Hannah Transforms Prayer
Samuel was a Nazarite, promised to God for his lifetime by his mother before he was born. The biblical book that bears his name tells not only his story as the last judge of Israel, but also that of Saul and David, Israel’s first kings. This is a book of transitions. Politically, it shows how Israel went from being ruled by the guidance of prophets or judges to being ruled by kings.
It also marks a religious transformation, a new understanding of how to pray. Our story takes place before Samuel was born, when his mother spoke heart-felt, but silent words to God. It would be more than a thousand years before the authors of the Talmud would use her prayer as inspiration for teaching Jews how to pray, but that is what they did. When Hannah discovers her power and speaks from the heart, she legitimates the quiet, still, yet passionate voice that reaches out, in its deep longing, to God. As Hebrew scholar, Marcia Falk, notes, Hannah’s heart-felt words would become “a model of authentic prayer.” [1]
But what was her prayer?
Before we can understand this, we must start with a man, her husband, Elkanah. He had two wives. Hannah was his first and most beloved. Yet his second wife, Peninnah, was the only one who had given him children, for “the Lord had closed [Hannah’s] womb” (1 Samuel 1:5-6 NIV).
Perhaps because she felt jealous and unloved, Peninnah taunted Hannah. “Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her until she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, ‘Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:7-8).
Elkanah’s Statement
What a startling statement. Does he think so well of himself that he could be to her not only lover, but child as well? And boys at that?
Think of it. In those days, daughters were better than no children at all, but sons stayed with their parents when they married and took care of them when they grew old, while girls went to live with their husband’s family. Sons were coveted. Ten of them would be a great richness. After all, we might not think much of a standard that denies a woman value until she is a mother, yet when Hannah lived, or her many counterparts, a woman without children was not only derided and powerless, but as an old woman, she would be alone. Did Elkanah not see that he already had children for his old age, but Hannah had none? Was he truly so blind? Falk calls him “presumptuous.” [Falk 96] That does not seem too harsh.
In her analysis of Hannah’s story, however, author Cynthia Ozick interprets his words differently. According to her, it’s not so much that Elkanah is claiming the importance of his own personhood, but rather of Hannah’s. He is declaring that she matters to him, mother or no. She has value in and of herself. This moment in Scripture, Ozick writes, “is a tremendous metaphysical moment,” the first time a woman is deemed important in and of herself. It provides “a new idea of woman.” [2]

A Failure to Understand
Her argument sounds good, though I would be more inclined to accept it if Elkanah had lifted up, not his own worth, but hers, if he had said something like, “My beloved Hannah, you matter more to me than ten sons.” Even so, that would have been easy for him to say, since he hardly needed more children than he already had.
No. Even if Ozick were right that never before had a biblical woman been valued for what she could offer outside of motherhood—and how, then, can we explain the judge Deborah; Jael, applauded when she killed a man to save her people; Moses’s sister, Miriam, a prophet in her own right; Rahab, considered a saint because she risked her life to hide Israelite soldiers?—still Elkanah’s words were not so grand. By focusing on his feelings, he minimized Hannah’s. He made himself the center of the problem. Because he didn’t listen, he failed to understand.
But surely it was not the time for conversation. They were at a public feast, having traveled to Shiloh for the annual sacrifice. How much could Hannah say? Besides, Elkanah seemed genuinely to want her to feel better. He gave her a double portion of food, for instance. As biblical scholar Lillian Klein points out, however, this seemed to backfire, making his favorite wife cry harder. [3] For why be so generous to her except that she was pitiful, a woman without a child who needed coddling?
Hannah was not comforted, not by Elkanah’s actions, nor by his words.
Turning to God
When the meal was over, Hannah went to the sanctuary to talk to God. Deeply distressed, she wept, and she prayed. She vowed that if the Lord would bless her with a son, she would offer him up as a Nazarite for his whole life long.
Now the priest, Eli, sat by the door and watched her mouth as she prayed. Her lips moved, but he heard no words. He’d never before seen such a thing, so he assumed she was drunk. “Put away your wine,” he told her. “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself?” (1 Samuel 15).
Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser, in his sermon “Hannah’s Prayer and Ours,” puts a good face on Eli’s comment. He describes Hannah lying “prostrate,” her clothes “rumpled.” [4] Perhaps it made sense for Eli to presume that a woman who had just partaken of a celebratory feast might have had too much alcohol, and it is true that Hannah wept. How many of us cry bitterly without curling up, kneeling down, bowing our heads, even looking the fool?
But Hannah is, apparently, not lying or kneeling or bowing. She is standing. The telling passage, 1 Samuel 1:9 says nothing about how she positioned herself. The NRSV states that she “presented herself before the Lord,” giving no indication of what that presentation looked like, and the NIV tells us only that “Hannah stood up” from the table, and Everett Fox’s Schocken Bible, writes simply, “Hannah arose.”
Yet when she returns to Shiloh to present her blessed son to the Temple as promised, she says to Eli, “I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:26 NRSV). So, it seems, Hannah stood.
Hannah Defends Herself
When Hannah went to pray, she was brokenhearted. Unable any longer to contain the ache that festered within herself, and trusting in the goodness and mercy of Yahweh, she poured out her heart to God in silent pleading, but comfortably on her feet, in control of her bearing. So it seems that Goldwasser’s apology for the priest, though appealing, is also misleading. Surely, had Eli sought to understand, he would never have suspected her of drinking. He might even have recognized her suffering.
In her analysis of this vignette, Julie M. Smith notes that Eli “literally cannot hear” Hannah. [5] He is deaf and blind to the truth. Society taught him that women were of no account, that they lacked spiritual depth, and he believed it.
In his introduction to the book of Samuel in which Hannah’s story is found, Fox calls the priest “an ineffectual leader.” [6] Eli could not speak to God, his military leadership was inferior, and his sons acted out in sinful ways that he, as their father, should have been able to control. Little wonder he failed to read Hannah’s murmurings correctly.
Yet God heard, and God understood. In fact, Hannah’s story can be read as a testament to the value of women in God’s eyes. For Eli’s are not the last words. Hannah does not accept his rebuke. Though she uses deference as she defends herself, defend herself she does, saying to him:
“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. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time’” (1 Samuel 1:16).
Hannah’s Blessings
Hannah has wit, strength, and deep faith. If she lacks political power, she nonetheless is blessed by a god who sees beyond her societal role, her station in life, a god who understands her worth. Her voice is quiet and still, but strong and clear when it needs to be.
And the Talmudic rabbis see this. In the Berakhot, the scholars wrote that because “Hannah spoke in her heart, only her lips moved and her voice could not be heard,” so the “one who prays must focus his heart on his prayer,” and since “Only her lips moved,” then “one who prays must enunciate the words with his lips, not only contemplate them in his heart,” because “her voice could not be heard,” we learn that “one is forbidden to raise his voice in his Amida prayer as it must be recited silently,” and since Eli thought she was drunk, “a drunk person is forbidden to pray.” [7] All this because of what a woman, filled with such a longing that she could not help but speak directly to God from the depths of her pain, had done.
Her story is memorable, however, not only for her private triumph as she went from barren woman to mother, nor for how greatly she influenced Hebrew prayer, but also because she evolved from the timid creature who barely whispered her plea, to the strong woman who responded to Eli, to a mother who spoke with the dignity and authority of a prophet.
Hannah’s Song
Although, before Samuel was born, she meant to keep her quiet mutterings to herself alone, afterwards, she sang her praises aloud. “There is no one holy like the Lord,” she called out, “there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2).
She spoke like a prophet, proclaiming Yahweh’s love for the weak, the hungry, the barren.
The bows of the warriors are broken,
1 Samuel 2:4-5
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away.
She declared that God would bless the poor and needy.
He raises the poor from the dust
1 Samuel 2:8
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
Through her words, she gave voice to the suffering and promised that God would make redress. Her god was a god for the poor, the disenfranchised, the silent. Once again, she defied the rules of her gender and sang of hope for those who, like her, knew heartache. Even if she was but a woman, and a barren woman at that, Hannah trusted in God’s concern for her. She knew God would listen.
When we have no one else and no place to go, we have the divine. Hannah believed this. For her, it proved to be true.
A Voice for the Voiceless
Of course, not everyone’s prayers are answered. Not every woman who wants a child will be granted one, not to mention the five others Hannah bore after she had Samuel. The power of her tale, though, is not in the promise of individual salvation as much as it is in the reminder that the Hebrew God is a just god who cares about the disenfranchised. In God’s eyes, the last are first.
When her story began, Hannah was a heartsick wife filled with shame at her failure. She had no voice to answer back to either Peninnah or Elkinah. When Eli judged her unfairly, however, she found the strength to defend herself. Reaching inside, she discovered she had power.
Not until after Samuel was born, however, did she really find her voice. As a mother, she believed in herself. Perhaps we would prefer not to define a woman’s value by how many children she has, but for Hannah, that mattered. Now she could claim the space that was her due.
She may have come to realize that a patriarchy is not fair to women. Her triumphant prayer seeks redress, justice for women and men like her, poor, vulnerable, alone. Maybe she could even see that Peninnah had needs, as well. If women had been respected and given a voice in the community, If Peninnah had felt appreciated for who she was, perhaps she would not have felt the need to bully her partner wife. When those in power do not see or hear us, we may take our grief out on those who cannot fight back. Or we might do as Hannah did and take our grief to God.
Hannah’s Truth
By making that choice, Hannah transformed her life. Was she able to claim her voice because God’s presence made her feel worthy? In his protection, did she find comfort? Maybe Eli’s final words of blessing brought her hope. Did she leave him certain she would soon bear a son, that all would be right in her world? Or had the spirit of the holy touched her, so she no longer needed a promise for the future?
Regardless of how it happened, Hannah, the voiceless one, ended up using her voice to teach others how to pray.
Hannah prayed with her entire heart and entire soul. Trusting fully in her deity, she dared to raise her voice in front of others. Filled with the blessings of Yahweh, she proclaimed that he would protect the innocent. She knew about that, for she had once been that powerless, innocent woman. In her closing song, she praised the god who loved her, who lifted her up, and who, by granting her desire, validated her new form of prayer.
If Hannah did not receive the credit she deserved during her lifetime, it was not because of God, but because of men. Elkanah and Eli may have done their best, but they failed to see beyond their limited cultural norms. They failed to see.
May we have eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of Hannah and those like her who are strong and wise. In their small, but meaningful way, they transform our culture.
In faith and fondness,
Barbara
Credits
- Falk, Marcia, “Reflections on Hannah’s Prayer,” Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible, eds. Christina Büchmann and Celina Spiegel, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 94-102, 98.
- Ozick, Cynthia, “Hannah and Elkahan: Torah as the Matrix for Feminism,” Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible, eds. Christina Büchmann and Celina Spiegel, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 88-93, 90.
- Klein, Lillian, “Hannah: Bible,” The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Jewish Women’s Archive, https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hannah-bible, accessed 7/28/21.
- Goldwasser, Jeff, “Hannah’s Prayer and Ours,” September 27, 2015, https://www.rebjeff.com/blog/hannahs-prayer-and-ours, accessed 7/31/21.
- Smith, Julie M., “A Double Portion: An Intertextual Reading of Hannah (1 Samuel 1-2) and Mark’s Greek Woman (Mark 7:24-30),” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 2017, Vol. 50, No. 2, University of Illinois Press, pp. 125-138, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/dialjmormthou.50.2.0125, accessed 7/28/21.
- Fox, Everett, The Schocken Bible: Volume II: The Early Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, New York, Schocken Books, 2014, 279.
- B. Berakhot 31a.
Photo by ABDULLA M on Unsplash
Copyright © 2021 Barbara E. Stevens. All Rights Reserved.