Read 1 Samuel 6:1-7:2

All is not well in the world and its relationship to God. But that does not mean that all is right with the way the Church as a whole operates in its relationship to God either. If we are to truly worship God, then we should take care to worship him as he has revealed, not as we would like, or we may invite God’s displeasure.

In 1 Samuel 6 we see examples of the unbelieving world and God’s covenant people both offending God. The Philistines, suffering God’s judgement, sent the Ark back to Israel with their own ideas of what sacrifices might avert God’s wrath. Meanwhile the Israelites failed to treat the Ark as God had instructed them, and suffered the consequences. This reminds us to guide our lives and worship by God’s revelation, not our own thoughts, and to rely on Christ to stand in God’s holy presence.

Terror had swept the Philistine cities, as wherever the Ark of the Covenant went, sickness and death followed amongst the unbelievers there. After seven months, the people and their leaders had had enough (v.1). They asked their own diviners how to get rid of it, and hopefully the divine enemy they had made along the way (v.2).

Much like treating an offended spouse, the religious leaders of the Philistines suggested sending the Ark back with an offering to say sorry (v.3). While there was a great deal right with this statement, the suggested offering was not what God desired.

While God would have delighted in repentance, instead the religious leaders suggested making images of tumours and mice from gold and sending those back with the Ark (vv.4-5). It seems that while they had learnt from the lesson of Egypt in the Exodus (v.6), and recognised that a costly sacrifice had to be made, they did not recognise what was truly required. Mice were ritually unclean (Lev. 11:29), and tumours likewise.

To make sure it was definitely Israel’s God who had afflicted them, they suggested putting the Ark and offerings on a cart pulled by milk cows, who had never been yoked to a cart, with new calves to send it back (vv.7-9). The logic made sense – it is completely unnatural for such an animal to leave its newborn and pull a cart anywhere, unless by divine intervention.

Sure enough, the Philistine leadership did as advised, and the milk cows took the Ark straight to Israelite lands, to the town of Beth-Shemesh (vv.10-12). The Philistine leadership saw the Ark had gone back to Israel, heaved a sigh of hopeful relief, and went home (v.16). God, in his providence, chose to end things there (for then) with the Philistines.

Unfortunately, the Israelites also failed to follow God’s commands. The townsfolk of Beth-Shemesh were busy harvesting when the cattle appeared, and rejoiced when they saw the Ark returned to them (v.13). They quickly established an altar and offered sacrifices to God; it turns out in God’s providence that he Beth-Shemesh was a town assigned to the levites responsible for caring for the Ark (Num. 4, Josh. 21).

Except that for sacrifices, they offered the milk cows which carried the Ark back (v.14). Wrong move; only unblemished bulls were to be sacrificed as such (Lev. 1). Even worse, it seems that they turned the Ark, the golden mice, and the golden tumours (vv.15-18) into their own Hobbiton, despite God’s clear commands (Num. 4:20).

God was not amused, and struck down seventy townsfolk (v.19). Their response was not repentance, but like the Philistines: “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?” (v.20). Get God away from us, they said!

Ironically, the Levites asked the folks of Kiriath-Jearim to take the Ark, which they duly did and set apart a man to take care of it (v.21-7:1). Kiriath-Jearim was a Gibeonite town, a town of Canaanites who had avoided destruction by deception during Joshua’s day but were subject to servitude (Josh. 9). Those non-Israelites were more faithful to God than their Israelite overseers, keeping it safe but not setting themselves up as a new priesthood (v.2).

The Gibeonite response is the response God seeks of his people. Not just joy and sacrifice, but the reverence and respect for God’s commands which comes by faith. After all, when confronted with the punishment for their offence against God’s holiness, Beth-Shemesh were just as quick as the pagans to reject God’s presence in apostasy and unbelief.

God’s holiness requires proper sacrifice and service, not like that offered by the Philistines or Beth-Shemeshites. In their day, the sacrifices established in the Law; which pointed forward to Jesus, the true sacrifice and sacrifice-maker for the sins of God’s People.

Jesus’ sacrifice turns away God’s wrath from us for offending his holiness, clothes us with righteousness, and enables us to offer our lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. That is how we can stand before a holy God.

Read 1 Samuel 5

It seems like the Church of Christ is on the back foot in the West today. Many treat the Church, Christians, and God’s standard of holiness and morality as a joke. Even many professing Christians casually and easily bow to the desires and pleasures of the day. We live in a Pagan culture; one where it is possible to despair for our children, each other, and the Church.

But despite the gloom, God still reigns and is in control. The gods of this age will be laid low, one way or another. It has happened before, it will happen again. It happened in Samuel’s day when the Ark of the Covenant was taken to the Philistine lands. There, the pagan Philistines learned that their idols were no match for God, and that God will send judgement on unbelievers for their rebellion against him. 

The defeat of Israel sent shockwaves through Shiloh. The Ark of the Covenant, the visual reminder of God’s special presence and relationship with his people, was taken. People tore their clothes and mourned, Eli the high priest died, and his daughter-in-law died in childbirth.

In Chapter 5, the fate of the Ark unfolds. As with armies everywhere, this prized possession was taken back as booty by the Philistines to one of their towns, Ashdod (v.1). There, they placed the Ark in the temple of one of their gods, Dagon, who seems to have been a fertility/agriculture idol (v.2). This followed the pattern of ancient cultures, where the captured idols and symbols of other nations were placed as “prizes” in the temples of the “conquering” god. In effect, the Philistines were saying that Dagon bet God.

God had other ideas. In the morning, Dagon’s statue was knocked over (v.3), lying prostrate before God’s Ark like a subject bowing down low before their king. God laid low the false god in front of the Ark which represented the presence of the One True God.

The Philistines “took Dagon and put him back in his place” (v.3), upright. But the next day, God took Dagon and put him back in his place – on the floor (v.4). With the head and hands chopped off. This act mirrored the ancient custom of chopping the hands and head off of slain enemies as macabre trophies. Years later, Dagon’s priests would not step on his temple threshold as a result (v.5).

The humiliations did not end there. God punished the idolatrous pagan Philistines of Ashdod by afflicting them with tumours (v.6), probably bubonic plague which in ancient times (up until recent years) was spread by rodents via ships.

The fine pagan folk of Ashdod could bear it no more and, perhaps hoping the problems were location-based, shipped off the Ark to Gath (vv.7-8). But God is not confined by city limits, and the problems simply moved to Gath with the Ark (v.9).

The People of Gath were not interested in death by plague, so they tried to pass the Ark onto the next major town of the Philistines, Ekron (v.10). The Ekronites immediately rebelled in terror: “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people” (v.10).

Wherever the Ark went, a terrible deadly panic fell on the idolatrous Philistines, along with bubonic plague and death (vv.11-12). God’s hand “was very heavy” (v.11) wherever the Ark was, bringing judgement on those who stood against God.

This event from the past has been repeated through history, whether in Babylon (Daniel 5) or in our own world today (though we refuse as a culture to recognise God’s heavy hand through means such as war and disease). One day, God has revealed that he will bring judgement on all the nations; on every nation and economic-cultural industrial complex throughout history which opposes his rule.

Ultimately, God is in control and quite capable of taking care of himself. Our job is not to “take back the nation for Christ” by political or other means but to worship God and proclaim the Gospel, and let God put the idols of our culture in their place.

We ought not to let the Church become easy prey for the culture to subvert to its own glory, offering false praise as bounty to its idols. Our call is to promote the peace and purity of the Church, starting with our own lives as part of the corporate body.

This passage reminds the world around us, whether they want to admit it or not, that God is in control. That Jesus sits at God’s right hand, having defeated sin and death. One day, Jesus will return to put all enemies under his feet, to break down every idol, and to bring deathly terror to every unrepentant sinner. Our job in the meantime is to announce the promise of God’s pardon to the world through faith in Christ, no matter how they receive it.

Even though they might think God is a joke today, one day they will not be laughing.

Read 1 Samuel 4:12-21

There is a saying that victory has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. There is no worse failure than that which leads to God’s glory departing from a people. Sadly, many churches and individuals in our day have walked away from God, and God has walked away from them. Are there echoes of this sadness in history?

In the beginning verses of chapter 4, God’s People took the Ark into battle with the Philistines as a talisman to trap God into helping them against their foes. The Ark was lost, and Eli’s two sons fell in the battle. This tragedy was God’s judgement against Eli and his house, and expressed God’s displeasure at Israel. But it also opened the door for a new era of God’s goodness and fellowship with his people.

While in our current day the internet provides real time updates of news at the battlefront, in Samuel’s day the news of a battle was carried by a runner. The marathon comes from a Greek runner bringing good news of victory against Persia. Sad news came via a runner too, usually just ahead of the retreating forces.

The day of the loss of the Ark and the death of Hophni and Phineas, a Benjaminite ran to Shiloh bearing sad news, with his clothes ruined in the traditional sign of mourning (v.12). When that man arrived, the high priest Eli was sitting, waiting for news (v.13).

Eli was not a picture of hope or health. Old (98), blind, and “heavy” from the stolen food his sons gave him (vv.15, 18), Eli knew from a man of God and Samuel that God would soon bring judgement on him and his family for their sinful deeds in the Temple grounds. His “heart trembled for the ark of God” (v.13) because he knew that it should never have left Shiloh without God’s say-so (Deut. 12:5-11).

When the bearer of bad news arrived, all of Shiloh cried out (v.13). Eli knew it had to be bad, and caught the man’s attention as he passed by (v.14). The man hurried to inform him (v.16); he was, after all, the high priest.

The news just kept getting worse. “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great defeat among the people” (v.17). Terrible news, but not unexpected in Israel’s recent history. “Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead” (v.17). Also terrible news, but that happens in war, and God had already announced their pending deaths so it was perhaps not a complete shock.

One piece of news was even worse, though. “The ark of God has been captured” (v.17). This was worse news than all the rest. The Ark was the very symbol of God’s presence with his people; and it had been taken away by pagans.

This was the news that Eli could not take. As soon as the man said it, “Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died” (v.18). Thus ended a dark chapter in Israel’s history, as Eli judged Israel for 40 years while his sons stole from the people and from God. It was a long fall from Joshua to Eli, longer than the seat to the ground.

The sadness for Eli’s family did not end there. Eli’s daughter-in-law heard of the deaths, and the capture of the Ark, and was shocked into labour (v.19). Sadly the suddenness of the labour led to her death (v.21). She lived only long enough to express more piety than Phineas, her late husband, by calling her son Ichabod which roughly translates as “no glory” (vv.21-2). 

Thus Eli’s grandson bore a name forever reminding of terrible tragedy, into terrible circumstances; an orphan, with no immediate family to care for him. God’s glory had in a sense departed Israel with the Ark’s capture. But it was not permanent.

This passage teaches us that sometimes God’s presence has to depart, or seem to depart from us, for us to recognise our sinfulness and repent. We cannot continue to sin against God and expect him to continue in goodness towards us. Sometimes, God hands us over to trials and judgement to draw us back to him.

While God’s glory may depart from individuals or churches, it is not necessarily permanent. If we repent and seek God, he promises in Scripture to return to us (Zech. 1:3). While sadly many individuals and churches have walked apart from God and no longer enjoy his goodness and presence, if we repent and turn from our sin God will not forsake us.

There is forgiveness and grace to be found, because God’s glory departing was not the end. Many years later, angels visited announcing glad tidings of great joy, because God had come to dwell with his people as a baby in a manger. Jesus, God’s glory in our midst, laid down his life for our sins so we can enjoy God’s presence forever.

Read 1 Samuel 4:1-11

Lots of people in life, whether they admit it or not, are practical atheists. But when bad times come, they are quick to pick up religion like a lucky charm in the hopes that God will put them right. Some churches and Christians seem to treat God in the same way, as if God’s will can be bent to ours.

But God is sovereign and we are not. We cannot back God into a corner. In 1 Samuel 4, the scene shifts from the birth of Samuel to the beginning of God restoring his name and honour among the Israelites, starting with a reminder that God is not a cosmic porter who can be summoned to their support on call. This passage reminds us as Christians and as a Church not to behave in the same way today.

The first three chapters of 1 Samuel have focused on God beginning a new phase of his salvation plan through the birth of the boy Samuel to two faithful Israelites, Hannah and Elkanah. The faithfulness of these two and their son, Samuel, is contrasted with the unfaithfulness of Hophni, Phineas, and (by extension for his failure to discipline them) their father Eli.

In chapter 4, the story pans out to show the wider context of Israel, which was in much the same state as at the end of the Book of Judges. Thus the behaviour of Israel in this time reflects a coldness towards God that needs to be thawed if the covenant relationship is to continue.

The start of God’s work to restore his name and honour among the Israelites comes through the renewal of the Philistine threat to Israel. The Philistines were foreign settlers into Canaan, who were both pagans and technologically advanced. Samson defeated the Philistines, but now they were back.

The Philistines marched out of their cities and up into the hills to attack Israel (v.1). The two armies gathered to fight, and the Philistines won the engagement, inflicting significant losses on Israel (v.2).

This defeat led to some reflection from Israel’s leaders (v.3). After all, if they were God’s People then surely God should be with them and help them defeat their foes, as they had during the conquest and (selectively remembering) in Judges.

Sadly the reflection did not last long, and consider if their defeat were the covenant curses coming upon them for their unfaithfulness to God (cf. Deut. 28:25). No, the answer was they needed the Ark of the Covenant there to ensure God would be with them (v.3)!

There are multiple ways to interpret this move. Perhaps, charitably, they thought that they needed to see the Ark as a symbol of God’s presence with them and success. More likely, though, they were trying to back God into a corner; to force God to grant them victory by associating the Ark with his presence. They may have even falsely believed that God’s power and presence was tied to the Ark, just as the pagan nations did with their idols.

Sure enough, the arrival of the Ark with Hophni and Phineas from Shiloh led to excitement in the Israelite army (vv.4-5). On the other hand, the superstitious Philistines reacted in fear just as the Israelites hoped, as they recognised that a symbol of Israel’s God (or gods, they were not too sure on that point) had entered their opponents camp (vv.6-8).

Unfortunately for Israel, the fear did not last long. The Philistines encouraged each other to stand up and be a man, in case they were defeated and became slaves to Israel (v.9).

Another battle. Again, the Philistines won an even larger and crushing victory over Israel, who were so demoralised that they fled the battlefield (v.10). Even worse, in Israel’s eyes, the Ark of God was captured (v.11). And just as God had promised, Hophni and Phineas died (v.11).

Israel may have thought they were onto a sure thing by trying to force God to fight for them through bringing the Ark to the battlefield, but they were wrong. God is not waiting to act on command for our benefit, before returning back to his desk. God is not our servant. We are God’s servants.

We cannot live our days ignoring God except when it is useful to us. When things go wrong, or there is something which we would like; whether a new job, a new house, a spouse, or anything else.

God cannot be manipulated or forced to act, whether for us individually or for his church. Might God respond to a prayer vigil? Yes. Must he? No. Can you buy God’s blessing with enough devotions or donations? Nope.

God desires to help us in our trials, and to deliver us from the problem of sin, but God did it his way, not ours. Through sending Jesus, who died on the Cross for our sin, and calling us to repent of our self-reliance and to trust in Jesus always. In Christ, we will prevail against our foes and enjoy God’s presence always.

Read 1 Samuel 3:1-4:1

God calls us to repentance and faith, and some to particular lives of ministry for his people. While we may not receive a vision or hear a voice, the call changes our lives as we experience God’s goodness and the call to proclaim Christ until his return.

God’s call to Samuel signals the beginning of his service as God’s prophet to Israel. In God’s call to Samuel, we see God’s goodness and patience demonstrated, the reality of the message from God, and the effect of God’s Word on his life. While we may not hear God speaking audibly to us today, God’s Word still has those effects on us too.

Some time after the man of God spoke to Eli announcing judgement on his house for his and his son’s unfaithfulness to God’s Law, Samuel was ministering in the Temple under the watch of Eli (v.1). We do not know what age Samuel was, but he could have been anything from a schoolboy to his teenage years.

What we do know is that in those days “the word of the LORD was rare… there was no frequent vision” (v.1). Possibly because of Israel’s sinfulness (see Judges), God had largely withdrawn from communicating with Israel. They were stumbling around in the spiritual darkness they desired.

In the same way, Eli’s eyesight was faint with age, and it was before dawn (when “the lamp of God had not yet gone out”) in the Temple, as both Eli and Samuel slept (vv.2-3). At that point, God demonstrated his goodness and patience.

God called to Samuel, who hearing an audible voice and not recognising it, assumed it was Eli needing help and ran to assist, only to be sent away since it was not Eli who called (vv.4-5). This repeated three times.

As verse seven tells us, Samuel did not yet know that it was God himself calling out to him, to declare God’s Word (v.7). While he was not an unbeliever, he did not have an intimate relationship with God.

There is no hint of impatience here, like mine when I repeat myself to my kids. God is good and patient, and recognised that Samuel was trying to be obedient, but he did not know who was calling him!

Eli realised something was up, and told Samuel to respond to God, not him (vv.8-9). Finally, when God came and appeared again, Samuel answered God’s call (v.10).

While Samuel enjoyed the privilege of an intimate relationship with God, it came with a price. That price was the reality of the message God gave Samuel.

It was an ear tingling message (v.11). God declared that the words announced against Eli’s house would be fulfilled, “because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them” (vv.11-14).

Unfortunately, Samuel was called by God to deliver God’s Word, whether good or bad. He could not skim over the tough parts to focus on the positive.

Samuel lay until morning, no doubt both excited and unsettled by his encounter with God and afraid of how Eli would take the message (v.15). But Eli called Samuel and insisted that he announce the whole counsel of God’s Word, and not hide it for himself (vv.16-17). 

Based on how Eli spoke in warning Samuel, I suspect he knew what was coming. Samuel told Eli, hiding “nothing from him” (v.18). Eli acknowledged God’s judgement, recognising its reality and certainty (v.18).

God’s call of Samuel did not leave him unchanged, but affected his life. As Samuel grew, God continued to speak through him and empowered his words as prophet, so that all of Israel came to recognise that God spoke through him (vv.19-20).

Further, God again visited in his special presence the Temple where Samuel served, recognising that he was about to work mightily, in part through Samuel his servant, to serve and deliver Israel (v.21).

While we may not hear God calling us audibly today, we do see in God’s call of Samuel the patience and kindness of God extended to us. God is not a strict Sergeant Major expecting instant obedience, but is patient in his love for us and his call is to repent and obey. If he were not, we would already feel God’s wrath.

However, God’s patience does not mean he does not care about sin. Like Samuel, those who must announce God’s Word must announce the full counsel of the reality of our nature, not the nice parts. We cannot slide over or minimise the need to repent from sin or face God’s judgement. Tempting as it is to enjoy the world’s favour, it will put us offside with God.

But if we faithfully announce the truth, we can be sure that God’s Word will not return empty from our lips. We will enjoy God’s grace and favour in our lives, as his Word renews and sustains us, encourages us to rest in Christ’s sacrifice for our sins, and makes us more like Jesus until God calls us to his side.

Read 1 Samuel 2:11-36

Contrasts are effective because they are so clear. While we are tempted to view life in shades of grey, obedience to God does not fit so easily. You are either faithful to God, or unfaithful. We either obey God, or we sin. We are either faithful servants, or unfaithful.

In the early chapters of 1 Samuel, contrasts have been clear. In Chapter 2, the contrast is between faithful little Samuel who grows under God’s blessing, and Eli’s unfaithful sons who fall under God’s curse. This passage reminds us that faithfulness to God is so terribly important, especially for those put in positions of leadership in God’s Church. 

After Elkanah and Hannah returned home, Samuel remained as promised at the Temple in Shiloh to serve God in the presence of Eli, the High Priest (v.11).

Contrasted to Samuel, who ministered to God, were Eli’s sons. They are described as “worthless men” who were unbelievers (v.12). Their first set of sins were “liturgical sins” against the commands God gave about sacrifices and worship.

While the Law provided generously for the feeding of the priests (Leviticus 7:28-36), the sons helped themselves to more by stealing some of the cooked sacrifices meant for the worshipper’s family (vv.13-14). Worse still, the sons would help themselves to portions of the fat (the yummiest part) which was specially reserved for God (Lev. 3; vv.15-16). They held the offering to God in contempt (v.17).

Compared to this contempt, little Samuel was faithfully serving God in a cute little ephod (v.18). Every year, Samuel’s mum would make him another robe to wear as he served God, and Eli would bless Samuel’s parents for their faithfulness to God and their love for their son (vv.19-20). God indeed blessed Hannah and gave her further sons and daughters, as Samuel “grew in the presence of the LORD” (v.21).

Compared to their faithfulness, Eli’s sons were morally unfaithful. They had turned the women who served the Temple (Ex. 38:8) into their concubines (v.22). Everyone in Israel knew it, but all Eli did was tell them off (vv.23-4). While Eli warned, his sons did not listen, because their sins were so disgusting to God that hardened their hearts against repenting, “for it was the will of the LORD to put them to death” (v.25).

In contrast to this moral unfaithfulness which brought scandal on the Temple and the priesthood, “Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and also with man” (v.26).

The present unfaithfulness could not remain, God had to purge the evil. So God sent a prophet to Eli to announce judgement (v.27).

In the past, God had been good to Eli and his family, rescuing them from Egypt and choosing Aaron and his descendants to be his priests, enjoying a special fellowship with God (vv.27-8). Yet Eli had failed to properly discipline his sons and stop their sinful liturgical and moral offences, apart from some weak words of displeasure and warning (v.29).

Due to Eli’s own unfaithfulness by failing to guard the Temple’s sanctity and purity of its worship, God would bring judgement on Eli’s house. Eli’s family would be all but wiped out (vv.30-32), and his two sons would both die together on a single day (v.34). 

While one of Eli’s line would be spared, his descendants would later die by men’s hands (v.33; 1 Sam. 22) and would be poor (v.36). A faithful priest would instead be raised up to serve God (v.35). We see this in Samuel’s priestly service, but later in Scripture in the service of Zadok (1 Ki. 2:27, 35).

This passage focuses on the unfaithfulness of Eli’s sons to God. Their unbelief borne out in their abuse of worship and morality. It reminds us today that we must be careful in who we appoint to church leadership. Unbelief will display itself in corrupting worship and God’s teaching to serve oneself, through money, gratification, and power. God’s judgement will follow, on those that commit it and those that allow it.

It also warns us about our sins. We do not want to be as Eli’s sons were, so grievously sinning that God hardens our hearts to warnings to repent, when judgement swiftly follows. May none of us face that terror.

Instead, we should seek to serve as faithful servants of God like Samuel did, quietly ministering and growing in God’s favour, choosing God as our portion over what belongs to God. He will bless those who do so, as he blessed Samuel, Hannah, and Elkanah.

Thankfully, for all our unfaithfulness, there was one who was truly a faithful servant of God all his days. Jesus, who lived a perfect life and offered a perfect sacrifice as our Great High Priest, covers our unfaithfulness as God’s servants with his own faithfulness. He is the ultimate faithful priest raised up by God. It is because of Christ’s faithfulness, that we may seek to be ever more faithful servants of God.

Read 1 Samuel 2:1-10

Music is everywhere in our world. On our radios and televisions, on the internet, at pubs and at concerts. It is of varying quality, and varied value. Much of it is centred entirely on self, and our own desires. Music is important to the Church too, from what we sing on Sunday to what we listen to at home. Much of it is great, some of it sadly too centred on self.

In chapter 2 of 1 Samuel we encounter Hannah’s song of thanks. Hannah’s song is not centred entirely on self, but rather centred on God. Hannah’s song starts with her experience of God’s goodness in her life. It then expands to consider God’s goodness in general, before concluding with God’s ultimate goodness. Hannah’s song reminds us that every expression of God’s goodness to us is a teaser of the greater goodness to come under Christ’s eternal reign.

The first three verses of Hannah’s song is a prayer of thanks for God’s goodness to Hannah. Hannah was elated at God’s goodness to her in her distress, by granting her a son after many years of barrenness and cruel taunting by Peninnah (v.1). She described this elation as being like the lifting of her horn, like an animal lifting its horn as a symbol of its given strength and power over attackers (v.1).

In the second verse, Hannah confesses her faith in God. “There is none holy like the LORD: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God” (v.2). Amen! May we all sing and praise God as the only holy and true God we can rely on.

In verse three, Hannah offered rebuke to unnamed boasters who rely on themselves rather than God. She warned them not to speak arrogantly, because God “is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed” (v.3).

Secondly, Hannah’s song expands to describe God’s goodness more generally. The way God has worked with Hannah is a small-scale example of the way God works generally.

Firstly, God reverses the fortunes of the proud and the humble. This is described poetically; God breaks the strong and uplifts the weak, and feeds the hungry while those who selfishly grabbed more than their fair share are left to find work to pay for food (vv.4-5). Jesus expressed the same truths in the Beatitudes in his Sermon on the Mount.

This poetic reversing was expressed in Hannah’s circumstances, where she once was barren but has now borne “seven”; not literally but symbolically fully blessed (v.5).

In verses six to eight, these ideas of God’s sovereignty over everything are expressed in ultimate terms. God brings everyone to death, and raises to new life (v.6). God makes people poor and rich (v.7). God makes people weak and strong (v.7). God lifts the poor and needy up to the height of the wealthy and powerful (v.8).

God does this because he can, because it is the way God is. God is the one who established the pillars of the world, and set the earth on it (v.8).

Thirdly, Hannah’s song expands from God’s goodness in general to God’s goodness to God’s goodness in God’s kingdom, when God puts all enemies under his feet (Psalm 2).

God will finally deliver his covenant people, those who are his “faithful ones” while the wicked and those who rebel against God are destroyed (v.9). All the might in the world is not enough to resist the Almighty God!

Hannah expected that final deliverance to come from a coming king. The final judgement of the earth and its people will be demonstrated through “his king,” the anointed one whose horn (might, strength) God will exalt (v.10).

While this book in the near term implies that this will occur through the appointing of a king over Israel, this statement ultimately finds its fulfilment in the one who all the earthly kings of Israel pointed: Jesus. The anointed one, the promised king of the line of David. The one who will judge the earth and its inhabitants, and finally consummate the eternal Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

The songs which we sing will often speak of the circumstances we found ourselves in, and how God has lifted us up. But truly Biblical music follows Hannah’s pattern, inspired by the Holy Spirit, of placing that redemption in the greater story of God’s goodness and salvation.

But Hannah’s song and praise help us to think biblically about our own state and God’s goodness to us. Every little good thing, every little victory over sin, is an expression of God’s power and sovereignty, and his goodness to us. It is a down payment of the greater redemption we enjoy in salvation through Christ.

While God does not promise to take away all our hardships and tears in this life, God’s goodness in the little things points to God’s ultimate goodness to us, when he defeats all opposition and sets us in his dwelling place with him, forever.

Read 1 Samuel 1:21-28

Hannah’s despair led her to prayer, and led her to offer back the child she asked from God were he to grant her wish. God graciously gave her the child she sought, but would Hannah keep her vow or attempt to slide her way out of her obligations?

This passage demonstrates that, true to their form as devout worshipers of God, Hannah and her husband Elkanah were committed to the vow she had made to God at the Temple. It also shows us the importance which both placed on fulfilling their vows before God, and that they did so with thankfulness rather than begrudgingly. And it demonstrates the importance of placing the worship of God at the centre of everything we do, and everything we offer.

After returning comforted from the Temple, God blessed Hannah and Elkanah with a son (vv.19-20). This son was named Samuel, recognising that God had heard Hannah’s prayers and vow to offer this child to God for service (vv.11, 20).

Now that the child was born and the bundle of joy in her arms, we might not be surprised if we were to read that Hannah had second thoughts about her vow, and looked for an opportunity to back out of the deal somehow.

However, vows to God are more important than the promise we made as a child to the schoolkid with fish and chips for lunch that “if you give me a chip I will be your best friend!” The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us to “not delay” paying a vow to God; that it is better to not vow than vow and not fulfil, because this is sin (Ecclesiastes 5:4-6).

Both Hannah and Elkanah were aware of the seriousness of the vow made, and serious in intention to fulfil it. Thus when Elkanah went to go to the Temple again to offer sacrifices as was his yearly pattern (v.3), Hannah refused to go up (vv.21-2). 

Hannah realised that if she were to go while Samuel was still breastfeeding and return (because dumping a breastfed child on the Temple was a significant burden), it would affect the way others viewed the seriousness of her vow. Better to wait until the child was weaned (about 3 years of age) and then take him to the Temple “so that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and dwell there forever” (v.22).

Under the Law, a husband had to confirm the validity of a vow (Numbers 30). Elkanah agreed both with Hannah’s vow, and Hannah’s approach to meeting the vow. He asks God to assist them both in fulfilling it (v.23).

After weaning Samuel, Hannah was faithful to fulfil her vow to God, and returned to the Temple with the boy (v.24). She also came with the gifts traditionally required, but in greater measure.

According to Numbers 15, when fulfilling a vow to God you were to come with a young bull and measures of fine flour and wine. Hannah is diligent in fulfilling this requirement, but also shows her great thankfulness to God by providing three times what is required (v.24. Many translations translate the verse as a “3 year old bull” for consistency with verse 25 which speaks of one bull, but three bulls is an alternative rendering and consistent with the greater measures of flour and wine provided.)

After the obligatory sacrifices, Hannah and Elkanah brought Samuel to Eli (v.25). Hannah reminded Eli of their previous interaction, his blessing on her vow, and how she had now come to give back to God what God had given her – their son (vv.26-8). From that day, Samuel served and worshipped God in the Temple (v.28).

In Hannah and Elkanah we see a godly couple focused on worshipping God and giving to him what was owed. They were consistent in their pattern of worship, and they were committed to their vows. They model to us how we ought to live our lives; focused on God.

They were also careful to ensure that Samuel would be old enough and prepared enough to serve God, rather than leaving him before he was physically ready. For us parents, this is a model of behaviour for us. While our kids will probably not be Epoch-defining prophets like Samuel was, we still desire for them to serve God in whatever way he calls them, and they cannot do this if not properly prepared.

But they were also models of thankfulness. They did not begrudgingly give Samuel back to avoid a whack from God, but did so with joy. We see this in how they gave three times what was required, a great sacrifice; and how they presented Samuel to Eli, to serve God.

All of what we have comes from God. It is fitting to devote our lives and possessions back to God, for his service. Not because of what we might get out of it, but because we are giving back with thanks for what we have already received, and what it promises for the future.

Read 1 Samuel 1:1-20

Sometimes life is not fair. You have many things that people think should make you happy, but not the one thing you desire. The harsh words bear down on you, but the support you receive is not comfort. Where do you turn? Only God can provide comfort, and God shows us that he is the one who brings comfort and healing for the hurt.

The Book of 1 Samuel begins with an account of Samuel’s birth. The nature of the tale makes it clear that God is going to act in a special way through Samuel, to right the wrongs of Israel as they descended into barbarism in the time of the Judges. That story begins in God’s goodness to a godly but infertile woman, Hannah.

Hannah was the wife of Elkanah, a “certain man” from a township of Ephraim’s lands (v.1). Elkanah was a man of note and substance. We know this because his lineage is spelt out (v.1), and because he was able to afford two wives (v.2).

Two wives was not normal, but sometimes a social necessity. In Elkanah’s station, having heirs to inherit his status and fortune was important. Unfortunately, Hannah had no children (v.2), because God had closed her womb (v.5). 

This was a socially disastrous situation, leaving aside the terrible sadness that comes with infertility. It was associated with God’s curse for covenant unfaithfulness (Deut. 28) and so assumed that those without children were under God’s curse. Further, as we see with Ruth, a lack of children to provide for you later in life was disastrous in those days. So Elkanah married another woman, Peninnah, who bore him children (v.2).

As with Jacob’s example with Rachel and Leah, it seems this caused considerable family turmoil. Elkanah loved Hannah, probably more than Peninnah. Yet Peninnah was the one who bore children, not Hannah. Each wife had what the other wanted.

Elkanah was a godly man, and Hannah a godly woman. Each year the family would go to the tabernacle which was located at Shiloh to worship God (v.3). In the days of the Judges, this set them apart. Even as we shall see the rot was firmly set in the family of Eli the High Priest.

Elkanah’s love for Hannah is shown in his providing a double portion of the thank offering sacrifices to Hannah, while Peninnah and kids received a single portion (v.5). Peninnah’s jealousy for Hannah’s belovedness led to goading about her childlessness, year after year (vv.6-7). Standing in the presence of God was not enough to birth compassion in Peninnah’s heart. It was all too much to bear.

Not even Elkanah’s hamfisted attempt at comfort, suggesting she did not need kids because she had him, healed the hurt (v.8). (Not that I am a Love Doctor or a great husband, but perhaps if he suggested that he loved her more than ten sons, it might have been more comforting?)

The sadness sent Hannah to the only place of comfort – to God. Hannah’s sobbing prayers in the temple led her to vow to dedicate her child to God, if only he would give her one (vv.9-11).

Eli, the High Priest, who let his sons get away with murder, still seemed to dislike misbehaviour in the sanctuary, and misinterpreted Hannah’s anguish for drunkenness (vv.12-14).

But his rebuke was met with the soft words of a heart “pouring out [her] soul before the LORD” (v.15), bringing her “anxiety and vexation” to God (v.16).

Eli’s accusation instead turned to blessing, as he encouraged her to go in peace and prayed that God would answer her request (v.17). Hannah went away comforted, her face no longer sad (v.18).

The next day, the family worshipped then returned home (v.19). Elkanah and Hannah were intimate, and God remembered Hannah (v.19, cf. v.11). A boy named Samuel was born, because God heard Hannah (v.20).

Where do we go when we suffer hurt? Where do we encourage others to go when they suffer pain? The only place of true comfort is the one Hannah sought. Pouring out our anxieties and sadness to God. God is able to hear and to bear our pain in a way none of us, certainly no bumbling husbands(!), are able.

The sadness and misfortune of others is not an opportunity to hurt them more, as Peninnah did, even if it is to cover up for our own hurt. Such behaviour is not consistent with a heart that seeks God. Instead, it is an opportunity for us to encourage them to pour their burdens on Christ, the refuge of the weary soul.

We do not know the reasons for the pain we go through. How it might shape us, or perhaps if it may be made whole in this life or the next. But God is the one who brings comfort for the hurt, as he did with Hannah, so he might do wonders in Israel, and point them to their true and coming king, Jesus Christ.