Hannah and Samuel’s Callings

There was a certain man from Ramathame, a Zophite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah, son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zoph, an Ephraimite.

He had two wives.

One was called Hannah and the other Penina.

Penina had children, but Hannah had none.

Year after year, this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the Lord.

Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord.

Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Penina and to all her sons and daughters, but to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb." Because the Lord had closed Hannah's womb, her rival kept on provoking her in order to irritate her.

This went on year after year.

Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her until she wept and would not eat.

Her husband, Elkanah, would say to her, Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? So, sometimes I think we read scripture and it's just like, okay, this is meant to be taken very seriously.

And it is.

But I'm like, man, poor Hannah.

She can't have kids and she's married to that guy.

Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? Like, oh, dude.

Go back to husband school.

So...

Hannah's got it pretty tough.

This is not easy.

So number one, she's barren.

She can't have children.

And it says explicitly multiple times that God has closed her womb.

And so this, you know, think of how painful that must be just to be like, my name is favor, and yet God is not favoring me.

What do I do with that? Think about her not very thoughtful husband, who's like, babe, you got me.

And it's just like, hmm, yeah.

But then also, it's interesting, the Bible stops naming this other wife, Penina, and simply calls her Hannah's rival.