"Mom" - cool

Samuel is born but Hannah does not immediately act on her vow.  No biggy – she hadn’t set a time frame.  She decides to keep Samuel at home until he is weaned (until he is about 3 years old).

What I love about this is it’s a real “Mom,” thing.  It also had to be tough.  She had him with her for three years knowing she would give him up.  That was one faithful lady.

Of course what tickles me is wondering what the Priests at Shiloh would have done with a rug rat still in nappies.  I don’t want to be irreverent but what would they do with a three year old?  At least they missed the terrible twos.

I’m sure there were women, wives, daughters, sisters etc. who would provide care for Samuel but just the thought of Eli standing there with a three year old in his arms wondering, “Oh my, what do I do with this?” is kind of funny.

Folks – we’ve made these stories and people into too much of a fantasy.  These are REAL people in REAL circumstances.  What we might feel in their shoes is very likely spot on.

This next is wonderful!

1 Sam 2:18-19  Samuel was ministering before the LORD, a boy clothed with a linen ephod.  (19)  And his mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

“Boy” indicates perhaps an adolescent.  If so then Samuel had been in the care of Eli and company for ten years.  Each year Mom made a little robe for him and would go and visit him.  This is verisimilitude at its finest.  It is utterly normal.  We would expect something like that. 

But perhaps we would also wonder why she went only once a year.  I want to suppose that she had come to a place where Samuel was not just a male child she had given birth to.  He was, by her own vow, God’s male child that she had given birth to.

One curious thing is that in some English translations it says that she “lent” him to the Lord in others it says “dedicated.” (1 Sam. 1:28).  The word has both the picture of lending and the picture of requesting.  Is it that she is saying that she let God borrow Samuel or that Samuel is the one she requested in order to dedicate him?

Gill expresses the idea that Hannah indeed “lent” Samuel to the Lord for as long as the Lord required even up to Samuel's death.  There is a neat idea here that had the Lord ever found Samuel’s service not needed Hannah expected him back.

Now I wouldn’t push that point as absolute but it is worth considering.  It would be normal for Hannah to express that desire – but not to count upon it happening.  This too is verisimilitude at its best.  A Mom is Mom with only a few and terribly distressing exceptions.  “Lord, I lend my son to You for as long as You want him.  But, if you get through with him, send him home.”

Though Hannah did have other children we can suppose that she never stopped valuing Samuel as her first born, God’s answer to prayer and God’s servant as long as God would desire.  But, she never quit being just Mom.  I doubt she had a cloak with, “My son serves god at Shiloh.” Or “Proud mother of a Prophet,” written on it but she surely had the same joy and gratitude that such a cloak would express.

As you read the scriptures – especially when it deals with people – please always keep in mind that they are REAL people just like you and me.  Their circumstances may be very different but, people are people always.  Hannah, by God’s grace was Mom.  Regardless of Samuel’s ministry she remained his Mom.

Father, help us to see the people whose stories You instruct us through as REAL people.  Help us to empathize and appreciate them as people.  Help us to remember that You can and have worked through donkeys and men and that the donkey remained a donkey and the man remained a man.  Help us also keep in mind that just because You do great things through a man or woman that does not make then a great man or woman.  Let us never think that we own any of Your greatness.