Setting the Stage in Struggle and Dysfunction
There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the LORD.
On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb.
So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”
1 Samuel 1:1–8 ESV Read More
Conflict from the Beginning
The conflict begins right out of the gate. Two wives, each striving to be successful and gain the love of their husband. Elkanah, their husband, is caught in the middle as he loves the wife with no children very much and doesn’t want her to feel like a failure. All of this is setting the stage for God to intervene.
We know that God is already involved with the cryptic line “the LORD had closed her womb,” but we don’t get any explanation as to why. As with so many times in life and in the scriptures, we don’t get as much of a why as we get a “now look what God did with it!”
Donald Miller talks about conflict in the garden of Eden before sin. Over and over it says “It was good.” But when God reflects on Adam being alone He calls is “not good.” This is conflict too. Again, we don’t get a why as to God making Adam be there alone for a while, or why man came first and then the woman, or why God made them out of dirt instead of POOF and there they are.
Again, we don’t get an answer to ‘why’ but we get a “now look what God did with it!”
That is going to happen a bunch through the life of David the King. The birth of the prophet that would eventually crown him was as full of dysfunction and struggle as the king’s life would be, because it’s life.
All of Those Hard to Remember, Hard to Read Names
Whenever you see names and locations describing a person, know that was part of the important part of establishing who they are. If I said “this is Chad, adopted from Russia,” I put Chad’s whole life into a context that you can picture. Now names like Tohu and places like Ramathaim-zophim sound weird to us, but a long time ago people knew that meant this thing or that thing. People knew the context of those places and that set them up to think of what kind of person he was. You might get some help from a commentary or a study bible to read the footnotes on passages like that. Either way, know that they are establishing that they are real people, doing these real things, in a real period of time.
Their dysfunctions and struggles were the same as all of ours. It’s into that hurting, rivaling marriage, that God was about to bring the prophet with one of the biggest tasks Israel would ever know.
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