Who was Hannah, the mother of Samuel?
When they lived The end of the period of the judges, around the eleventh century BC
In short
Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel. Barren and humiliated by her husband’s other wife, she prayed at the sanctuary of Shiloh with such distress that the priest Eli took her for a drunk. She made a vow, had the child and handed him over to sanctuary service.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 6 min read
Hannah takes up two chapters at the start of 1 Samuel and serves as the doorway into the whole book. She is the mother of the prophet who will anoint the first two kings of Israel — yet the text spends its entire first chapter on her, not on him.
It is one of the few passages in the Bible that describes from the inside what it is to pray without being able to speak. And the detail that gives the scene its measure is that the priest on duty, watching, concluded he was looking at a drunk woman.
Two women, one household
Elkanah had two wives: Peninnah, who had children, and Hannah, who did not. The arrangement is described without moral comment, as the text usually handles the customs of the period, and the problem it creates is set out in very concrete terms.
At every annual journey to the sanctuary the rival provoked Hannah on purpose, and the result was always the same: weeping, and refusal to eat. This is not an abstract sorrow about childlessness — it is a repeated humiliation with a fixed date in the family’s religious calendar.
Elkanah tries to console her with a line that sounds good and settles little, asking whether he is not worth more to her than ten sons. The text records what he says and records no reply from her. Hannah gets up and goes to pray.
6And her rival afflicted her and vehemently distressed her, to a great extent, for she rebuked her that the Lord had closed her womb.
7And she did so every year, when the time returned for them to ascend to the temple of the Lord. And she provoked her in this way. And so, she wept and did not take food.
Notice the time marker: it happened every year, and always in the same place. The provocation is presented as routine, and the effect described is not generic sadness but the refusal of food.
The prayer at Shiloh
Hannah prays in bitterness of soul and weeps a great deal — the words are the text’s. And she makes a precise vow, with a stated counterpart: if she is given a male child, she gives him back to the Lord for as long as he lives, and no blade will ever touch his hair.
This is where the scene becomes singular. She prays with her lips moving and no sound coming out, which in that setting was not the ordinary way of praying. Eli, the priest, is sitting nearby, sees movement without a voice, and concludes she has been drinking.
The accusation is direct, and so is her answer: she denies the wine and explains that she has been pouring out her soul before the Lord. Eli then sends her away in peace. The text does not double back to excuse the priest or to condemn him — it simply leaves the mistake on the record.
10And since Hannah was bitter in soul, she prayed to the Lord, weeping greatly.
11And she made a vow, saying, “O Lord of hosts, if, in looking with favor, you will see the affliction of your servant and will remember me, and will not forget your handmaid, and if you will give to your servant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall pass over his head.”
The vow is contractual in form and desperate in content. She asks to be remembered and offers up in advance the very thing she is asking for — and she sets the terms herself, with no intermediary.
13For Hannah was speaking in her heart, and only her lips moved, and her voice was barely heard. Therefore, Eli considered her to be drunk,
14and so he said to her: “How long will you be inebriated? You should take only a little wine, but instead you are drenched.”
15Responding, Hannah said: “By no means, my lord. For I am an exceedingly unhappy woman, and I drank neither wine, nor anything that can inebriate. Instead, I have poured out my soul in the sight of the Lord.
Three verses containing the whole misunderstanding: what Eli saw, what he said and what she answered. It is rare for the Bible to show a priest misreading a prayer and being corrected by the person praying.
The child given back
Samuel is born, and Hannah explains his name by the origin of the request. She then keeps the vow — but not immediately. The text says she waited until the boy was weaned before taking him, and in that culture that means several years, not several months.
The handover is made with a phrase the Hebrew deliberately leaves open: she asked the boy of the Lord and now gives him back to the Lord. Asking and returning use the same root.
And the relationship does not end there. Chapter 2 reports that she went up to the sanctuary every year carrying a little tunic she had made for him. It is one of the most domestic images in the Old Testament, and it is usually cut from summaries: a mother measuring by eye how much her son has grown since the last visit.
20And it happened that, in the course of days, Hannah conceived and bore a son. And she called his name Samuel, because she had requested him from the Lord.
The name is explained by the mother herself, not by the narrator and not by the priest. The person who gives meaning to the future prophet’s name is her.
27I prayed for this child, and the Lord granted to me my petition, which I asked of him.
28Because of this, I have also lent him to the Lord, for all the days when he shall be lent to the Lord.” And they adored the Lord in that place. And Hannah prayed, and she said:
The handover, in two sentences, using a verb that serves both for lending and for giving back — and it is that ambiguity the passage works with. In this edition, the line introducing her song closes verse 28, so the poem of chapter 2 begins already announced here.
19And his mother fashioned a little tunic for him, which she brought to him on the appointed days, ascending with her husband, so that he might immolate the solemn sacrifice.
The annual tunic. The detail does no theological work in the narrative and is there anyway — usually a sign that a scene was kept because it was remembered, not because it proved something.
The song
Chapter 2 opens with a poem attributed to Hannah, and it surprises anyone arriving in search of a personal thank-you. It says little about a baby and a great deal about social reversal: warriors’ bows broken, the well-fed hiring themselves out for bread, the hungry no longer hungry, the poor lifted from the dust.
Scholars regularly point out the resemblance between this song and Mary’s, in the first chapter of Luke — the same structure of reversal, the same movement from a personal case to the fate of the powerful. Reading the two in sequence is one of the most productive comparisons in the Bible.
1“My heart exults in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies. For I have rejoiced in your salvation.
2Nothing is holy as the Lord is holy. For there is no other beside you. And nothing is strong as our God is strong.
The poem opens in victory rather than relief: she speaks of a mouth opened wide over her enemies. The song of a woman humiliated at home begins as a war chant.
What the text does not say
Biblical figures gather layers of tradition that Scripture does not support. Telling the two apart does not diminish the story — it gives back what is actually written.
What is commonly said
Hannah prayed with calm, confident faith, and that is why she was answered.
What Scripture says
The text uses the word bitterness, reports that she wept a great deal, and describes lips moving without sound. The person nearest to her concluded she had been drinking. The prayer is presented as uncontrolled from the outside, and the narrator corrects it at no point.
What is commonly said
Hannah handed the baby over to the sanctuary right after giving birth, in an immediate act of renunciation.
What Scripture says
The text says she only took him once he was weaned, which in that period meant several years of living together. And the next chapter reports that she went on seeing him every year, bringing a new tunic. The handover did not end the relationship.
What is commonly said
Hannah’s suffering was her barrenness.
What Scripture says
It was also — and the text insists on this — the systematic provocation of the other woman in the household, repeated at every annual pilgrimage until it stopped her eating. The chapter gives the public humiliation as much space as the absence of children.
What is commonly said
Eli recognised at once that he was in the presence of a woman of faith.
What Scripture says
The first thing Eli does is accuse her of being drunk and tell her to deal with the wine. He changes his tone only after hearing her reply. The text keeps the priest’s error on the page with no attempt to erase it.
Where this person appears
6And her rival afflicted her and vehemently distressed her, to a great extent, for she rebuked her that the Lord had closed her womb.
7And she did so every year, when the time returned for them to ascend to the temple of the Lord. And she provoked her in this way. And so, she wept and did not take food.
The rival’s annual provocation and its effect: weeping and refusal to eat, always at the same time of year.
10And since Hannah was bitter in soul, she prayed to the Lord, weeping greatly.
11And she made a vow, saying, “O Lord of hosts, if, in looking with favor, you will see the affliction of your servant and will remember me, and will not forget your handmaid, and if you will give to your servant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall pass over his head.”
The prayer in bitterness and the vow, framed by her, with a stated counterpart.
13For Hannah was speaking in her heart, and only her lips moved, and her voice was barely heard. Therefore, Eli considered her to be drunk,
14and so he said to her: “How long will you be inebriated? You should take only a little wine, but instead you are drenched.”
15Responding, Hannah said: “By no means, my lord. For I am an exceedingly unhappy woman, and I drank neither wine, nor anything that can inebriate. Instead, I have poured out my soul in the sight of the Lord.
The misunderstanding with Eli — what he saw, what he said, and her answer.
27I prayed for this child, and the Lord granted to me my petition, which I asked of him.
28Because of this, I have also lent him to the Lord, for all the days when he shall be lent to the Lord.” And they adored the Lord in that place. And Hannah prayed, and she said:
The handover of the boy, with the play between asking and giving back, and the line that introduces her song.
1“My heart exults in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies. For I have rejoiced in your salvation.
2Nothing is holy as the Lord is holy. For there is no other beside you. And nothing is strong as our God is strong.
The opening of the song, which begins in a tone of victory and turns into a poem about reversed fortunes.
19And his mother fashioned a little tunic for him, which she brought to him on the appointed days, ascending with her husband, so that he might immolate the solemn sacrifice.
The tunic she brought every year — the domestic detail summaries tend to cut.