New Bible Study: Hannah in Scripture, 1 Samuel 1:1-8

Why study Hannah? In one way or another, we can all relate to Hannah's having a deep longing for something that was not hers. Hannah's response is what matters. She took her pain to God, pouring it all out. God answered Hannah's prayer. 

Hannah’s Vow
1 Samuel 1:1-8 There was a man from Ramathaim-zophim in the hill country of Ephraim. His name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 

2 He had two wives, the first named Hannah and the second Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless. 

3 This man would go up from his town every year to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of Armies at Shiloh, where Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were the Lord’s priests.

4 Whenever Elkanah offered a sacrifice, he always gave portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to each of her sons and daughters. 

5 But he gave a double portion to Hannah, for he loved her even though the Lord had kept her from conceiving. 

6 Her rival would taunt her severely just to provoke her, because the Lord had kept Hannah from conceiving. 

7 Year after year, when she went up to the Lord’s house, her rival taunted her in this way. Hannah would weep and would not eat. 

8 “Hannah, why are you crying?” her husband, Elkanah, would ask. “Why won’t you eat? Why are you troubled? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

Commentary
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com) 

"Elkanah kept up his attendance at God's altar, notwithstanding the unhappy differences in his family. If the devotions of a family prevail not to put an end to its divisions, yet let not the divisions put a stop to the devotions. 

To abate our just love to any relation for the sake of any infirmity which they cannot help, and which is their affliction, is to make God's providence quarrel with his precept, and very unkindly to add affliction to the afflicted. It is evidence of a base disposition, to delight in grieving those who are of a sorrowful spirit, and in putting those out of humor who are apt to fret and be uneasy. We ought to bear one another's burdens, not add to them. 

Hannah could not bear the provocation. Those who are of a fretful spirit, and are apt to lay provocations too much to heart, are enemies to themselves, and strip themselves of many comforts both of life and godliness. We ought to notice comforts, to keep us from grieving for crosses. We should look at that which is for us, as well as what is against us."