Hannah’s Lessons to Two Men (on learning to be good men)

4 On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters, 5 but to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. 6 Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. 7 So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. 8 Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”
9 After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. 10 She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. 11 She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”
12 As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. 14 So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.” 15 But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. 16 Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” 17 Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.” 18 And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” Then the woman went her way and ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.
19 They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 In due time Hannah conceived and bore a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I have asked him of the Lord.”

1 Samuel 1:4-20 (NRSVue)

2:1 Hannah prayed and said,

“My heart exults in the Lord;
my strength is exalted in my God.
My mouth derides my enemies
because I rejoice in your victory.

2 There is no Holy One like the Lord,
no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
3 Talk no more so very proudly;
let not arrogance come from your mouth,
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed.
4 The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength.
5 Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn.
6 The Lord kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low; he also exalts.
8 He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
and on them he has set the world.

9 He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,
but the wicked will perish in darkness,
for not by might does one prevail.
10 The Lord! His adversaries will be shattered;
the Most High will thunder in heaven.
The Lord will judge the ends of the earth;
he will give strength to his king
and exalt the power of his anointed.”

1 Samuel 2:1-10 (NRSVue)

Hannah’s song is fundamental for religious teaching. In this essay, I focus on the context that gave rise to Hannah’s Song by privileging Hannah as a teacher of lessons about loss and love to two men who are coming to terms with Hannah’s loss. As a man, I find there is much that men can learn from Hannah the teacher on what it means to love in the face of loss.

Both men in the lectionary text encounter Hannah in her deep grief and distress. Before I come to the two men, it seems vital to note that in both men’s encounters, the story presents Hannah as pouring out her sorrow to God. Hannah’s sorrow reminds me of scriptural texts like Psalm 56:8 which reads, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” God is unafraid of human lament over loss. God invites human complaint. There is place in God’s heart for human sorrow over injustice.

While dominant society has a way of dismissing legitimate complaint, God is portrayed in the Bible as one who has the capacity for holding creaturely pain. God is not presented as someone who tells a person in grief, “You need to get out of that funk; go to the beach or something” (true story from a Bible study group I was part of!). Hannah’s knowledge of God in this area has implications for a world that often moves away from instances of loss too quickly.

Learning to be a Good Man: Elkanah, Man 1 of 2

The text presents Elkanah as a generally decent man. As Hannah’s husband, Elkanah probably has a sense that she is having a hard time in a family and society that values children. Without a child of her own, Hannah is treated as a second-class citizen. Seeking to be a decent person, he tries to mitigate the situation. The text records for us that “to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her” (1 Samuel 1:5). The taunts, nevertheless, do not stop. We are not told how long Hannah is taunted before she finally has a child (Samuel, one who will later become a great prophet), but it seems clear from the phrase “it went on year by year” (1 Samuel 1:7) that the provocation Hannah suffers is chronic.

As an effort to further mitigate her pain, Elkanah says to Hannah, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” While Elkanah’s first three questions are sympathetic, his fourth is problematic. “Am I not more to you than ten sons” positions Elkanah, intentional or not, as the centre. Elkanah is trying to be a good man, but he makes Hannah’s sorrow about him. Elkanah, despite his good intentions, cannot seem to understand that another person’s pain, when shared, needs the hearer to hold space. But Hannah knows that God’s character in Psalm 56:8 is tried and true, and thus returns once again to the temple of the Lord where “she was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly” (1 Samuel 1:10).

The reader is left questioning if Elkanah ever learned the lesson that Hannah was teaching him. I wonder, did Elkanah redeem himself after he heard Hannah’s song in the house of the Lord where Hannah sings her song? When Hannah sang the words, “talk no more so very proudly; let not arrogance come from your mouth” (1 Samuel 2:3), I wonder if Elkanah heard those words as applying to someone else, or (as I hope), was there a part of Elkanah that learned that his own words were arrogant as well because they sought to too quickly remove Hannah’s loss by placing himself as the object of her concern?

I raise this question because I have witnessed instances in which people in positions of power, when they listen to stories of sorrow, express quick sympathies, but then use the story of sorrow to place themselves in the centre. So much so that the one with the heart of sorrow is pressured to offer comfort, rather than being the recipient of tender care. In the story, Hannah does not respond to Elkanah’s question, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” Like a good teacher, or simply because she is just too distressed to engage, Hannah leaves Elkanah in suspense until, later in the story, she opens her heart and sings her song.

Learning to be a Good Man: Eli, Man 2 of 2

After her unsatisfactory conversation with Elkanah, Hannah goes yet again to the temple of the Lord to pour out her heart. Hannah is filled with emotion but prays in silence. Her silence, however, is not without movement. Though no words are audibly uttered, Hannah’s lips move. Years of torment and taunting steal Hannah’s words (which will come flooding later in her song), but her lips, along with her breath, move in prayer to the God of the oppressed. It is in this state that Eli observes Hannah.

When Eli sees Hannah at the temple of the Lord, he misinterprets her emotional prayer as being something else. Observing her moving lips, Eli says to Hannah, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself?” (1 Samuel 1:14). Eli is not an English speaker, but he does not use a misogynistic term like “hysterical” in reference to Hannah’s state. “Hysterical” is often uncritically applied to those who express their God-given emotions. Perhaps, deep down, Eli knew better. Something tells me he did. 

Eli, as a pious Jew, would have prayerfully recounted God’s attributes of “mercy”—a word in Hebrew that shares the same root as the word for womb—numerous times. Did this make Eli a better man? Not in this first encounter with Hannah, but he quickly learns. As Elizabeth Johnson (174), following Phyllis Trible, notes, “the Hebrew word for mercy is a cognate of the word for a woman’s womb” and the prayer “‘have mercy upon us’ actually asks God to show compassion on us the way a mother shows love for the child of her womb.” As a Hebrew speaker and God’s priest, Eli knew this, of course. After Hannah corrects Eli’s misinterpretation of her state, Eli does become a better man. Hannah says, “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” In response, Eli offers the blessing, “Go in peace.”

Eli does not double down. Eli does not continue to mansplain. Eli relearns that Hannah is not hysterical; that hysteria, in fact, does not belong in the imagination of God’s faithful. In this way, Eli learns to be a better person. Importantly though, here too, in this second man’s encounter, the lesson is one that is offered by Hannah and one that is learned by Eli. A lesson that Elkanah does not learn in the original encounter with Hannah, Eli does.

All around us, loss leaves its marks; wounds are inflicted; people in pain are taunted. As we ask what it means to love in the face of such loss, Hannah appears with her tears, words, and song to teach us lessons about loss and love. Hannah reminds us to think twice (or thrice) before speaking too soon. Writing as a man, it is not lost on me that Hannah is speaking to two men. For me, the story is not about men vs. women (intersectionality is complicated and messy). That being said, Hannah’s lessons do seem to bear a particular weight and meaning for men in power who find themselves in situations in which they are reacting to human suffering. Hannah continues to sing, “Talk no more so very proudly; let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” Those with ears, let them hear.