In the shadow of the tabernacle, Hannah the wife of Elkanah is kneeling, praying, weeping. I’ve been reading through her story, looking for the characters, cross references and patterns—the things storytellers look for.
She’s praying in desperation for the Lord to look on her, remember her. But the first person who looks at her is one of God’s servants, the priest Eli. For some reason I feel like he’s the high priest although that’s not in the text so far… Why was Eli sitting by the door? Did he do this all the time to be available? Was this because he was old? Or because he just needed a mid afternoon coffee break? I’ll look that up later.
Anyway, Eli is watching people come and go during the festival and sees this woman arrive. He is “observing her mouth.”
Wait, why is he doing that?
Because “her lips were moving but her voice was not heard.” Nice little paragraph construction. We didn’t realize Hannah wasn’t speaking out loud. How common was the idea of silent prayer in the ancient world? Today, silent prayer is expected and out loud prayer is weird. But in an ancient era where most people summoned nature gods through declaiming over sacrifices, was it normal to have silent prayer, to talk to God in your heart?
Apparently not because Eli didn’t recognize it.
Hannah asks that God see, remember and give. Meanwhile Eli sees, thinks and voices judgement. He thinks she’s drunk.
But look at Hannah’s reply! Respectful but firm, no I’m not drunk. And then comes this beautifully crafted statement, the first words we’ve heard this important woman say. Her reply is perfectly created in a chiastic structure, an old literary tool for arranging information to repeat around the important stuff. In this case, the structure is A, B, C, B1, A1
A: I am a women who is anguished.
B: I have not been drinking wine or beer.
C: I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.
B1: I’m not a wicked [drunk] women
A1: I am praying out of anguish and grief.
We hear in the next chapter that Hannah is a poet and you can see the literary skill in her very first phrase. Right in the center of this structure is the most important sentence, “I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.”
This convinces Eli, who calls on the “God of Israel” to answer her. And this whole exchange so emotionally frees Hannah that she goes home and EATS something! Character arc, character arc! The mini problem is solved, now for the big problem…
So, Biblically, it is alright to have a good cry and then go eat something!
Or maybe it was just Hannah’s joy of being seen, even by someone as fallible and clueless as Eli. She was seen and acknowledged by the servant of God. Now, will God remember her?
