17 Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”
18 She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
19 Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. 20 So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, [c] saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him.”
Hannah Dedicates Samuel
21 When the man Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vow, 22 Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the LORD, and he will live there always.”23 “Do what seems best to you,” Elkanah her husband told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the LORD make good his [d] word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
24 After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, [e] an ephah [f] of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh. 25 When they had slaughtered the bull, they brought the boy to Eli, 26 and she said to him, “As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. 27 I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.” And he worshiped the LORD there.
I love Hannah’s reaction. As soon as Eli tells her that she’ll have a baby, “her face was no longer downcast”. Wish I was like that. My cynical westernised viewpoint means that I don’t stop being downcast until I see some results. And I certainly don’t stop crying out to God for something when I get a word from someone that God’s going to do it. But that sort of faith, that knows that it is done once they hear that it is done – that’s something beautiful. Especially when you consider how much it meant to her. And there’s the bit in there about “…in the course of time Hannah conceived…”. In the course of time. Suggests to me that maybe there was a bit of lead time. She’d have been cacking herself.
Then the whole deal comes off. How easy would it be to just pull out. Or you know, take in some of the ambiguity of “given life over to the Lord”. Probably doesn’t mean that he can’t do that just as well from home. My mind starts justifying and I’m not even in that situation. It’s a pretty tough gig – giving up your son. But there was never any question.
The part that freaks me out about the story of Hannah is the whole thing of making a deal with God. Can you manipulate God like that? Is it manipulation? It just seems like the old “if you get me a new bike I’ll be a missionary in Africa” line that all good little church kids prayed growing up (or is that just me – doesn’t matter – I didn’t get the bike). To be brutally honest I’m having trouble reconciling this type approach with the character of God.
Which of course just means that I don’t yet fully get the character of God which should be a surprise to no-one. Would love to hear what people think though.