The Grammar of Providence: The Birth of Samuel Text: 1 Samuel 1:19-20
Introduction: When God Remembers
We live in an age that is profoundly forgetful. We are forgetful of our history, forgetful of our duties, and most tragically, forgetful of our God. And because we have forgotten God, we have come to believe that He has forgotten us. We have adopted a form of practical deism, where God is a distant landlord who set the world spinning and then retired to some far-off corner of the universe, leaving us to sort out the mess. So when we encounter trouble, when our prayers seem to hit a brass ceiling, when the womb is barren and the house is quiet, our default assumption is that God is either unable or unwilling to intervene. We think He has bigger things to worry about than our provincial little anxieties.
The story of Hannah is a direct assault on this thin, watery view of God's providence. The book of 1 Samuel opens in a time of national decay. The priesthood is corrupt, with Eli's sons treating the things of God with contempt. The nation is spiritually adrift, doing what is right in their own eyes. It is a time of barrenness, not just in Hannah's womb, but in the soul of Israel. And it is precisely into this kind of situation that God loves to work. He does not begin the reformation of Israel with a political convention or a military coup. He begins it in the quiet grief of one faithful woman's heart. He begins it with a prayer whispered in anguish at the door of the tabernacle. He begins it with a baby.
This is God's pattern. He draws straight with crooked lines. When the world is at its darkest, when institutions are failing, when all human strength has proven futile, God remembers His people. And when God remembers, it is not that something had slipped His mind and He was just reminded. For God to remember is for Him to act upon His covenant promises. It is an active, powerful, history-altering intervention. The story of Hannah and Elkanah is not just a sentimental tale about a couple who wanted a child. It is a story about how God governs the world, how He hears prayer, and how He raises up deliverers from the most unlikely of places. It is a demonstration of what we call special providence, where God doesn't just work, but He pulls back the curtain to let us see Him working.
The Text
Then they arose early in the morning and worshiped before Yahweh and turned back and came to their house in Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and Yahweh remembered her. Now it happened in due time that Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of Yahweh.”
(1 Samuel 1:19-20 LSB)
Worship, Work, and Providence (v. 19a)
We begin with the family's response after Hannah's raw, emotional prayer at Shiloh.
"Then they arose early in the morning and worshiped before Yahweh and turned back and came to their house in Ramah." (1 Samuel 1:19a)
Notice the sequence. After the intense drama of the previous verses, after Hannah poured out her soul and was mistaken for a drunk by the high priest, after she received a word of peace from Eli, what is the first thing they do? They get up early and worship. This is the foundation of a godly household. Their life is structured by a rhythm of worship. Before the journey home, before the day's work, before anything else, they orient themselves toward God. This is not a flashy, emotional display. It is the simple, disciplined piety of a family that fears God. They had come to Shiloh to worship, and they would not leave until they had finished the job.
This act of worship is an act of faith. Hannah had not yet conceived. The circumstances had not changed one bit. Peninnah was still a vexation, the nursery was still empty. But Hannah's heart had changed. She had cast her burden upon the Lord, and she had received a word from His priest. Her face was no longer sad (v. 18). Faith acts on the promise of God before the fulfillment is in hand. They worshiped God for the answer that was still on its way. This is the opposite of the modern demand for God to prove Himself before we will trust Him. The covenantal pattern is to trust, obey, and worship, and then to watch God work.
After worship, they "turned back and came to their house in Ramah." They went home. They returned to their ordinary lives, to their daily responsibilities. This is a crucial point. Faith is not a retreat from the world into a monastery of private feelings. Faith lives in the real world. They went back to the same house, the same town, the same routine. But they went back changed. They had met with God, and this meeting sanctified the mundane. True faith does not wait for the miraculous in a state of suspended animation; it goes home and does the dishes, trusting that God's providence is at work in the midst of the ordinary.
Divine Remembrance and Human Intimacy (v. 19b)
The narrative then pivots from the human action of worship to the divine action of providence.
"And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and Yahweh remembered her." (1 Samuel 1:19b)
Here we have two actions placed side-by-side in the most profound way: one human, one divine. "Elkanah knew Hannah his wife." This is the simple, earthy reality of the marriage bed. The word "knew" speaks of the deepest physical and personal intimacy. This was not a detached, mechanical act, but the consummation of a covenantal love that Elkanah had already expressed for his grieving wife. God's plan for bringing new life into the world is ordinarily centered in this one-flesh union of husband and wife within the covenant of marriage.
And right next to this human act, the Scripture says, "and Yahweh remembered her." The two clauses are linked. God's sovereign, providential act is woven together with the faithful, ordinary actions of His people. God did not deposit a baby in Hannah's womb by remote control. He worked through the means He himself established in creation. This is a glorious rebuke to any form of spirituality that despises the body or the material world. God works through means. He works through worship, through prayer, and through the marriage bed.
As we noted earlier, for God to "remember" is not for Him to recall something He had forgotten. God is omniscient; nothing slips His mind. Rather, this is covenant language. It means God set His attention upon Hannah in a special way to act on her behalf according to His promises. The same language is used of Noah in the ark (Gen. 8:1) and of Israel in bondage (Ex. 2:24). It signifies the moment when God moves from a period of apparent hiddenness to decisive, redemptive action. The Lord, who had sovereignly closed her womb (1 Sam. 1:5), now sovereignly opened it. He is the Lord of life and death, of barrenness and fruitfulness. And He was doing this not just for Hannah, but for Israel. He was remembering His covenant with the whole nation.
The Answered Prayer (v. 20)
The result of God's remembrance is swift and clear.
"Now it happened in due time that Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, 'Because I have asked him of Yahweh.'" (1 Samuel 1:20)
The phrase "in due time" literally means "at the circuit of the days." It points to the completion of the normal term of pregnancy. Again, God's miraculous intervention works through the natural order He created. He is the Lord of both. Hannah conceives and bears a son. The prayer offered in tears is answered in joy. The taunts of Peninnah are silenced by the cry of a newborn.
And Hannah's response is to give all the credit to God. She names the boy Samuel. The name itself is a testimony. While the exact etymology is debated, Hannah provides her own inspired interpretation: "Because I have asked him of Yahweh." Every time she would call her son's name, she would be preaching a sermon. Samuel! Asked of God. Samuel! God hears. Samuel! My sorrow was not in vain. This child was not a product of luck, or fate, or mere biology. He was a direct, specific, undeniable answer to prayer. He was a gift, straight from the hand of a faithful God.
This is what we called earlier a special providence. God is always providing for us through general providence, through the regular patterns of sun and rain, work and rest. But from time to time, He answers a prayer so specifically, so directly, that He is clearly popping the hood on the universe to show us the engine running. He does this to teach us, to encourage us, to remind us that He is intimately involved in the details of our lives. Hannah asked for a son. She got a son. And she knew exactly where He came from. This builds a rock-solid faith that cannot be shaken by circumstance. It is a faith built on a direct transaction with the living God.
The Gospel in the Nursery
This story is a microcosm of a much larger story. It is a portrait of how God works in salvation. The entire nation of Israel was barren, spiritually dead, and unable to produce a deliverer. They were slaves to their own sin and to the Philistines. They were, in a word, hopeless.
And what does God do? He finds a barren woman, a picture of Israel's own condition, and through her He brings forth a prophet, a judge, and a king-maker. Samuel is the transitional figure who will anoint David, from whose line the ultimate Son of the promise will come. This is the gospel pattern. God chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chooses the barren to bring forth life. He chooses the foolish to confound the wise.
We, like Hannah, were barren. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, unable to produce any righteousness of our own. We were without hope in the world. But God, in His great mercy, "remembered" us. He acted upon His covenant promises made before the foundation of the world. He sent His Son, born of a woman, to be our deliverer. Jesus is the true Samuel, the ultimate one "asked of God." He is the answer to the entire Old Testament's prayer for a savior.
And just as Elkanah knew Hannah, so Christ knows His bride, the Church. Through this intimate, covenantal union, He brings forth spiritual children. He takes our barrenness and makes us fruitful. He hears our desperate prayers, poured out in the face of a mocking world, and He answers them. He gives us new life, and He commands us to name that life. We are to be walking testimonies, living Samuels, constant reminders to a forgetful world that our God hears, our God remembers, and our God saves.