The Story of Hanna: seeking His face (1 Samuel 1: 1-19)
“Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard.” 1 Samuel 1:12
Hannah is a beautiful picture of what it is to seek the face of God first, and out of that the dance emerged. Her dance was the movement of her lips and a silent voice. It was a dance that was misunderstood for as we read the story we discover that she was accused of being “drunk” by the priest who watched on from a distance. She was a woman in deep anguish, and rather then take the lead in the type of dance Rachel danced, she clung to God with all that was in her. She cried out to Him from the depth of her hearts and from that depth came the moving of her lips...a silent dance before God.
Like Rachel, Hannah had to share her husband with another woman. In this case the other woman was named, Peninnah. And just like Rachel, Hannah could bear no children while Peninnah had many children. Peninnah used Hannah's inability to bear children as fuel to taunt and make fun of Rachel for she was consumed with jealousy over the realization that their mutual husband, Elkanah, loved Hannah more then her. If Rachel had a reason to be jealous, Hannah had even more justification, for she was openly mocked. Yet Hannah did not retaliate nor did she have her servant bear her children for her. Instead she poured her heart out to God and waited.
Every year Elkanah would take his entire family up to the tabernacle to worship God. Imagine Hannah kneeling in the tabernacle along with Peninnah and all her “sons and daughters”. How lost and alone she must have felt. All the love of her husband could not remove her shame or comfort her heart.
Together her family worshiped....after, she went back alone to pray.
Hannah did not have to go back to the tabernacle. She could of sat after the supper meal and let jealousy and hatred toward Peninnah stew within her. She could of entered the competition and challenged what scripture calls her “rival”...two women dancing a dance of jealousy together. If they maintained smiles on their faces no one would have even noticed, just as in the heat of the battle, Leah named her sixth “son”, Asher, because “How happy I am. The women will call me happy”.Yet the motive behind this child's birth was to ensure Rachel would not have as many children as her. Leah has obtained this child, Asher, through her maidservant. God has no part of it.
Hannah's heart was not inclined to such a dance. Did she battle jealousy? Most likely, for it says that “in bitterness of soul” she went seeking the face of God. The difference between Rachel and Hannah was that, all though both shared the same story, Hannah poured her bitter heart out before the Lord while Rachel took matters into her own hands. Rachel did not have the patience for the Lord to initiate. She was anxious to dance the dance and when the Lord seemed not to be moving on her behalf, she found another partner, which was her maidservant.
Hannah, instead, sought that secret place of intimacy with God rather then let the jealousy within her move her to fight back at her rival. It was not worth going down that road. She instinctively knew that would not answer the cry of her heart. She would instead grab hold of the hem of God's garment and not let go until He answered. She tells Eli the priest, who accuses her of being drunk, that, “I was pouring my soul to the Lord”. She poured out her bitter soul, full of jealousy and shame to the Lord. It says that God remembered her and it was soon after that that she bore a son, Samuel, whom God called as a prophet to the nation of Israel. God spoke often to Samuel right from childhood to old age in those days when “the word of the Lord was rare”.