The Boy Samuel

In the hill country of Ephraim, in the town of Ramah, there lived a man named Elkanah. He had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had sons and daughters, but Hannah had no children at all.

Every year Elkanah took his family up to Shiloh to worship God and offer a sacrifice. The priests there were Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of old Eli. When the meat of the sacrifice was shared out, Elkanah gave a portion to Peninnah and to each of her children, but he gave Hannah a double portion, because he loved her.

Peninnah never let Hannah forget that she had no child. Year after year, on the trip to Shiloh, she teased and needled her until Hannah wept and could not eat a bite.

“Hannah, why are you crying?” asked Elkanah. “Why won’t you eat? Why are you so sad? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

One year, after the meal, Hannah got up and went to the house of God. Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost. Hannah stood and prayed, with tears running down her face.

“God,” she prayed, “if you will only look at my sorrow and remember me, and give me a son, I will give him back to you for all the days of his life. No razor will ever touch his head.”

She prayed silently, in her heart; only her lips moved. Eli watched her mouth and thought she was drunk.

“How long will you go on like this?” he said. “Put away your wine.”

“No, my lord,” Hannah answered. “I haven’t had any wine. My heart is heavy, and I have been pouring it out to God. Don’t take me for a wicked woman.”

“Then go in peace,” said Eli, “and may the God of Israel give you what you have asked of him.”

Hannah went back to her family and ate, and she no longer looked sad. The next morning they worshiped once more and went home to Ramah. And God remembered Hannah. Before long she had a baby boy, and she named him Samuel. “I asked God for him,” she said.

When the time came for the yearly trip, Hannah stayed behind. “Once he’s weaned, I’ll take him,” she told Elkanah, “and he will stay there with God forever.”

“Do what you think best,” said Elkanah.

So Hannah nursed her little son at home until he was weaned. Then she took him up to Shiloh with three young bulls, a sack of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to Eli.

“My lord,” she said, “do you remember me? I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying. I prayed for this child, and God gave me what I asked. Now I am giving him back to God. For as long as he lives, he belongs to God.”

Then Hannah sang:

My heart is glad in God, and I can smile at my enemies. No one is holy like God; there is no rock like our God. The bows of the mighty are broken, and those who stumbled stand up strong. The woman with no children has seven, and the mother of many grows weak. God makes poor, and God makes rich; he brings low, and he lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust and seats them among princes.

Elkanah and Hannah went home to Ramah, and the little boy stayed at Shiloh to serve God with Eli the priest.

Eli’s two sons were wicked men who cared nothing for God. Whenever someone offered a sacrifice, their servant would come while the meat was boiling, holding a three-pronged meat fork. He jabbed it into the pot, and whatever the fork brought up, the priest kept. Sometimes the servant came before the fat had even been burned for God.

“Give me raw meat for the priest to roast,” he would say. “He won’t take it boiled.”

If anyone answered, “Let the fat be burned first, then take what you like,” the servant said, “No. Give it to me now, or I’ll take it by force.”

That was a great sin, because it taught the people to scorn the offerings they brought to God.

Samuel, meanwhile, was still a little boy, serving God in a linen ephod, which is a priest’s linen apron. His hair grew long, for no razor touched it. Every year his mother made him a little coat and brought it when she came up with Elkanah for the sacrifice.

Eli blessed them both, and God gave Hannah three more sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up at Shiloh.

Eli was very old now. He heard what his sons were doing to the people, and that they did shameful things with the women who served at the entrance of the sanctuary.

“My sons, why are you doing these things?” he said to them. “Everyone is talking about it. If one man wrongs another, someone can speak up for him. But if a man wrongs God, who will speak up for him then?”

His sons would not listen, and Eli did nothing more to stop them. Samuel kept growing, and both God and the people were pleased with him.

One day a man of God came to Eli with a message. “God chose your family to be his priests,” he said, “yet you honor your sons more than God. So this is what God says: no one in your family will live to be old. As a sign, both your sons, Hophni and Phinehas, will die on the same day. And God will raise up a faithful priest, who will do what is in God’s heart and mind.”

In those days God seldom spoke to anyone, and visions were rare. Eli’s eyes had grown so dim that he could hardly see. One night he was lying in his usual place, and Samuel was asleep in the house of God, where the ark of God stood in the dark behind the curtain. The lamp of God had not yet gone out.

Then God called, “Samuel!”

“Here I am,” said Samuel. He ran to Eli. “Here I am. You called me.”

“I didn’t call you,” said Eli. “Go back and lie down.” So the boy went and lay down.

Again God called, “Samuel!”

Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. You called me.”

“I didn’t call you, my son,” said Eli. “Go back and lie down.”

Samuel did not yet know God’s voice, because God had never spoken to him before.

A third time God called, “Samuel!”

Again Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. You called me.”

At last Eli understood that it was God who was calling the boy. “Go and lie down,” he told Samuel, “and if he calls you again, say, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Then God called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!”

And Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

“I am about to do something in Israel,” God said, “that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will do to Eli everything I have said against his family, from beginning to end. I told him I would judge his family forever, because he knew his sons were doing wrong and did not stop them. No sacrifice or offering will ever wipe it away.”

Samuel lay there until morning, and then he opened the doors of the house of God. He was afraid to tell Eli what he had heard.

But Eli called him. “Samuel, my son.”

“Here I am,” said Samuel.

“What did God say to you?” Eli asked. “Don’t hide it from me. May God punish you severely if you hide one word of what he told you.”

So Samuel told him everything and kept nothing back.

Eli bowed his head. “It is God,” he said. “Let him do what he thinks best.”

Samuel grew up, and God was with him and made every word Samuel spoke come true. God went on speaking to Samuel at Shiloh, and all Israel, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, knew that Samuel was a true prophet of God.