Commentary - 1 Samuel 1:1-8

Bird's-eye view

The book of 1 Samuel opens not with a king on a throne or a prophet on a mountain, but with a family in distress. This is characteristic of how God works. Redemptive history is a domestic drama before it is anything else. Here we are introduced to a tangled household: one husband, two wives, and a bitter rivalry born of infertility. This is not a quaint story; it is a picture of a broken world groaning under the curse. Yet, in the middle of this ordinary, messy, and painful situation, God is quietly setting the stage for a seismic shift in the life of Israel. The private grief of Hannah is the crucible in which God will forge the last of the judges and the first of the prophets, Samuel. This passage establishes the key themes that will run through the books of Samuel: God's sovereignty in closing and opening wombs, the corruption of the established priesthood (represented by the sons of Eli), the contrast between barrenness and fruitfulness, and the power of faithful prayer. It is a story that begins in tears but will end in triumph, demonstrating that God raises up the lowly to accomplish His grand purposes.

We see a man, Elkanah, trying to manage a situation that his own compromise created. Polygamy was never God's design, and here we see the bitter fruit it produces: jealousy, provocation, and misery. We see a woman, Peninnah, using God's blessing of children as a weapon to torment her rival. And we see another woman, Hannah, whose deep anguish is compounded by the fact that her affliction is explicitly from the hand of God. The stage is set in Shiloh, the center of Israel's worship, but the priesthood there is corrupt. Into this mess of personal pain and institutional decay, God is about to speak.

Outline

Context In 1 Samuel

This passage opens the entire narrative of 1 and 2 Samuel. The era is the chaotic and spiritually bleak period of the judges, a time when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). The tabernacle is at Shiloh, but the priesthood, as we will quickly learn, is corrupt and ineffective under the sons of Eli. Israel is spiritually adrift and militarily oppressed by the Philistines. The nation is in desperate need of leadership and revival. The story of Hannah's barrenness and Samuel's subsequent birth is the divine answer to this national crisis. Samuel will be the transitional figure who anoints Israel's first two kings, Saul and David. This domestic scene, therefore, is the starting point for the establishment of the monarchy and, ultimately, the Davidic line from which the Messiah will come. The barren womb of Hannah is a microcosm of the barrenness of the nation, and God's intervention in her life is a sign of His intention to bring life and order to all of Israel.

Key Issues

God's Providence in a Messy Family

It is crucial that we begin where the Bible begins, which is with a family. And not a perfect family, but a troubled one. We are tempted to think that God only works through pristine and orderly instruments. But Scripture consistently shows us the opposite. God dives right into the muck of our fallen lives. Elkanah's decision to take a second wife, likely because of Hannah's barrenness, was a departure from the creational standard of one man and one woman. It was a concession to the culture, a pragmatic solution that brought a hornet's nest of strife into his home. And yet, God does not abandon this family. He works in, through, and despite their sins and sorrows. He is so sovereign that He can take the bitter rivalry between two women and use it to drive one of them to her knees in desperate prayer, a prayer that He intended to answer all along. The central actor in this drama is not Elkanah, Hannah, or Peninnah. It is Yahweh, who closes wombs and, in His own time, opens them for His own glory.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim-zophim from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.

The story begins by grounding us in a specific time and place. This is not a myth or a fable; it is history. We are given the man's name, his hometown, and his lineage. He is from the hill country of Ephraim, a central and significant tribe in Israel. Though he is identified as an Ephraimite by his residence, 1 Chronicles 6 tells us he was a Levite. This is not a contradiction. Levites were allotted cities within the territories of other tribes but did not have a tribal inheritance of their own. So he is a Levite living in Ephraim. This is important because it establishes his family's religious heritage and explains his consistent devotion in going to Shiloh to worship. He is a man rooted in a particular place and a particular people, an ordinary man through whom God is about to do something extraordinary.

2 Now he had two wives: the name of one was Hannah and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

Here is the central problem, the source of the conflict that drives the narrative. Elkanah has two wives. The Bible records polygamy, but it never endorses it. Every time it appears, from Abraham to David and Solomon, it brings with it strife, jealousy, and sorrow. This household is a textbook example. The names are telling: Hannah means "grace" or "favor," while Peninnah means "coral" or "pearl," perhaps suggesting a more ornamental or flashy beauty. The division is stark and painful: Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none. In that culture, a woman's value was inextricably tied to her ability to bear sons. To be barren was not just a personal sorrow; it was a public shame and was often seen as a sign of divine disfavor.

3 Now that man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to Yahweh of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to Yahweh there.

Despite the turmoil in his home, Elkanah is a devout man. He faithfully observes the law, which required Israelite men to appear before the Lord at the central sanctuary three times a year, though many had become lax. He leads his family in worship. He goes to Shiloh, the place where the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant resided at that time. This was the designated place to meet with Yahweh. The mention of Hophni and Phinehas is ominous. The narrator includes them here to cast a shadow over the proceedings. As we will soon learn in chapter 2, these men were corrupt scoundrels who despised the Lord's offering. So the formal center of Israel's worship is spiritually rotten. Elkanah's genuine piety is set in sharp contrast to the corrupt officialdom of the priesthood.

4-5 And the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, and he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but Yahweh had closed her womb.

At the sacrificial meal, Elkanah distributes the portions of the peace offering. Peninnah and her children each get a standard share. But to Hannah, he gives a "double portion." This was a sign of great honor and affection. He is publicly demonstrating his love for her, trying to compensate for her lack of children. The text is direct: he loved Hannah. His intentions are good. But his gesture of love backfires because it highlights the very problem he is trying to soothe. Immediately after stating Elkanah's love, the narrator gives us the ultimate reason for her condition: but Yahweh had closed her womb. Elkanah's love could not solve the problem. Peninnah's taunts were not the ultimate cause of her misery. God Himself, in His inscrutable sovereignty, was the one afflicting her. This is a hard but essential truth. God was not a bystander to her suffering; He was its author, for a glorious purpose she could not yet see.

6 Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her because Yahweh had closed her womb.

Peninnah is called Hannah's "rival." The Hebrew word is the same one used for a rival wife in a polygamous household. She saw Elkanah's favor toward Hannah and responded with cruelty. She weaponized her fertility. She would provoke Hannah "bitterly," aiming to "irritate" or "make her thunder" with grief and anger. Notice the reason given is the same: because Yahweh had closed her womb. Peninnah was the secondary cause, the instrument of the torment, but the ultimate reality was God's action. Peninnah was essentially taunting Hannah with her apparent rejection by God. This is the nature of spiritual warfare; the enemy loves to kick us when we are down, and especially when we are down because of a direct and mysterious providence of God.

7 And so it would happen year after year, as often as she went up to the house of Yahweh, she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat.

This was not a one-time event. It was a relentless, annual assault. And the timing was particularly cruel. It happened when she went up to the house of Yahweh, the very place she should have found comfort and solace. The time of worship became the time of greatest anguish. The family pilgrimage, meant to be a joyous festival, became for Hannah a recurring nightmare. Peninnah's provocations were effective. They reduced Hannah to a state of deep depression; she wept and could not eat the very festival meal that was meant to be a celebration of fellowship with God. Her rival had succeeded in poisoning the fountain.

8 Then Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Elkanah finally speaks, and his words reveal a man who loves his wife but does not understand the depth of her pain. His questions are gentle, but they are also a bit clueless. He sees her symptoms, the weeping and fasting, but he doesn't grasp the existential nature of her grief. His final question, "Am I not better to you than ten sons?" is meant to be a comfort, but it misses the point entirely. From his perspective, his love should be enough. But he cannot give her what her heart most deeply craves, which is not just children, but the removal of this sign of divine disfavor. He offers himself as the solution, but he is not the solution. Only Yahweh, who closed the womb, can open it. Elkanah's well-intentioned but inadequate comfort serves to isolate Hannah even further, driving her to the only one who can truly help.

Application

This story comes to us as a great encouragement in our own afflictions. First, it teaches us to see the hand of God even in our most painful trials. It was Yahweh who closed Hannah's womb. Our suffering is never meaningless, and God is never out of control. He is working a purpose that is often hidden from us in the moment, but which is always for His glory and our ultimate good. When we are afflicted, we must learn to look past the secondary causes, the "Peninnahs" in our lives, and see the sovereign hand of our loving Father.

Second, we see the failure of human comfort. Elkanah loved Hannah, but he could not heal her heart. People with the best intentions will often say the wrong thing. They offer solutions that are no solution at all. This should not make us cynical, but it should drive us, as it drove Hannah, from human help to the throne of grace. The deepest cries of our hearts can only be answered by God.

Finally, this passage is a warning against the kind of pragmatic compromises that bring strife into our homes. Elkanah's polygamy was the source of this misery. We live in a world that constantly urges us to abandon God's created design for the family, for sexuality, for life. We are told that these biblical standards are outdated. But God's law is a law of love, designed for our flourishing. When we depart from it, we invite chaos and pain into our lives. The answer is not to manage the chaos better, but to repent and return to the wisdom of God's Word, trusting that His ways, however difficult, are always the ways of life and peace.