Revelation 8:5

Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. (NIV)


Hello again!


If you have ever visited this blog you will notice a few changes: the blogger name, occupation, and introduction. That is because instead of casting my net wide, as in the past, and doing very little of many things, I have refocused and narrowed my net and casting area so that I can do very much of a few things. One of those few things was reviving this blog.


In narrowing my net, I have placed this blog under my corporate entity rather than just my storytelling persona. This blog is now a corporate priority rather than an infrequent pastime.


My goal is to post twice per month, perhaps more as I grow into consistency and relevancy.


In the meanwhile, have a review of the past posts and mark this page so that you can visit again in the near future. And watch out for flaming embers.


TTYL,
Gye

Ladies in Waiting

I know that it has been quite a while since my last post. My apologies; I was trying to juggle a new career into my life and took a sabbatical from posting.


So, as stated before we will look at several women in the Bible and discuss their situations.


First we will look at King David's daughter Tamar, who experienced a fate all too common today. We will also meet up with Hagar, Jael, The Woman from Sychar, and The Syrophonecian/Canaanite Woman, just to list a few.


If there are any women which you would like to visit please let me know.


Peace be with you,
Gye

Hannah’s Han

            The narrative of the Old Testament book of First Samuel begins with a grieving barren woman of the 12^th century B.C.E. who petitions God for the ability to conceive a child, specifically a male child. The story of Hannah, mother of the priest and prophet Samuel, clearly relates an incident where a ministerial leader misdiagnosed the outward display of emotion of a congregant wracked with the pain of inner wounds and initially responded to the hurting congregant without compassion.

¹ There was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. ² He had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. ³ Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were priests of the Lord. ⁴ On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; ⁵ but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. ⁶ Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. ⁷ So it went on year after 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. ⁸ Her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” ⁹ After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. ¹⁰ She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. ¹¹ She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.” ¹² As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³ Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. ¹⁴ So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.” ¹⁵ But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. ¹⁶ Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” ¹⁷ Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.” ¹⁸ And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer. 

1 Samuel 1:1-18, New Revised Standard Version

            The central focus of the passage is Hannah’s deep inner wounds—her han.[1] When deep wounds are not healed they “become vortexes of troubled waters, intertwined with [the wounded’s] own instinct of survival and fear.”[2] Hannah’s woundedness was centered on her inability to conceive a child. She experienced at least four types of deep wounds: (1) lack of a son to establish her position as the main wife, and also to provide for her in her old age; (2) torment and provocation by her husband’s second wife; (3) being in the position of having to seek God out of desperation; and (4) the ministerial leader misunderstanding her anguish for public drunkenness.[3] She had endured public shame and Peninnah’s provocations for years.[4] After reaching the point where she could no longer endure her torment, Hannah addressed her issue to the One who would be able to do something about her pain—God. Hannah knew that God had the ability to heal her barrenness and she was willing to dedicate the resulting child back to him in exchange for his concession to her plea.

            A striking aspect of this passage is the intensity in which Hannah prayed to conceive a child. This author connected with Hannah in her lament because she herself has so lamented on several occasions, usually at home in the sanctity of her prayer room, but sometimes in church, though then her lament was usually through dance and tears. Lament is a part of the healing process. In the process offered by Park it could well be part of both the forgivingness and justice steps.[5] Patrick D. Miller, Jr. offers a description of the prayer of lament that this author finds fitting for Hannah, as well as for herself and the women her ministerial context. Miller states,

The prayer for help, or the lament prayer, is not a feature of Christian worship to be heard by others. It is a feature of human existence to be heard by God. The Lord is addressed; the pastor may listen in. The community is not there. It is part of the problem. The prayer for help is spontaneous, unplanned, wrenched from the experience of pain, but is not formless. Its aim is to secure help. Its resolution is in words and deeds that transform the situation.[6]

Hannah’s prayer of lament was not meant to be heard by the priest Eli, and any woman steeped in a prayer of lament can be mistaken for drunken, as such a prayer usually brings with it tears, mucous, passionate groans, and sometimes howls.

            Hannah’s soul-wrenching request to conceive and give birth to a child parallels many lamenting women’s requests to birth something new or different in their lives: love, the mending of broken relationships, redirection of a wayward child; lifting of economic or social burdens, mental peace, and the list can go on and on. As Miller states, Hannah’s

situation is exemplary of those individuals who cry out to God in great hurt and need…The prayer of the troubled, the cry for help that is at the heart of biblical prayer, is not in this instance an act of worship in the congregation. It is an act of the one who is cut off from community, who is alone and isolated.[7]

In another source, Miller offers that Psalm 6 could have been an appropriate lament for Hannah’s distress.[8] Women such as Hannah are abused by men and by other women.[9] Such abuse results in inner wounds.

            More striking than the intensity of Hannah’s prayer was the response of Eli, the ministerial leader, to Hannah’s strife (vv. 12-14). Rather than considering the possibility that the woman was relinquishing to God some deep-seated anguish, Eli elected to accuse her of public drunkenness and added to her pain by accusing her in a manner that lacked compassion. An immediate question is, “Why did the ministerial leader respond to the hurting woman in such a manner?” But the better question becomes, “How did the ministerial leader’s response impact the hurting woman?”[10] On top of everything she had endured for years, what was the effect on Hannah of being verbally assaulted by the ministerial leader, the person in charge of the place where she had gone for resolution and solace—the House of God?[11]

Let's re-examine the questions from the previous post:

Q: How would you feel about being one of two or more wives in a household?
Q: What entitlements would the first wife have over the junior wives?
Q: What would any of the wives need to ensure economic stability in the event of the husband's demise?
Q: What would be the thoughts and feelings of each of the wives?
Q: What would be the thoughts and feelings of the husband of two or more wives?
Q: What other questions can you come up with about such an arrangement?

Now let us examine some additional questions:

Have you ever experienced the kind of woundedness (han) that Hannah experienced?

If so, how did you address your pain?

Do you know of another woman who has experienced such han?

If so, how did she address her pain?

What could/you do to help the woman through her han?

What can you do to help yourself through future han?

Be opened!

Gye

---

[1]Park, 10. Han (pronounced hahn) is the Korean term for deep (inner) wounds that affect a victim.

[2]Park, 3.

[3]Marjorie Menaul, “1 Samuel 1 & 2,” Interpretation 55, no. 2 (2001), 174.

[4]The story of Hannah bears resemblance to the story of Leah and Rachel in Genesis 29, with Hannah replicating the anguish felt by the unloved Leah, though at the same time she was the most loved, like Rachel. Though she was most loved by Elkanah (v. 5), he continually had sexual relations with the second wife, Penninah, producing at least four children by her (as deduced by v. 4 speaking of Peninnah having sons and daughters, both plural).

[5]Park, 81-130.

[6]Patrick D. Miller, Jr., “Prayer and Worship,” Calvin Theological Journal 36, no. 1

(April 2001), 53.

[7]Miller, Jr., 54, 55.

[8]Patrick D. Miller, They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 238.

[9]Miller, 239. In Hannah’s case, she was a victim of a patriarchal system and a family system that measured the worth of a woman by her ability to bear children, particularly sons. This, in turn, gave men power and legitimacy to abuse their wives and it created a competition that caused women to abuse each other—as Peninnah had done to Hannah.

[10]Had the hypothesis focused on explanations for ministerial compassionless communication then perhaps it would be appropriate to offer excuses such as it being due to his age, his physical condition, disenchanted with the behavior of his sons, or perhaps just being burnt out with ministry. But the researcher’s concern is not the why, it is the how—how to be compassionate toward the inner-wounded.

[11]In a possibly unprecedented move, Hannah politely but affirmatively spoke back to Eli, correcting him about his perception of her condition (vv. 15-16). In those times, For a woman to talk back to a man, particularly the chief priest, most likely was not permitted. See Tzvi Freeman, “Women in the Temple: An Answer to the Controversy,” The Jewish Woman, http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/

article_cdo/aid//97367jewish/Women-in-the-Synagogue.htm (accessed April 30, 2012), where in answer to a question about the role of women in Jewish synagogues the author states, “You brought up prayer and the all-male minyan. Yes, women can attend services, but all the dominant roles are handed to the men. And they stand on the other side of a partition or upstairs in the gallery. You don't know just how enigmatic this is. In fact, it is bewildering. Mysterious. Astonishing. Let me explain why…”

Sister Wife

In these current days there seems to be a practice of two or more women sharing one man. Shocking or not, this is not a new phenomenon. In the next two posts we will look at two families in which this arrangement occurred: The household of Elkanah and the household of Jacob.

Before we look at these sister-wives and explore their inner-woundedness, let's take a moment ourselves to meditate and speculate on what these women may have encountered and felt during their experiences.

Q: How would you feel about being one of two or more wives in a household?
Q: What entitlements would the first wife have over the junior wives?
Q: What would any of the wives need to ensure economic stability in the event of the husband's demise?
Q: What would be the thoughts and feelings of each of the wives?
Q: What would be the thoughts and feelings of the husband of two or more wives?
Q: What other questions can you come up with about such an arrangement?

Be opened!
Gye

A Promise Broken

Let us take a look at a wounded woman from Genesis 38.

About that time Judah left his brothers and camped near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her and cohabited with her. She conceived and bore a son, and he named him Er. She conceived again and bore a, son, and named him Onan. Once again she bore a son, and named him Shelah; he was at Chezib when she bore him.

Judah got a wife for Er his first-born; her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's first-born, was displeasing to the LORD, and the LORD took his life. Then Judah said to Onan, "Join with your brother's wife and do your duty by her as a brother-in-law, and provide offspring for your brother." But Onan, knowing that the seed would not count as his, let it go to waste whenever he joined with his brother's wife, so as not to provide offspring for his brother. What he did was displeasing to the LORD, and He took his life also. Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Stay as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up" — for he thought, "He too might die like his brothers." So Tamar went to live in her father's house.

A long time afterward, Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died. When his period of mourning was over, Judah went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, together with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. And Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law is coming up to Timnah for the sheepshearing." So she took off her widows garb, covered her face with a veil, and, wrapping herself up, sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him as wife. When Judah saw her, he took her for a harlot; for she had covered her face. So he turned aside to her by the road and said, "Here, let me sleep with you" — for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. "What," she asked, "will you pay for sleeping with me?" He replied, "I will send a kid from my flock." But she said, "You must leave a pledge until you have sent it." And he said, 'What pledge shall I give you?" She replied, "Your seal and cord, and the staff which you carry." So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she conceived by him. Then she went on her way. She took off her veil and again put on her widow's garb.

Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite, to, redeem the pledge from the woman; but he could not find her. He inquired of the people of that town, "Where is the cult prostitute, the one at Enaim, by the road?" But they said, "There has been no prostitute here." So he returned to Judah and said,, "I could not find her; moreover, the townspeople said: There has been no prostitute here." Judah said, "Let her keep them, lest we become a laughingstock. I did send her this kid, but you did not find her."

About three months later, Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot; in fact, she is with child by harlotry." "Bring her out," said Judah, "and let her be burned." As she was being brought out, she sent this message to her father-in-law, "I am with child by the man to whom these belong." And she added, "Examine these: whose seal and cord and staff are these?" Judah recognized them, and said, "She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah." And he was not intimate with her again. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb! While she was in labor, one of them put out, his hand, and the midwife tied a crimson thread on that hand, to signify: This one came out first. But just then he drew back his hand, and out came his brother; and she said, "What a breach you have made for yourself!" So he was named Perez. Afterward his brother came out, on whose hand was the crimson thread; he was named Zerah.

Jewish Publication Society Tanakh (1985)

 

By custom, Tamar was entitled to become impregnated by a brother of her deceased husband, so that his bloodline could continue. Judah, her father-in-law, did not want to risk the death of his youngest son, so he sent Tamar away under false pretenses: to wait until his youngest son was of age to fulfill the duty. However Judah broke his promise and did not require his youngest son to fulfill the custom.

 

What wounds may Tamar have suffered from the entire incident?

Public shame from being considered a deathtrap?

Disgrace from being sent back to her father's house while being required to maintain life as a widow?

Anger at realizing that she had been duped?

Disgust at her father-in-law and his ploy?

Perhaps you can think of other wounds she may have suffered.

 

How would you have felt if you had been in Tamar's position?

How would you have felt if you had been in the daughter of Shua's position regarding Tamar ?

 

Often Tamar is viewed as having purposely disguised as a prostitute to seduce Judah.

Read the passage again.

What do you think her intention was?

What wounds can be suffered by women thusly accused?

If such accusations are true, what wounds could lead to such behavior?

 

Did Tamar's resolution absolve her wounds?

 

How would you reach out to Tamar today?

 

As we look at the lives of wounded women in the Bible, there will be questions that you may or may not be able to answer. Or the answer you give today may be different from the answer you would have given in the past or in the future. Coming to the correct answer is not the point, but reflecting upon the situation and responding with compassion is.

 

Be opened!

Gye

This Woman! Beauty Inside a Godly Woman

Hello again!

Thank you for your patience. Despite the long hiatus, we are going to view women of the Bible, and we are going to view their inner-woundedness, but we are also going to view their inward beauty.

Is that alright?

Good. Then I will see you again real soon.

Peace,
Gye

This Woman - Post 1

Before we look at the women of the Bible whom Jesus touched, let's have a view of one he touched recently.

Gye

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=470736836295471&set=vb.100000774768296&type=2&theater

This Woman!

Many women were in the life of Jesus. In the weeks to come we will look at stories of several of these women, especially as pertains to the inner wounds each suffered.

Get your mirrors ready....

Gye