1 Samuel 1:22

_BUT HANNAH WENT NOT UP; FOR SHE SAID UNTO HER HUSBAND, I WILL NOT GO UP UNTIL THE CHILD BE WEANED, AND THEN I WILL BRING HIM, THAT HE MAY APPEAR BEFORE THE LORD, AND THERE ABIDE FOR EVER._ But Hannah went not up. Men only were obliged to attend the solemn feasts (Exodus 23:17). But Hannah, like other pious women, was in the habit of going, only she deemed it more prudent and becoming to defer her next journey until her son's age would enable her to fulfill her vow. FOR SHE SAID UNTO HER HUSBAND, I WILL NOT GO UP. These words are supplemented by our translators. The Hebrew original might be rendered, as the Syriac version does render it, 'She said unto her husband, When the child is weaned, then I will bring him,' etc....

19-28 Elkanah and his family had a journey before them, and a family of children to take with them, yet they would not move till they had worshipped God together. Prayer and provender do not hinder a journey. When men are in such haste to set out upon journeys, or to engage in business, that they have not time to worship God, they are likely to proceed without his presence and blessing. Hannah, though she felt a warm regard for the courts of God's house, begged to stay at home. God will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Those who are detained from public ordinances, by the nursing and tending of little children, may take comfort from this instance, and believe, that if they do that duty in a right spirit, God will graciously accept them therein. Hannah presented her child to the Lord with a grateful acknowledgment of his goodness in answer to prayer. Whatever we give to God, it is what we...

UNTIL THE CHILD BE WEANED - Hebrew mothers, as elsewhere in the East, usually suckled their children until the age of two complete years, sometimes until the age of three....

BUT HANNAH WENT NOT UP,.... For women, though they might go if they pleased to the yearly feasts, yet they were not obliged to it; whether she went up at the time for her purification, and for the presenting and redemption of the firstborn, is not certain; some say the Levites were not obliged by that law, the perquisites of it falling to them, and so did not go up; others that she did, though it is not expressed, the Scriptures not relating all facts that were done; though by what follows it looks as if she did not: FOR SHE SAID UNTO HER HUSBAND, I WILL NOT GO UP UNTIL THE CHILD BE WEANED: which, according to Jarchi, was at the end of twenty two months; but others say at the end of twenty four months, or two years, as Kimchi and Ben Melech; and sometimes a child was three years old before it was weaned, and sometimes longer, which very probably was the case here; Genesis 21:8

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. SAMUEL THE PROPHET AND JUDGE 1. The Birth and Childhood of Samuel CHAPTER 1 _ 1. Elkanah and his wives (1 Samuel 1:1)_ 2. Hannah's prayer and vow (1 Samuel 1:9) 3. The prayer answered and Samuel born (1 Samuel 1:19) 4. The child weaned and presented unto the Lord (1 Samuel 1:21) The descent of Samuel opens the book. The names are of striking significance. Elkanah means “acquired of God.” He was the son of Jeroham (tenderly loved), the son of Elihu (my God is He), the son of Tohu (prostration), the son of Zuph (honeycomb). They were pious generations f

SAMUEL IS BORN AND DEDICATED TO YAHWEH. The family went home and in due time a son was born to Hannah, whom she called Shemuel (Samuel), possibly, His name is God. His Name = Yahweh, _i.e._ Yahweh is God; _cf._ Elijah and Joel, which have a similar meaning. When Samuel was weaned, _i.e._ after two years at least, perhaps longer, as he is said to have ministered apparently at once, Hannah took him to Shiloh, made an offering of a bullock (LXX of 1 Samuel 1:24; _cf._ 1 Samuel 1:25); and devoted the boy to the service of Yahweh as an attendant at the Temple. Note that he was not a Levite (_cf._ 1 Samuel 1:1). Samuel has nothing to do with Sha-' al, asked; possibly the etymology because I have asked, etc.

CHILD. young child. FOR EVER. Figure of speech _Synecdoche_ (of Whole), App-6. The whole put for. portion; i.e. as long as he lives. Put literally in 1 Samuel 1:28....

Samuel's infancy and dedication to Jehovah 21. _his vow_ This assumes that Elkanah as well as Hannah had made a vow. The Sept. reads "his vows and all the tithes of his land." Cp. Deuteronomy 12:11....

I WILL NOT GO UP UNTIL, &C.— There is nothing in the Hebrew for, _I will not go up._ It has been observed, that Elkanah and Hannah treat one another with the greatest propriety and tenderness, and present us with a fine example of a sensible and affectionate couple....

_Samuel's birth._ 1 Samuel 1:19-23 19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshiped before the Lord, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord remembered her. 20 Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, _saying,_ Because I have asked him of the Lord. 21 And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. 22 But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, _I will not go up_ until the child be weaned, and _then_ I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever. 23 And Elkanah her husband said unto her. Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only the Lord establish his word. So the woman a