BIBLE BIOGRAPHY – HANNAH

THE LONGING OF HER HEART

Our story begins in 1 Samuel 1:1 where we’re introduced to a young woman named Hannah - a beautiful name that means "grace". She was unable to have children because the Lord had "closed her womb" (1 Sam 1:5). In that culture not being able to bear children was considered punishment for some unseen sin. To make matters worse her husband’s other wife, Peninnah, taunted her about this and added to her already grieved heart (1 Sam 1:6).

Every year when she went to the house of the Lord for the yearly feast (probably the Feast of Tabernacles) she wept bitterly and prayed for a son. You can picture her, eyes red from crying, pleading with God saying, "O Lord of Host, if you will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life." (1 Samuel 1:7-11)

She begged God to remember her because she knew only it was in His hands. So what did God do? How did He respond? In 1 Sam 1:19 we read four beautiful words: "The Lord remembered her."

NO ONE IS HOLY LIKE THE LORD

God had answered her prayers. Proverbs tells us that a longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul and I’m sure that there was no sound sweeter to Hannah than the cries her newborn son. She named him Samuel, which means, "the Lord hears" (1 Sam 1:19-20).

You can picture Hannah, eyes again red from crying but now the tears were tears of joy and she exclaimed, "No one is holy like the Lord, for there is none besides You, nor is there any rock like our God." (1 Sam 2:2).

Hannah kept her promise to the Lord and after Samuel was weaned from her she took him to live with Eli the temple priest and to serve God (1 Sam 21-28). Every year Hannah would come to the temple for the feast and bring her son a little robe. And every year it seemed that Samuel had more and more relatives visiting him because God bless Hannah with three more sons and two daughters (1 Sam 2:21).

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM HER LIFE

As I said above Hannah means "grace". An appropriate name because her life is a living example of grace and how we receive it. Grace means to find favor even though it hasn’t been earned or deserved. Hannah didn’t do anything to receive God’s blessings. She simply cried out to Him to help her and had faith that He would.

Now Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8 that "it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." In other words, God sends us His grace through faith the same way I send you this biography through the internet. The Internet acts as a road in which this biography can travel into your computers. Faith acts as a road in which grace can travel into your heart.

There’s another important lesson we learn from Hannah’s life. People thought that Hannah was being punished when in fact God was preparing a great blessing for her. God has a great plan for everyone’s life and is to give us a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).