Hannah - The Story Of A Brazen Woman

The women of the Bible will never cease to fascinate me. Living in a time and culture of total male domination, one would think that only the meek and the docile would be deemed worthy or remembrance, but with few exceptions, we find the women most celebrated to be those whose actions pushed the boundaries of societal constraints and refused to be silent in the face of injustice. One such woman was Hannah of I Samuel chapters one and two.

Too often we read this story at the mercy of our modern conditioning. We fail to see the historical and religious significance of her actions, and as usual present her as a pious soul who meekly turned to God in her hour of need. However, a closer reading of the text coupled with an understanding of the times reveals a bold and daring woman who was not just going to shut up and take what life, or God, had given her.

Her story opens with the introduction of her husband, a man with an impressive family tree, and her inclusion in a family where she was one of two wives. Unlike the second wife, Hannah was barren and like so many women the first wife was catty, constantly rubbing it in Hannah’s face that she was a failure as a woman. Despite this Hannah managed to be her husband’s favorite, meriting special treatment and receiving his feeble (and, oh, so male) attempts at comfort. This is our first tip off that Hannah was something special for in this day a woman’s value was often calculated based on the number of sons she presented to her husband. Love matches were a rarity, and marriage was more of business agreement between families than a romantic venture.

From this stand point it would be easy to say that Hannah was far more blessed than many other women of her time. For not only did her husband keep her as a wife, showing affection and consideration of her situation, he further blessed her with a double portion during the time for sacrifices to made.

To understand the emotional ramifications of what Hannah was experiencing we need to understand that barrenness was not considered a simple medical malfunction. Barrenness was a curse from God, often viewed as a judgement for wrong doing, and as Hannah was the only wife barren the judgement would have been seen as failing on her alone. This would have made her suspect among the other women and possibly held social consequence such as being ostracized and topic of small town gossip. Wrapping our modern minds around what she must have experienced is difficult at best.

The story unfolds as the family celebrates together, eating and drinking, while I can only imagine Hannah watching her husband blessing his children by his other wife and fending off the smug attitude of the other woman vying for her husband’s attention. The pain she must have felt knowing that all those present considered her to be a failure and a shame to their family was probably what pushed her over the edge.

For in verse nine we find that Hannah arose, leaving the festivities behind to go and pray at the Tabernacle.

I want you to really think about this for a moment – a woman, unescorted, goes to the Tabernacle! This is where the men gathered to make plans, to discuss battle strategies, to determine how to govern the people, and to do the bloody work of sacrifice. Women went there, but they went as a family to make the appropriate offerings together with their husbands or fathers. Just making that walk was an exercise in courage.

Or was it something else?

Verse ten literally said she was “marat nefesh” or “bitter of soul” - not the typical attitude we are encouraged to have when seeking an audience with God. But could you blame her? God was the one who opens and closes the womb. He was the cause of her disappointment and pain, and she knew this.

The writer of Samuel records her prayer:
“O LORD of Hosts, if you will look upon the suffering of your maidservant and remember me and not forget the sufferings of your maidservant, and if you will grant your maidservant a male child, I will dedicated him to the LORD for all the days of his life; and no razor shall ever touch his head.”

And with those words, she changed the nature of prayer forever – so much so that we do not even recognize them as radical as this has been the way we have been taught to pray since we were children, but to the fledgling nation of Israel, they are unprecedented.

The first words, the title of LORD of Hosts, had never been uttered until they fall from Hannah’s lips, here was a woman who recognized God’s sovereignty not only in her own life but in all the machinations of the universe.  Her prayer simultaneously exalts God beyond previous words spoken to him while declaring her need and right to be remembered as his handmaiden. The demand and glorification stand at odds with each other, presenting the divine tension between humanity and deity in stark contrast to the humility deemed fitting for a woman. Perhaps it takes one who has experienced such agonies to know that if God is too be great, he must be bigger than any pain we experience, and who knows pain better than one whose hopes and dreams have been ripped to shreds?

The Rabbis call her words insolent even as they laud her example as one who dared to speak their heart to the Creator. So impressive was this bold feat that the prescribed methodology for prayer was modeled not after the patriarchs of the Jewish faith, but upon the heartfelt cries of a woman. Daring to be this impassioned before God was a level of bravery that no man had dared to attempt, the fear and trembling of awe struck wonder had been erased as heartache compelled her to brazenness.

If her story had ended there, she would have been mocked and ridiculed as the drunken woman who dared to defile the sacred environment of the Tabernacle with profanity, but thankfully for us all, it did not. Eli confronts her, scandalized by her hysterics, demanding that she be proper before the Lord and in this holy place. Most women would have been cowed and accepted the harsh rebuke in silence, but not our Hannah!

She fires back him with both barrels, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”

Now, read this as a woman who has been wrongfully accused, not as simpering milksop. Take her prompts for the proper tone and voice for her words. Remember that Hebrew is a very limited language in comparison to ours and know that words often have more than one related definition. She isn’t just saying she was slightly vexed. She deliberately chose a word that also means anger. She wasn’t just dealing with anxiety, once again she chose a word that can mean complain, as in legal complaint. She is letting Eli know that she is beyond just hurt she is MAD and with a just cause. Now plug in all that new knowledge and read her reply again.

Go back and read Eli’s response. Does it sound familiar? It reminds me of my husband when he knows that he had better not argue with me because I am going to go psycho crazy on him for even questioning my right to be upset. It’s the cautious pat on the head before hitting the door to avoid the fallout. It’s the placation in an attempt to defuse the ticking time bomb, but Hannah grabs on to it. You can almost hear her skipping away as she says, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.”

In Hannah we find far more than an abstraction of piety and humility. We find a woman with a voice, a backbone, and fiery spirit who will not be silenced or dismissed. She rejects cultural norms that would threaten to remove her from the provision of her God, and declares that her identity is ultimately found in him and her relationship to him as his servant. She reveals the true object of her faith as her Lord and Creator, not the men who appeared to have authority over her and recognizes God’s sovereignty to act on her behalf and her right to request it – even when it meant rebuking the spiritual leadership of a nation.

Women should read her story not as rebuke to pray silently and in humility, but rather, that we take our requests boldly to our King. We should not see her as proper, because she wasn’t, and should learn when to disregard propriety for the sake of honesty. From her we should draw inspiration to cast aside societal constraints when they stand between us and our need to have the Father act on our behalf, and most of all, we should be reminded that God remembers us and all the things that have wounded our hearts. He is there, waiting in those holy moments to respond with blessings beyond our imagination if we are brave enough to take even bitter souls before his throne in prayer.