1 Samuel 1:1-28

1. Hannah’s deliverance ch. 1

"1 Samuel 1 is presented as a conventional birth narrative which moves from barrenness to birth. Laid over that plot is a second rhetorical strategy which moves from complaint to thanksgiving. With the use of this second strategy, the birth narrative is transposed and becomes an intentional beginning point for the larger Samuel-Saul-David narrative. Hannah’s story begins in utter helplessness (silence); it anticipates Israel’s royal narrative which also begins in helplessness. As Hannah moves to voice (2,1-10), so Israel’s narrative moves to power in the historical process. Both Hannah’s future and Israel’s future begin in weakness and need, and move toward power and well-being. The narrative of 1 Samuel 1 functions to introduce the theological theme of ’cry-thanks’ which appears in the larger narrative in terms of Israelite precariousness and Yahweh’s powerful providence. Our chapter corresponds canonically to 2 Samuel 24 which portrays David in the end (like Hannah) as a needy, trusting suppliant. The two chapters, witnesses to vulnerable faith, together bracket Israel’s larger story of power." [Note: Walter Brueggemann, "1 Samuel 1 : A Sense of a Beginning," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 102:1 (1990):48.]