seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
1 Samuel 1:1 21 When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, 22 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.”
23 “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.
24 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. 25 When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, 26 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. 27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 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.
Here's the link to the commentary.Until the child is weaned: In that culture, a child was usually not weaned until two years of age, or sometimes three years. It is reasonable to assume that Hannah was in no hurry to wean Samuel.
I also have lent him to the LORD: This could be translated, “And I also made myself to present for the LORD.” The idea is not that Hannah “owned” the child and “lent” him to the LORD. Instead, the idea is that the child is her “prayer,” or the fulfillment of her prayer to the LORD.
I know for a fact, giving up a baby is really, really, difficult. She took care of that baby until he was about 3 years old. She cuddled him to keep him warm. She taught him how to roll over. She sat up with him at night when the pain of cutting teeth kept them up. She held his hand when he learned to walk. She taught him to say "mama". And then she gave him to the church to be raised so he could serve God.
She promised God that if He let her have a baby, she would give the baby to the church. We're not talking "dedication" or "baptism" of the newborn here. We're talking.... Hannah put her baby, Samuel, in the arms of the priest... and walked away.
I wonder... how do the goody-two-shoes women feel about a mother giving up her toddler. I've heard "how could she do that?"
Sometimes a mother knows what's good for the child. My children turned out fabulous.
Well, at least she'll know where he is. At least she will know he is safe in the Temple.... protected by God.
I wonder if a lot of people gave their boys to the church back then.
Women who could bear children usually held that over women who hadn't born a baby by a certain "age".
I remember hearing that back before it became illegal, some thought that if a woman hadn't found a man and had a baby by the time she was 15, she would be an "old maid". That was horrible.... no woman is a woman unless she has a child.
Maybe Hannah thought God didn't want her to have a baby because she would be a horrible mother. Maybe that's why she gave her baby to the church.
I'm pretty sure Hannah cried her heart out, even though the Bible doesn't say so.
Hannah cried her heart out!
