40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 1:18 (Episode 224)

Episode Date: July 11, 2020

Chad and Daniel begin the book of 1 Samuel in this episode. Elkanah's barren wife Hannah finds herself full of anxiety and vexation. While loved by her husband, her co-wife regularly torments her. Hannah makes a unique vow. And a priest who has difficulty discerning between someone who is praying and someone who is drunk gives her some good news. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, check out everything else that is going on over there. The Craft of Preaching. You can check out all the videos, all the articles. And you can go over to YouTube and see what we're doing over there.

Chad's putting up a video every week. We have a series that we're producing on a pretty regular basis that only appear on YouTube. So make sure that you go and subscribe and ring the bell for the YouTube channel. We are in the episode where we start a new book. so it's exciting to start a new book now it seems like we just started a new book because we did like a month ago this we're gonna be in this one for a little bit longer yeah like weeks longer months longer yeah and this one and this one even has a sequel yeah right yeah i was thinking you know we're we're sort of uh i mean we're not near the end

of the history the historical books we're we're sneaking up on it yeah i mean anytime you get to the end of second king well you got ezra and nehemiah but i mean we're a lot closer let me put it that way yeah a lot closer now we're closer to the end of the historical period than we than we are to the beginning that way yeah we're getting uh we're getting closer to some you know some some angry prophets it's gonna be good yeah yeah this is true we got the song yeah we got we got so much good stuff coming up i mean things we haven't really haven't touched on that much we got wisdom literature yeah you know we got we'll have uh proverbs ecclesiastes and we got we've had some some songs you know i had a song at the sea and stuff like that we got one come

up here in first samuel but we got like 150 yeah that uh that we'll be we'll be covering so i mean i don't know how old we're gonna be when we get there i was talking to my wife last night she said so y'all been doing the podcast for what two and a half years i said uh double double that yeah yeah i think we released the first one in january of 15 i believe yeah i think that's right yeah so over five years now yeah goodness yeah so what i mean if we're being generous what we maybe a third way done yeah yeah we'll say we'll say that yeah i mean so i think we got 10 more years of this at least yeah so plenty of time plenty of time we'll see if we can wrap up i'll be i'll be ready to retire but i say if we can wrap this up before chad retires that'd be

good yeah i'm i'm 50 right now so oh yeah no problem yeah we'll be done by retirement for sure okay that's good that's good all right so then we have the the first chapter of first samuel man let's let's do it first of all the name it's kind of a strange name when you think about it We're just so used to saying it that it probably doesn't strike us as odd. But it really is because the man after whom both these books are named dies in chapter 25 of the first volume. So we call him first and second Samuel, but Samuel isn't even around in second Samuel. He dies in chapter 25 of first Samuel. so it's kind of it's kind of strange like why would they name these books uh after after this

guy well i think there's probably a couple reasons i mean the most obvious is yeah he's a he's a main character he's a pivotal character especially in the the first third to two thirds of the first book and he's that transitional figure between that crazy period of the judges and the coming period of the monarchy but and there's a couple of references in the old testament one in first samuel one in first chronicles it talks about him writing so in chapter 10 of first samuel that mentions that he uh he wrote some stuff in the book about the kings and their duties and then first chronicles chapter 29 says that the acts of david are written in the records of the seer Samuel so did Samuel write some stuff down yeah yeah did he write first and second Samuel in their

entirety no that would that would be impossible because he wasn't even around for a lot of what happened but I you know if uh I think we talked about this when we covered Ruth that yeah you could call the book Ruth you could also call it Naomi or you could call it Boaz because all three of them are pretty important characters but I think a person could make a pretty good case if we were going to like rename these books not to call them first and second samuel but to call them first and second david yeah because i mean if if there's a if there is like a central character it's david without without doubt i mean saul is important samuel's important but the whole history here is set up to lead toward king david so first and second david would be i think a more

appropriate name just as far as the content goes but nobody evidently agrees with me because of all the names that are out there first second david are not among them the uh the greek translation the the septuagint groups together so our bible our english bibles are different than than the the greek and the and the latin so the greek calls first and second samuel and first to second kings it calls all of those together the book of the kingdoms so you got the you got like alpha beta gamma delta so you got these four books so it understands in other words in first samuel all the way to second kings is one one book one united history which i mean makes sense because it is it is that kind of that kind of narrative and then you get to uh get to the

vulgate which is the latin translation and it uh it's similar i mean it calls it like one kings two kings three kings four kings so different names out there but just as far as the content goes uh definitely david is the one who is the the prominent prominent person here that seems like maybe one of the reasons they go with samuel is because samuel does mark a pretty pivotal transition um in the life of israel i mean uh obviously there's people who would say like well that transition really starts with David, but it doesn't. I mean, it really starts with Samuel. Samuel is the, I mean, whether they get through Saul and all this as well. But after you have the judges, nothing is the same after Samuel. Everything's different after Samuel because

Samuel is sort of your first also, you know, capital P prophet, right? I mean, people would say, oh, Moses is a prophet, but Moses is sort of his own thing in Israel's history. He's a prophet, he's a rescuer, he's everything, right? I mean, so there is no other Moses, but Samuel really is the first of God sort of having a mouthpiece, a sort of singular, like I said, maybe there's other, you know, other prophets, but this is the prophet, right? And we haven't really, we haven't really seen that up until this point. And this is the reason that, and we'll see that people listen to him. And this is sort of, maybe not unanimously, but for the most part, he is viewed as the guy who speaks for God. And really, since Moses, we've not really had someone like that. No, we haven't. I

I mean, there's been mention of a couple of prophets in the book of Judges, but there's none by name and none that certainly stand out the way that Samuel does. I mean, he really does. He is a mosaic sort of figure, just in the sense that he isn't just a preacher like some of the other prophets were, but he is a leader. I mean, people look up to him and they turn to him when they want a king. You can't have a David if you don't have a Samuel first, because only Samuel is picking David. Right, right. Yeah, somebody has to have that horn of oil with which to anoint the king, right? So in this sense, Samuel is a pretty pivotal person in the genealogy of Christ, and certainly in the redemptive narrative. God gots to get him a Samuel before he can have a line of David. Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to put it. Yeah, and his relationship with kings also kind of

sets the pattern that we're going to see in the other prophets uh the other prophets that figure in the books of of Samuel and Kings people like Elijah and Elisha because almost from the get-go there is this uh I don't want to say antagonism but there there is a there's a very tense relationship let's put it that way there's a very tense relationship between prophet and king because you have everything's okay as long as the king is doing what he's supposed to do according to the torah but the minute that he goes astray who's going to be calling him on the carpet it's the prophet and they're they're fearless in doing so too well most of them the true prophets are anyway you know there's some uh there's some some other prophets uh later on the book of kings who

are nothing but you know yes sir men saying what the king wants him wants him to say but the true prophets are always bold and fearless and standing up to the monarchy and saying nope what you did was wrong. We see that in the case of Samuel and Saul. We see that in the case of David and his prophets, and we see it in the case of Elijah and Elisha repeatedly telling the kings what you're doing is not right, threatening them, all those kinds of very bold proclamations from God. So Samuel begins that process that we're going to see perpetuated by the other prophets as well. Yeah. His origin story is a story that's got all kinds of Christological implications. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, I mean, I don't know. I think probably my favorite chapters, at least in 1 Samuel, are the ones that we're about to get to.

This first and second chapter are just amazing. Just the way the story is told and the characters in it. and then chapter two you have hannah's song which has a remarkable affinity with of course mary's song magnificat yeah i think it's without a doubt that that mary's is patterned after hannah's and there's connections between we'll get to this when we get to chapter two but there's connections between hannah's song and one of the psalms as well where you know which came first you know chicken or egg kind of situation did hannah pattern hers after this psalm or was the psalm pattern after hannah's but anyway uh beautiful beautiful expression of this great reversal the uh the the topsy-turvy ways of god kind of flipping everything upside down so some good

theology the cross stuff that we'll we'll get to as well yeah and a passage that everyone heard when they were a kid about being willing to have the lord use you and yeah yeah yes exactly a real sunday school story real sunday school story yeah we got so we have a whole list of characters here that we're introduced to in the opening chapter we're going to meet a family with a man and two wives we're going to meet them right away in these opening two verses so we're going to get introduced to elkanah who is the the husband and father and his two wives hannah and penina or penina however you want to say her name, and we'll talk about them. We're also introducing this first chapter to Eli, who is going to be pretty prominent in the first third of 1 Samuel, and then also

there's not much made of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, at this point, but we will hear more about them in the ensuing chapters. But we're introduced to almost everybody who's going to be a significant player early on, just in these opening verses. But then it will focus back in on Hannah in particular, and the situation that she finds herself in. So let me read these opening few verses, just kind of set the stage for us. There was a certain man from Ramathiam Zophim, that's later just going to be called Rama, from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jehoram, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth, and Ephraimite. And he had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, and the other name of the other was Peninnah. Peninnah

had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord there. And when the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah, his wife, and all her sons and their daughters. But to Hannah, he would give a double portion. I want to come back to that because the Hebrew there is uncertain, and different translations render that different ways, but just read what I have. To Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. And it happened year after year,

as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she would provoke her. So she wept and would not eat. Then Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons? So that's the opening eight verses. So I love this comment by one of the commentators I was checking out on this, just about the opening verse where you have Elkanah's genealogy listed. The quote is this, the names in Elkanah's genealogy are important because of their unimportance. So in other words, this guy is basically just an average Joe. You know, it's like he has this awesome pedigree with all of these just

sterling examples of courage and piety and all of this great family tree. We're like, oh, man, he's connected to him and to him and to him. No, we read this and we're like, I don't know, never heard of those guys. No idea who they are. Yeah, he's just a regular dude with some household conflict. Yeah, yeah. Just a regular dude with the kind of conflict that we have come to expect. It's like any time we meet a guy with two or more wives,

we just automatically can safely assume, oh, yeah, well, there's going to be conflict, right? Like as soon as we hear, and he had two wives, like full stop. you're like oh i know what's about to happen yeah problems it's a it's a weird he's got an interesting thing going on seems like a seems like an all right guy um he's not uh upset that his wife is barren or doesn't seem to be blaming her for it or something like that none of that that's kind of new right i mean a lot of times we we kind of have the opposite yeah or that or that he oddly enough prefers the the barren wife to the one who can give children uh of course this

is a problem this is a root of all kinds of problems so as a way to try to you know make her feel better that she can't since she can't have kids he's giving her more stuff but of course this is not helping at all because then the wife who can't have kids is upset about this which is understandable and so she uses the fact that she can provide offspring as a way to jab at her yeah this this dude wow seems like an all right guy not terribly bright maybe because he should know that you gotta he needs to at least do that stuff secretly you know you're causing tension here man yeah he evidently had never read guide to the polytheistic husband yeah yeah you have to at least have the appearance all in chapter one

you have to at least have the appearance of everything being equal yeah yeah i think i mentioned this novel before i read it years ago the lonely polygamist which was a set in i think it was uh utah anyway just one of these fascinating accounts of not i mean it's fiction but just of the kind of the the way this all worked between the husband and the many wives so yeah that's uh we we've accounted of course the situation before with jacob and his two and his two sister wives and the jealousy that that went between them and and it's a parallel there between because of course jacob loved rachel more than he loved leia but leia was the one who was able to produce all these these children even though we're not told that leia was as

provocative as uh penina is now leia leia seems like someone who ultimately just kind of got the shaft i mean i mean i i can't help but feel bad for leah throughout that entire narrative man it's it's rough it is it is yeah and uh i think that we're i mean i think it's written in such a way that we are actually supposed to to feel pity pity for her and i love the fact that uh just in the great scheme of things that that ultimately the messiah did not come from uh the tribe of Joseph, but it came from the tribe of Judah, and Judah was one of Leah's sons. So it's pretty cool the way that the Lord took care of her, as it were, in the grand narrative of salvation. But here we have a little bit different situation. So we have Elkanah, the two

wives, and immediately we're introduced to their worship practice. So we don't know how prevalent that this was among the Israelites at this time. Of course, if you were with us in Judges, you realize that it was just kind of a free-for-all. Everybody did what was right in their own eyes, and so you have people hiring these priests who were just looking for a job, and they set up their own little shrine,

worship a little Yahweh, worship a little Baal, worship a little Asherah, so you have widespread syncretism. Nobody was really going. Well, I shouldn't say nobody, but there was no there's no evidence of widespread worship activity at Shiloh where the tabernacle was people seem to just be kind of doing their own their own thing but uh kudos to to this family they are actually going to the tabernacle and they're it says they're going up yearly we don't

know if this was like some designated time Passover or one of the other festivals but they would go up yearly to worship and to sacrifice there at Shiloh and when they went up as I alluded to earlier, it's a little bit difficult to know how to translate this. I only mention it because depending on which Bible you use, you're going to read something different there. So most translations will say in verse 5 that to Hannah, Elkanah would give a double portion. But there are, I think it was the RSV, I don't know if I've got it here. Yeah, the RSV, for instance reads, although he loved Hannah, he would give Hannah only one portion because the Lord had closed her womb. The trouble there, it's too complicated in the Hebrew to explain it on the

podcast, but there is a word in there which just is a little bit hard to understand how to fit it into there. But it seems anyway that double portion is probably the better way to go here. So anyway, that's what he would do. He would give to her probably this double portion. And we know explicitly that he loved her and evidently you know the the other wife would take advantage of this situation to basically engage in that what the germans call with that wonderful word schadenfreude right this this delight at somebody else's misfortune so she would irritate her provoke her the hebrew there is interesting because rival is literally something like troubler so her troubler would provoke her the verb for provoke is used almost exclusively in the the writings

before this to talk about how israelites would provoke god to jealousy by their idolatry it occurs over and over in the Pentateuch to refer to not how like one person would provoke another person, but how Israel would provoke, would cause God because of their idolatry. But that's kind of what's going on here. And this would happen to irritate her. I was trying to think of how I might translate this. It's a little bit difficult to render, but the word that's translated as irritate usually means like to thunder or like shake in some way. So you kind of picture her provokes so much that she's just she's either shaking on the outside or she's shaking on the on the inside it's like this this thunderous response to this constant poking at her and

irritating of her because of her the situation that she really had nothing nothing to do with so anyway that's what would happen she they go up year after year and finally it says that she would weep she would not eat because of course she was just what we would call a depressed uh state and then elkanah i mean i'm sure he meant well but you know speaking as a man like a lot of husbands you might mean well but sometimes the things you say or you do are not very wise and so you mean you're rolling in and be like you don't need kids you got me yeah like listen i'm the only man in your life that you really need you know we encountered an expression like this actually the last episode remember the women of bethlehem said that said to

naomi that ruth is better to you than seven sons well elkanah like takes that up three more it's like oh i mean i'm better to you than tens than ten sons right i'm like i'm god's gift to you why would you need why would you need anything else so uh he's a little obtuse here uh just doesn't really doesn't really get it doesn't help the situation so anyway that's uh kind of where we're at so what's what's going to happen next is what all of this has been leading us toward so hannah she gets up uh my translation i don't think is a good way to render this because it says then hannah rose after eating and drinking in shiloh uh the esv is better here because it says that after they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Because I don't think that Hannah

had been eating and drinking. We're just told that she wouldn't eat. And a few more verses it says when she's going to reply to Eli that she hasn't been drinking. So don't get the idea that, you know, Hannah had a lot to eat and she had a glass of wine and she thought she'd go pray. No, everybody else is eating and drinking. She's not. She's fasting. She's refraining from alcohol. So she gets up, and it says that Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. This is unusual because the word translated there as seat, yeah, that's ESV and New American Standard both have that, almost exclusively refers to a throne. It's the Hebrew word kisei and with i think possibly one other exception every reference to this is to a throne

which makes me wonder if this isn't sort of an implicit way of saying that the priest was acting as if he were a king no possibly but that is the implication that's the usual translation of this word kisei is is thrown here it's translated as seat it's the closest thing they got i guess I suppose. We're still in the time of there is no king in the land. Not yet. Yeah, so Eli's kind of acting like he is. So he's sitting by the doorpost at the, this is another kind of strange word here, the temple of the Lord. well there's no temple uh this is a at this point it's just a tent it's a it's a movable sanctuary uh this uh this word hay call is most of the time again used in reference to the actual permanent structure of the temple but whatever reason it's used here and then i think one other one of the

place in these opening chapters to refer to the tabernacle rather than the temple anyway she was she was bitter of soul, and she prayed to the Lord, and she wept bitterly. And verse 11 is significant, because this is where she makes a vow to the Lord, saying, you know, if you will do this, then I will do this. So verse 11 says, she made a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant, and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head. Now, we've encountered vows before. If you remember one, it's probably the vow that Jacob made when he was at Bethel.

Vows typically work like this, and there's a lot of vows in the Old Testament. We don't really talk that much about vows these days in Christianity, but there's vows all over the Israelite world. Vows usually work like this. It's an if-then. So if God will do X, then I will do Y. Or if God will give me X, then I will give him Y, right? Those all kinds of situations like that have been counted in the Old Testament. Now, this one is unique because notice how it's different. Hannah does not say, if God will give me X, then I will give him Y. Hannah says, if God will give me X, then I will give him back X. So in other words, if God will give me this gift, then I will give this gift directly back to him. It's a very different, and I would

argue a very superior vow in that way. She's basically asking God for a child with the The promise that this child that he has gifted her will then be gifted directly back to him for service. Not just service, but also to be a Nazirite. Even though that word is not used anywhere in these opening chapters, I don't know how else we can understand this, because it says a razor shall never come on his head. And we know that Nazirites like Samson could not have a haircut or could not come into contact with the corpse or could not ever partake of any fruits of the vine. So it seems that just as Samson was a lifelong Nazarite,

so also Samuel is going to be one as well. This is similar to you telling God, if you give me a daughter, I'll make her a nun. Yes, that would be a very close equivalent to this. I mean, that's basically what she's saying, right? I want a son, and she does end up, you know, when she has the son, she keeps him until he's weaned. But after that, he's turned entirely over to the Lord's service. So she makes the vow, and it says that as she was praying before the Lord that Eli,

so she's evidently right in front of the tabernacle, and Eli's watching her. He says he's watching her mouth move. and Hannah was speaking in her heart only her lips were moving but her voice was not heard and so Eli assumes that she was drunk this is this is a bit this is kind of a strange situation here first of all we don't have I don't I'm almost positive that there are no other examples in the old testament where we have prayer happening like this I mean we might pray that way where you know we're we're not saying the words aloud but maybe we're you know we're mouthing them as it were we're praying silently but our our lips are moving but most of the time

people pray the old testament it's allowed it's it's out loud at least in the examples that we're given people typically actually give voice give voice to their prayer she's not chad this is one of those unspoken prayer requests you've heard you've heard of these uh in church uh if you have an unspoken prayer request just you know raise your hand and we'll pray for that too right right yeah the lord knows the lord knows so this is one is she's she's thinking about it she's praying but she's she's not speaking it yeah people do people do that on social media all the time right all the time yeah uh just ask for just ask for prayer generically and i have no idea what i'm praying for right right so when i see those and i do pray i just pray yeah lord have mercy yeah whatever the

situation might be yeah yeah so you can see why i don't know maybe this is something that uh you know you have her husband coming in saying hey i'm i'm better than 10 sons and maybe she doesn't want her sister wife here and her interceding for a child i don't really need that tool in your hand uh to stab me with uh so there's a there's a number of reasons why as she's sort of you know uh presenting to god this vow um that she might want that just to be between her and god and and not want it to be something that her husband hears and then thinks man she's just really really really discontent and and upset and uh and nor does she want you know her her co-wife to to hear this either because she doesn't need to give her more more fuel yeah yeah well that

that makes uh that makes perfect sense you ever been with i've been in two situations i just thought of this uh it's kind of a side note but uh you're in those situations where uh you're in a group and everybody's praying together aloud but their own prayers oh yeah yeah yeah i didn't know how common that was i've only been in two situations like that where uh where it was you One was in Russia. I was in Novosibirsk, Siberia, and I attended a, it was a German service, actually. I mean, they were Russians, of course, but they came from German heritage. And so all of their liturgy, their hymns and prayers were still in German. And there was one point in the service where we all kneeled to pray and everybody prayed aloud their own prayers.

So it was kind of cacophony going on inside the church. And then one other situation that was like that. but uh yeah it just wasn't something i was i was used to i've had that happen uh growing up sometimes that would happen in more charismatic churches but i think it's a even in less charismatic churches i think it's a sometimes a cultural thing it's not necessarily theological um always anyway uh it's cultural so i think uh south korea if you if you were to go to churches there a lot of them do that so they'll they'll say let's pray i was at an event with all south koreans and me it was like that they we they were praying before the service and they all got

together and i was there and they said let's pray and i was not ready for it and all of a sudden just everybody starts praying you know yeah you know it's not right or wrong or anything but if you're not expecting it you're you're like whoa yeah yeah yeah i was i was kind of like that too i just i just thought of that when we were covered you know the silent prayer as opposed to the uh the prayer the very the very vocal prayer so this is this is the opposite of that which by the way i would be more familiar with like hey let's all get together and pray for the service and if you got a bunch of people in a circle and they decided they were all going to pray i would assume that we were all about to pray silently yeah yeah or at least one person

prays for for everyone there well don't you love eli too i mean his immediate assumption is oh she's drunk yeah what she just she can't she can't catch a break you know her husband is just a little bit you know slow not not the the best uh comforter uh then her co-wife is a constant irritant and now her pastor thinks she's drunk when she's pouring her heart out before god it's like poor hannah my goodness uh no one's being really uh that kind and friendly to her so he says how long will you make yourself drunk put away your wine from you yeah so he doesn't just think to himself that she's drunk no no you're like rakes her over the coals this you drunkard what are you doing this man clearly not a prophet yeah exactly so hannah says no my lord i am a woman oppressed in spirit

uh literally like hard or severe in spirit uh not really sure how to how to render that in english but oppressed in spirit heartbroken something like that i have drunk neither wine nor strong drink uh so this is that strong drink is the one we've talked word we've talked about before shake our which is probably beer so i haven't had i haven't had a beer i haven't a glass of wine nothing but instead what have i done i have shafak i poured out my soul before before the lord kind of a play there i have not been pouring drinks uh dear priest and said i've been pouring out my soul for the lord do not consider your maid servant and she uses a great phrase here a a daughter of baliel which is translated as worthless woman uh at least in my translation yeah uh worth yeah

worthless woman at the sv as well so but literally it's don't consider your uh your servant a daughter of baliel which is baliel over time came to actually become a name that was applied to the devil at this point it just kind of means yeah worthless so sons of baliol were worthless fellows this good for nothings and i guess the daughter of baliol had the same connotation so don't consider me that way uh because i've spoken out of my great concern and provocation so eli realizes this go ahead well i know i so i love that i actually love the way that the esv translates this because uh one because we know that god is going to answer this prayer so sorry if i ruined the whole thing but god's going to answer this prayer uh and when she's talking to the the the

priest the way the esv translates this is do not regard your servant as a worthless woman for all along i have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation what but what you have is that one that she what she says she's doing her own admission is that she's speaking to god pouring out her heart and what she's doing is venting out all this anxiety and vexation and you might feel like this would sort of uh be a worthless endeavor or if this makes you sort of a worthless person like i'm just praying to god the only thing that's coming out of my mouth is is all this anxiety and all this vexation that i have but because god answers his prayer and we see eli's response which is going to be go in peace the god of israel grant

your position that you have made to him so in that sense you're given permission to bring all your anxieties as we know jesus is going to say cast your cares upon me or don't be anxious and this kind of thing but you also have this thing where vexation and anxiety are uh are subjects of prayer uh for for for hannah right and and these aren't worthless things to do yeah this is a very good thing to do and i suspect she's talking to her no she's talking to god uh not just about kind of a generic oh i'm just feeling anxious but she's probably talking to her about her co-wife i say that because the word translated there is vexation is the same word that's used to describe how she would vex or or provoke her or irritate her uh earlier in

verse six so yeah i mean she's like she's doing what the psalms always do right they name names so and so is bothering me or uh this particular nation is uh is afflicting us whatever it might be i mean we do we've talked about this before i think we talked about it with naomi that we We do have this idea that we need to kind of whitewash our prayers and pretty them up and make sure we don't say anything to God that's, you know, a little bit too much like complaining or venting. Well, it's all over the Psalms, people. People are venting all the time. it's this i mean you uh if you don't have hannah willing to take her anxiety and vexation to god then you don't get samuel and you don't get david and i think we know who you don't get if you don't

get david so we really need hannah to take her anxiety and vexation to god yeah yeah yeah out of her out of her lament came forth this answer to prayer which of course leads to the the promise the messiah himself yeah and eli's response for blowing it on the front end it's pretty good on the back end yeah yeah i mean it is he says you know go in shalom right go in peace and may the god of israel grant your petition that you asked him now we won't have time today to come back to that particular hebrew verb for ask but it's actually going to become very significant later on shaal is the is the word there it's going to come up at the end of the chapter but yeah he responds much better now. Basically, I want you to go from this place in peace, knowing that God

is going to answer your prayer. And she responds, well, let your maidservant find favor in your sight. So she went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. So evidently, and this is one of these situations that the words spoken by another person is stronger than any reassurance we might give ourselves in our own heart, right? Well, it's interesting that God is going to answer her prayer, but this is a nice example that you have in Scripture where it doesn't say, and then the Lord spoke to Hannah and said, I've heard your petition, go home, your request will be answered, or whatever.

Instead, he uses a dude that can't discern whether someone's praying or drunk to give her a word of encouragement and a word of grace right but it says no he puts his word in the mouth of eli then and this is the preacher right so he puts it in the in the mouth of the imperfect preacher to say um your prayers are heard yeah yeah yeah i had in mind the uh it's a bon heifer quote right that uh the word spoken by a brother is stronger than the word i speak in my own heart right it's just that the power of that external word of someone saying god's word to us putting actually speaking it aloud into our ears and it has i mean it has that immediate effect on hannah because it's like she believes it you know she trusts that god has spoken to her through this

priest and all of a sudden her countenance has changed she goes to she's going to eat now she's no longer going to fast because she's trusting in this the word that the priest has spoken to her And I guess we're going to have to save the rest of the story for next week. That's it, man. Guys, if you know anyone that would like to join you in listening to the podcast, now's a great time to share it with people, put it on social media, start a new book. So to tell people, hey, crucial change is coming for Israel. Now's a good time to jump in the podcast.

If you're like, I'm just too far behind. I just can't do it. Well, the beginning of a book is the best time to share it. Chad, I will see you next week. All right. We'll see you then.