UBF Daily Bread

HANNAH KEEPS HER PROMISE

Passage: 1Samuel 1:21~28

Key verse: 27,28

Hannah Dedicates Samuel

²¹When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual^(A) sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow,^(B) ²²Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present^(C) him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”^[a]

²³“Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good^(D) his^[b] word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned^(E) him.

²⁴After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull,^[c]^(F) an ephah^[d] of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. ²⁵When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, ²⁶and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. ²⁷I prayed^(G) for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. ²⁸So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life^(H) he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.

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Footnotes

1 Samuel 1:22 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls always. I have dedicated him as a Nazirite—all the days of his life.”
1 Samuel 1:23 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint and Syriac your
1 Samuel 1:24 Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint and Syriac; Masoretic Text with three bulls
1 Samuel 1:24 That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms

1. Keep your word (21-23)

Hannah did not go up for the annual sacrifice; she stayed home with her new baby. Her husband reminded her of her vow. She must have struggled a lot, but she made a decision to keep her promise to God. She would take her son to the temple in Shiloh and leave him there to serve God all his life.

2. Hannah gives Samuel to the Lord (24-28)

Samuel was a very young boy when his parents took him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh. They might have found many excuses not to leave him there: Eli was an old man; he had not raised his own sons very well; Samuel was too young--he might get homesick. But they made no excuses. After offering a sacrifice to the Lord, Hannah told Eli that the Lord had answered her prayer and given her a son. Now she was giving him to the Lord for his whole life. She knew that the living God had answered her prayer. Hannah feared God and kept her promise.

Prayer: Lord, grant mothers of prayer like Hannah for our times.

One Word: Given to the Lord--for keeps