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Hannah

Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel who grows up to anoint the kings Saul and David, transforms the traditionally passive role of the barren wife by talking to God and thus shaping her destiny.

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Did You Know?
  • The name Hannah is derived from a Hebrew root (ḥnn) that suggests (divine) grace.
  • Hannah and Peninnah are introduced by their names, after Elkanah is introduced with his lineage—a feature the Hebrew Bible usually reserves for its male protagonists. Still, in being mentioned by name, Hannah fares better than women in some comparable stories, who remain anonymous, e.g., the wife of Manoah and mother of Samson in Judg 13 and the great woman of Shunem in 2Kgs 4.
  • The adjective for an infertile person appears in the Hebrew Bible mostly in the feminine form (Hebrew ʽaqārâh). Its single masculine appearance co-occurs with the feminine form in a conditioned promise of divine protection from infertility (Deut 7:14). Thus all the biblical protagonists that are labeled infertile are wives: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Manoah’s wife.
  • The attribution of infertility to the wife (rather than to the husband) is understandable when the husband has children from another wife (Abraham, Jacob, Elkanah). Since this is not always the case (Isaac and Manoah), it seems that a potent narrative pattern stands behind stories on barren wives who became mothers.
  • Hannah’s quiet prayer—“only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard”—was later espoused by Talmud sages (B. Ber. 31:1) and became customary in Jewish and other religious contexts. Rashi suggests that Eli, unfamiliar with this style of prayer, therefore took it as a sign of drunkenness.
  • The parts in Hannah’s vow that declare her son’s nazirite status and abstinence from wine and intoxicants do not appear in the Hebrew text. They are restored in NRSV, following current scholarship, from the LXX version of the vow and a Qumran text of Hannah’s speech to Elkanah (parallel to 1Sam 1:22 in MT). The closest biblical parallel to prenatal nazirite consecration is the angel’s instruction to Samson’s mother in Judg 13:4-5.
  • Given the emphasis on Hannah’s prayer and vow it is surprising to find in this woman centered story a reference to a vow of Elkanah (1Sam 1:21: “his vow”) as a motive for the pilgrimage to Shiloh following the birth of Samuel. Since no vow of Elkanah is mentioned up to this point, it is possible that Hannah’s vow is intended here. Its attribution to Elkanah is in line with later legislation that holds fathers and husbands responsible for the vows made by their daughters and wives respectively (Num 30:6-15; cp. Jer 44:17, Jer 44:25) and allows a father—but not a mother—to make a Nazirite vow concerning his son (m. Naz. 4:6).

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Hannah’s appearance in scripture is confined to 1Sam 1-2:21, the text that depicts the birth and early years of her illustrious son, the prophet Samuel. Nevertheless, Hannah has a role that is all but marginal. It is as though her voice breaks through the patriarchal frame of the story taking it to new levels of human sensitivity and narrative art.

What makes the story of Hannah unique among writings of its kind?

Hannah is one of the two wives of Elkanah, “from Ramathaim Zuphim in the hill country of Ephraim” (1Sam 1:1). Elkanah’s lineage (“son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu,” etc.) is followed by the wives’ names and an important distinction between them: “Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children” (1Sam 1:2). The barren wife theme is shared by several birth stories of Israel’s ancestors and heroes. Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph, and Samson are all born to women who are labeled “barren,” but with God’s grace finally become mothers. The story of Hannah is special in its concern with the anguish of the barren wife, but it is unique in the direct communication it allows her with God, who “closed her womb” (1Sam 1:5).

Hannah’s anguish becomes most poignant in the family’s yearly pilgrimages to the shrine of Shiloh. Here the sacrificial feast exposes the rivalry between the wives: Hannah, more beloved by Elkanah, suffers the envious scorn of Peninnah who has a tableful of children. Hannah expresses her misery by crying and not eating. Elkanah tries to encourage her, suggesting that he is better to her than ten sons (1Sam 1:8). Elkanah is more empathetic to his wife’s distress than Jacob is to Rachel’s in similar circumstances (Gen 30:2), but both self-centered retorts have earned the arguable title “failed dialogues” (M. Gruber, 1998). In one sense however, they do not fail: moving the lonely, humiliated wife to independent action. Rachel offers her maid Bilhah to Jacob so that she “may have children through her.” Hannah’s struggle against barrenness goes further. Steadfast in her wish to become a mother she uses her voice, unheard so far, directly addressing the only one who can turn her fortune: “O Lord of hosts …” Following this is a vow in which Hannah requests the Lord’s attention to her misery, offering him a deal that can hardly be refused: “if only you will look on the misery of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head” (1Sam 1:11 NRSV).

Strangely, Hannah’s first use of her voice amounts to a voiceless prayer that is mistaken for drunkenness by Eli, the priest of Shiloh. God nevertheless hears her, granting her the child of her desire: 1Sam 1:19-20. Hannah then fulfills her part of the deal, devoting Samuel to God: 1Sam 1:21-28. She is later blessed with three more sons and two daughters: 1Sam 2:21.

The entire story thus revolves around Hannah’s vow and its fulfillment, its various parts defined by her speeches: (1) her prayer and vow: 1Sam 1:11; (2) her defense against Eli’s charge of drunkenness: 1Sam 1:15-16; (3) her naming of Samuel: 1Sam 1:20; (4) her announcement of her intentions to Elkanah: 1Sam 1:22; (5) her dedication of Samuel to God referring back to her prayer: 1Sam 1:26-28.

In her short presence in the Hebrew Bible Hannah turns out a game changer: a strong willed woman of faith, she rises above her pain to act towards her goal of becoming a mother.

 

  • fidler-ruth

    Ruth Fidler is a senior lecturer in the Bible Studies Department at Gordon Academic College, Haifa, Israel. She is the author of Dreams Speak Falsely? Dream Theophanies in the Bible: Their Place in Ancient Israelite Faith and Traditions [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005) and of “A Wife’s Vow—The Husband’s Woe? (1 Samuel 1,21.23): The Case of Hannah and Elkanah,” ZAW 118 (2006): 374–88.

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