Hannah: a Mother’s Prayer

by: Verlyn Verbrugge

Things must be pretty bad when a priest mistakes a woman intensely praying to the Lord for a drunk. Had Eli never seen intense devotion before? But this is the time of the judges, when spirituality was at an all-time low and “all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). Not Hannah. She has come before God in her pain and is praying with fervor.

God answered Hannah’s prayer and she became pregnant with Samuel. She had vowed that her firstborn son would be fully dedicated to the service of the Lord, so she brought him to Eli at Shiloh. Israel was badly in need of revival and rededication to the Lord their God. Renewal and revival did come to God’s people, and it all began with the troubled soul of a praying woman.

It must have been difficult for Hannah to leave her little boy at the tabernacle with Eli. But she had done her job well. Samuel did call Israel back to the Lord and, as his final official act, anointed David as king over Israel. And David initiated Israel’s golden age of obedience to God and the establishment of a large kingdom.