Not So Little Women: Week 15
Hannah

Yes, it is 2024 and we are doing one last message in our Not So Little Women series by looking at a forgotten mother named Hannah. Hannah is the mother of the prophet, Samuel, who would go on to become the most known prophet in ancient Israel. Samuel will anoint Israel’s first king, Saul, and their greatest king, David. Aside from Samuel’s legacy, however, we see Hannah is an amazing woman who teaches us what true trust in God looks like.

We are introduced to Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. She is a barren woman who desperately wants a child. She is in a polygamous marriage where she is infertile but loved, while the other wife, Peninnah, was fertile but unloved. Hannah’s husband’s favoritism led to strife between these two women, as Peninnah threw Hannah’s barrenness in her face. Old Testament scholar Robert Alter remarks, “There is not a single place in all of the Bible where a polygamous family is ever depicted as anything other than miserable.”

Hannah started with an idolatrous desire to have a child. A child represented a future and a hope, while being barren represented religious and social disfavor. Alter says that Peninnah represents a sociological hope (“I have children and you don’t”), while Elkanah (her husband) represents the psychological hope (“I love you and that should be more important than having children”). Hannah rejects both of these and takes her request to God.

In seeking God, Hannah’s heart changes. In God’s presence, through prayer, she realizes she brings life into the world by living for Him. She starts off wanting a child for cultural and emotional reasons, but after spending time with God, her desire shifts to God and His mission. God used the suffering and sacrifice of Hannah to bring salvation.

Hannah’s life and prayer points to the fact that God reverses things. The warriors now stumble, and the “stumblers” now are empowered, the hungry are filled, the barren are fertile. God takes the poorest of the poor and sets them up with princes. Hannah did not know exactly how God was going to use her suffering to bring about salvation, but she still trusted God enough to go to Him and speak honestly with Him. God, through prayer, reverses how Hannah sees the world. Hannah was right to reject building her life around her desires or her husband’s love. Jesus is the one who saves, and in Hannah, we get a clear picture of the Gospel in her prayer to God.