January 9 Daily Discovery
January 9 Daily Discovery
Read 1 Samuel Chapter 1
She Kept Her Vow
A vow is a promise that you make to God. It is serious. Do NOT make a promise to God lightly. Hannah wanted to have a child more than anything in this world. By nature, motherhood is implanted into the heart of girls.
It is good and natural and rewarding to have children.
Hannah's Husband
His name was Elkanah. Hannah only had one husband, but Elkanah had more than one wife, - he had two. Why? We cannot know for sure the exact reason.
However, children were considered a blessing from God and happiness comes from having lots of them! (Psalm 127:5)
We know that his first wife was Hannah and that she had no children. Elkanah took a second wife so he would have children. We know that this was done by the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob.
Obvious to us is that these were lapses of faith, and should not have been done. We discover this by reading the historys of both.
Without more details, it is safe to fall back upon these other stories for understanding.
Abraham should NOT have listened to Sarah and taken Hagar, her handmaid to bear her children, but God blessed Ishmael, too.
God made one man and one woman for each other. If a spouse dies, then it is acceptable to marry again.
Hannah's Hatred
Well, the taking of Peninnah as a wife did lead to Elkanah having children, and it may have been Hannah's idea. If it was, Elkanah should NOT have yielded.
Peninnah continually taunted Hannah for being barren.
Each year, they would travel to Jerusalem to worship and this was miserable for Hannah.
It may be that Peninnah had ten children to Hannah's zero. (Maybe Peninnah had ten sons? See verse 8)
Hannah's Hurting
Her heart was broken. Watching the joy that Peninnah had with her children all the while being taunted by her. This are not her physical kids, but the were Elkanah's and you can be sure he loved them.
This situation added to her hurt.
We know that it is God that decides if a woman is going to become pregnant. (See verse 5) God could open her womb, and we see in this book that He did as a result of her prayer.
Hannah's Humility
She was in prayer, praying "her heart out."
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
~ James 5:16
Eli the priest saw her praying silently and accused her of being drunk! She spoke back to him, apolagetically and with humility and explained that she was praying because of a broken heart and asked him to overlook her replying to him because she only did so due to her great grief.
Eli then returned to her a BLESSING, saying, "Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him."
From that point, it seems that Hannah took that as God was going to answer her prayer.
God opened her womb and she became pregnant.
Hannah's Honoring
She honored her oath. She kept her vow to God. She loved her child and kept him close until he was weaned and a toddler and then followed through with her promise to bring him to serve in the tabernacle in Shiloh (God's designated place of worship) before the Temple was built in Jerusalem) as a Nazarite.
Keep your promises to God!
Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.
~ Eccl. 5:1-7
Read also: Deut. 23:21-23 and Psalm 50:14
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Continue Your Search
In this chapter, do you see any: Commands to Obey, Warnings to Heed, Promises to Claim, Examples to Follow, Vices to Avoid, Praises to Emulate, Prayers to Use, Principles by which to Live, Questions to Ask or Actions to Take?
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