1 Samuel 1:16

Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

1 Samuel 1:16. Count not thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial, &c. — A Scripture phrase for a wicked person. Thus, when we are unjustly censured, we should endeavour not only to clear ourselves, but to satisfy our brethren, by giving them a just and true account of what they misapprehended.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:9-18 Hannah mingled tears with her prayers; she considered the mercy of our God, who knows the troubled soul. God gives us leave, in prayer, not only to ask good things in general, but to mention that special good thing we most need and desire. She spoke softly, none could hear her. Hereby she testified her belief of God's knowledge of the heart and its desires. Eli was high priest, and judge in Israel. It ill becomes us to be rash and hasty in censures of others, and to think people guilty of bad things while the matter is doubtful and unproved. Hannah did not retort the charge, and upbraid Eli with the wicked conduct of his own sons. When we are at any time unjustly censured, we have need to set a double watch before the door of our lips, that we do not return censure for censure. Hannah thought it enough to clear herself, and so must we. Eli was willing to acknowledge his mistake. Hannah went away with satisfaction of mind. She had herself by prayer committed her case to God, and Eli had prayed for her. Prayer is heart's ease to a gracious soul. Prayer will smooth the countenance; it should do so. None will long remain miserable, who use aright the privilege of going to the mercy-seat of a reconciled God in Christ Jesus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See 1 Samuel 1:2 and note. She means that wine was not the cause of her present discomposure, but grief of heart.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12-18. Eli marked her mouth—The suspicion of the aged priest seems to indicate that the vice of intemperance was neither uncommon nor confined to one sex in those times of disorder. This mistaken impression was immediately removed, and, in the words, "God grant," or rather, "will grant," was followed by an invocation which, as Hannah regarded it in the light of a prophecy pointing to the accomplishment of her earnest desire, dispelled her sadness, and filled her with confident hope [1Sa 1:18]. The character and services of the expected child were sufficiently important to make his birth a fit subject for prophecy.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For a daughter of Belial; for such a wicked monster, as a drunken woman is. The oppression of my spirits hath forced me to speak, and that so liberally at this time, for the case of my sinking heart.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial,.... A yokeless, a lawless, impudent, and abandoned creature; one of the most wicked, vilest, and most profligate wretches; as she must be to come drunk into the sanctuary of God; see 1 Samuel 25:17. Drunkenness in man is au abominable crime, but much more in a woman. The Romans (a) forbad wine to women, and drunkenness in them was a capital crime, as adultery, or any other; and indeed a drunken woman is liable to all manner of sin:

for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto; out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak, whether it is matter of trouble or of joy; the heart of Hannah was full of grief, and her mouth full of complaints, on which she long dwelt, in order to give vent thereunto, and ease herself.

(a) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 14. c. 13.

Geneva Study Bible

Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial: for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. a daughter of Belial] Rather, a worthless, or, wicked woman. Our translators have wrongly treated this word as a proper name in the historical books, but not elsewhere, though the alternative is generally given in the margin. It means worthlessness, and according to the usual Hebrew idiom a son or daughter of worthlessness signifies “a worthless man or woman,” and with positively bad sense, a lawless, ungodly, wicked person. If “naughty,” by which the word is rendered in Proverbs 6:12, had retained its archaic sense, it would be a fair equivalent. “Belial,” or more correctly “Beliar,” is used by St Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:15 as a name of Satan, the personification of all lawlessness and worthlessness. Milton naturally follows the E. V. in regarding Belial as the name of a spirit.

“Belial, than whom a spirit more lewd

Feel not from heaven, … to him no temple stood,

Or altar smoked, yet who more oft than he

In temples and at altars, when the priest

Turns atheist, as did Eli’s sons, who filled

With lust and violence the house of God.”

Paradise Lost, I. 490, ff.

grief] Lit. “provocation” (cp. 1 Samuel 1:6), or “vexation” as the consequence of provocation.

1 Samuel 1:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Hannah answered: "No, my lord, I am a woman of an oppressed spirit. I have not drunk wine and strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord (see Psalm 42:5). Do not count thine handmaid for a worthless woman, for I have spoken hitherto out of great sighing and grief." לפני נתן, to set or lay before a person, i.e., generally to give a person up to another; here to place him in thought in the position of another, i.e., to take him for another. שׂיה, meditation, inward movement of the heart, sighing.