4. Hannahs Desire

Hannah’s Desire

"Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: and he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: but unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion: for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?"(1 Samuel 1:1-8)

Now, we want to view this in the context that we find it, a woman beset by adversaries, a woman sorrowing bitter in soul because she had not received what she desired. We know from the book of Daniel that the Jewish women desired to give birth to a son, and that son they hoped would prove to be the Messiah, the long promised One to Israel. Every Jewish mother longed for this, that she might be the one whom God would use to bring into being the Messiah. So for a Jewish woman to be barren was a great reproach to her.

Here we find that it was God who had closed up her womb, I believe to test her faith and to cause her to pray in the way she did in order that she might be an example for us of prayer and perseverance and answer and response to God. Oh, what a wonderful story it is. So Hannah was persecuted and ridiculed and how deeply she felt it. She might have gone to her husband and complained of the treatment, but in verse 10 she prayed unto the Lord and she wept sore.

I have to ask myself, as I ask you, when was the last time you shed tears in relation to the testimony? When did you feel your spiritual condition so low, or the condition of the Christian testimony so low that it produced real tears and sorrow? We think of a man like Paul who spoke about reminding the saints night and day for three years with tears. We read about this constantly in the life of this devoted man, and we have to ask ourselves, do we ever feel like this? How callous and how cold our hearts can be! Yet I believe the Lord would stir us up to be concerned, that out hearts might be malleable, if you like, softened, to be concerned deeply about the prosperity of His interests.

Here it was a very personal matter with Hannah, and she prayed and she wept. As the Lord looked down on this dear woman, no doubt on bended knee in His presence, in privacy, and crying out her heart, how He would have appreciated such a condition. It was not just a read prayer, something that was repeated verbally again and again and again, a reiteration of the same phrases, I do not think it would be that kind of prayer, it would be a prayer from her heart, real genuine concern, a crying to the Lord to reverse the situation she was in for her own blessing, and as we shall see, for the interests of the Lord, and so she prayed and she wept.