One of the most God-exalting verses in all of Scripture is Romans 11:36. Coming at the end of Paul’s argument in Romans 9-11, where Paul has just unfolded God’s mysterious plan for the hardening and then salvation of both Israel and the Gentiles, Paul ends with a doxology, the last part of which says this about God: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Think about the implications of each prepositional phrase. All things are “from him,” meaning he is the Creator of all that exists outside of himself. Nothing exists that he has not brought into being. All things are “through him,” meaning he is the powerful, sustaining, providential Lord of all that exists. Not a single molecule in the universe moves in any direction unless he has willed it, upholds it, and concurs in its action. All things are “to him,” meaning he is the final goal for which all things exist and to which all things are ordered. All things were created for, and will ultimately be consecrated to, the glory of God. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
I probably quote Romans 11:36 more in my prayers and meditations about God than any other verse. It raises my thoughts to his transcendence, his absolute supremacy, his total sovereignty over all things, and it moves me to worship. The same vision of God’s absolute supremacy and sovereignty comes out in the prayer of praise that Hannah offers at the end of the story in our text today. Notice the lofty view of God Hannah expresses in 2:6-8: “The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and on them he has set the world.” Bruce Ware, one of my seminary professors, has called these verses one of the “spectrum texts” of Scripture, a passage that attributes the two ends of the spectrum to God’s action: killing and bringing to life, raising up and casting down, etc. The implication is that God is in control of both ends of the spectrum and of everything in between as sovereign Lord of all. And in Hannah’s prayer, that is good news because as sovereign Lord, he will bring justice to this world in the end.
But if God’s sovereign lordship is absolute, as we see from such texts as Romans 11:36 and 1 Samuel 2:6-8, that also means God is sovereign over the distresses that come into our lives. And in fact, that is exactly what we see in this story. Hannah’s distress stems from one fact that is stated twice in this story. In chapter 1, verses 5 and 6, we read two times, “the LORD had closed her womb.” Hannah was barren, and this was the Lord’s doing, and it led her to severe distress. Sometimes when we suffer distress, we are tempted to try to get God “off the hook” for it, so to speak, by denying the biblical teaching about his sovereignty. Or we are tempted to think that because God is sovereign, and I am in distress, that must mean God is against me. That leads to bitterness, and we find ourselves unwilling to trust the Lord. This is where we must allow God’s revelation in Scripture to interpret our experience for us rather than letting the enemy of our souls interpret our experience and lead us away from God. In this story, we see a glorious truth that should be an encouragement to us in times of distress, and I would summarize that truth in this way: God, who is sovereign over all, brings distresses into the lives of his children for good purposes. When we find ourselves in distress, it is not because God is against us, nor is it because God is not in control. It is because God has purposed this pain, this distress, this frustration, this suffering, this perplexity, for our good. I want to draw attention to three purposes God has for us in distress from this story.
First,
The book of First Samuel begins by introducing us to a man named Elkanah. He appears to be a prominent man, as suggested by his genealogy in 1:1 and the fact that he has two wives (1:2). Any man who could support two wives must have been a man of some financial means. Of course, polygamy is not God’s design for marriage, and nearly every story of polygamy in Scripture highlights destructive consequences of the practice. Nevertheless, God tolerated the practice in Israel, and it seems likely that Elkanah took a second wife because he had married Hannah first, and then over time realized she would not be able to produce an heir for him. Hannah is mentioned first in verse 2, and it is clear from the story that Elkanah loved her more than Peninnah. It makes sense that Elkanah brought Peninnah into the family, not because he particularly loved her, but because he needed her to provide him with offspring. And that sets up the perfect scenario for a rivalry. The beloved wife sees her own inadequacy highlighted by the fact that another woman must bear her husband’s children (which she does in abundance), and the wife who has children finds herself the recipient of less affection from their husband than his first wife. Both women see the other as a threat and a rival, and Peninnah decides to play her children card against Hannah. Verse 6 doesn’t tell us exactly what Peninnah would do on these occasions when the family went up to Shiloh to worship the Lord at the tabernacle, but we can imagine the kinds of looks, the side comments, the pointed words, driving like daggers into Hannah, reminding her constantly that she was the barren wife and that the Lord must be against her.
And so in the very setting where Hannah should have been free to worship the Lord, she found herself in anguish that left her weeping and even unable to eat the special portion of the sacrifice that her husband would give to her (v. 7). Have you ever felt the kind of distress that makes all food seem nauseating to you, even if your body is hungry? Have you ever struggled to take in food, not because you were sick or full, but simply because you were so emotionally overwhelmed that your body could not function normally? That was the level of anguish Hannah experienced on her trips to worship the Lord at Shiloh. And on top of it all, her husband’s response in verse 8 is quite an adventure in missing the point: “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” Overall, Elkanah seems like a good man. He is careful to lead his family in the worship of the Lord. But it is possible even for good, godly husbands not to get it sometimes, and this is one of those occasions. Elkanah loves Hannah, but he is rather clueless about caring for her in her anguish. And all of this happens because the Lord had closed Hannah’s womb.
We have actually seen a story similar to this one before. The patriarch Jacob was married to two sisters, Leah and Rachel. He loved Rachel, and he never intended to marry Leah. But as providence would have it, Leah quickly bore four sons to him while Rachel was unable to have any children. So Rachel, the beloved, barren wife, made it into a competition by bringing her slave girl Bilhah into the mix, giving Bilhah to Jacob as a concubine so that Bilhah’s children would count as Rachel’s. Naturally, Leah retaliated with her own slave girl, and the whole soap opera is recorded for us in Genesis 30.
In contrast to Rachel, we don’t see any indication in this story that Hannah took matters into her own hands to retaliate against Peninnah. Instead, she went to the house of the Lord, the tabernacle in Shiloh where God’s presence dwelled, and she poured out her heart in prayer. Verse 10 tells us, “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly.” God knows how to interpret tears. And as she prayed to the Lord, moving her mouth but not voicing her request, the high priest Eli observed her and thought she was drunk. Unfortunately, at this time drunkenness at the tabernacle was probably not an unusual occurrence. Much like Elkanah her husband, Eli the priest misses the point and seems rather obtuse to what is going on, so he chastises her for drunkenness. But note her words to him in verse 16: “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.” Distress has driven her to prayer that comes from the depths of her heart.
It doesn’t always happen that way. Anxiety is a feeling that is stirred up in us when we feel like we are not in control of a situation, and sometimes the natural reaction to it is to try to seize control by whatever means we can. When you feel that temptation well up within you, think about Hannah, and then imitate her. Take your anxiety, your vexation, your anguish to the Lord in prayer. Settle yourself, relinquish control, and pray to him from the depths of your soul. I have heard far too many stories of professing believers who went through some kind of suffering, ended up becoming bitter at God about it, and instead of turning to him in prayer they gradually quit speaking to him altogether and then walked away from the faith. Distress has the potential to reveal whether we really trust God or not.
As a result of her prayer, Hannah received two blessings. After explaining herself to Eli, notice his respond in verse 17: “Then Eli answered, ‘Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.’” Eli has his shortcomings, but on this occasion he speaks as high priest representing the Lord to Hannah, and this word of blessing is a word from the Lord to her. Verse 18 says, “And she said, ‘Let your servant find favor in your eyes.’ Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.” The anguish was gone. The anxiety was gone. Her prayer had not yet been answered, but she walked in the peace of knowing it had been given over to the Lord. She did not rest yet in the comfort of an answered prayer, but she rested in the comfort of knowing that whatever happened, God was not against her. And then verses 19-20 tell us that Elkanah was later intimate with Hannah, and “the LORD remembered her” (v. 19). As a result, she conceived a child by God’s intervention and gave birth to the son for whom she had prayed, naming him Samuel, a word that sounds similar to the verb “ask” in Hebrew, because she had asked for him from the Lord.
Now imagine an alternate scenario. What if Hannah had been able to have children from the beginning of her marriage to Elkanah? She may have had many of them, but none of them would have been named “Samuel.” Hannah would have missed this opportunity to know God at a deeper level than she had before. God brings distress into our lives in part so that we will be moved to call out to him in prayer, so that we might know him more deeply.
Second,
We haven’t yet looked at the actual content of Hannah’s prayer, so look with me at 1:11: “And she vowed a vow and said, ‘O LORD of hosts, if you will remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.’” Hannah’s prayer was a vow to dedicate her son to the Lord for life as a Nazirite. Numbers 6:1-21 gives the law for Nazirite vows, which were normally temporary periods of allowing one’s hair to grow, not partaking of any wine or grapes, and carefully avoiding contact with anything dead as expressions of special dedication to the Lord. Samson had been dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth (though he violated the terms repeatedly), and here Hannah promises that the same will be true for her son.
Do you see how Hannah’s distress has led to the sanctifying of her desire? There were many reasons for her to want a child: to give her husband an heir, to experience the joys of motherhood, to have someone she could look at every single day who would be the living refutation of Peninnah’s cruelty. But she relinquishes all those desires in her prayer. She dies to herself and comes to the point of asking for a gift from the Lord that she can immediately give back to him. She wants a child, but not for her sake any longer. She wants a child for God’s sake and for God’s glory. Her desire has been put to death and then raised up, consecrated to the Lord.
Let me speak a brief word to parents here and ask this: What do you desire most for your children? We all want our children to be successful, to be well-adjusted members of society, to be able to enjoy a standard of living that is at least as good as what we know now, to get married and have their own children, etc. But what do you desire most for your children? If you do not immediately answer that they would know the Lord, I urge you to repent and consecrate your desires for your children to the Lord. When I was in college I had a science professor who, together with his wife, became good friends to Joni and me. They had a son named Jacob who had experienced a drowning accident that left him brain damaged when he was 18 years old. Jacob made a recovery and is functional in many ways, but he will never know what it is like to live a “normal” life in society. His mother, Jeanne, wrote about their family’s experience in a book entitled Parting the Waters. I want to read to you an excerpt from the end of the book. Jeanne writes, “As the years unfolded, I continued asking God to show me how Jacob’s brain injury could be His plan. Then one day, as I poured out my heart in prayer for Jacob, it was as though God asked me a question. ‘What has always been your heart’s deepest prayer for your children?’ I knew the answer. ‘That, when they stand in Your presence, they will hear you say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ [The response came]: ‘Jacob loves Me with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He inspires others to love Me, too. Jacob is a good and faithful servant.’ Joy flooded my heart as an amazing truth dawned. Jacob is indeed great in the kingdom of God. He may never impress the world with his accomplishments, but he delights in the One who created him for His glory. What more could I ask for my son?”1 Parents, have you consecrated all your desires for your children to the Lord? Have you given them over the Lord as Hannah did the child for whom she so desperately longed?
Verses 21-28 show us that she fulfilled her vow after Samuel was weaned, which in that society would have been at three years old or possibly a little older. I know some of you parents have felt the pain of dropping your child off at college for the first time and then making that drive back home. Imagine doing something like that with a three-year-old. And yet we have no indication in the text that Hannah hesitated or held back. She had made a vow to the Lord, and she kept it, denying herself and giving back to the Lord the gift he had given to her.
So again, imagine that Hannah had been able to have children from the beginning of her marriage to Elkanah. Had that happened, she would not have experienced the blessing of dying to herself, consecrating her desire, and giving this child back to the Lord as a gift. God brings distresses into our lives not only so that we will call upon him, but also to consecrate our desires to him. Have you prayed for any good gift from the Lord that he has not yet given you? Perhaps you are single and desire to be married. Or perhaps you are married and desire to have children, but have not been able to conceive. Or perhaps you have asked for healing from the Lord that you have not yet received. Or perhaps you desire God’s blessing on your difficult marriage, or you strongly desire a new job opportunity, etc. Keep praying. Keep asking, seeking, knocking. But let me suggest a new request you might consider praying if you haven’t yet: “Lord, if it is your will to bless me in this way, prepare my heart to receive this blessing. Let me desire it not for my own sake, but for yours, and do not give it to me until you have accomplished all that you desire in me.” When you get to the point that your desire for this blessing is not for your own sake, but for God’s sake, you have died to yourself. And that is always where we find the beginning of new life. Be on the lookout for what God wants to accomplish in you through the distresses you face.
Third and finally,
Hannah’s prayer of distress in chapter 1 is complemented by Hannah’s prayer of praise in 2:1-10. This prayer divides into three sections. The first section, verses 1-3, praises God for Hannah’s deliverance from her distress. Then she broadens her praise in verses 4-8 by describing God’s ways in general. The God who gave a son to a barren woman who cried out to him was acting in accord with his character. He is the God of great reversals. Then verses 9-10 look ahead from Hannah’s personal deliverance to God’s final, climactic work of deliverance to come at the end. As Dale Ralph Davis argues, Hannah’s micro-salvation points us to God’s work of macro-salvation to come.2
Hannah’s prayer in chapter 2 ties this story of Samuel’s birth to the larger narrative of the books of Samuel. If you want to know what the purpose of the books of 1-2 Samuel are in the story of the Bible, think back to the last verse of the book of Judges. After describing a time in Israel that was dark, chaotic, and perverse, the author of Judges concludes his book in Judges 21:21 by saying, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Israel had taken the land God promised them, but in the aftermath they had become just like the Canaanites they were supposed to annihilate. The result was chaos and a lack of any strong leadership to restrain the sinful impulses of the people. The book of Samuel begins at the end of the period of the judges, with the house of Eli giving leadership to Israel. We have seen hints of it here, but it will become obvious in the next section that Eli’s house is not up to the task, and the wickedness of Israel has come to a breaking point. Into this dark setting a child is born who will be the last of the judges, a prophet, and a priest to call Israel back to faithfulness to the Lord. And the books of 1-2 Samuel will go on to tell the story of how Samuel, the child born to Hannah, will be a bridge between the era of the judges and the era of the kings. God is doing something bigger than bringing hope to a distressed woman. He is bringing hope to a nation.
Hannah can foresee something of God’s plan, especially when you look at how her prayer concludes in 2:10: “The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.” Hannah foresees that God will raise up a king for Israel. But her vision is not limited merely to King David, who will become the main character of the books of 1-2 Samuel. She foresees a king who will be the mediator of God’s judgment on the ends of the earth, a king who will exercise God’s authority over all nations. She foresees a greater son of David, God’s anointed one, his Messiah, who will inherit the nations and dash them to pieces like pottery (Psalm 2:7-9). First Samuel 2:10 is a prophecy of Jesus Christ and the kingdom he would establish by his death, resurrection, and enthronement.
So let’s trace out Hannah’s logic in her prayer: her personal distress and deliverance by God points her to who God is, which then points her to the hope of what God will do to bring justice and deliverance to the world through his coming Messiah. Hannah’s distress and deliverance was a foretaste of the greater deliverance to come when God’s kingdom arrives. So let’s apply this to our own lives. Do you see every micro-salvation in your life as a foretaste of God’s coming macro-salvation? If you were at one time single and distressed, and the Lord gave you a spouse, has that gift stirred in you a greater desire for a greater gift to come? If you have experienced the Lord’s healing, does it cause you to long for the kingdom where there will be no sickness or death? If you have seen the Lord provide for your needs time and again when you didn’t know how you were going to make it, do you see those little acts of salvation as testimonies to the greater saving work he has accomplished and will complete through Jesus Christ?
This point is really the reverse side of the previous point. Distresses can lead us to die to ourselves and consecrate our desires to God. So can deliverances. When God blesses you in times of distress, be careful not to allow the earthly blessing to consume your focus and limit your horizon to earthly matters. On the contrary, let every earthly blessing from God be for you an appetizer of the blessings that are to come in the kingdom of heaven. Let it stir within you a greater desire for the Lord to return, for his glory to be revealed and his enemies defeated.
You know, Hannah is not the only barren woman in Scripture. She has been preceded by several others, all of whom experienced heavenly interventions to give them children to carry on the story of God’s salvation: Sarah the wife of Abraham, Rebekah the wife of Isaac, Rachel the wife of Jacob, and the unnamed wife of Manoah who gave birth to Samson the deliverer of Israel. Time and again, God demonstrates his saving power by bringing forth a son from a woman who has no potential for life in her. All these stories point us forward to an even greater miracle in the New Testament, when it was not a barren woman, but rather a virgin who had never been with a man, who conceived and bore a son, Jesus of Nazareth. By sending his Son to be born of a virgin, God made it abundantly clear that salvation is of the Lord, and of the Lord alone.
Are you, like the barren women of old, in distress and powerless to do anything about it? If you’re not today, you will be at some point in your life. Take heart. God does his best work when we see most clearly how powerless we are. Amen.