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…”