1 Samuel 1:2-7 And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children… Abraham and Sarah had no children. Isaac and Rebekah had no children. Jacob and Rachel had no children. Manoah had no children. Hannah had no children. The Shunamite had no children. Zacharias and Elizabeth had no children. Till it came to be nothing short of a mark of a special election, and a high calling, and a great coming service of God in Israel to have no children. Time after time, till it became nothing short of a special Providence, those husbands and wives whose future children were predestinated to be patriarchs, and prophets, and judges, and forerunners of Jesus Christ in the house of Israel, began their married life having no children. Now, why was that? Well, we may make guesses, and we may propose reasons for that perplexing dispensation, but they are only guesses and proposed reasons. All the more — Why is it? Is it to spare and shield them from the preoccupation and the dispersion of affection, and from the coldness and the rudeness and the neglect of one another that so many of their neighbours suffer from? And is it to teach them a far finer tenderness, and a far rarer honour, and a far sweeter solicitude for one another? Or, on the other hand, is it out of pure jealousy on God's part? Is it that He may be able to say to them, Am I not better to thee than ten sons? Or again, is it in order to make them meet, long before His other sons and daughters around them are made meet, for that life in which they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage? Which of all these reasons, or what other reason, has their God for what He does with so many of His best saints? But all this time we have been intruding into those things of which He says to us — What is that to thee? And, then, those whose concern this is, and those who are deepest down in God's counsels, they are just the men and the women, they are just the husbands and the wives, who will not once open their mouths to publish abroad to a world that fears not God what all this time God is doing for their souls. (A. Whyte, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. |
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