Forty fourth Page: Elkanah slept with Hannah !

As a 10 year old, reading the first book of Samuel in the Bible, my first reaction was probably:

So what? My reasoning would have gone like this:

Hannah was tired because Peninnah wouldn’t lift a finger and she left all the house work to Hannah. Elkanah was tired trying to resolve the differences between his two wives! And his sympathies swung towards Hannah, for she was the one who over-worked. So naturally he sought to comfort her; and they fell asleep.

Bah……big deal!

(the tell-all Google and the show all YouTube had not been conceived at that time)

Is this such a significant matter that it should be written about; that too in the Bible?

Yes, growing up in a village, I was woefully na·ïve, specially in matters sexual.

It was a matter of recurring wonder to me that babies did not come around until young women were married to young men. At that time I couldn’t quite get a fix on how a purely external business like tying the knot should send the women to the maternity ward some 9 or 10 months later! But it happened with unfailing regularity. (Obviously everyone at that time was fertile and didn’t believe in planning!)

Light began to seep in when one day I heard that an unmarried woman in the village had given birth.

Phew!!

This was unheard of. And what is more a man was said to have been involved. Now what has a man to do with it? My dense mind incrementally began to perceive that all those grooms being led to the church altar like so many lambs for slaughter, weren’t lambs after all! They had a duty to perform, a task to fulfill, an expectation to satisfy. In short, they were essential for the production of babies!!

This wisdom got fortified when we all got to know that the man suspected to be involved in the unwed pregnancy case was simply not to be found; he had vamoosed. 

Oh..oh!

So, there was something more to a wedding ceremony that cements a marriage than meets the ear. The whispering of vows and the mutual garlanding or exchange of rings etc. were an elaborate procedure to pull wool over the eyes of under-age kids like me. Some funny business was being carried out behind closed doors!  

Those days, surrounded as I was by a thoroughly rural vernacular environment, among the best ways to learn proper English was to immerse oneself in the King James Version of the Bible; and this I did with religious fervour. So when I read “Adam knew his wife” in the first verse of Genesis Chapter 4, naturally I wondered why it took  so long for the bloke to know her, seeing God presented her to him right in v.22 of chapter 2!

Was he relationally challenged, or what?

The delicate nuances of the KJV were hidden to me at that stage. Imagine the “tamasha” that would result if we were to go around speaking in KJV today in a casual manner: we dare not say “yeah, I do know this, that and the other  girl”.

Whoopsy, doopsy!

The interlocutor might well suffer a myocardial infarction. All hell would break loose!

One would be well advised to use ponderous expression likes “acquainted with” or “we have said Hello”

You get the picture. Okay, okay……let us reel in the kite of our fantasy.

In this situation, it is easy to ask why God cannot grant Hannah a baby Himself. Is it impossible for Him? If He be God, why doesn’t He do this ? Why does He allow Peninnah to taunt her? Surely He has the power to prevent the unhappiness in this Hebrew household?

The counter of course is “Yes, God can certainly do it” “For with God nothing will be impossible. (Luke 1:37). ” Is the LORD’S hand waxed short?”(Numbers 11:23)

So why doesn’t He go ahead and do what is needful?

It begins to look as though He has a plan and everything is working out according to it – Elkanah’s two wives, Hannah’s infertility (1 Samuel 1:5), Peninnahs’ taunts, Hannah’s tear jerker of a prayer in Eli’s presence, God’s opening Hannah’s womb, the birth of a man-child – yes, everything. God is setting the stage for a huge event.

It took her some time and a lot of pain but Hannah finally understood what God was doing through her. See what she says: ²⁷ I prayed for this child. The Lord has given me what I asked him for. ²⁸ So now I’m giving him to the Lord. As long as he lives he’ll be given to the Lord.” And there Eli worshiped the Lord. (1 Samuel 1) These are poignant words from Hannah. For a long time childless and frequently the butt of jokes and taunts from her co-wife Peninnha , Hannah was at last pregnant and brought forth her first born. She named him Samuel for as she declared “I asked the Lord for him”. She says pretty much the same thing when she takes the boy to the temple and puts him under Eli’s charge.

This child! Hannah could not have known how Samuel would grow, how his character would shape and his eventual rise as priest and prophet that the whole country respected. More importantly at this point she had little idea that she will bring forth other children. She asked the Lord for Samuel and Samuel must serve Him all his life.

A purpose driven dedication!

Yes God superbly orchestrated events and wove a magnificent tapestry of sequential developments for the great prophet Samuel to arrive in this world. The Wikipedia says of him:

Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy’s transition from Saul to David. He is venerated as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In addition to his role in the Hebrew scriptures, Samuel is mentioned in Jewish rabbinical literature, in the Christian New Testament, and in the second chapter of the Quran (although Islamic texts do not mention him by name). He is also treated in the fifth through seventh books of Antiquities of the Jews, written by the Jewish scholar Josephus in the first century. He is first called “the Seer” in 1 Samuel 9:9.

Samuel is so great that he is mentioned along side Moses in the book of Jeremiah (Jer.15:1)

 

Now going back a little in the narrative, for God to fulfill His plan for the children of Israel, Ekanah had to act. Read 1 Samuel 1:19 in the NLT

“When Elkanah slept with Hannah, the Lord remembered her plea”

Surely, we know from the way the story unfolds that this is not the first time Elkanah had slept with Hannah. He had done that before umpteen times unproductively. But now that Elkanah had done his part in line with the plan of God, things begin to unroll pretty fast.

Until that point of time, You could go on yelling at Elkanah till the cows home:

“What are you there for?” “Are you not responsible for anything”…..indeed “Are you not the husband”? But his potency was already established through Peninnah.

It is also easy to blame God for what we perceive as His failures . It is about time we recognized that God as the creator of the universe has complete authority to suspend its functioning, fundamental laws and all. The instances of Manna falling from heaven or the raven bringing meat – to say nothing about the immaculate conception of Mary – are but rare occurrences that give a glimpse of the power of God.

But why this elaborate charade? To my mind, the problem begins right in v.2 of chapter 1: Elkanah had two wives.  We do not know whom he married first; but we can guess it was Hannah, since the verse goes on to say “Peninnah had children, but Hannah did not”. Having children were very important in those times. God knew that of course. And He made everything beautiful in its time (Eccl.3:11).

Many times we forget that God has assigned man a role to play in the implementation of divine plans. As an intelligent and cognitive being in God’s creation, he is to volitionally cooperate with God in order to realize a blessing He has already granted.

 

Have you discovered your role?

 

Do not stop with prayer. Perform!

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