Samuel, the Boy: Life Lessons from the First Four Chapters of 1 Samuel

By Nigel A. Jones

It is tempting, but wrong, to designate some events documented in scripture as just historical records. That is not the purpose of any part of the Bible. The birth and life of Samuel may seem remote, being more than three thousand years ago in a land and culture very different from ours today, but it would be a mistake to treat them as just events in history.

Samuel, the Boy is a story of heartache, rejection, ridicule, and divided loyalties—just some of the challenges facing a family struggling with what it meant to live godly lives three thousand years ago.

It’s history, yes, but much, much more. Jesus promised us eternal life—that always holds true—but he did not promise us a life free from challenging situations. He promised to be with us, and he keeps his promise—for all time and in all circumstances, both for Samuel and for us today. Open your hearts to his word for all seasons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973661825

Nigel A. Jones

Nigel A. Jones has lived through more than fifty years of Christian discipleship, experiencing many of the joys and difficulties of living the Christian life. Sharing some of them through the medium of the early years of Samuel as recorded in the book of 1 Samuel, he hopes that lives lived more than three thousand years ago will bring renewal to twenty-first-century living. Our circumstances of life will, inevitably, be different but we walk with the same God as did Hannah and Samuel.

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Copyright © 2019 Nigel A. Jones.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture marked ASV are taken from the American Standard Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6183-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6184-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6182-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907135

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/21/2019

To

Brenda, whose faith, love, companionship,

and commitment has made so much possible

Thank you.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1    Point Of Entry

Chapter 2    Hannah’s Family Relationships

Chapter 3    Family Rivalry

Chapter 4    Dysfunctional Family

Chapter 5    Hannah’s Deep Desire

Chapter 6    Hannah Finds Peace

Chapter 7    Hannah Conceives

Chapter 8    Hannah Weans Samuel

Chapter 9    Hannah Dedicates Samuel

Chapter 10    Seeds Of Change

Chapter 11    Hannah’s Thanksgiving Prayer No. 1

Chapter 12    Hannah’s Thanksgiving Prayer No. 2

Chapter 13    A Polluted And Polluting Environment

Chapter 14    The Boy Minister Is Clothed

Chapter 15    Eli’s Futile Rebuke

Chapter 16    Samuel—A Type Of Christ

Chapter 17    God Rejects The House

Chapter 18    A New Priestly House

Chapter 19    In Eli’s Care For A Purpose

Chapter 20    The House Begins

Chapter 21    The Promise Fulfilled

Afterword

INTRODUCTION

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

—2 Timothy 3:16–17

Transition is a major theme in scripture. Adam and Eve transitioned from the intimate closeness of God in Eden to the tough and uncertain fallen world outside of Paradise. Moses went from the high life of an adopted son of Pharaoh’s household to a lowly hilltop shepherd minding sheep for his father-in-law. In the incarnation, the eternal Word, the Son of God, who dwelt in heavenly splendor, became the Christ child, Jesus, wrapped in scraps of cloth.

There are many, many more such instances where scripture records the movement of individuals, and even whole communities, making significant shifts in their living patterns. While we read of them in their historical settings, we must always be alert to the need to apply these scriptures to ourselves in our own time and circumstances. The most important, by far, is the call to move by faith from darkness to light, from the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of Christ, or, as Jesus told Nicodemus, to be born again.

It is tempting, but wrong, to designate some events documented in scripture as just historical records. That is not the purpose of any part of the Bible. The birth and life of Samuel may seem remote, being more than three thousand years ago in a land and culture very different from ours today, but it would be a mistake to treat them as just events in history.

We should allow ourselves to read it in such a way that we are taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained in righteousness, so that as servants of God, we will be better equipped for good work.

Jesus said, But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

—Matthew 7:26

CHAPTER 1

Point of Entry

There was a certain man.

—1 Samuel 1:1

F rom the moment the author of the volume we know as the first book of Samuel started to record this part of the history of God’s people, he chronicled an inviting and intriguing account that has become a page-turner for readers in all generations. Not only did he recount and document the story intelligently for his times, but he still demands and captures our attention from the very first sentence, keeping us riveted right through to the very last word. As attractive as the text was and still is, it also provokes thought and, ultimately, some serious decision-making and action before it can be considered as ‘not needed anymore’––as if that could ever be an ascription applicable to scripture.

The writer began with a domestic tale about a certain man who was one half of a childless couple, a situation that applies to many people in all generations, regardless of their backgrounds, incomes, or intellects. The writer then moved directly and without frills or fuss into territory that continues to attract and provoke the thoughts of people, even if only out of sheer curiosity––the husband concerned had two wives! Polygamy is neither the normal nor an acceptable approach to marriage in most countries of the world today where it is considered to be immoral as well as illegal. The writer made no comment on this situation, since it was culturally acceptable to the people whose true lives he was recording for posterity over three thousand years ago. The actual events, therefore, have some age to them, but the issues are as fresh and relevant as if they were posted on a social media site today.

To add intrigue to the further events he was about to recount, the writer proclaimed, in a tantalizing manner sufficient to keep the reader’s interest, that one wife was fertile and had children; the other was unable to conceive. Set up for us here to ponder is the prospect of family factions and infighting, jealousy and betrayal, despair and hope. However, the book quickly becomes, reveals, and remains something much more significant and important to the whole of human history. It is no romantic novel but a link in the chain of God’s salvation plan brought to fruition in Jesus Christ.

This old but ever-contemporary text is about dramatic transition. It moves from domestic hearth and home to lofty national levels, from nuclear family to family-based tribes, from tribes to a kingdom, from judges to monarchy, and from incursive refugees to indigenous landowners. What started in low and humble terms, with the story of an otherwise obscure and unimportant family, quickly takes us from childlessness to motherhood, from despair to delight, from a woman’s desperate personal plea to, if not the birth of, then certainly the coming of age of a nation and beyond. Although those particular transitions were based in a specific time, people, and culture, it is the history of everyone and of every nation in every generation. It has, therefore, something to say to us for life and living today, and it commands––nay demands––our serious attention and urgent action.

It does not matter that we may not be part of childless couples or engaged in polygamous relationships, for the theology of the book is not simply about infertile couples spontaneously conceiving babies through the miraculous intervention of the almighty Creator God. Nor is it just about the Lord of all working within the intimate details of one specific family. It bears upon those particular circumstances, certainly, but as much now as then, it recounts the historical events to evidence the ways in which the infinite and eternal Creator God continues to work in the lives of individuals to bring about a greater divine plan, rooted in the spectacular, extravagant, and personally precious God-given promises. It evidences, first, how the Lord seeks only the very best for those who honor and therefore obey him, and second, how he works out, on an enormous canvas, the history of the salvation of the world–something that has rightly been called the Unstoppable Story, which continues from then until now and on into eternity and calls for your personal consideration and reaction. Reject it at your peril, you may; accept it for your salvation, you should–but ignore it, never!

Nothing is known of Hannah, our point of entry into this period in the life and times of Israel, until we meet her in the first book of Samuel; her story for posterity ends with a final reference to her in the second chapter of that same book. All we know about her comes from four episodes in her life and one epitaph:

1. Her difficult family relationships (1 Samuel 1:1–2)

2. Her overwhelming desire for a child (1 Samuel 1:3–19a)

3. Her joyful delivery and subsequent dedication of Samuel (1 Samuel 1:19b–1:28)

4. Her prayer (1 Samuel 2:1–11)

5. Her subsequent life (1 Samuel 2:18–21)

These are the references to Hannah, the childless wife of Elkanah, the man who was also married to the fertile Peninnah, but our investigation will proceed beyond her story. We will follow through with the life and ministry of her firstborn, Samuel.

CHAPTER 2

Hannah’s Family Relationships

There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.

—1 Samuel 1:1–2

H annah’s husband, Elkanah, might easily be overlooked in any study of the narrative as it unfolds because we might be tempted to focus attention on his childless wife and her uncomfortable family circumstances. That would cause us to miss something important because Elkanah took a central and significant role, albeit possibly largely unwittingly or at least passively, in the developing situation of both the nuclear family and the national life.

In any consideration of history, it would not be too difficult to discover circumstances where a publicly forgotten individual did something that either directly changed future events or significantly influenced them so they worked out in an altogether different way. So it was with Elkanah. The writer of 1 Samuel might simply have called him Hannah’s husband, but we know who he was and his genealogical background; he was an Ephraimite. He was of the house and tribe of Ephraim, the younger son of Joseph, who was the youngest son of Jacob. To Elkanah that was not an interesting but otherwise irrelevant fact. Genealogical links were–and still are–important to an understanding of our very being. Television programs have been created based on people’s desires to know their personal lineage. Knowing where we have come from and how our ancestors lived their lives relate significantly to our destinies in the Lord.

The patriarchs of God’s people read like a Who’s Who of the good (and the not-so-good) and the great (and the not-so-great). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are familiar names, even to those who may have only a passing acquaintance with the Old Testament. Two enormous and significant citations are made of Abraham. The first is in the Old Testament and was made by God himself. The prophet Isaiah captured God’s joke at the expense of the people who spent many of their precious resources on idols, skillfully carved and overlaid with precious metal by blacksmiths, carpenters, and goldsmiths. The punch line is that the idol was then nailed down so that it will not topple. Isaiah 41:7

The intention of the worshippers was to prevent their idol from being stolen or accidentally overturned during the domestic duties of the household. However, woven into that was the implication that the people not only had an idol that was (and would always be) impotent but that they secured it fast, inadvertently signifying its inability to prevent any external action against its own security. If it could not move due to its material nature and its fixings, it couldn’t possibly save itself, let alone act providentially in worshippers’ lives. It was only a lump of inanimate wood. This is a joke, but behind the humor is a grave warning about not trusting in the created but in the Creator–God alone.

This is in direct and obvious contradistinction to the Lord, the God of Israel, who was always active in his people’s development through his friend Abraham.

But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. (Isaiah 41:8–9)

It is important to note the verbs in that statement. He chose, he took, he called, and he did not reject–all activities initiated and accomplished by God toward his people, Israel.

Not only did he do that for them as a people, but he did it so they could be his servants and have an active involvement in his work in the world. They were the people of whom he says, I have chosen you and have not rejected you (Isaiah 41:9).

In the middle of this affirmation of his actions towards his people, the Lord spoke about Abraham in a very familiar term. He encouraged the people to understand that they were part of a whole tradition and continuum of being chosen and used by God himself. He said, You descendants of Abraham my friend. (Isaiah 41:8)

Not only were the people descended from the great Abraham, who was a man of immense faith and enormous human frailty but also from the man described here as being God’s friend. One might expect to fear God, to worship him, even to be considered as his child and join with him in prayer to further his plans, but to be called his friend was something quite special, unexpected, and precious, given the holiness of God and particularly in light of Abraham’s predisposition toward lies and deceit. It confers an intimacy not normally accepted in the way a divine would relate to a human. Instead of encouraging a wistful nostalgia to a glorious time, when God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the evening, we are encouraged to look to our present, when we too can walk with the Lord and have him call us his friend. Elkanah had this heritage, and so do we.

The second citation regarding Abraham was made by James in the New Testament:

You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. (James 2:22–24)

In discussing faith, James quite naturally referred to Abraham. Abraham heard God’s call and responded by leaving the land he knew and where he had been settled for some time. He obediently stepped out toward a land that had yet to be revealed to him. In the course of this discussion, James said, Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). In this man, however, as great as he was on occasion, there was a serious flaw—he tried to pursue God’s purposes with human plans, using human strength and initiative.

He had been told that he would be the father of a vast multitude of people, but he was old, and–even more significant–his wife was past the age of childbearing, and she had been barren for her entire life. Any dynasty-conscious person will agree that having an heir (and even a spare) is critically important to the succession plan, so Abraham readily fathered Ishmael by his wife’s servant girl, Hagar, at his wife’s instigation. Justice would demand that Abraham be punished severely for his wrongdoing and be expelled from God’s plan, but divine mercy held it off. Divine grace then gave him that which he did not deserve and could not earn–to be considered as righteous. Abraham is cited as being righteous because of his belief, not because of his actions.

It appears that Sarah was as anxious about leaving behind a