Hannah, long barren, prays for a son and dedicates him to the Lord's service; Samuel grows up under the priest Eli at Shiloh and, as a boy, receives his first prophetic call in the night, beginning a ministry that bridges the Judges period and the monarchy.
Further context
2 min readHannah is one of two wives, and the other one has children and she does not, and provokes her about it year after year until she weeps and will not eat. Her husband Elkanah's attempt at comfort is one of the more tone-deaf lines anywhere: do I not mean more to you than ten sons?
At the annual festival at Shiloh she prays at the sanctuary, weeping bitterly, and vows that if she is given a son she will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head. She is praying silently, moving her lips without sound, and Eli the priest watching from his seat by the doorpost assumes she is drunk and tells her to put away her wine. Her reply is dignified and exact: I have not been drinking. I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have been pouring out my soul to the LORD.
The son is Samuel, and once he is weaned she takes him back to Shiloh with a three-year-old bull, flour and wine, and hands him over. Her song on that occasion is a poem about reversal: the bows of the warriors are broken, those who were full hire themselves out for food, the barren woman bears seven children, he raises the poor from the dust and seats them with princes. Mary's song in Luke's Gospel follows it closely enough that the resemblance is generally taken as deliberate.
Eli's own sons are running the sanctuary and are described as scoundrels who had no regard for the LORD. They take meat from the sacrifices by force before the fat is burned, sending a servant with a three-pronged fork, and demanding raw meat with threats if anyone objects. They also sleep with the women serving at the entrance to the tent. Eli rebukes them feebly and does nothing, and he is condemned for honouring his sons more than God.
Against that, a boy in a linen ephod ministers before the LORD and grows up at the sanctuary.
The calling happens at night. The word of the LORD was rare in those days and there were not many visions, which is a description of the whole period in one sentence. Samuel is lying down in the sanctuary where the ark is, and the lamp of God has not yet gone out. A voice calls him and he runs to Eli, three times, and Eli, who is nearly blind and whose family is under sentence, finally works out what is happening and tells the boy what to say: speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.
The message is against Eli's household, and the boy lies there until morning and is afraid to tell him. Eli makes him say it and takes it without protest.
From then on Samuel is established as a prophet, and the whole country from Dan to Beersheba knows it.