women, but to the heart of
God, at the feet of Jesus, before the Ark of the Covenant. There we may weep,
grieve, mourn, and pray about anything. What do we pray for? Is it possession
or consecration? Is it selfishly to hold earth’s blessings and heaven’s gifts
on earth, and with them minister as much as we can to our own satisfaction and
delight, or, behind and deeper than our own longings and cravings for self,
have we a wish to truly serve the Lord with His own blessings, and “gladly give
up all to Him to whom our more than all is due?” Oh! pray not for mere
possession; pray that the more you have of anything, the more you may be able
to consecrate to God; and pray, too, that you may not have anything without
devotion of it to God. If you long for life here, and there is no reason why
you should not, let it be that you may the longer live to Christ’s praise. If
you ask for this world’s good, let it be that you may devote the more to Jesus.
If you long for the love and light of this world, for the home lights that may
be denied you, for the lamps of love to shine about you that have never yet
been kindled for you, let it be that with fuller heart and wider reach of
affection you may the more reveal and illustrate the love that passeth
knowledge. If you seek for pardon, let it be under the quick impulse of love to
Christ, and in order to glorify His cross. The high priest’s words might have
fallen on this distressed soul like a blast of frosty winter over the blossoms
of the early spring time. How often tender hearts run risk from the ignorant
hardness of others; who, perhaps, mean well enough, but are regardless of
“wringing or breaking a heart.” Nay, the more tender the heart’s experience is,
the more it hazards from intercourse with men at such times. God alone, Christ
alone can be trusted for the right understanding, the gentle treatment of our
griefs and wants and prayers. Many a time--God grant unwittingly--they wound
where the Lord would heal, or heal but slightly when the Lord would wholly
save. We are not fit to take care of one another; “who is sufficient for these
things?” I have known of souls alienated from life and full consecration by the
ill-judged or lightly-weighed utterance of a minister of Christ, who has
thought as wisely when he has spoken to heart’s experience as Eli did when he
looked at Hannah, and told her to cease from her drunkenness. She had prayed,
therefore she might go in peace. She had poured out her heart to the Lord, why
should she, then, be sad any more? She had made her cares the Lord’s, she had
cast her burden upon the Lord, and might now be at rest in the Lord and wait
patiently for Him. Nor should we ever be other than calm after prayer, even
though the answer be for a while ungranted. An ungranted petition is no warrant
for not abiding calmly after we have tried to make our cares God’s; for either
He will, at the best time, give us what we ask, or at the proper time give us
something better than our prayers. Thus it came about that Samuel was “asked of
the Lord,” as in later days he was known as the “heard of the Lord.” (G. B.
Ryley.)
A prayer and its issue
1. It was heard prayer.
2. It was based on a new name for God. She appealed to Jehovah under
a new title, “Jehovah of Hosts,” as though it were nothing to Him to summon
into existence an infant spirit, whom she might call child.
3. It was definite prayer. “Give unto thine handmaid a man-child.”
“For this child I prayed.” So many of our prayers miscarry because they are
aimed at no special goal.
4. It was prayer without reserve. “I have poured out my soul before
the Lord.”
5. It was persevering prayer. “It came to pass, as she continued
praying before the Lord.”
6. It was prayer that received its coveted boon.
7. The workings of sorrow. In this prayer we can trace the harvest
sown in years of suffering. Only one who had greatly suffered could have poured
out such a prayer. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Prayer answered
Hannah emptied her heart
of its sorrow, and had it filled with peace. She could eat her meat with a
merry heart, and was no more sad. Nor did she forget praise after prayer. She
rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord. Little grace can
pray; but only great grace can praise. Any child can ask for what it wants, or
cry out when he is in pain; but it is not every child that has a heart to be
grateful for kindness received; or that will even be at the pains to say, Thank
you for it, though told day after day that he ought. Children of God! do you
not plead guilty here? Where is the same earnestness in praising that there was
in praying? When have you been so thankful for the mercy received, as you
thought, when you were begging for it, you would be, if you might but have it?
Oh that our hearts may be better tuned for that happy place where every breath
is praises The prayers of Hannah were nigh unto the Lord continually: he
remembered her, and gave her a son; and that she might never forget how she had
obtained him, she called him Samuel, that is, Asked of God; so that every time
she heard or uttered the name of the dear child, she might remember her prayer
answering God, and be stirred up to renewed praise. What is this grateful woman
preparing as an offering for her God? No less than the much loved child she has
received from him! “Hannah said, I will not go up until the child be weaned,
and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord and there abide
forever.” And is this the way, Hannah, in which you mean to enjoy the much
longed for treasure? O woman, great is thy faith! great is thy wisdom! Yes, it
is just in proportion as we reader back unto the Lord that which he hath given
us, and place it at his disposal, and under his care, that we enjoy it. You
know when anyone wants to make the most of his money, he puts it into the bank.
Now, if you want to make the most of a mercy or a comfort, place it in the
Lord’s hands, and be welt assured that you shall receive your own with usury.
Earthly banks may fail and disappoint, but you will never meet with one who has
been a loser by putting into the Lord’s bank. I mean by devoting any thing to
Him, as Hannah devoted her darling child. He promises you a hundred fold even
in this present life, and you know he is always as good as his word. And now,
while Hannah was weaning her infant, she had the yet more difficult task of
weaning her own heart: you may be sure that every day tended to endear him more
to her; and you will expect that her resolution at last failed her; but Hannah
knew where her great strength lay, and she found the truth of her own sweet
song, “He will keep the feet of His saints.” As soon as ever she had weaned the
child, she set out on her first and last journey with him, taking offerings and
sacrifices for the temple service, and especially, the calves of the lips, even
praise unto her God. “He worshipped the Lord there.” How very beautiful is this
acknowledgment to the praise of a prayer answering God! Ah! how many an answer
is unheeded by us when we ought to be inscribing upon it in letters of glowing
gratitude, “For this mercy I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition
which I asked of him.” Nay, my children, were our eyes properly opened to
discern between good and evil, we might inscribe on many a thing with which we
are inclined to quarrel, “For this I prayed.” (Helen Plumptre.)
The duty of intercessory
prayer
1. Intercessory prayer for your children is necessary, as an evidence
of the earnestness of feeling and purpose with which you have entered upon your
office.
2. Earnest intercessory prayer will eminently contribute to prepare
and qualify the mind for more effectually dealing with the children. Successful
teaching, in so far at least as the cultivation of the religious element of
character is concerned, depends, I am convinced, much more upon moral than
intellectual qualifications.
3. Prayer for the children will infuse strength, promptitude, and
energy to your mind, amid the manifold difficulties and discouragements of your
office.
4. And, lastly, earnest intercessory prayer will bring the blessing
of God down upon your children. (H. Richard.)
Spiritual transmutations
What a succession of
transmutations these verses present! The bitterness of a woman’s grief is
transmuted into earnest, believing, importunate prayer; this prayer returns to
her in a precious gift: this gift, so earnestly sought, causes in its receiver
a deep sense of gratitude; this gratitude leads to the willing consecration of
the divine gift to its Giver; this sacrifice of Hannah’s darling son is
transformed into an unspeakable national blessing. Out of a woman’s sorrow
comes a nation’s reformation and salvation. All the great works of God for man
begin in man; in some one heart which He visits with trials and comforts, with
conflicts and victories. And He will use the commonest means along with the
most sacred to bring to pass His purpose. Hannah was in that state of mind
which turns everything into fuel to feed its own consuming passion. That there
may have been something of self-will, perhaps of discontent and envy, in her
feelings, we may not be able to deny. For, in point of fact, you never, or very
rarely, do obtain from our poor humanity a desire which is absolutely pure,
without mixture of selfishness of some sort. And God, who is rich in mercy,
forgives the sin, and accepts the desire as the germ of a higher life. If the
strength of holy desire disturbs sin, and sin defiles the stream of our prayers
and services, yet it is only by the continual flow of our better feelings that
we attain to a greater purity; the stream cleanses itself by movement, whereas
stagnation is increase of pollution. Hannah, then, was discontented with life
as it was, how far with a holy, how far with an unholy, discontent we cannot
say. She was burdened and miserable. And in such a state of mind she might have
become chronically depressed, dissatisfied, wretched. She might have turned
from God, and shut herself in upon herself. She might have allowed her grief to
corrode her heart, and poison all her life. Instead of this, it was transmuted
into prayer. Concentrated, continuous, importunate prayer, in which the
suppliant was quite oblivious of all observers--such was the way in which she
pleaded her case before the Lord. And, in a similar manner, God wishes us all
to transmute and transform the evils and sorrows of life into prayer. The worst
thing we can do is to be silent about them toward Him, though it will, perhaps,
be the best to be so toward men. And, even if we are sometimes so confused that
we know not how to frame a petition, then let us simply go to God, and talk to
Him about it, as we might talk to our dearest friend. It will give us some
measure of relief to know that it is shared by Another, and He the wisest and
the best; it will bring the mind into that partial repose which comes from
leaning, if only in a small degree, upon faithful love. Turn trouble,
disappointment, bereavement anxiety--aye, even sin--into prayer. These are like
the dark, hard, rough ore, which is put by the smelter into the fire, and from
which comes a bright stream of precious metal. Turn your sorrows into prayer,
and prayer will transmute them into gold. Hannah’s prayer was transmuted into a
gift, the very gift she had prayed for. “For this child I prayed; and the Lord
hath given me my petition which I asked of Him.” She might have loved the child
had she not prayed so specially for him; but she loved him all the better for
prayer and for the answer that he was to it. “For this child I prayed.” Thus
the prayers of God’s people often take concrete form, and stand round about
them as unmistakable evidences of His remembrance of them and interference for
them. “For this home I prayed,” one can say. “For this situation, this
business, I prayed,” another can say. “For this mission, its establishment, its
maintenance, its usefulness, I prayed,” a third can say. “For this poor man,
for this unhappy woman, that I might get food, shelter, aid for them, I
prayed,” a fourth can say. “For this man’s conversion I prayed,” a fifth can
say. Yes; God hears and answers prayer. The fervent wish sent up to Him, like Hannah’s
prayer, without vocal words, comes back in rich visible gifts, as the invisible
vapours are drawn up by the nun, and return in fertilising showers. The
transmutation was again repeated when the answer to prayer was changed into
gratitude. It is possible to pray when we are in great trouble, and to be
answered, and then forget God who helped us. Complaining comes easier to human
nature than thanksgiving. And, unlike Miriam’s song, it was not an outburst
caused by excited feeling which spent itself in words, but a sign of a
permanent condition of mind. The gift never became more to her than the Giver,
never shut God out from her consciousness, never tempted her to act and think
as if now she could do without Him. This was a distinct and great advance in
her spiritual life. The sense of need was good, so was prayer for help, but the
unfailing thankfulness of her heart was better still. She had come out to walk
with God in the sunshine. And now we coma to observe how gratitude rose to the
still higher level of sacrifice. “For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath
given me my petition which I asked of Him: Therefore, also I have lent him to
the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be long to the Lord. And he worshipped
the Lord there.” She did not forget her vow as so many do. The one and only
child whom she had gained by a great wrestling, the jewel of her heart, she
surrendered. Hannah is greatest and is nearest to God in sacrifice. Her spirit
is now exquisitely pure; her loyalty to God is absolute. Here is a vital
difference between a soul which is truly devout and one which only calls upon
God in trouble for the sake of what he can get. God so comes into the first as
that the gift he seeks makes him loving, trustful, self-forgetful; he passes
beyond it into a quiet acquiescence in the perfect will of the Father; he comes
to God with such fulness of faith that, like Abraham, he would surrender even
the coveted gift again. It is sacrifice, and yet not sacrifice; for there is no
wrench of the heart, no struggle of the will. Hannah was happier after she had
left her darling at Shiloh. And now, finally, let us observe how this sacrifice
of her motherly heart, this voluntary and happy surrender to God of His best
gift, was transformed into a national blessing. Hannah’s consecrated child
became the judge and saviour of his people. But how much wider was that service
than ever he or his praying mother had imagined! They thought of him as a
life-long attendant in the tabernacle, where he would be sheltered from the noise
and battle of life; but God designed him for a man of action, for a judge and
ruler of His people You never know what honour God may put upon your sacrifice.
He sees more value in it than you do. The poor widow who gave her mite, gave,
all unknown to herself, a lesson in true sacrifice and in loving trust in God
to all the world When Moffat’s mother entreated him to give his heart to God
she never thought that God would enter that heart with such love and zeal for
the salvation of the heathen, and would crown her boy with such distinguished
usefulness. (J. P. Gledstone.)
Prayer exemplified in the
case of Hannah
The desire of Jewish women
to be the mothers of families was connected with religious feeling: children
were regarded as a blessing from the Lord, and the withholding of them was
considered a token of the Divine displeasure. That this was the fact, we might
bring many instances from the Old Testament to prove. Rachel, on the birth of
her firstborn, said, “God hath taken away my reproach.” Here, then, she felt
her only resource was prayer; “she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto
the Lord, and wept sore.” This sort of supplication never fails: “thus saith
the Lord, I have heard thy prayer; I have seen thy gears.” Tears and prayers!
happy is it for the mourner when these are united. Tears are barren in
themselves; they express sorrow, but not humiliation--not faith. We have only
to remark, further, the humility, with which she offered her most precious
treasure to the Lord: she brought a large additional offering of her substance,
and immediately before the presentation of her son to Eli she caused a bullock
to be slain as a burnt offering. This was the Jewish sin offering,
foreshadowing the blood of the Atonement: in her case,. it clearly proved that
she was deeply conscious there was nothing meritorious in her surrender of her
son; that, as a sinful mother offering a sinful child, she had a favour to
seek, rather than one to offer; and that she only hoped for acceptance, either
for herself or her child, through the blood of the atonement.
1. With regard to the occasions of prayer. “Is any among you
afflicted? let him pray; I called upon the Lord in trouble, and the Lord heard
me at large.” Far be it from me to imply that the time of trouble is the only
time for prayer. But, whether or not they can understand the reason of God’s
dealings with them, let me impress upon their minds that the time of trouble is
the special time for prayer; let them, in this respect, mark Hannah’s example.
There is a temptation to flee from God in trouble; the disinclination to prayer
is, in many eases, never greater than then; the natural inclination is to wrap
up the heart in the sullenness of its own grief--to seek a morbid pleasure in
excluding everything that tends to comfort. I would take this opportunity of
saying a word upon a subject, perhaps too little thought of; I mean, the
suitability of God’s house for private prayer.
2. Let us say a word about its conditions. Hannah vowed a vow unto
the Lord, “if Thou wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give
him unto the Lord all the days of his life.” What we desire you to gather from
this is, that we must never ask for anything which we cannot, or will not
devote to the service of God. Lot us examine the case of Hannah as a fair
example. She wished for a son: the wish was natural; but was it safe? was she
not wishing for an object of affection, that would too probably, if granted,
prove an idol? We cannot deny the likelihood: see, then, how in making the
request she recognised and provided against the danger; Give me a son, O Lord;
and I will give him back to Thee: I dare not trust myself to ask the
unqualified gift; my present feelings tell me how dangerous it would be. Now
all prayer, in order to be acceptable to God or profitable to ourselves, must
be associated with this kind of condition. In asking for spiritual grace, the
condition cannot be separated from the prayer; we only ask for greater ability
to devote ourselves to God, and to “glorify him in our body and in our spirit
which are God’s.”
3. And, lastly, we are taught a lesson respecting the answer of
prayer. With the answer to prayer will always come the temptation to forget the
vow that accompanied it. I need not tell you that there may be a wide
difference between a gift and a blessing. Children are gifts, but sometimes no
blessings; look at Hophni and Phinehas, the wicked sons of Eli. Wealth is a
gift; intellectual and physical power, friends, good health and spirits are all
gifts, but very often no blessings: we cannot but desire them; we are permitted
and encouraged to ask them; but, if we get them, let us remember the condition:
the condition and the blessing are bound together; without the one, there is no
acceptable prayer; without the other, there is no profitable answer. Everything
that relates to our happiness depends upon God’s favour; unless we have this,
we may have all our natural desires gratified, but leanness withal in our
souls. Let us, then, seek this first, and all things else shall be added unto
us. And, above all, in seasons of affliction do not let us suppose that
everything depends upon a change of circumstances; do not let us resolve not to
be happy, until something is given, or something is withdrawn: but let us, in
humble trust, put our case in God’s hands. (T. E. Hankinson, M. A.)
Hannah
The birth of a child is
one of the most important events that ever takes place in our world. But for
the frequency of the occurrence, it would be deemed little less than a miracle
of nature and providence. The birth of an infant is a far greater event than
the production of the sun. That infant is possessed of reason, conscience, and
immortality. It is true these principles are not yet developed, but they are in
embryo, and the oak is contained in the acorn, and the day in the dawn. There
is also a relative, as well as a personal importance attached to the birth of a
child; for who knows what that child may become, what good or evil he may
occasion, what misery or happiness he may produce? The birth of Samuel was
attended with circumstances peculiarly important and interesting. Hannah had
prayed to be remembered, and “the Lord remembered her, and she conceived.” And
can she forget Him who has thus graciously remembered her?
1. The very name shall perpetuate the memory of the mercy. “And she
called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.” Thus she
could never pronounce the name without recalling the occasion.
2. She undertakes the early care of him in person. When, therefore,
Elkanah and his family went up as usual to Shiloh, she determined to remain at
home for this very purpose. In this state the utmost attention, and kindness,
and tenderness, were her well-deserved due; and it is pleasing to see the
exemplariness of her husband in his disposition and behaviour towards her.
Though all the males were required to repair to Shiloh thrice in the year, the
obligation did not extend to females. God requires mercy and not sacrifice, and
dispenses with public institutions when we are obeying private and domestic
calls. Hannah cheerfully bore the loss of Shiloh’s privileges, in order to
discharge a home obligation. Here, we have an opportunity to say a few words
with regard to a common, and, we fear, increasing evil: I mean the abandonment
of maternal nursing. Surely, nothing can be a more ungrateful return, than to
treat with neglect and disdain the provision which the goodness and kindness of
God have obviously made for the performance of this duty. Hannah not only
nurses her own child, but dedicates him to the Lord. We see that the Lord will
cause earnest persevering prayer, in due time, to yield matter for praise. We
see that the answers of prayers ought to be observed and noticed. We should
also remark that it is our duty, not only to observe, but to own and confess
such returns of mercy, for the glory of God, and for the sake of others, that
they also may be encouraged to trust and pray. (W. Jay.)
A praying mother
By the influence of her
prayers, her training, her example, the Christian mother may expect to bring a
blessing upon her child which shall control his life and lead to his salvation.
The proof of this is to be found in the following considerations:
I. The tie of
nature makes the influence of a pious mother almost irresistible. A mother’s
love is the first blessing which greets the newborn heir of immortality. Deeper
and more lasting even than a father’s love, the mother’s yearning and
compassionate affection realises the description of the apostle. “It believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” With such a natural tie to
hold her child, the pious mother wields a mighty influence. Her life, if it be
well adorned with Christian graces, becomes a shining demonstration of the
truth of God. Prayer from her lips is music; the Bible is her book as well as
God’s. All that is winning in the promises becomes more winning as she utters
them. This is his influence and power. Many a pious mother does not realise it.
On such a basis of deep natural affection does the mother’s nurture stand. The
child is plastic to her touch. His heart is in her hand if she is faithful to
her trust. Oh, what encouragement is this for her to train her children in the
nurture of the Lord!
II. But we should
further notice that the affection of a mother for her child makes her prayers
in his behalf especially effectual. What depths of meaning, what revelation of
the earnestness of human intercession, lies in these words of Hannah, which
might be the utterance of multitudes!--“For this child I prayed” Upon all other
subjects prayer may be restrained when it has been long time unanswered, but
for her children’s sake she will stand and knock until the gate of hope and
life is opened, or until she dies.
III. And this leads
us to the point that the evidence derived from the past experience of pious,
praying mothers confirms this prospect of success as the result of
faithfulness. Take another fact. In a certain theological seminary several
young men who were preparing for the Christian ministry were interested to
discover what proportion of their number had praying mothers. The result of
this inquiry proved that, out of one hundred and twenty present, more than one
hundred had been blessed by a mother’s prayers and directed by a mother’s
counsel to the Saviour. Such evidence might be greatly multiplied. The grace of
God brings salvation as the reward of a mother’s faithful labours for her
children of what amazing importance is it that parents and all who have to do
with children should realise their trust, and fulfil it in the fear of God!
When the sculptor Bacon was erecting the monument to Lord Chatham in
Westminster Abbey, an observer said to him, “Take care what you are doing, for
you are working for eternity.” In a far higher sense should it be said ofttimes
to those who train the young--Take care how you act toward the children, for
you work for eternity.” Receive them in the name of Christ, to take them unto
Him, in never-wearying prayer. (R. R. Booth, D. D.)
A praying mother
The most ancient and most
sacred institution in the world is the family. Older than the church or the
state, it is the foundation of them both. It is, to be sure, not the ideal of
the home or the family; for it is under the curse and subject to the evils of
polygamy. Some of the purest souls the world has ever seen have shone the
brighter because they were surrounded only by vice and crime. The lily, lifting
up its white face to the sun upon the bosom of the lake, sends its roots down
into the oozing mud, and by its own power transmutes that foulness into this
fragrant beauty. So Manoah’s wife, and Ruth and Hannah, shine like pearls upon
the surface of the cruelty and crime of the darkest period of the Old Testament
story.
I. The praying
mother at home:--The husband goes up to the Tabernacle at Shiloh. The wife
stays at home with the baby. This was a division of duty recognised by the law.
Let us learn a lesson of the sacredness of secular and special duties. Nay, let
us rather say, of all duty; for duty is what is due from us, and He to whom it
is due is God. The home is as sacred as the temple if it be recognised as the
place of duty. We shall not serve God by neglecting its work or claims for what
may seem to us the more spiritual service of the sanctuary. We may learn, too,
that duty is not to be measured by its publicity or conspicuousness. That is
most sacred and important, often, which is most, alone. They were building a
stone church not long ago in one of our large cities. It was a beautiful spring
day, and one who was interested in its progress was surprised to find only
three men at work upon it. He spoke to the foreman, with at least a suggestion
of complaint in his voice, and asked how it was that there was so small a force
at work on such a day. “There are twenty-five men at work upon this building,
sir,” was the answer, “but twenty-two of them are working in the yard. The best
stones are always polished out of sight.” Let not the mother, then, undervalue
her throne because it is not on the highway. The father may influence society
and the state directly. Let us not think the mother’s influence is less because
her hand is not so evidently seen upon the helm. But, chiefly from this home
life of Hannah, away from the Temple and the yearly sacrifice, may be learned
the sanctification of home duties by prayer and holy motive. It is not so much
what we do, as what we do it for, on which the value of our service, and its
dignity, depend. Hannah stayed at home that she might prepare a worthy offering
for the Lord. To fill a new young life with noble thoughts, with lofty and
unselfish aims, with a sense of the blessed fatherhood of God--this is work
high enough and holy enough for anyone to do.
II. The praying
mother at the tabernacle. For at length the quiet, happy days at home are
passed. The baby boy has come to his third year. And yet the mother’s heart is
glad and rejoices in the Lord--glad to make the sacrifice, which it is yet no
less a sacrifice to make. A joyless sacrifice is none. That which we give to
God unwillingly, and only because we must, is no gift at all. She realised the
privilege of sacrifice. Let us never weigh our sacrifices lest we make more
than the law demands, but rather let us bring our gifts with them. The praying
mother of our story recognised God’s faithfulness to His word and His answer to
her prayer. She had come to Him before in sorrow as she comes now in holy joy.
And she gives God the glory Who maketh poor and maketh rich, Who bringeth low
and lifteth up. But all that the praying mother can do, and all the ways in
which the devout father can help, will avail not at all, unless the child
fulfils his part. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Prayer answered
We notice the fact of the
answer to prayer. The answer was prompt, clear, explicit. It is an important question,
Why are some prayers answered and not others? Some prayers are not answered
because the spirit of them is bad. “Ye ask but receive not because ye ask
amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” What is asked merely to gratify
a selfish feeling is asked amiss. It is not holy prayer; it does not fit in
with the sacred purposes of life; it is not asked to make us better, or enable
us to serve God better, or make our life more useful to our fellows; but simply
to increase our pleasure, to make our surroundings more agreeable. Some prayers
are not answered because what is asked would be hurtful; the prayer is answered
in spirit though denied in form. Some prayers are not answered at the time,
because a discipline of patience is needed for those who offer them; they have
to be taught the grace of waiting patiently for the Lord. But whatever be the
reasons for the apparent silence of God, we may rest assured that hearing
prayer is the law of His kingdom. Old Testament and New alike bear witness to
this. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Children and cheapness
Society will go to pieces
if the love of children cannot be maintained. And the love of children will not
be maintained if we are to prefer cheapness to the happy responsibility of
rearing them. God has given us many things which were never intended “to pay,”
but contrariwise to tax both nerve and purse, time and patience. Among many of
the things that fail to conform to commercial standards He has made lingering
old age and lingering disease more than a possibility in the case of many. Now,
how many families there are which cannot afford this! And if nothing is for
human advantage which cannot return a two-and-a-half percentage, lingering
death, among the poor, is of all things the least defensible and endurable. So
thought the people of India up to a very recent date, if they do not think so
now. They used to take the old people down to the Ganges, and when the tide
came in, or when the alligators came up, the domestic problem of reducing
expenditure was soon solved. And in Sparta, whose people attained to a
civilised horror of unremunerative offspring long before our forefathers could
construct a pair of shoes, the girl children were often killed as soon as they
were born. Now, that was an unblushing policy; it was human life carried on
upon a strictly cash basis. But Christianity is freely taught amongst
ourselves, with happy results evident on every hand. The weak are cared for and
cured, the old are honoured and sheltered, and children are treated as a heavy
but sacred charge from the Almighty. It is a ghastly thing to see some people
express pity for the loving pair who can count many curly heads on the
snow-white pillows in the children’s rooms. Hannah, Samuel’s mother, had no
such thought about children. She prayed for her child. You may hear it said,
perhaps, “But all children are not Samuels;” to which it is a sufficient reply
to say that, all mothers are not Hannahs. If there were more Hannahs there
would be more Samuels. For children reflect the entire nature of their parents.
What was it which under lay Hannah’s prayer? It was a desire, the noblest which
can animate a mortal, to live for another. She wanted to train a soul for God.
They who watched over our bodily growth and our education were often tried in
the process. They spared no time, pains, or money in their power. And despite
of all that is said by spurious philanthropists, it may be safely said that our
fathers were the better for the strain to which our training subjected them.
Hannah prayed that she might have such a work to fill her heart. Hannah herself
had already found God, the chief gift mortals can receive, and as a gift next
in value to that, she asked Him to put under her care a spirit bearing His
image, that upon it, as His visible, helpless representative, she might lavish
both a motherly and a religious love. And she was right. They who can ridicule
such a relation as she aspired to, and afterwards filled, are to be pitied for
the blindness and emptiness of their scorn They wish to improve human life, and
so they begin by trying to improve the laws of God. Thinking they can trace
poverty and crime to the Christian family system, under which children are
treated as a blessing, they discourage it as a bad speculation, an ill-paying
concern. The Infidel Millennium is to be a millennium of small families, or
none. Probably the latter would be the upshot. There would be just the same
logic for that as for the other result. It is not the dear children, be they
many or few, that cause vice and poverty. It is the parents, who should be dear
parents, and are not. I need not remind you of the noble lives that have grown
up in our country districts, and elsewhere, in homes where eight or nine hungry
mouths have had to be filled out of twelve or fourteen shillings a week. Of
course, if half the wages had gone in tobacco or drink, the lads and lasses
would have been costly enough. It is certain that children prevent, in
particular families, far more poverty than they cause. When a family has
struggled through the years which precede the early youth of the children, the
tide begins to turn. The regular income of the home becomes greater and more
secure, in most cases, especially whore parents do not mind putting their
children to the noblest of all ordinary callings, some constructive trade.
Hannah’s philosophy transcends them all! They who live for their children, and
not for cheapness, will find life both cheaper and sweeter than they who, to
compass a visionary social progress, advocate the improvement of everything
except personal character. The true interests of society require no unnatural
and mean devices. We need not dread the growing hosts of humanity. They are not
locusts--they produce more than they consume, if they live honest lives. It is
a diminishing population that a virtuous nation has to fear. (J. H.
Hollowell.)
Obtaining the greatly
desired
In the life of Nollekens,
the great sculptor, the following incident occurs concerning Gainsborough, the
artist. Visiting him at his studio, Nollekens found him listening to a Colonel
Hamilton, who was playing superbly on the violin. “Go on, go on,” cried
Gainsborough, with excited enthusiasm, as the Colonel appeared to have
finished. Then, in a burst of entreaty, he added, “Go on, and I will give you the
picture of the boy at the style, which you have so often wished to purchase.”
As Hamilton continued to play the tears stood in the painter’s eyes, and at the
end a coach was called, in which the fortunate Colonel placed the painting he
had so long coveted, and so easily acquired: and he drove away with it.
Gainsborough could not resist nor refuse anything to the charm of music. What
music was to the artist the true faith of a penitent and loving soul, be it
reverently said is to our Lord Jesus Christ, and to it He says: “Be it unto
thee even as thou wilt.” (H. O. Mackey.)
Verse 28
I have lent him to the Lord.
Samuel, the Child-Christian
There is no child explicable apart from his parentage. The
foundations of one generation are in all respects laid in the antecedent
generation. In an important sense the boy begins to live when his father begins
to live. The child is the parent continued down into a new generation. And so
Scripture biography, much of it, begins with a statement and exposition of
parentage. You remember how it was with Jesus, with John the Baptist, and now
with Samuel. Science today lays large stress on heredity. Revelation emphasised
heredity long before science was born. Francillon says that “the lives of the
mothers of great men form an important branch of biographical literature.” The
author of the old Hebrew chapter quietly asserts the same fact by going about
to narrate to us Samuel by first acquainting us with his mother. There are
numerous intimations in Scripture that in the bequest of spiritual legacies the
law of heritage works with peculiar constancy and vigour. “The promise is unto
you and to your children.” And that occurs as a frequent and favourite thought,
“I will establish my covenant with Isaac for an everlasting covenant, and with
his seed after him.” And this principle is wrought into the structure of the
whole Jewish record. It is as though God held parent and child in one
individual compact of grace, parental faith throwing itself forward upon the
child, and working in and for the child vicariously; the faith of the parent
becoming in time the child’s faith, just as by a physical law the features of
the father and mother reappear in time in the child’s face, in growing
distinctness. Of Elkanah, Samuel’s father, little notice is taken. A single
remark of his indicates the mutual loyalty and confidences of husband and wife,
and along the course of the first chapter is shown his faithful observance of
religious obligations. But Samuel was preeminently his mother’s boy, as boys
are apt to be. It was his mother that prayed for him; his mother that took him
to Shiloh with the bullocks, the flour, and the wine; his mother that offered
him in consecration. Appreciating the quality of the parentage, then, we have
laid for us a basis of just expectancy touching the quality of the offspring.
We must just mention Samuel’s early connection with the church and the
sanctuary. I suppose that this, too, had its strengthening and educating
effect. It was just in the midst of the sanctuary that the Lord’s presence
became manifest in him, and that the Divine voice shouted clearly and
intelligibly in his ears. We may gather from the fact that there is great virtue
in early and affectionate association with the church, and in earnest
participation in things that concern the church. But great as is the
supplementary service which the church can render the child, the home is at
once his physical birthplace and his proper spiritual birth place. It is a
Spanish proverb that an ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. The home is
the first church, the hearthstone the first altar, and the father and mother
the first priests. And so the more home there is in the home, the more readily
and completely does it fulfil its offices as a child church. And the home, for
the same reason, is the child’s proper Sunday school. It is not quite evident
how Christian parents can ever farm out their children to the spiritual nurture
of strangers. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
A mother’s formative influence on the characters of her children
Who can hear the name of St. Augustine--that shining light, twice
on the point of being extinguished, but snatched by turns from sin and heresy,
to glorify the true and living God down to the latest posterity. Who can think
of his name without joining with him in recognising, in his two-fold
deliverance--next to the hand of God--the influence of the tender, humble,
patient Monica? Theodoret, Basil the Great, Emmilia, Chrysostom, and many of
those who have walked in their ways, had each their Monica; and were each
proofs of the power of a mother’s prayers. In later times we read of Bishop
Hall, Philip Henry, and his son Matthew, Hooker, Payson, Doddridge, the
Wesleys, and of many other bright stars still shining in the churches, who have
had pious mothers, and who have confessed to the power of a mother’s influence.
John Newton learned to pray at his mother’s knee; and such was the influence of
her life upon his mind (and, be it remembered, that she was called to her
heavenly home before her son John was eight years of age), that in after years,
when at sea, and in the midst of many dangers, his agonising prayer often was,
“my mother’s god, Thou God of Mercy, have mercy on me!” The prayer was heard,
and from that time the name of “John Newton” has been a name honoured in the
churches, and he will remain yet for ages as “a burning and a shining light.”
It was through Newton that Thomas Scott, the commentator, was led to Christ,
and Wilberforce, the champion of the freedom of the slave, and the author of
that “Practical View of Christianity,” which brought Leigh Richmond into the
ministry of Christ. And who shall now go further in attempting to estimate the
probable influence of one pious mother? (Footsteps of Truth.)
Vows fulfilled
Hannah’s fulfilment of her vow was to be an ample, prompt,
honourable fulfilment. Many a one who makes vows or resolutions under the
pressure and pinch of distress immediately begins to pare them down when the
pinch is removed, like the merchant in the storm who vowed a hecatomb to
Jupiter, then reduced the hecatomb to a single bullock, the bullock to a sheep,
the sheep to a few dates; but even these he ate on the way to the altar, laying
on it only the stones. Not one jot would Hannah abate of the full sweep and
compass of her vow. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
The connection between God and children to be cultivated
Do not treat lightly, O parents, the connection between God and
your children! Cherish the thought that they are God’s gifts, God’s heritage to
you, committed by Him to you to bring up, but not apart from Him, not in
separation from those holy influences which He alone can impart, and which He
is willing to impart. What a cruel thing it is to cut this early connection
between them and God, and send them drifting through the world like a ship with
a forsaken rudder, that flaps hither and thither with every current of the sea.
(W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
The dedication of Samuel
In those rude times which long preceded the birth of science in
our country, when there was no appliance of steam to wear vessels off the
dangers of a lee shore, nor lights shone forth on sunken reef or rocky headland
to guide them through the gloom of night, one of the royal family of Scotland
was in imminent hazard of shipwreck. After every effort had been made, but made
in vain, to wear off shore, he vowed a vow that it God would interpose to
deliver them from death, he would build and endow a chapel, as an acknowledgment
of God’s gracious interposition and an expression of his own gratitude. They
were saved. And, though a Papist, a better man than many Protestants who
forget, in the day of returned health or prosperity, the vows and resolutions
formed in an hour of trouble, he fulfilled his promise. In the erection of Maison
Dieu Chapel (in Brechin, Forfar), for so it is called, David, Earl of
Huntingdon, paid his vow. Associated though it be with popish superstitions, it
sprang from higher motives than either ecclesiastical pride or sectarian
rivalry; and humble as these ruins are now, they form a venerable and
interesting memorial of the simple faith, and devout piety, that ever and anon,
like the blaze of a brilliant meteor, lighted up the long night of the dark ages
of the Church. Such dedications and vows as those to which that chapel owed its
existence, have fallen into too great disuse. The devout, but too much
neglected, practice which these famous saints observed, Hannah also recommends
to our imitation. It was in the performance of such a vow that she returned to
the house of God, not empty handed; but to earn, if I may say so, the high
encomium pronounced on her of whom our Lord said, “She hath given all she had.”
In that child of prayer, her only son, the boy whom she leads lovingly by the
hand, Hannah presented to God a gift more beautiful and costly, more precious
far, than Jacob’s tithe of corn and cattle, or David’s richest spoils of war. A
blessed contrast to another woman, the unhappy partner of Ananias’ guilt and
also of his doom, who, pretending, while a part was withheld, that the whole
price had been given, lied to the Holy Ghost, Hannah, in going to perform her
vow, like a martyr marching to the stake, “walks in her integrity.” Hannah’s
case was peculiar. She might, repenting of her vow, have kept back not a part
of the price, but the whole; nor thereby laid herself open to challenge or
censure; to the taunts of Peninnah, her enemy, or of anyone else. When she
vowed that if God would give her a son, he should be the Lord’s, Eli saw her
lips move; but no more--and hearing nothing took her for a drunken woman. Only
God and she herself knew what these lips had said. That was enough for Hannah.
It should be so for us. “Thou God seest me,” should place us in circumstances
of greater restraint than broad daylight, the public street, the eyes of a
theatre of spectators; even so it was a sufficient reason for Hannah performing
her vow that God had heard the words of her noiseless lips, and that the vow,
though a secret to others, was none to Him. It is to the honour of Hannah’s sex
that the only two offerings on which Jesus, He who offered himself for her and
us on the cross, ever bestowed the meed of His applause, were both made by
women. The one was a widow. Poor, and meanly clad, in her offering as much as
in her dress, she presented a remarkable contrast to many who, sweeping into
the house of God, attired in all the gaieties of changing fashions, give a wide
berth to the plate at the door, or drop into the offertory, without a blush of
shame, the merest, meanest pittance. Though but two mites, hers was a
munificent gift, being her little all. The other woman, praised by Him whom all
heaven praises, was one--strange as it will appear to such as have not reflected
on the blessed truth, that a fallen is not necessarily a lost woman--from whose
touch decency and decorum shrinks. As the phrase went, “she was a sinner.”
Lying, where all have need, and the purest love, to lie, at Jesus’ feet, she
washes them with a flood of tears; and, taking an alabaster box of precious
ointment, pours its fragrance on the feet that for her, and us, were ire be
nailed on Calvary. Beside these women Hannah deserves a place. In her
dedication of Samuel, in giving him up who was the light of her eyes and the
joy of her home, she parted for God’s sake and his service with the costliest,
the most prized and precious, thing in her possession. Before turning the
dedication of Samuel to a practical use, let me observe, that though we may have
to wait for the reward and recompense in heaven, Hannah had not so long to
wait. She says of Samuel, “I have lent him to the Lord;” and God paid
her good interest for the loan. Ages before the great words were uttered by the
lips of Jesus, she proved the truth of His saying, “Whosoever will save his
life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find
it.” “There is that scattereth,” says the wise man, “and yet increaseth; and
there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The
liberal soul shall be made fat.” Such was Hannah’s experience. She gave away
one child, and God paid her back with five; and promptly too. To turn the
dedication of Samuel to a seasonable and important use, let me ask why so few
parents now follow Hannah’s example? why so few either dedicate themselves, or
are dedicated by others to the Christian ministry? When other professions are
overstocked, why is it that almost all the churches, both in this country and
in America, are complaining of a hack of candidates for the sacred office, and
especially of such as possess not only the piety, but the talents and culture
which it requires? Why should not our Christian youth come forward to embrace
this noblest, though meanwhile poorest, of all professions? Some years ago,
leaving titles, estates, luxurious mansions, kind fathers, mothers, sisters,
brothers, and blooming brides, many threw themselves on the shores of the Black
Sea, to face frost and famine, pestilence and iron showers of death, under the
walls of Sebastopol! And shall piety blush before patriotism? Shall Jesus
Christ call in vain for less costly sacrifices--either of money or of men? Let
those whom Providence has enriched, some with silver and some with sons,
remember the touching question one wrote beneath a figure of our Lord stretched
bleeding on the cross, “This Thou hast done for me, what shall I do for Thee?”
(T. Guthrie, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》