The Boy Who Was Asked For

In the hill country there lived a man named Elkanah, and he had two wives — Peninnah, who had a houseful of children, and Hannah, who had none at all. Every year the whole family went up to Shiloh, where the tent of the Lord stood, to worship and to bring their offering. Eli was the old priest there, and his two sons served with him. And every year at Shiloh it was the same: Peninnah had children crowding round her, and Hannah sat there with none, and it hurt so much that she could not eat, and she cried and cried. And her husband, who loved her, would say to her, “Hannah — why are you crying? Why will you not eat? Why does your heart hurt so? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” But it did not mend it.

One year at Shiloh, when the meal was over, Hannah got up all by herself and went and stood in front of the Lord. Old Eli was sitting on his seat by the doorpost, watching. And Hannah prayed. She was so full of sorrow that she wept while she prayed, and she made God a promise: “Lord, God of armies — if you will only look at how sad I am, and remember me, and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours all the days of his life, and no razor will ever touch his head.” She prayed for a long time. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out — she was saying it all inside her heart. And Eli watched her mouth and thought she must be drunk, and he said to her, “How long are you going to be like this? Put the wine away from you.” And Hannah said, “No, my lord. I have not been drinking anything at all. I am a woman having a hard day, and I am pouring out my soul in front of the Lord. Do not think your servant is a worthless woman — it is because I have so much sorrow that I have gone on so long.” And Eli said, “Go in peace. And may the God of Israel give you the thing you have asked him for.” And Hannah went away and ate her supper — and her face was not sad any more.

And the Lord remembered Hannah. Before the next year was out she had a baby boy, and she named him Samuel, which means *asked of God*, because, she said, ‘I asked the Lord for him.’ When the time came to go up to Shiloh again, Hannah stayed home. She said to her husband, “Not yet — not until the boy is big enough. Then I will take him up, and he will stay there always.” So she kept him at home and looked after him herself for the first few years of his life. And then, when he was still only a little boy, she took him up to Shiloh with an offering, and brought him to old Eli, and said, “Please, my lord — I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. This is the boy I prayed for, and the Lord gave me what I asked. And now I am giving him back to the Lord, for as long as he lives.” And she left him there. That is not an easy thing for a mother to do.

And Hannah sang. This was her song: “My heart is glad in the Lord. There is nobody holy like the Lord — there is nobody but you. Do not talk so big, and do not let proud words come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God who knows everything. The bows of the strong are broken, and the weak are dressed in strength. The ones who were full go looking for bread, and the hungry are hungry no more. The woman with no children has borne seven, and the one with plenty has grown tired. The Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he lifts up. He picks the needy up out of the dirt, and lifts the poor man off the ash heap, and sits him down with princes. For nobody wins by being strong.”

So little Samuel stayed at Shiloh and served the Lord there, a small boy in a little linen coat. And every single year, when his mother came up for the yearly offering, she brought him a new robe she had made for him herself — a bit bigger each time, because he was growing. And Eli would bless Elkanah and Hannah and say, ‘May the Lord give you more children, in place of the one you lent him.’ And God did: Hannah had three more sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up in front of the Lord.

But all was not well at Shiloh. Eli’s two sons were priests, and they were bad ones. When people came to bring their offering, the sons would send a servant with a big three-pronged fork to stab into the cooking pot and take the best of the meat for themselves, before it had even been offered to God. And if a man said, ‘Wait — let it be done properly first,’ they would say, “No. Give it here now, or I will take it by force.” And old Eli heard about it, and said to them, “No, my sons. What I hear about you is not good. If a man does wrong to another man, somebody can pray for him — but if a man does wrong against the Lord himself, who will pray for him then?” But they would not listen to their father. And a man of God came to Eli and told him plainly that it would not go on: God had chosen his family to serve him, and they had treated him as nothing, and now his two sons would both die on the same day, and God would raise up a faithful priest of his own instead. And in the middle of all that, the little boy Samuel went on serving in front of the Lord, and growing — and everybody who met him liked him: God, and people too.