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Only Her Lips Moved · Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture

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  A woman is praying so quietly that only her lips move, and the priest watching her
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  decides she must be drunk. Centuries later, teachers of Jewish law would turn
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  to that same scene to learn how a person ought to pray.
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  Behind the Bible Verse. This is made with the assistance of AI.
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  Our reading is from the first book of Samuel, chapter one, verses one to
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  twenty-eight, in the World English Bible, British Edition.
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  Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the hill country of Ephraim,
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  and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of
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  Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives.
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  The name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah.
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  Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
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  This man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice to the
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  LORD of Armies in Shiloh. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, priests to the
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  LORD, were there. When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he gave portions to
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  Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; but he gave a double
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  portion to Hannah, for he loved Hannah, but the LORD had shut up her womb.
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  Her rival provoked her severely, to irritate her, because the LORD had shut up
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  her womb. So year by year, when she went up to the LORD’s house, her rival provoked
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  her. Therefore she wept, and didn’t eat. Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah,
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  why do you weep? Why don’t you eat? Why is your heart grieved?
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  Am I not better to you than ten sons?”
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  So Hannah rose up after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh.
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  Now Eli the priest was sitting on his seat by the doorpost of the LORD’s temple.
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  She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly.
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  She vowed a vow, and said, “LORD of Armies, if you will indeed look at the
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  affliction of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will
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  give to your servant a boy, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his
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  life, and no razor shall come on his head.”
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  As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli saw her mouth.
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  Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.
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  Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunk?
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  Get rid of your wine!”
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  Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit.
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  I have not been drinking wine or strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the
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  LORD. Don’t consider your servant a wicked woman; for I have been speaking out of the
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  abundance of my complaint and my provocation.”
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  Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that
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  you have asked of him.”
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  She said, “Let your servant find favour in your sight.”
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  So the woman went her way and ate; and her facial expression wasn’t sad any more.
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  They rose up in the morning early and worshipped the LORD, then returned and
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  came to their house to Ramah. Then Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD
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  remembered her.
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  When the time had come, Hannah conceived, and bore a son; and she named him Samuel,
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  saying, “Because I have asked him of the LORD.”
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  The man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer to the LORD the yearly
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  sacrifice and his vow. But Hannah didn’t go up, for she said to her husband, “Not
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  until the child is weaned; then I will bring him, that he may appear before the
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  LORD, and stay there forever.”
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  Elkanah her husband said to her, “Do what seems good to you.
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  Wait until you have weaned him; only may the LORD establish his word.”
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  So the woman waited and nursed her son until she weaned him.
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  When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, and one ephah
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  of meal, and a container of wine, and brought him to the LORD’s house in Shiloh.
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  The child was young. They killed the bull, and brought the child to Eli.
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  She said, “Oh, my lord, as your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood
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  by you here, praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has given me
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  my petition which I asked of him. Therefore I have also given him to the
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  LORD. As long as he lives he is given to the LORD.”
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  He worshipped the LORD there.
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  So that's how the books of Samuel begin. Not with a king or a battle, but with a
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  family making its yearly trip to worship, and a woman who can't eat.
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  Let's walk back through it, and then follow what happens to her son.
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  First, where we are in the larger story. The books of Samuel tell how Israel came
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  to have kings. The child born in this chapter will grow up to anoint the first
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  two, Saul and David. At this point, though, there is no king.
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  Two chapters on, the writer describes this time bluntly: "The LORD's word was rare in
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  those days. There were not many visions, then." And the writer has already planted
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  a warning. In verse three, almost in passing, we meet the two sons of Eli the
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  priest, Hophni and Phinehas. In the next chapter we're told they were wicked men
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  who "didn't know the LORD."
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  Now the map. Elkanah comes from Ramathaim Zophim in the hill country of Ephraim, a
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  town the chapter also calls Ramah. Every year he goes up to Shiloh.
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  In the book of Joshua, Shiloh is where the people of Israel set up the Tent of
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  Meeting, and in Judges it's described as the place of a yearly feast of the LORD,
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  north of Bethel. Archaeologists identify it with a site called Khirbet Seilun, or
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  Tel Shiloh, about thirty kilometres north of Jerusalem.
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  Notice that our chapter doesn't speak of a tent. It speaks of the LORD's temple, with
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  a doorpost and a seat for the priest. The text doesn't explain the change.
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  One suggestion is that, over a long stay, the tent came to stand inside a holy
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  compound.
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  Elkanah has two wives. Peninnah has sons and daughters.
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  Hannah has none. If that sounds familiar, it's meant to.
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  Sarah has no child while Hagar does, and Hagar looks down on her.
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  Rachel is barren while her sister Leah has sons, and Rachel envies her.
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  The Bible keeps returning to this painful pattern of two women in one house, and to
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  children who arrive late, after long waiting. The law in Deuteronomy even has a
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  rule for a man with two wives, "the one beloved and the other hated."
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  Here Elkanah clearly loves Hannah. At the yearly sacrifice he gives her a double
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  portion. But twice, the text says the same thing: "the LORD had shut up her womb."
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  And Peninnah won't let it go. Our translation calls her Hannah's "rival,"
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  and says she provoked her severely, year after year, every time they went up to the
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  LORD's house. So Hannah weeps and doesn't eat. Elkanah asks her four questions
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  in a row. Why do you weep? Why don't you eat? Why is your heart grieved?
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  "Am I not better to you than ten sons?" It's a tender line.
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  The text records no reply. Instead, she gets up from the meal and goes to pray.
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  Her prayer is a vow. If the LORD will look at her affliction and give her a son, she
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  will give him back to the LORD all the days of his life, and "no razor shall come
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  on his head." That last phrase would have meant something to the first hearers.
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  In the book of Numbers, the Nazirite vow forbids a razor on the head for as long as
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  the vow lasts. And in Judges, the same words are spoken before Samson's birth:
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  "No razor shall come on his head." Samson and Samuel are the two best-known people
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  in the Bible whose Nazirite status, or something close to it, lasts their whole
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  lives, and both are born to women who had been unable to have children.
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  A Hebrew copy of Samuel from the Dead Sea Scrolls makes it explicit, with Hannah
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  promising that he will be a Nazirite for ever. The ancient Greek translation adds
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  that he will drink no wine or strong drink. The Mishnah, an early collection of
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  Jewish law, records a debate in which Rabbi Nehorai argues that Samuel was a
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  Nazirite, like Samson, and another rabbi questions it.
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  Then comes the moment that gives this episode its title.
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  Eli the priest is sitting by the doorpost, watching her.
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  Hannah "spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard."
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  Eli decides she's drunk and tells her to get rid of her wine.
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  Hannah's answer is dignified and direct. No, my lord.
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  I'm a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I haven't been drinking.
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  "I poured out my soul before the LORD." And Eli, to his credit, changes course at
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  once: "Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition."
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  Jewish tradition took this scene very seriously. In the Babylonian Talmud, in
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  the tractate Berakhot, a rabbi named Rav Hamnuna asks how many important laws can
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  be learned from the verses of Hannah's prayer. From "Hannah spoke in her heart,"
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  the rabbis learn that a person praying must direct the heart.
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  From "only her lips moved," that the words should actually be formed with the lips.
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  From "her voice was not heard," that the central standing prayer, the Amidah, is
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  said silently. And from Eli's mistake, that a drunk person shouldn't pray.
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  The prayer of a woman a priest thought was drunk became a model for how to pray.
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  Hannah's story also has a fixed place in the Jewish year.
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  The Talmud records that on Rosh Hashanah, the new year, the reading from the
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  prophets is the account of Hannah, from the start of first Samuel through her song
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  in chapter two. Another passage of the Talmud says she was remembered by God on
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  Rosh Hashanah. In Jewish practice the reading comes on the first day of the
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  festival.
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  Back in the story, Hannah eats, and "her facial expression wasn't sad any more."
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  The family goes home to Ramah, and "the LORD remembered her."
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  She has a son, and she names him Samuel, "Because I have asked him of the LORD."
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  That explanation is a puzzle, and an interesting one.
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  The name Samuel doesn't obviously mean asked. Our translation's own footnote says
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  Samuel "sounds like the Hebrew for heard by God." Others read the name as "God has
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  set" or "God has placed." The Hebrew word for asked, though, comes from the same
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  root as the name Saul, and that root runs all through this chapter: Eli's "petition
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  that you have asked," Hannah's "my petition which I asked."
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  In verse twenty-eight, where our translation says that as long as he lives
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  he is "given to the LORD," the Hebrew word for given, or lent, is identical to the
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  name Saul. So some scholars have suggested this birth story was once told about Saul,
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  and the name was later changed. Others link the wordplay to the place name,
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  Shiloh. Scholars differ, and the chapter itself just keeps saying the word.
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  Hannah doesn't go up to Shiloh again until the boy is weaned.
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  Elkanah agrees, "Do what seems good to you," and adds, "only may the LORD
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  establish his word." That may be more than a polite phrase.
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  In the book of Numbers, a husband who hears his wife's vow can either let it
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  stand or cancel it. Elkanah lets it stand. When the time comes, she brings the child
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  to Shiloh with bulls, an ephah of meal, which the translation's footnote puts at
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  about twenty-two litres, and a container of wine. She reminds Eli who she is: "I am
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  the woman who stood by you here, praying to the LORD."
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  She asked, and she was given, and now she gives.
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  Then, in the next chapter, Hannah prays again, and this time we hear every word.
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  "My heart exults in the LORD!" It's a song about reversals.
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  The bows of the mighty men are broken. The hungry are satisfied.
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  "The barren has borne seven." The LORD "raises up the poor out of the dust."
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  And it ends looking ahead to a king, "his anointed," in a story where Israel doesn't
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  have a king yet. Many Christian readers know a later song that sounds very like
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  it. In Luke's Gospel, Mary sings that God "has put down princes from their thrones,
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  and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things."
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  Reference works from both Jewish and Christian traditions note how closely
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  Mary's song, known as the Magnificat, follows Hannah's.
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  And Hannah keeps coming back. Each year, the text says, she makes Samuel a little
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  robe and brings it to him when she comes up with her husband for the yearly
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  sacrifice. Eli blesses the couple, and Hannah goes on to have three sons and two
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  daughters. Meanwhile, Eli's own sons go from bad to worse.
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  And lying down in the LORD's temple, the boy Hannah asked for hears his name
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  called, and answers, "Speak; for your servant hears."
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  So the books of Samuel, which are full of kings and armies, open with one woman's
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  silent prayer at a doorpost. Her son will anoint two kings.
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  Her prayer became a lesson in how to pray, and her song was echoed, centuries later,
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  by Mary. The chapter never tells us what Hannah felt as she handed over her son.
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  It only tells us what she did next: she prayed again.
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  So here's a question to sit with, and there's no right answer to it.
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  When someone misread you the way Eli misread Hannah, what do you wish they had
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  asked you first?
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  Thanks for listening to Behind the Bible Verse. Scripture readings are from the
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  World English Bible, British Edition, which is in the public domain.
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  Every episode is checked against the text and the historical record.