page_title: Hannah (biblical figure)
section_title: Biblical narrative
hierarchical_section_title: Hannah (biblical figure) / Biblical narrative
caption_attribution_description: English: Woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860. Deutsch: Holzschnitt aus "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860. Français&#160;: Gravure en bois pour «Die Bibel in Bildern», 1860.
context_page_description: Hannah is one of the wives of Elkanah mentioned in the First Book of Samuel. According to the Hebrew Bible she was the mother of Samuel.
context_section_description: The narrative about Hannah can be found in 1 Samuel 1:2-2:21. Outside of the first two chapters of 1 Samuel, she is never mentioned in the Bible.
  Elkanah 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.
  In the biblical narrative, Hannah is one of two wives of Elkanah. The other, Peninnah, had given birth to Elkanah's children, but Hannah remained childless. Nevertheless, Elkanah preferred Hannah. According to Lillian Klein, the use of this chiasmus underscores the standing of the women: Hannah is the primary wife, yet Peninnah has succeeded in bearing children. Hannah's status as primary wife and her barrenness recall Sarah and Rebecca in Genesis 17 and Genesis 25 respectively. Klein suggests that Elkanah took Peninnah as a second wife because of Hannah's barrenness.
  Every year, Elkanah would offer a sacrifice at the Shiloh sanctuary, and give Penninah and her children a portion but he gave Hannah a double portion "because he loved her, and the LORD had closed her womb" (1 Samuel 1:5, NIV). One day Hannah went up to the temple, and prayed with great weeping (I Samuel 1:10), while Eli the High Priest was sitting on a chair near the doorpost. In her prayer, she asked God for a son and in return she vowed to give the son back to God for the service of God. She promised he would remain a Nazarite all the days of his life. According to Lillian Klein, the value of women is demonstrably enhanced by their child-bearing capacities. The narrative takes her pain and places it in her personal failure and then draws it out in a communal context. The desperation of Hannah's vow indicates that merely bearing a male child would establish her in the community.
  Eli thought she was drunk and questioned her. When she explained herself, he blessed her and sent her home. Hannah conceived and bore a son, and named him Samuel, literally Heard by God, "since she had asked the Lord for him" (1 Samuel 1:20 NAB). The role of women giving names in premonarchic Israel suggests an authoritative social role, at least within the family. She raised him until he was weaned and brought him to the temple along with a sacrifice.
  Hannah is also considered to be a prophetess: in her song of thanksgiving (1 Samuel 2:1-10) she is inspired “to discern in her own individual experience the universal laws of the divine economy, and to recognise its significance for the whole course of the Kingdom of God". This song may be compared to the Magnificat, Mary's song of thanksgiving in the New Testament (Luke 1:46-55), but biblical commentator A. F. Kirkpatrick notes that "the Magnificat should be carefully compared with Hannah’s song, of which it is an echo rather than an imitation. The resemblance lies in thought and tone more than in actual language, and supplies a most delicate and valuable testimony to the appropriateness of this hymn to Hannah’s circumstances".
  Eli announced another blessing on Hannah, and she conceived 3 more sons and 2 daughters, making six in total.
caption: Hannah's prayer, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld
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