When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, and one ephah of meal, and a bottle of wine, and brought him to the house of Yahweh in Shiloh: and the child was young.
The Mosaic Law required an offering to God when He granted a vow (Leviticus 27:1-8). Elkanah went to the central sanctuary to make this offering shortly after Samuel’s birth (1 Samuel 1:21). The text refers to Hannah’s vow as Elkanah’s (1 Samuel 1:21). It was his vow in this sense: since he did not cancel it when he heard about it, he became responsible for it as Hannah’s husband (cf. Numbers 30:1-8).