1 Samuel 1:15-16 And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink… Hannah still found prayer and patience the best anodynes and antidotes for assuaging her grief; cold patience must quench her corrival's fiery contumely, and hot fervent prayer must quicken and prevail with God to grant her desire; and to animate her devotion the more she adds warm tears thereunto, and, as if all this were not enough, she subjoins likewise her solemn vow to God, saying, If thou wilt give thine hand maid a man child, then will I give him to the Lord all the days of his life. The judge misjudged, and misconstrued her true devotion, as was that of those Primitive Christians (Acts 2:13). Thus also both ancient and modern martyrs have been misjudged in all ages, and if we be so in our age, God is not leading us through any untrodden paths; many better than we have tons before us in that way, but our comfort is the day of judgment will judge over again all that are misjudged. (Psalm 37:6). Hannah is silent, touching the taunts of Peninnah, that was so peevish to her; and though she could not be so to Eli's taunts here, but answers them, yet she setteth not up a loud note at him, calling him a false accuser; nor doth she twit him in the teeth, with bidding him to look better to those drunken whoremasters, his own sons, saying vies corrects sin, as many pert dames would have done in her circumstances; but she gives him a milder answer to his reproaches than the blessed Apostle could scarcely give to the High Priest in his day (Acts 23:5) calling him a whited wall, etc., but she here gives the high priest good words, patiently bearing his unjust censurings of her. 3. Here is her prudence, as well as patience, she seeketh to satisfy him against his false judgment. Saith she, I am a woman, in whom drunkenness is more abominable than in men; and thereupon the Romans punished it with death, as well as adultery, and that she was a woman of a troubled spirit, so more likely to be drunk with her own tears (whereof, good soul, she had drunk abundance) rather than with any intoxicating liquors. 4. Behold here, her humility and modesty together with her patience and prudence, none of which could have shined so forth in her, had she been really drunk according to Eli's over-severe sentence; notwithstanding Eli's rash severity in so misjudging her, yet she useth no railing accusation against him, as is said of Michael against the Devil (Jude ver. 9) in calling him an unjust judge. (C. Ness.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. |
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