Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 1-3.

The first thing which struck me about this passage is that if Hannah had not been bullied, Samuel would not have arisen.  Twice at the beginning of today’s passage it tells us that Hannah’s rival provoked her because Hannah was unable to bear a child.  I am not advocating for bullying, rather I am advocating for learning how to respond to bullies from Hannah.  Instead of attempting to get revenge, Hannah cried out to the Lord.  And while Hannah did ask God to “fix” the problem which her bully used against her, more importantly, Hannah committed herself to use what she was asking God to give her to serve God.  Hannah asked God to give her a son and promised that if God gave her a son she would give that son into service to God.  Hannah did not just promise this, she followed up on it.  In response to being bullied, Hannah reached out to God and acted to serve Him.  This contrasts with the stories we hear today of people who respond to being bullied by striking out against their bullies and against society which they thought enabled their bullies.  Hannah could have struck out a Peninnah, and we would have likely said she was justified.  She could have struck out at the society around her, which said that a woman who did not have children was worthless, and thus provided enablement to Peninnah in her bullying.  Hannah chose neither of these behaviors.  Instead, she chose to serve God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 1-3.

Today’s passage gives us three separate people showing faith in God: Hannah, Samuel, and Eli.  We often overlook Eli’s faith because of his failure as a father.  Nevertheless, all three provide us examples of acting in faith.  Let us start with Hannah.  Hannah desperately wanted a child, in particular a son.  So, she cried out to God and promised that if He gave her a son she would give him back to God to serve Him for all of his days.  When God answered her prayers, Hannah did not say, either to others or herself, “Well, it was bound to happen eventually.”  No, she said, “God has demonstrated His power by answering my prayer.  I will keep my vow and give this boy to serve God all of his life.”  She then sings a song of praise, aspects of which are reflected in the actions of both Samuel and Eli.  She tells us that there is no one like God, that He alone brings death and brings life.  He send wealth, and He sends poverty.  She reminds us that we do not prevail by strength, but by the will of God.

Which brings me to Eli’s show of faith.  While Eli failed to rein in his sons from evil, he recognized that it was God’s voice calling Samuel in the night.  He correctly told Samuel how to answer God’s call.  Then, when he got Samuel to tell him what God had said to Samuel, Eli accepted God’s judgement.  Eli knew that he had failed to raise his sons to properly fear and respect God, but he did not fail to teach Samuel what he needed to know.  And he accepted God’s judgement for his failure.  Finally, we have Samuel, whose example here is mostly in following the lead given him by his elders.  Following Eli’s instruction, Samuel responded to God’s calling and submitted himself as a servant of the Lord.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 1-3.

I often have trouble deciding what to write about in this passage because there are so many things worthy of a blog entry.  However, today I was struck by the Messianic prophecy by the man of God who condemned Eli for his failure to control his sons.  In Chapter 2 verse 35, the man of God tells Eli that God will raise up a faithful priest who will walk before His anointed always.  Reading the NIV it is easy to miss how much this refers to Jesus because the NIV translates the reference to who will walk before God’s anointed in the plural, implying that God will give that faithful priest descendants who will walk before Him.  That is not a bad translation, as many of those who read the original Hebrew would have interpreted it that way because of the context. However, most other translations translate that in the singular, as in “he will walk before my anointed always.”  Now, there are some interesting aspects of this.  If that “faithful priest” is Jesus (as I believe it does), who is the anointed before whom He will walk?  My answer to that question is that the anointed is also Jesus.  I want to say that I suspect that this prophecy was also partially fulfilled by another priest as well, but I am unsure about that.  I am not completely satisfied with my interpretation of this prophecy, in part because I have never really thought about it before.  Since I am convinced that the “anointed” referenced here is Jesus (although I suspect at the time this prophecy was recorded those who recorded it thought it referred to King David and his descendants who sat on the throne after him), it may be that the “faithful priest” refers to someone else (or some group).  The other question which I have, at this point, no understanding is in what way do Eli’s descendants ask of that priest for priestly duties to perform?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 1-3.

I noticed something in the passage today that never registered to me before.  After Samuel’s birth, Elkanah, his father, went up to offer his annual sacrifice and fulfill his vow.  Now, the fact that Elkanah went up to offer an annual sacrifice was mentioned in the introduction to the book, but nowhere does it mention that he took a vow.  So, is this vow which he was fulfilling related to Samuel’s birth?  Had Elkanah taken a vow similar to the one which Hannah had taken regarding the birth of Samuel?  I do not know the answers to those questions and am not sure that it is important, but I thought it was interesting that Elkanah had taken a vow which he fulfilled shortly after Samuel’s birth.

Of greater interest to me is, how and why did Eli fail so miserably to raise his sons to be God-fearing, yet succeed so outstandingly when it came to Samuel?  Obviously, the first piece of that puzzle is to be found in Samuel’s mother, Hannah.  Every year, she made Samuel a robe and brought it to him when she came to offer sacrifices with her husband.  I am sure that at the same time she reminded Samuel of how God had honored her by giving her him as her son.  It is worth noting that Samuel would have witnessed the sins of Eli’s sons, and would have had the example of his father, Elkanah, faithfully offering his sacrifices despite their blasphemy.  And yet, we cannot discount the influence which Eli had on young Samuel.  After all, it was Eli who told Samuel how to respond when God called out to him in the night.  Eli had failed to raise his sons to fear God.  To what degree that was Eli’s fault is open to question, although the passage does indicate that God placed at least some of the blame on Eli.  However, we can also see that Eli sought to correct whatever mistakes he had made with his own sons in the raising of Samuel.  And this is a point we should take to heart: whatever mistakes we have made in the past, we do not need to continue to make those some mistakes today and going forward.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.