Only Her Lips Moved
Hannah, the prayer the priest mistook for drunkenness, and the boy who heard his name
A woman is praying so hard in the temple that the priest thinks she is drunk. She is not making a sound; her lips are moving and nothing is coming out, and that is what convinces him. It is the first prayer in the Bible described from the outside, and it is the prayer of a woman with a rival, a kind husband who does not understand, and an empty womb. What she asked for she got, and what she got she gave away, and the boy became the man who heard God say his name in the night.
Am not I better to thee than ten sons?
"And 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" (1 Samuel 1:2). That is the whole situation in one verse, and the text adds the part that made it unbearable: "her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb. 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" (1:6-7). Year by year. At the feast, of all places. The other wife with her children, needling her, and the LORD, the text says twice, was the one who had shut the womb.
Her husband loves her, and says the thing loving people say that does not help: "Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?" (1:8). He means it kindly. It is not the point. She gets up from the table and goes to the temple alone.
Only her lips moved
"And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. 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" (1 Samuel 1:10-11).
Look on me, remember me, do not forget me. Three times, handmaid. And the vow: give me a son and I will give him back. She is not bargaining for a child to keep. She is asking for one to hand over. And "as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken" (1:12-13). The old priest, who has watched a great deal of drunkenness at the feasts, sees a woman swaying with her lips going and no sound, and draws the obvious conclusion: "How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee" (1:14). The priest of God, in the house of God, rebuking the one person in the building who is actually praying.
“I seek those tears which are shed not for display, but in compunction; those which trickle down secretly and in closets, and in sight of no man, softly and noiselessly; those which arise from a certain depth of mind, those shed in anguish and in sorrow, those which are for God alone; such as were Hannah’s, for ‘her lips moved,’ it is said, ‘but her voice was not heard;’ however, her tears alone uttered a cry more clear than any trumpet.”
St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew VI · c. 390And she does not flinch. "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. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto" (1:15-16). Poured out my soul. That is her own description of what he mistook for wine. And Eli, to his credit, hears it, and turns: "Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition" (1:17). And then the verse that is the whole of faith in one sentence: "So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad" (1:18). Nothing had changed. Her womb was still shut. She had a priest's blessing and a poured-out heart, and she went and ate, and her face was different. She believed before she had anything in her arms.
Lent to the LORD
"and the LORD remembered her" (1:19), the word she had prayed. A son. She names him Samuel, "Because I have asked him of the LORD" (1:20). And when he is weaned, she keeps her vow, and takes the small boy up to Shiloh and hands him to the old priest who once thought she was drunk: "For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the LORD" (1:27-28). Lent. The word in Hebrew is the same as asked; she asked him of the LORD and now she asks him back to the LORD. She walks home without him. And then she sings.
"My heart rejoiceth in the LORD… There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God… He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes" (1 Samuel 2:1-8). A thousand years later a girl in Nazareth, told she would bear a son, sang a song so close to Hannah's that the church has always read them together: "My soul doth magnify the Lord… he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden… He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree" (Luke 1:46-52). Handmaiden. Mary took Hannah's word for herself. Augustine heard the whole future in Hannah's hymn:
“These things hath Hannah, the mother of Samuel, the holy and much-praised man, prophesied, in which, indeed, the change of the ancient priesthood was then figured and is now fulfilled, since she that had many children is waxed feeble, that the barren who hath born seven might have the new priesthood in Christ.”
St. Augustine, The City of God XVII · c. 420And the LORD, who had shut her womb, opened it: "the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters" (2:21). She gave away one and was given five. That is not a rule. It is what happened.
Speak, for thy servant heareth
The boy grows up in the temple with the old priest, in a bad time: "the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision" (3:1). Nobody was hearing from God. And one night a voice says his name, and he runs to Eli, three times, because "Samuel did not yet know the LORD" (3:7), and the third time the old man understands, and tells him what to say. "And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth" (3:10). Came, and stood. In the dark, by a boy's bed. The child a woman prayed for with no sound became the first prophet in Israel in a generation, and "the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground" (3:19).
Where this lands
The priest thought she was drunk. That is worth holding onto, because it means the most honest prayer in the temple that day looked, from the outside, like a disgrace, and the man in charge of the temple could not tell the difference. God could. He was not reading her lips; He was reading what Chrysostom called the cry more clear than any trumpet, the one with no sound in it. And He gave her what she asked, and she gave it back, and it became the ear that heard His voice when nobody else in Israel could.
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust. Hannah sang it, and Mary sang it, and then He did it, with a Son who was asked for and given and handed over, who prayed in a garden with sweat like blood and no one to understand, whose Father heard, and who taught the ones who came after to pray in a closet with the door shut, where only the One who sees in secret is watching. She was the first. Go in peace, the priest said, not knowing what he was blessing. She went, and ate, and her face was no more sad. That is faith, before the answer, and it is available to anyone with a shut door and a poured-out soul.
Related: Prayer, Women, Get Thee Out, and Suffering. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub; the words of God are marked in gold, the words of Christ in purple.