The Birth of Samuel

God's Book, the Bible

One outstanding characteristic of human beings is that we love stories. Just look at the motion picture industry. It’s built into the human DNA to love a story.

I remember, before I got born again, I had a thought that it would be a crying shame for a person to live their entire life and never read the story of the Bible, the very book that God Himself wrote for us to read. How would you explain that to the Lord?

And so, I started at Genesis chapter one and began to read. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

And after I plowed through the first 6 chapters or so, I began to think, this is a great story. And so, I read about the tower of Babel, and the great flood of Noah’s day.

And I worked my way through Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which was somewhat boring, but I was determined. Then I got to Joshua and Judges and Ruth, and into the stories of Israel possessing the land of Canaan.

And I came to the stories of the kings of Israel, which had some exciting moments.

Reading the Word of God

The point I’m making here is that it’s important for us to actually read and understand the story of the Bible for ourselves. We learn so much from it.

So, I believe it will help us to look at the story of First Samuel. So, let’s take a look at one of the most fascinating stories in the Bible. I think we’ll find it enjoyable and also learn some good things from it.

Samuel’s Parents

Now, in Bible times, we understand, much of a woman’s perceived worth was based on her ability to have children, which is not such a big issue these days, but it was a reproach to be barren back in those days.

And two wives would naturally be at odds with each other, for the attention of their husband. But Peninnah had the upper hand, she had children and Hannah didn’t. So, Hannah is the underdog in this story, you might say.

The Tabernacle at Shiloh

The tabernacle of Moses, containing the ark of the Covenant, had been with Israel during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, and now it was located at Shiloh, and the people brought their sacrifices and offerings to Shiloh every year.

And it mentions here that the High Priest, Eli, and his two “wayward” sons, Hophni and Phineus, were there at Shiloh, whom we will discuss later.

Elkanah loved Hannah

Does this sound like another story? How about Jacob, who had married two wives, Leah and Rachel, and Leah had children, but Rachel didn’t. Yet it says that Jacob loved Rachel. This is a scriptural parallel. And we’ll see that this book is filled with scriptural parallels, which makes it especially fascinating.

In this case, Pininnah had children, but Elkanah loved Hannah, who was barren. What a mess! But notice, the verse points out that the Lord Himself had shut up Hannah’s womb. Interesting! Why would He do that?

The Provoking of Pininnah

Notice, it says again that the LORD had shut up her womb. That begs the question, what was the Lord doing? Was this part of His plan, or just an unfortunate condition that Hannah was in? Evidently it was part of His plan.

And Pininnah loved to give Hannah a hard time about it, to make her frustrated and angry that the Lord had shut up her womb. She would, in effect, say, the Lord has blessed me, but not you. How do you feel about that? And it caused Hannah to be upset.

It’s easy to get bitter at the Lord when things just don’t seem to be going right? But had the Lord really forsaken Hannah? Maybe not. He was preparing her to give Him something He needed for that moment in history, a prophet He could use to restore integrity to Israel during a time of great backsliding and corruption.

Hannah reaches her breaking point

Constant harassment can tear a person down. Hannah would cry and become despondent, to the point that she couldn’t even eat.

Elkanah knew what the issue was. And he said, don’t I treat you better than if you had given me ten sons?

And don't I love you, Hannah, more than ten children could love you? Yes, he’s a sweet guy. Maybe not very smart in having two wives, but still a sweet guy. The Bible says Solomon had 700 wives. Did his life have any drama in it? Most certainly.

Hannah prays to the LORD

Please, Lord, give me a son, and I’ll give Him back to You for Your service all the days of his life. He’ll be a Nazarite unto God, consecrated to You, his whole life.

Do we ever strike up a deal with the Lord? Lord, if you’ll get me out of this mess, I promise I’ll do thus and so. The Bible says to be sure to keep your vows to the Lord.

And, you know, the Lord took her up on her proposition. She had offered Him something He wanted. Notice. Being harassed by Pininnah did not kill Hannah. It just made her desperate enough to pray the right prayer.

Eli agrees with Hannah’s prayer

He blessed her. Doesn’t that sound like Jesus? Go thy way, daughter, thy faith has made thee whole.

Eli agreed with her. Jesus said, if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything you shall ask of God, it shall be done for them. Eli had inadvertently come into agreement with her that God would give her a child, and he didn’t even know what she was praying about.

We will find out in this story that Eli had become corrupt in God’s sight, but he was still standing in the office of High Priest, a position of authority that allowed him to intercede for the people. And, you know, God honored Eli’s intercession for Hannah.

God will bless through corrupt people

That’s sort of strange, but if you stay around church life long enough, you’ll find out that the Lord will even use corrupt vessels, like Eli, to bless His people, if necessary . . . FOR A SEASON.

We’ve seen some crazy things over the years. It’s hard to believe, but we came across a pastor years ago, who turned out to be a scoundrel, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. To put it mildly, he was cavorting with the women in his church.

And yet, strangely enough, his ministry was anointed of God and blessed FOR A WHILE. When he ministered, people were blessed. Why? Because God wants to bless and encourage His people. And He’ll use whoever He can to do it, But He won’t put up with sin forever.

God is merciful, but He’s also holy. He is longsuffering. He will give people a chance to repent, but if they don’t, then judgment will inevitably come, as we’ll soon see happen in this story.

Hannah left that time of prayer in faith. She ate something, she wasn’t sad anymore. She had a belief in her heart that something had taken place. In her heart of hearts, she had a child.

Hannah bears a child

Was it going to be easy for Hannah and Elkanah to give up their son? Of course not. But she had vowed a vow. And her husband was a godly man who was careful to honor any vows made to the Lord. And so, the day did eventually come.

Samuel moves to Shiloh

This must have been a sad moment, for the parents and for the child. Hannah had wanted a child so badly, and now she has one, whom she loves dearly, and he’s barely a toddler. And now she’s going to leave her child in this strange place with this 75-year-old priest of the Lord. What kind of a life is he going to have?

But evidently there was much grace for it, because it says that the child, Samuel, worshiped the Lord there.

Hannah’s prophetic prayer

To wrap up the story of the birth of Samuel, let’s look at the first part of chapter 2.

Hannah has just left Samuel to live with Eli, the High Priest, and she prays a prayer, or we might say, she prophesied a prayer, because it is more of a prophesy than a prayer.

Remember in the Christmas story when Mary went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth said the baby leaped in her womb when she heard Mary’s voice? And both Mary and Elizabeth were ecstatic, and they prophesied and rejoiced with each other.

Hannah’s prayer is amazingly similar to the prayer of Mary. It’s another one of those scriptural parallels.

Mary, in her prayer, said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Likewise, Mary said in her prayer, He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. Very similar prayers.

Mary prayed, He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. These prayers are so similar. It’s uncanny.

God will give strength to HIs King

Now, look at what she says in verse 10.

He shall give strength unto His King. That’s an interesting statement, since at that time, Israel had never had a king, other than the Lord, and there had been no one anointed to be king.

But Hannah prophecies of a king that God would give strength to, and an anointed one whom the Lord would exalt. And this speaks prophetically of David, the king whom God would raise up within the next century or so, and ultimately of the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, the anointed One, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose kingdom would be forever.

Was doing something awesome during this time in Israel’s history? Yes.

Well, there’s a lot more to the story. This was a time of great transition in Israel. There was a corrupt priesthood to deal with, the Philistines were in a place of dominance over Israel, and Israel was in a severely back-slidden condition, following after other gods.

That sounds sort of like the condition Israel was in when John the Baptist showed up, baptizing people a few centuries later. Another scriptural parallel.

So, as we continue this story, we will see how the Lord begins to deal with all these issues, bringing Israel into a time of repentance, and a time of great victory over their enemies, and a time of great spiritual awakening.

It has great similarities to the time when Christ came to Israel a millennium later, bringing deliverance from sin, defeating the true enemy of the people, the devil, and restoring relationship with God, the Father.

It is nearly impossible to talk about the story in First Samuel without talking about the redemptive work of Christ and the deliverance from sin that He provided at Calvary, though it came at a much later time. It would be difficult to deny that the two are connected in some way.