THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. PRAYER. ALMIGHTY GOD, thou comfortest those that be bowed down. Thou liftest up those whose souls cleave unto the dust. The Lord is very pitiful and kind, and truly his mercy endureth for ever. It comes to us before the light of the morning, it remains with us when the sun has gone down, it is our guardian by night, it doth beset us behind and before and defend us from all evil. We desire, therefore, humbly to recognise thy mercy in the whole course of our life; we would see it everywhere giving strength and beauty, and meaning and pathos, to all the affairs of our daily history. Help us evermore to know that our power is in thy mercy; that we have no strength but in thy strength; that out of thy fulness alone can we receive grace upon grace. May we be released from all worldly memories, from all tormenting anxieties. May our souls be led away into the light! May our spirits be blessed with unspeakable peace! Ever teach us how to pray. May the desires of our heart be pure; may our purposes before God be simple, and may our whole supplication rise from the Saviour's cross, that even in our prayers we may know the mystery of self-sacrifice. What we pray, we pray in the Mediator's name; there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus, through whom, the Child of Bethlehem, the Man of sorrows, the mighty and only Redeemer of our souls, we offer every desire of our hearts. Forgive our sins. Cleanse our thoughts by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Establish thy counsels in our hearts that they may be repronounced in our daily life; and may our whole course be elevated and sanctified by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now what wait we for, but for the opening of heaven, that we may receive the blessing we have no room to contain, that we may be satisfied with the peace which passeth understanding! Unto the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, whom we adore as Three Persons in one God, be the kingdom and the power and the glory, world without end. Amen. 1 Samuel i. 1. Now there was a certain man [literally, one man] of Ramathaim-zophim [abbreviated to la-Ramah. The village of Ramah was built on two hills], of mount Ephraim [the hill country of Ephraim], and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite [this tracing through four generations agrees with the family registers in I Chron. vi. The epithet belongs to Elkanah, not to Zuph]: 2. And he had two wives [Lamech was the first to violate the law of one wife only]; the name of the one was Hannah [grace or favour], and the name of the other Peninnah [modern: Margaret, coral or pearl]; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. 3. And this man went up out of his city yearly [to the feast of unleavened bread] to worship, and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts [the first time in the Old Testament that the name Jehovah Sabaoth occurs,-it occurs two hundred and sixty times in the Old Testament. It is used sixty times by Isaiah, and about eighty times by Jeremiah] in Shiloh [rest: a sacred city in Ephraim]. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there [Eli himself is not mentioned. He was still high priest, but too old to take part in the offering of sacrifice]. 4. ¶ And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: 5. But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion [one portion for two persons: a double portion]; for he loved Hannah: but the Lord had shut up her womb. 6. And her adversary [her rival] also provoked her sore, for to make her fret [so much for polygamy !], because the Lord had shut up her womb. 7. And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat [of her portion]. 8. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons [a round number to signify many]? 9. ¶ So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh [after the sacrificial meal was over; literally, after she had eaten in Shiloh, and after she had drunk], and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat [a chair, or throne of state] by a post of the temple [palace] of the Lord. 10. And she was in bitterness of soul [literally, bitter of soul], and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore [“Prayers and tears are the saints' great guns and scaling-ladders."—Luther]. 11. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head [a perpetual Nazarite]. 12. And it came to pass, as she continued praying [as she multiplied to pray] before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. 13. Now Hannah, she spake in [to] her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken [made possible by the moral degradation of the time]. 14. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken [knowing that she had newly risen from a feast]? put away thy wine from thee. 15. And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. 16. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial [the devil]: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. 17. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. 18. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So [having cast her burden on the Lord] the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. 19. And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord remembered her. 20. Wherefore [and] it came to pass, when the time was come about [literally, at the revolution of the days] after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel [heard of God], saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord. 21. And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow [vows were characteristic of this particular age of the Judges]. 22. But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned [weaning took place very late among the Hebrews-usually for two years, sometimes for three], and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever. 23. And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only the Lord establish his word [may the Lord fulfil his designs]. So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him. 24. ¶ And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks [one for a burnt offering, the two were yearly], and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young. 25. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli. 26. And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth [an oath peculiar to the Books of Samuel and to the Books of Kings], my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the Lord. 27. For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. 28. Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he ["Neither Elkanah nor Samuel have been mentioned, and cannot therefore be meant. Hannah must be the subject, and the masculine of the verb is used, as in v. 7, though the subject is eminine."-The Speaker's Commentary] worshipped the Lord there. H "Samuel ... 1 Samuel i. 20. because I have asked him of the Lord." THE BIRTH OF SAMUEL. ANNAH, the wife of Elkanah, besought the Lord for a man child. This draws our attention to the scope of human prayer. Men cannot pray by rule. We do but mock men when we say, You must pray for this and not for that. Such an exhortation may do for a man when his heart is not inflamed by the passion of godly desire; it may do for him in his coldest and most indifferent mental states. But when he is in his most vehement and determined moods, he cannot be fettered and limited by such exhortations. We need something more for our guidance than mere maxims. A maxim is too narrow for life. We need principles which can shrink into maxims and can expand into revelations as the exigencies of life may require. Sometimes we are cold and dull,—then a maxim will do: sometimes our strength rises to full flood,-then we need inspiration. You cannot conduct life in its highest phases and its intensest desires by any set of maxims. You can only control and elevate life by having principles which can shrink and expand,-adapt themselves when man's moral temperature rises, when his strength rises, and suit themselves to all the varying phases and wants of his life. Tell Hannah that she ought not to pray for what God has not seen fit to give her, and she scorns your formal piety and your tabulated counsels. Why? She is not in a mood to receive that kind of instruction; there is a hunger in her heart; through her own love she sees far into the love of God; and by the eagerness of her desire she goes far away, with bleeding weary feet, from beaten paths and accepted roads, that she may bind God by the very importunateness of her love. That is not the kind of woman into whose ear you can drop a little formal maxim with any effect. Your religion will be to her profanity, if you cannot address her in a higher tone-meet her just where her soul is. She is borne away by the passion of her desire; there is one dominating force in her nature that transfigures everything, that defies difficulties, that surmounts obstacles, and that waits with trembling nervous patience till God come. What is love if it be not fiery? What is prayer if it be not the heart on a blaze? Prayer is not mere articulation; prayer is not mere words. Prayers are battles; prayers are the thunders which call for God when he seems to be far away! Yonder is a wild goat, living on stony hills and desert places. He has wandered a long way from pasture, from food of any kind. In the madness of his hunger he sees on farther edge, five hundred fathoms above the level, just one little tuft of grass -the only green thing within a circuit of miles. It is a dangerous place, but then he is in a dangerous condition. He climbs to it,— the rock almost trembles under him. A moment more, and, hundreds of fathoms below, he lies a bleeding mass. But impelled by hunger, he does what only the fierce courage of despair dare do. So it is with that keener hunger of human souls. We do sometimes pray for things that lie away from the line of ordinary devotion; we would not pray for them but for that over-mastering, irresistible, spiritual force that holds us in its mighty hand. If we were in coolness and sobriety of spirit and temper, we should be able to reason about it and to put things together and to draw inferences. Man is not fully man when he stands upon his feet; he touches the highest point of his manhood when he lifts the pinions of faith and hope, and goes off into the Unknown if haply he may find God! If you do not know what the hunger is you do not know what the prayer is. You cannot feel as Hannah did without you have been in great straits, and when for the time you have been the willing victim of a glowing and grand desire. But is there not a limit? Yes, there is a limit, and it is sometimes well not to look at it in the light of a limit. It is true that we are shut up like the sea and watched like the whale, but that is no reason why we should shrivel into a pool or dwindle into a minnow. What is the limit of our prayer? This: "Not my will, but thine, be done!" Is that a limit?-it is glorious liberty! Not my will, but thine, not a little will, but a great will,-not my thought, but thine, not my love, but thine! Is that a limit? It is the lark rising from its field-nest into the boundless liberty of the firmament! Truly we do not limit ourselves when we exchange the creature for the Creator. When we take up our little thought |