Searching Samuel for Signs

The first chapter of the Book of Samuel is filled with the desolation and sorrow that a woman named Hannah experienced because she was unable to conceive a child. Her desolation and sorrow was all the more poignant because the story places her in the temple of the Lord Almighty and Hannah is weeping. It is a time of celebration and rejoicing as people made their way to the Temple to offer thanks for God’s care of His people during their wanderings in the desert, as they made their way to the promised. However, Hannah did not celebrate.
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There are many things that have conspired to make Hannah deeply unhappy and sorrowful to the point that bitterness filled her soul. The first, without question is her inability to conceive children. Barrenness was a great cause of shame for women like Hannah as they were usually "disgraced" by it. Secondly, husband has another wife, ( polygamy is tolerated under the law of Moses, but clearly is not the divine intention). The ‘other" woman would ridicule Hannah and provoke her to tears, leaving her unable to eat it disturbed her so.
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On this particular day, as Hannah prayed, she wept as she prayed. Now the priest, an old man by the name of Eli is standing by the Temple door watching Hannah. Hannah we are told, was praying in her heart, her lips were moving, but the sound of her voice could not be heard. The old priest thought she was drunk and said to her ‘How long will you get drunk? Get rid of your wine."
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Now it must be said that Eli, in making such a comment, seems to suggest that it was not an uncommon sight for drunken people to enter the temple sanctuary. Further evidence of this religious and moral deterioration of the time is found later in the Book of Samuel, when the old priest’s own two sons, also priests, are found guilty of sexual impropriety with some woman who work at the temple. It wasn’t the first time that those among the religious leadership would fall from grace because of inappropriate sexual conduct.
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Hannah does not protest that she was drunk, but rather she explains that she was pouring her heart out to the Lord. She explains that she was praying to the Lord out of her anguish and grief. Hannah had prayed to the Lord that she might conceive a child. She promised if she gave birth she would dedicate the child to the Lord.
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After she returned home, and in the cousr of time, Hannah gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, because she ‘asked the Lord for him."
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Samuel would be the one who would later anoint David as the King of Israel. The Book of Samuel is fascinating as like the Book of Ruth, it shows us how God is always working away, even in the midst of our pain and suffering, his plan and purpose to work.
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M. I SAMUEL 1 - HANNAH’S PRAYER AND ELI’S MISTAKE
T. 1 SAMUEL 2 - HANNAH’S PRAYER AND ELI’S WICKED SONS
W. 1 SAMUEL 3 - nTHE LORD CALLS HANNAH’S SON - SAMUEL
T. 1 SAMUEL 4 - THE ARK IS CAPTURED AND OLD ELI DIES.
F. 1 SAMUEL 5 - THE ARK IN THE HANDS OF THE PHILLIES
S. 1 SAMUEL 6 - THE ARK IS RETURNED - AND QUICKLY.