The world is very good at selling us its bill of goods — that we have certain inalienable rights. We are frequently told by the world that we have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are told that no one can take away these rights. It is asserted that as long as we aren’t harming anyone that everything is acceptable. This is all very appealing to the flesh, but is it correct?
The times of Hannah
The above paragraph could easily describe the times in which Hannah lived. She lived in the time of the judges, when, Scripture tells us, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Jdgs 21:25). Yet that was not how God wanted them to live. He actually put in place a simple thing for them to do to prevent such a mentality. We read “Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: that ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God” (Num 15:38-40). Not everything is acceptable to God, even if no one is getting hurt and/or consenting. Prov 14:12 (ESV) says “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” By the time we come to 1 Sam 1 and 2 we read of the deplorable state of not just the nation in general but also of the priesthood itself. Let us take a look at Hannah and how we may be encouraged by her example to live our lives in a pleasing way unto God.
Her home life was a mixed bag. She had a husband who was a righteous man and he loved her deeply but she had no child of her own. Adding to that heartache was the fact that Elkanah had a second wife. It is possible that he married Peninnah after it became apparent that Hannah was barren. In his taking two wives, one of which had been able to bear children and one who had not, we have an echo of Leah and Rachel.
1 Sam 1:6 the KJV uses the word adversary, but in the Septuagint (LXX) we read “her rival provoked her to anger”. This English word is used only one other time in the LXX, in Lev 18:18: “You shall not take a wife in addition to her sister as a rival, to uncover her indecency instead of her, while she is yet living.” Were Hannah and Peninnah actually sisters? It would not be the first time that this situation has occurred. It is very reminiscent of Leah and Rachel and all of the troubles that that family endured.
It is in this state of ‘bitterness of mind’ or as the LXX says ‘severe pain of soul’ that Hannah prays unto the Lord for a son. She doesn’t just pray for a son, but makes a vow of the Nazarite for him. 1 Sam 1: 11 (LXX) says: “…then I will put him before you, dedicated until the day of his death. And an iron razor shall not ascend upon his head.” The Nazarite vow was one of dedication, separation and consecration. Compare what the angel told Manoah’s wife in Judges 13:5 (ESV): “for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” Did Hannah hope that in dedicating her son to the Lord that he would, like Samson, help to free Israel from the Philistines? In 1 Sam 7:3, 8 we read of Samuel’s instructions to the house of Israel to return to the Lord and serve Him only, and their reply that Samuel “cease not to pray for them”. Finally, in verse 13 we are told that “the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.”
When Eli confronts Hannah her response to him is variously translated as she was in “sorrowful spirit” or “sharply pained in spirit” and it is out her “great complaint and bitter provocation” or “great anxiety and vexation” that she prayed. While the Psalms are written well after the time of Hannah, Psalm 143 seems to capture the emotions she was experiencing.
Our world
Each one of us is like Hannah. We live in a society where every man does that which is right in his own eyes. We are afflicted by our adversary, the world. It, as a rival, strives for superiority over us. Sorrowful in spirit, we turn to the LORD. Hannah didn’t let anything prevent her from going up to worship, and we have the same directive in Heb 10:25: “Not forsaking [abandoning] the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is: but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” As Hannah prayed that she might bare a son to dedicate to the Lord, we also desire that a new man may be created within us. It is this new man, born out of the waters of baptism, that we dedicate to the Lord. As with the Nazarite vow to be separated to the LORD and to keep from unclean things, we also are to do the same. It says in 2 Cor. 6:17 “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you”. We must uphold our vow and not neglect to fulfill it, or try to minimize what we have promised to do, for the Lord Jesus instructs us: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). Just as Hannah prepared ahead of time to bring not just Samuel, but the bullock, the ephah of flour and the bottle of wine, we too must prepare to present our new man to the Lord with the same dedication, preparation, joy and faith that she had. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10).
May we be among those who have given diligence to feed the inner man daily with the living bread and produce the fruits of the Spirit, rejoicing that we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, receiving an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. May we be among the saints who inherit the throne of glory when the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, and the horn of His anointed is exalted.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One