Week 2 September 2025, Devotion Part 2

But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman sorely troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD.”   1 Samuel 1:15

“Do not regard your maidservant as a base woman,” Hannah implored the priest, and Eli perceived that a divine spark was the crackle in her frantic praying for a son. “Go in peace,” he said, “and the God of Israel grant your petition…” Faith, he discerned, was driving Hannah’s passion, not biological urges or a taste for revenge. She yearned for a firstborn son to dedicate him to the Lord. So Samuel was born and when he was weaned at three, his mother relinquished him for temple service under Eli. “The word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.” Well, Hannah’s fiercely desired and faithfully consecrated boy grew up to be the prophet and patriot who served the God and nation of Israel brilliantly at a pivotal time in its history.

None of that was displayed in stained-glass-window perfection when Hannah was mistaken for a drunk. Her Magnificat is telling: “Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.  Part 2 of 2

Comment:  St. Jerome, a prominent early Christian leader and brilliant Greek scholar,   translated the Bible into Latin around 400 A.D.  Used throughout Western Europe, it became known as the Biblia vulgata, the “Bible in the common tongue.”  Mary’s Song of Praise in Luke 2 opened with “Magnificat anima mea Dominum” – My soul magnifies the Lord.  If its 10 verses were an eye-opener, Hannah’s of the same number were a jaw-dropper. Both women’s grasp of theology far exceeded the biological role God had assigned them.  The one specific son each one bore changed the history of Israel and that of the whole world.  Hard on the heels of her Magnificat, 1 Samuel 2:21 states that “the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bore 3 sons and 2 daughters.”  In Mark 6:1-6 we learn that Jesus had 4 half brothers and sisters fathered by Joseph, Mary’s husband. The context and the names matter, since this Gospel writer was the apostle’s protégé who was with Jesus for three years. The biblical Peter, not the pope of the church that venerates the Virgin Mary, speaks credibly to me.  Allow the Holy Spirit to tug at your heart as you read how Hannah stayed at home with her first-born, until weaned at age three, she brought him to Eli the priest [and lousy father] and publicly sang her “Song of Praise” in the temple.  I regularly pray certain Scriptures at bedtime and over the years forgot where I had picked them.  My jaw dropped when I realized Hannah’s words from 1 Samuel 2:1-3 have long been on my lips, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord.  My mouth derides my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation.  There is none holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no rock except our God.”  1 Samuel 1