Women with a Story to Tell: Hannah 1: Childless yet Devoted.

Turn the page on the Book of Ruth and you will find yourself on page one of the Book of I Samuel. That book begins with an all-too-familiar story in Scripture about faith and emptiness and empathy, and how they are often intertwined. 

 “There was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children” (I Samuel 1:1-2). 

  How many stories about women have we read where childlessness is an issue for an otherwise godly woman? From Sarah, Abraham’s wife, forward to Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, the story is similar. In Elizabeth’s case, her introduction begins with character traits like “righteous” and “blameless,” but it ends with a sad note: “But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren” (Luke 1:6-7). 

 The fact that Hannah is mentioned first probably means that she was Elkanah’s first wife (Craig Keener and John Walton, The NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 2019, footnote on page 466). Childlessness, in many cultures, is one driving force behind polygamy. And, sometimes the first wife encourages the marriage of a second wife in order to produce children. Remember Sarah’s attempt to give Abraham children through her maid Hagar. 

 Both the writer of I Samuel and the author of the Gospel According to Luke go to great lengths to present the wife as blameless because any early reader of the stories would have associated childlessness as punishment for sin. Children were a blessing (Deuteronomy 7:13) and childlessness was a curse (Deuteronomy 28:18). Most people could not see the fallacy in reversing the causation: if sin can be punished by closing the womb, then a woman with a closed womb must have sinned. This is called the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle in Logic, and it is a fallacy that many people fall for. ‘All butterflies are yellow; there is something yellow, so it must be a butterfly’. Such logic simply does not work. 

 “Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the LORD. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters, but to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb. Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. 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. 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?” (I Samuel 1:3-9).

 Remember the battle royal between Leah and Rachel over this very same dynamic: the wife more loved is childless and the wife less loved has children, so she taunts the barren one. 

 When sacrifices are made, they rarely involve a holocaust, that is, an immolation of the whole animal. One part is sacrificed, one part goes to the priest, and the remaining parts are given back to the worshipper. These are the ‘portions’ that Elkanah is giving out. Elkanah tries to help but, of course, any extra attention contributes to the problem.

 Elkanah gave Hannah more “because he loved her.” This is a rare emotional statement in the Old Testament. The word is used in other contexts to talk about God’s love for Israel but also about the people’s love of sin. The most common use seems to be a parent’s love for a child, again something different from a man’s love for his wife. 

 For this reason, the story of Elkanah and Hannah is an important one. It brings out what was missing, at least in the telling of the stories. It most closely resembles the relationship between Jacob and Rachel, on the one hand, and Jacob and Leah, on the other. Notice how Elkanah empathizes with his wife and takes special care of her. 

 Empathy is one of God’s character traits. It can be seen in God’s claims about himself to Moses.

“YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful (rachamim) and gracious (chanan), slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (hesed) and faithfulness (emeth), keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin (Exodus 34:6-7a). 

God is merciful. The Hebrew word is derived from the word for ‘womb’ (rechem), which implies the kind of loving care that God gives is like having a baby in the womb. Some translations use the word ‘compassionate’ here.

God is gracious. The Hebrew word, chanan, means ‘to show favor’. This is what Noah found in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8). 

God is full of steadfast love. This Hebrew word we know by now; it is chesed, sometimes translated as loving kindness and sometimes as mercy.

God is faithful and thus he is true (emeth) to his word.

We see all these attributes of God in this story. The association is heightened perhaps by the realization that ‘Hannah’ is the feminine form of chanan, and thus, in English, Hannah’s name is ‘Grace’. Her story tells us much about God, and about how we ought to be.