Hannah's Miracle in The Book of Samuel

Co-starring High Priest Eli and his two evil sons

When Hannah and her family made the annual trip to go praise God at the tabernacle, Hannah cried and prayed with all her heart for a son. It seems no one had ever prayed there before because the old High Priest Eli actually thought she was drunk and tried to throw her out! When he realized his mistake, he blessed her and she left feeling a great sense of peace.

After 7 years of not being able to have a son, she soon would be with child. To thank God she decided to give the boy to serve in God’s temple all his life with Eli, saving Israel from its worthless leadership.

Hophni & Phinehas

The High Priest Eli never had any control over his sons Hophni & Phinehas, and seemed to fear them.

The boys were criminals who had grown fat from taking people’s sacrifices to the Lord for themselves (BBQ to them), not even letting worshipers burn the fat as a burnt offering to God, as mandated in scripture. They even forced women to have sexual relations with them at the tabernacle. Described as "sons of Belial" in (1 Samuel 2:12) KJV, "corrupt" in the New King James Version, "scoundrels" in the NIV.

So God put a divine curse on Eli’s house because of them, and all three men died the same day Israel was defeated by the Philistines at the Battle of Aphek (1 Samuel 4:17–18). That day the enemy captured of the gold Ark of the Covenant, Phinehas' wife gave birth to a son whom she named Ichabod (meaning 'departed glory'), and then she herself died (1 Samuel 4:19–22).

The day they died, the prophet Samuel took over as High Priest.

As in the Book of Ruth, the Book of Samuel completely glosses over the fact that this is against the Law of Moses. Only descendants of Levi (Levites) can serve as priests. But Hannah and Samuel were not Levites. Nonetheless, everyone recognized that God had miraculously brought Samuel to lead the temple and put Israel on the right track after their devastatingly incompetent (selfish) leadership.

A Touching Story

It’s worth noting that long before Martin Luther accidentally kicked off the Protestant Reformation in 1517, he was thrilled to get his hands on a bible for the very first time when he first entered his Augustinian monastery. He randomly opened the bible to the story of Hannah and Samuel, and tears sprang to his eyes. He later wrote that at that moment he thought to himself how wonderful it would be if someday everyone could own a copy of the bible!

The dream seemed impossible. First, bibles were in Latin, and even if you could read Latin (like Luther), bibles were hand copied therefore extremely rare. Even kings did not own bibles back then.

But God had plans for making Luther’s dream a reality, using Luther himself.

The Gutenberg press had recently been invented in Mainz, the exact place where Martin Luther was born. And Luther translated the bible into German after he was the first person to ever walk away alive from a trial for heresy for his writings. (How did that happen? It was thanks to the rule that all votes had to be unanimous, and Prince Frederick the Wise broke with the Pope to vote in favor of Luther.) But poor Luther still had to hide from the Pope’s army for the next 5 years. The Prince hid him in one of his remote castles, giving Luther plenty of time to translate. (The first modern language the bible was translated into, along with Italian.)

Actually, Luther invented modern German by weaving together Low and High German in a way that both would understand. It was another amazing coincidence that he knew both types of German, being from one part of Germany and having studied in the other part of Germany.

Although Gutenberg Bibles were very expensive (around $70,000 since each book was printed on the skin of 300 sheep and goats), they sold out right away. And the stage was set for everyone in time being able to read the touching story of Hannah and her miraculous baby Samuel for themselves. (Read the story in 1 Samuel 1:1 thru 2:21).

Today’s beautiful stone:

Scottish Greenstone or Iona Marble