This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 16, 1997.

This morning we are reading from 1 Samuel 1. We are beginning in verse 9. 1 Samuel 1 at verse 9. Give your attention to God’s holy word. So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh And after they had drunk, and Eli the priest sat upon the seat by the post of the temple of the Lord, and she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore.

And she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thy handmaid a man child. Then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.”

And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunk, and put away thy wine from thee? And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not mine handmaid for a daughter of Belial, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.” Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

And they rose up in the morning early and worshiped before the Lord, and returned and came to their house to Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about, after Hannah had conceived, that she bear a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord. And the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice and his vow.

But Hannah went not up. For she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord and there abide forever. And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth be good, tarry until thou have weaned him. Only the Lord establishes word.

So the woman abode and gave her son suck until she weaned him. And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh. And the child was young. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli.

And she said, O my Lord, as thy soul liveth, my Lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord there.” And Hannah prayed and said, “‘My heart rejoiceth in the Lord.

Mine horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee. Neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more, so exceeding proudly. Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are way.

The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength. They that were full have hired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry ceased, so that the barren hath borne seven, and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.

The Lord killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he bringeth low and lifteth up, he raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he hath set the world upon them. And he will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail.” The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, out of heaven shall he thunder upon them. The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

And Elkanah went to Ramah with his house, and the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest. Father, we do ask that in this day Your word would be sent forth by you in power, reclaiming sinners from death, granting sight to those who are blind, setting at liberty those who are bound. We pray, Father, for the effectiveness of this word, even in keeping with your promise. that from the nations, Lord, there would be many who are gathered for your church and unto your kingdom. And Father, here, we pray for those who may not have faith, that it would please you, Lord, to grant them faith today. And Lord, we who have faith, may we be strengthened in that faith for our service to our King. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hannah, the barren Jewess, the favored but childless wife of Elkanah, moves from tears and bitterness to peace and praise. This movement in her, makes her thus a most compelling biblical figure. From a purely psychological angle, from the angle of this woman’s personal religious transformation, Hannah has attracted great interest.

Not a few. male and female, have looked to Hannah for some key to their own spiritual and emotional situation. Hannah prays, and she receives a positive answer. She prays and she gets what she wants. So the thought goes, perhaps, perhaps, if I follow Hannah, if I study this woman, if I reproduce her actions, if I reproduce in myself her attitudes, I will get what I want. Many women, having difficulty conceiving, have turned to Hannah, thinking to themselves, this woman holds the answer to my own problems, and is the root into my own appeal to God to resolve my situation. Others have been greatly taken by Hannah’s remarkable transformation. In their agitation, in their constant battles with depression, anger, and personal disappointment, they have been drawn to Hannah, who seems to find the spiritual solution. Special encouragement, for instance, from verse 18, where Hannah, as yet still without the child, goes her way, eats, and apparently is now content.

The text indicates a fixed change in the woman. Her face was no longer downcast, we’re told. How many in hearing or reading this story have thought, this is exactly what I need. This is exactly what I need. The effort then turns toward a psychological profile for the woman, a spiritual analysis of Hannah’s progress over the course of these opening chapters in 1 Samuel, the hope being that here help at last will be found for me.

Now, my purpose this morning is not an effort to tell you. No true psychological prophet, no genuine personal spiritual counsel is to be gained from Hannah. At the same time, we must work very hard with this text, particularly because of our tendency to rush quickly in these very directions. For us to grasp well the Bible’s intent with regard to the story of Hannah, we will have to ground her and her story in the overarching, all-important history of salvation. In fact, this is our primary and pressing task.

It will mean, and I admit it up front, it will mean Hannah’s loss to you. She will be lost to you along the lines of these other approaches, these approaches that would focus upon her psychological profile and her spiritual inventory. Still, the approach that I am suggesting holds our promise to you. that Hannah will be given back to you in the very best possible way, and that in keeping with the truth of God and the Bible’s message about his kingdom. And I dare say that Hannah, having been returned to you along these lines, by first of all losing her in the interest of the history of salvation, that she becomes for you a most extraordinary figure through whom the Lord holds out to you remarkable lessons concerning your own spiritual maturity and even your own psychological satisfaction. Interestingly, now, this approach which I am proposing to you itself preaches the gospel. You see, this approach, first of all, takes Hannah away. We lose her only to see her given back to us.

And along these lines, I remind you of Jesus’ words, for instance, in Luke 17, verse 33. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall save it. A similar statement from Jesus appears in John 12, verse 25. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life.

In the interests, then, of the grander consideration, the more monumental, I ask you this morning to look at Hannah differently. Not, first of all, the distressed and despondent barren wife who becomes a model for either therapeutic recovery or personal sanctification. but one in whom we are able to see the people of God. Hannah, then, not the singular individual, she, according to the dictates of Scripture and the intentions of God, forcing us away from our selfishness and our self-centeredness, away from our individualism. Me alone, I am the most important person in this world, am I not?

I know it, and you ought to know it. You will be forced away from that kind of thinking. You are being driven away from that kind of thinking, even though you may consider your own psychological state to be the all-consuming issue in your life. It isn’t true. Maybe I should put it stronger. It’s a lie. There happens to be a fiendish angel that is delighted in having you believe that it’s the truth.

Hannah then becomes for us more than a singular individual, more than just this singular woman with her own list of problems. For true to God’s covenantal dealings, Hannah becomes a collective, a corporate figure in the history of redemption, in whom God now reveals his intentions for the salvation of his people. We will read out of Hannah, we will read off of Hannah the history of redemption, for she represents God’s true people. Her story becomes the occasion for spelling out their struggle as they await his deliverance She is beloved of God as she is beloved of her husband. In her, we see God’s people beloved of Him. Still, her womb is closed by God Himself, and in her condition, she suffers reproach, agonizing beneath her shame.

Hannah is like the people of God who, although beloved of Him, are subjected to powerlessness. to a weakness that leaves them incapable of generating their salvation from within themselves. They can’t do it. Hannah is also provoked by her rival, a second wife to Eltanah, Paninah, who boasts of what she has gained in her children, whose confidence is in her own flesh and in her strength and whose focus is exclusively upon the advantages that come to her in this world. That’s Tenaya. Hannah, meanwhile, like the people of God, is made, is constrained by his sovereignty, by his decision to wait for the Lord.

And in her wake, her hope is mediated for her through the priest-judge Eli, who anticipates the child she herself will bear. That child, when he comes, will appear in two lights, in a double light, first as a forerunner to the coming kingdom, and God’s king, his servant David. Samuel, then that child, a John the Baptist to the form of a Christ, resident within David when he appears. But secondly, this child is one in whom we are able to see the King himself, who shall come to us miraculously conceived, and as an infant and a child, signal the arrival of God’s kingdom, although present in weakness and hidden in obscurity.

The triumph of God’s kingdom reveals itself in the end of the old. That’s the meaning of the transition in Anna. The triumph of God’s kingdom reveals itself in the end of the old, provisional, even corrupt order, the order susceptible to the boast in the flesh, as seen in Penina and her children, the order susceptible to self-satisfaction, as seen in Elkanah, her husband. Here, in these two individuals, is the Old Testament order of the law. With Hannah and her child, God’s triumph in his kingdom reveals itself in the beginning of the new, eternal order of righteousness, conceived and brought forth in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. himself, allowing no provision for the flesh or any hint of self-righteous self-satisfaction. Here is the New Testament administration of the gospel and gospel freedom.

All this means, you must see in Hannah, first of all, not an intriguing psychological study spiritual profile, but the history of redemption. In her pain, she reflects the Old Testament people of God in their anguish, short of their redemption in Christ. In her peaceful posture after her interview with Eli, she reflects the Old Testament people of God in their trust, in their faith, as they rely on God’s mediation through the spirit of His Son. in the conception and birth of the child, she reflects the conception and birth of Christ as she anticipates the arrival of all that to which the Old Testament pointed.

This reading of Hannah’s story is confirmed by many factors in the text itself. First of all, her name means grace. and memorializes the sovereign activity by which God brings the kingdom of his Son to light, by which he brings deliverance to his people. By Hannah’s power? By her decision? No. She, in her name, is memorial to God’s grace. Her name means grace. And let me tell you, in that name, she stands over against works Samuel’s name, her child, means Herd of God. Now that’s H-E-A-R-D. Herd of God.

And this child memorializes more than the fact that a woman in Israel has been granted her prayer. This child memorializes the fact that God hears his people in their affliction and responds in order to deliver them definitively, finally, summarily, completely.

But beyond the names, we have Hannah’s actions, which also confirm our reading of this story. By giving her child to God, she is led by the Spirit of God in a symbolic act whereby she gives him over to the grander purpose of God. She gives him over to the grander purpose of God, denying herself subordinating herself to that purpose.

This is a unique act on her part. Therefore, it does not establish a general pattern to be followed by thankful Jewish mothers who have somehow conceived and given birth to children. It is a unique act. It is an act in which Hannah shows signs of grasping hold of the child’s significance and her own special role in the history of redemption.

Samuel is not hers any more than Jesus belongs to Mary. But mention of Mary brings us to the last confirmation for our reading of the Hannah story, namely her prayer and song that appears at the beginning of chapter 2. Maybe you’re already aware of the match between Hannah’s song here at the beginning of 1 Samuel 2. and Mary’s song recorded for you in Luke chapter 1, verses 46 through 55.

They have a common opening, my soul doth magnify the Lord. They have a common theme, the reversal of fortune. As you see, the low exulted and the high humbled. particularly as you match verses 4 and 5 in 1 Samuel 2 and verses 51 through 53 in Luke chapter 1. There is an interlocking here between these songs. There is a match-up between them.

Hannah’s song provides prelude for the coming of the kingdom in All Testament shadow form, as it was focused in Samuel. Mary’s song provides the prelude for the coming of the kingdom in New Testament reality, as embodied in Jesus Christ. What happens in 1 Samuel and with Hannah is telegraphed. And the message is being shot across centuries, not yet, in existence.

All of this because the whole of the thing is under the sovereign power and hand of God himself. He knows the end from the beginning. But you will notice, as I have suggested before, somewhat in passing, the way in which Hannah herself participates personally in the reality of the coming true New Testament kingdom, even before that kingdom arrives. Remember those verses we quoted at the beginning of this message from Luke 17 and from John verses in which Jesus speaks about losing your life, that you might gain it? Well, you are witnessing as fine an example of this very thing in Hannah, as you will find anywhere in the pages of the Old Testament.

Look at her song. In it, you find no mention of her own personal barrenness or the birth of her child. In it, you find no mention of her personal barrenness and the birth of her child. What you find is her complete absorption and preoccupation with the triumph of God, the salvation of his people, and in that tenth verse, the exaltation of his anointed one, the Christ.

Here is a woman who has lost herself in the interests of the kingdom of God. She has put the kingdom of God and His righteousness first. And that is the bottom line for her. Hannah subordinates all her own interests to the cause of the kingdom. And in this, you see, you find in her the key. The key to her own religious progress, her sanctification, the key to her own psychological stability. Hannah’s song is a prayer, and it is patterned for prayer.

And I ask you to judge other prayers that you find in Scripture in light of it. I would even invite you to compare the Lord’s Prayer with it. Do you know how the Lord’s Prayer begins? It begins with God, the hallowing of his name, the request that his kingdom come, the request that his will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Those petitions are there and they are programmatic and instructive for you. In your prayer, you are being disciplined even here, Christ exerting that discipline, that you would place the kingdom first, above all else. Before there’s any consideration of your condition, before you even get to asking for your daily bread, before you’re asked to be delivered from sin, you are asking that God may be exalted and that He might reveal Himself. That’s the intent of those petitions that open the Lord’s prayer. When you pray that God’s name might be hallowed, you’re asking that that name might be hallowed in its consummate sense, as it shall be on the final day. When you pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, you’re praying for the end of the world.

So what are these concerns of yours? What are these matters that take up most of your day? and preoccupy you. What are these things that disturb you and annoy you? You’ve been praying for the end of the world. You’ve been praying for Jesus Christ to come again. And with those petitions well placed, now you ask for your daily bread. the forgiveness of your sins, deliverance from the evil one, strength and temptation, that you might endure till God is pleased to send his Son for you.

Well, as I said, You have to lose Hannah to gain her back. Just as Hannah lost herself that she might be gained back in the interests of the kingdom. Do you really want to stand any other place than with Hannah? not me. Surely O God, the words that come to us from your Son seem to startle us, shock us, even upset us, if we are not confused by them. But teach us, dear Lord, how we might enter into them properly, and profit from them well. Therefore, Lord, as Hannah herself was lost to herself in the interests of the kingdom, And thus, in preview form, shows us the reality of the gospel. May we who live in this day, when Jesus Christ has come, be content, O Lord, to live in that fashion of life that Jesus prescribes, even as we lose our own lives. in this world that we might be granted them in the world to come. Through Christ we pray this. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.