A Verse
1 Samuel 1:19-28
Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him.”
When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vow, 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.”
“Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the LORD make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh. When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 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.
A Comment
How often do we pray for God to do something, then, when it happens, we forget that we had prayed for it? Maybe this is not a regular occurence in your life, but if I’m being honest, I tend to pray, see the request fulfilled, then attribute my reception of the fulfilled request to my own efforts or intellect. This, however, is not what Hannah exemplifies in today’s passage. The author of 1 Samuel draws attention not only to the human agency that led to Hannah’s pregnancy with Samuel (“Elkanah knew/made love to his wife Hannah”) but also to the LORD’s remembrance of Hannah’s request.
To be sure, as OT scholar Bill Arnold noted, “God’s remembering someone in the Old Testament (zkr) does not mean that he has forgotten them, only that his memory is consistent with his promises and that he will take action.” The focus here then is not on God’s omniscient, true as it may be, but rather, on His faithfulness to His people, which, in this case, was Hannah.
Hannah responds to God’s answer to her prayer by fulfilling her vow of dedicating Samuel, her son, to the LORD’s service. The story of 1 Samuel picks up from here, demonstrating God’s faithfulness to His people through Samuel, who will serves as a kind of “king-maker” for the people of Israel.
As for us, this passage teaches, among other things, that the LORD is ultimately the One who is responsible for answering our prayers. While we may be responsible agents in the world, going about our day-to-day work in keeping with His will for our lives, it is God who causes all of our efforts to bear fruit. We must learn to rest in His sovereignty over us.
A Prayer
Would you pray with me?
A Blessing
The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Remembering the God Who Remembers (1 Samuel 1:19-28)