Women with a Story to Tell: Hannah's Gift.

 Hannah had a promise to keep.

 “When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. She brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh, and the child was young. Then they slaughtered the bull and brought the child to Eli. And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence praying to the LORD. For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he is given to the LORD.” And they worshiped the LORD there” (I Samuel 1: 24-28). 

 Perhaps the operative word here is ‘lent’. As Hannah says, “Therefore I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he is given to the LORD.” The verb means “to ask, to beg, to lend.” Hannah has fulfilled her promise by lending him back to God for the duration (which was the term of the draft for World War II soldiers and sailors).  

 Hannah continued to watch over Samuel from a distance, however, God has more blessings in mind for her. . 

"Samuel was ministering before the LORD, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, “May the LORD repay you with children by this woman for the loan that she made to the LORD,” and then they would return to their home. And the LORD took note of Hannah; she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the LORD" (I Samuel 2:18-21).

 Samuel grew up to be guardian of the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Certainly, the priest Eli’s sons, not worth mentioning by name here, were not doing anything to foster that relationship. They were scoundrels, grabbing for themselves what they could of the rituals of worship. Samuel was fair and just, and he served as both priest and judge that way.

 During his time, the Philistines managed to defeat the Israelites in battle, even though Eli’s sons had the effrontery to bring the Ark of the Covenant to the battlefield. Who did they think they were? The Nazis in the Indiana Jones movie? The Israelites were defeated (so where the German Nazis and Italian Fascists), and the Philistines captured the Ark. 

 The Philistines took the Ark home and set it up in their temple. In the morning, their idol of the god Dagon had fallen on his face before the Ark. Then it happened the next night; it was no accident. The Philistines could see more clearly than the Israelites that here was a dangerous spiritual reality that they had better send it back.

 It did not go back to Shiloh, and the Israelites recognized their sins and longed for the Lord. 

 “Samuel said to all the house of Israel, ‘If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Astartes from among you. Direct your heart to the LORD, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines’. So, Israel put away the Ba’als and the Astartes, and they served the LORD only” (I Samuel 7:3-4).

 The people gathered at Mizpah, but the Philistines heard of it and came out for war. Samuel sacrificed and the people prayed, and the Philistines were routed. 

 “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer, for he said ‘Thus far the LORD has helped us’” (I Samuel 7:12).

 Now you know why the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” has that second verse that says: “Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by thy help I’m come; and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; he, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.” An earlier age seemed to be more biblically literate, so sometimes we sing today what we do not understand.

 Samuel held the people accountable to God all his life, and his life was a gift of the woman named Hannah.