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What Am I Worth?
Read 1 Samuel 1:1–16. Why was Hannah so distraught over not having children, even though she knew that her husband loved her?
Hannah’s feelings shouldn’t be that hard to understand, especially in her culture, where to have no male child meant to have no security in one’s old age. Having no child at all was understood as a divine curse. Both in the public and in the family sphere, a woman without a child had to live with a stigma of supposedly being cursed by God. Obviously, this affected her value in the eyes of society, her own self-esteem, and her relationship with God. Hannah must have wondered often what she had done to deserve this. Why was this happening to her?
To understand the depth of despair that barrenness brought to women in the world of the Old Testament, look at the actions and statements of Sarah (Gen. 16:1, 2) and Rachel (Gen. 30:1). How do they help us understand how strong that sentiment was back then?
Sarah’s action is reasonable in the context of the social and cultural customs of her time. However, it also provides us with a glimpse of the despair she must have felt and the burden she must have carried. What woman would encourage her husband to have relations with another woman in order to have children? Meanwhile, Rachel’s heartfelt cry to Jacob echoes a bit of Hannah’s emotion and the turmoil of her feelings.
For Hannah, jealousy and the sense of “being nobody” created an explosive mix of emotions that finally blew up when she poured out her heart before the Lord. What made matters worse was that Hannah was not getting younger. Time was against her, and, apparently, so was God.
Remember, also, that in Hannah’s time, a woman’s role in society was primarily associated with child bearing and rearing. There were no other career possibilities. A woman could not just change careers and find fulfillment in another occupation. We have examples of woman judges and female prophetic leadership in the Old Testament, but these are indeed limited and depended on God’s direct call. It was only through children that Hannah could count the worth of her life and leave a legacy. To her, without children her life had no real meaning.
A man had lost his child to leukemia. He told the pastor that he believed his son died because the man hadn’t kept the commandments faithfully, especially the Sabbath, and so God punished him. What’s wrong with that kind of thinking? How can we protect ourselves from getting caught up in that same kind of rationale?
| SUNDAY | October 10 |
Read 1 Samuel 1:1–16. Why was Hannah so distraught over not having children, even though she knew that her husband loved her?
Hannah’s feelings shouldn’t be that hard to understand, especially in her culture, where to have no male child meant to have no security in one’s old age. Having no child at all was understood as a divine curse. Both in the public and in the family sphere, a woman without a child had to live with a stigma of supposedly being cursed by God. Obviously, this affected her value in the eyes of society, her own self-esteem, and her relationship with God. Hannah must have wondered often what she had done to deserve this. Why was this happening to her?
To understand the depth of despair that barrenness brought to women in the world of the Old Testament, look at the actions and statements of Sarah (Gen. 16:1, 2) and Rachel (Gen. 30:1). How do they help us understand how strong that sentiment was back then?
Sarah’s action is reasonable in the context of the social and cultural customs of her time. However, it also provides us with a glimpse of the despair she must have felt and the burden she must have carried. What woman would encourage her husband to have relations with another woman in order to have children? Meanwhile, Rachel’s heartfelt cry to Jacob echoes a bit of Hannah’s emotion and the turmoil of her feelings.
For Hannah, jealousy and the sense of “being nobody” created an explosive mix of emotions that finally blew up when she poured out her heart before the Lord. What made matters worse was that Hannah was not getting younger. Time was against her, and, apparently, so was God.
Remember, also, that in Hannah’s time, a woman’s role in society was primarily associated with child bearing and rearing. There were no other career possibilities. A woman could not just change careers and find fulfillment in another occupation. We have examples of woman judges and female prophetic leadership in the Old Testament, but these are indeed limited and depended on God’s direct call. It was only through children that Hannah could count the worth of her life and leave a legacy. To her, without children her life had no real meaning.
A man had lost his child to leukemia. He told the pastor that he believed his son died because the man hadn’t kept the commandments faithfully, especially the Sabbath, and so God punished him. What’s wrong with that kind of thinking? How can we protect ourselves from getting caught up in that same kind of rationale?
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