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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 262. Samuel's Birth and Childhood
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Samuel's Birth and Childhood
But Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child.- 1Sa_2:18.
And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, Speak; for thy servant heareth.- 1Sa_3:10.
1. The child Samuel was asked of the Lord.-In olden times children got names from some circumstance attending their birth, or some hope regarding their future lives. The Bible gives us many examples of this. Thus Moses and John and Jesus and Samuel are all names with a meaning, and intended to instruct.
Hannah had a reason, too, for the name she gave her child. She said, “I have asked him of the Lord,” and called him Samuel.
Hannah was the wife of Elkanah, an Ephrathite, and for a long time she was without children; and to be without children was counted a reproach among the Israelites. This reproach Hannah had to bear. “Her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret,” because she had no child. In her trouble she sought the Lord. She sought Him with earnest supplication. It is a prayer full of confidence in God. She addresses Him as the “Lord of Hosts” (Jehovah-Sabaoth)-the first time this afterwards familiar name is found on the page of Scripture. She calls on Him, that is to say, as the Lord who rules in heaven and earth; who leads out the hosts of heaven, the stars, by number; who sends the hosts who dwell in heaven, the angels, upon His errands; who, as the Lord of Sabaoth among men too, can do His will, as in heaven, so also among the inhabitants of earth. If such a God as this will but speak the word, Hannah knows that all things are possible with Him. She has every confidence that He can grant her the desire of her heart. It is a prayer, further, that is full of fervour and yet of submission. “Look,” she urges, “look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid.” In this intense reiteration the supplicant is pouring out her very soul before God, if haply He may condescend to regard her plaint and to remember her petition. But, while fervent, the prayer is no less submissive in its tone. “If thou wilt,” Hannah begins; and, as her supplication proceeds, it breathes, even in its importunity, the spirit of one who desires to submit her own will and judgment to the wisdom and goodness of her God. And it is, the while, an expectant prayer. She feels that she has come with her trouble to the right quarter. Her Maker and God, to whom she has now unburdened her heart so completely, will not turn away her prayer from Him unheeded, or withhold His mercy from her. In some wise, beneficent way, she is sure the Lord will deal with her petition. She expects, she knows that. She can leave it all with Him. Through the confidence of her faith her bitterness of heart is soothed away, and when she rises from her knees “her countenance is no more sad.”
Hannah realized, even before Eli spoke, that the merciful Burden-bearer had heard and answered her prayer. She had entered into the spirit of the prayer, which not only asks, but takes. She anticipated those wonderful words which, more than any others, disclose the secret of prevailing supplication: “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Before ever the words of Eli, “Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked of him,” had fallen like a summer shower on a parched land, she knew that she had prevailed, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, filled and kept her mind and heart. It fell out to Hannah according to her faith. Blessed was she that had believed, for there was a performance unto her of the promises which God had made to her secret soul. The Lord remembered her, and, when the time had come about, she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of the Lord.”
If ever there was a child of many prayers, Samuel was he. His life was an answer to the fervent supplication of his mother, by whom he was dedicated before his birth to the holy service of Jehovah. For weal or for woe a mother's influence is infinitely great. We are not surprised to learn that Byron's mother was proud, ill-tempered, and violent; or that Nero's was a murderess. On the other hand, we need not be astonished that Sir Walter Scott's was a lover of poetry; or those of Wesley, Augustine, Chrysostom, Basil, and others, remarkable for their intelligence and goodness. Like mother, like child. This is what led the good Lord Shaftesbury to exclaim, “Give me a generation of Christian mothers, and I will undertake to change the face of society in twelve months.”1 [Note: E. Morgan, The Calls of God, 119.]
When barren Hannah, prostrate on the floor,
In heat of zeal and passion did implore
Redress from Heaven, censorious Eli thought
She had been drunk, and check'd her for her fault;-
Rough was his censure, and his check austere;-
Where mildness should be used we're oft severe.
But when his lustful sons, that could abuse
The House of God, and ill God's offerings use,
Appeared before him, his indulgent tongue
Compounded rather than rebuked the wrong.
He dare not shoot for fear he wound his child;-
Where we should be severe, we're oft too mild.2 [Note: Francis Quarles.]
2. Hannah lent Samuel to the Lord.-Living in the great age of vows, Hannah had before Samuel's birth dedicated him to the office of a Nazirite. As soon as he was weaned, she herself with her husband brought him to the tabernacle at Shiloh, where she had received the first intimation of his birth, and there solemnly consecrated him. Then his mother made him over to Eli. From that time the child was shut up in the tabernacle. The priests furnished him with a sacred garment, an ephod, made, like their own, of white linen, though of inferior quality; and his mother every year gave him a little mantle reaching down to his feet, such as was worn only by high personages, or women, over the other dress, and this he retained as his badge till the latest times of his life. He seems to have slept within the holiest place, and his special duty was to put out the sacred candlestick, and to open the doors at sunrise. In this way his childhood was passed.
(1) It was whilst thus sleeping in the tabernacle that Samuel received his first prophetic call. When about to bring in great changes and to substitute the new priesthood in place of the old, not to Eli, the aged priest, nor to any who might be great before men in station and authority, did God reveal His judgments; He communicated the heavy tidings to the child in the temple. The occasion may have part in our Lord's great thanksgiving, when He rejoiced in spirit and said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” And how full of interest is the whole narrative: Samuel, the thrice called of God, the thrice chosen, thrice loved-as if, as in the case of St. Peter afterwards, that repeated invocation of his name were a token of great things that were to be done by him hereafter. And with what ready childlike obedience was the call heard! It was indeed receiving the Kingdom of God as a little child. And we may notice the modesty of nature which there is about the child of prayer, he is as a child throughout in bearing this vision of God; he rises from sleep, he hastens to his priest and guide; and after all he lies down again in peace and quiet. There is nothing constrained, nothing unsuitable; for Divine love “vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly”; nor, again, does it willingly divulge what it receives from God. Such is the natural simplicity of the child of prayer.
Why did God speak to a Samuel and not to an Eli? Why was there no man of maturer years to come from the outer world and speak to the priest at the temple and tell him of the judgment on his house? Why, because God seeks the susceptible heart and the open door. It is according as we live that God comes; it is as we spend our days and our hours in the holy place, and our hearts are waiting and open, that we hear the voice of God, and are conscious of the Holy One. As Samuel was prepared, so Samuel heard the voice; and as you and I live as it were in the presence of God, does God come to speak to us. “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.”1 [Note: R. J. Campbell, The Song of Ages, 283.]
(2) “And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him (literally, “had been with him”), and did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord.” It is evident that other Divine communications followed upon the first, and that already in early youth Samuel had become a national influence: “And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh: for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (1Sa_3:21). This expression, “revealed himself,” is a very striking one. It means literally, “uncovered the ear,” as one in the East might brush back the flowing hair of an intimate friend and pour into his ear confidences meant for none beside. Already Hannah was reaping abundant interest for her precious loan. For the pain of the early severance she had now double in her own soul. She had no hard dealer to transact with in Jehovah. She had given to Him only what was all the while His own; and yet how rich was the recompense He brought to the Israelitish mother's heart. “Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him.” We cannot fail to be struck with the contrast between the bright, progressive, gracious development of Samuel and the fast downward course of Eli's sons, who, madly grasping at base present gratification, lent none of their powers to God, but, forfeiting all the happiness of the future in time and eternity for the sake of short-lived sensual pleasure, went down quickly to dishonoured graves. Samuel's was a good motto, surely, for youth or age, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.” And for any young life this is an enviable record-“And he grew”-in knowledge, in power, in wisdom, in favour, in influence-“he grew, and the Lord was with him.”
Speak to me, Christ, amid earth's sin and riot,
That I may hear
Thy Love's sweet pleading near,
Bringing my spirit quiet.
Low by the dripping levels of my life,
Here dwelleth Sin,
Barring my heart lest Love should enter in,
And setting all my dreams about with strife.
Speak to me out of Thy Love's quiet stretching spaces,
That, though afar,
I follow may the promise of Thy star,
And see again the old, loved, faded faces.
And if, amid the songs of Cherubim
Where all saints be,
The Father hear the pleading needs of me,
And, stooping, see mine eyes all sorrow dim,
And lead me where my feet, sin shaken free,
May safely stand
In Love's own fatherland,
Seeing and loving, 'twere enough for me!1 [Note: L. MacLean Watt, In Poets' Corner, 113.]