Hannah - Her Life And Times

Hannah - Her Life And Times

INFERTILITY

Praying through her tears, so overwrought that Eli thought she was drunk, Hannah expresses for women throughout the ages the agonizing experience of infertility. The deep, unsatisfied longing for children, the pain of watching others bear one child after another, the anguish of watching a mother kiss her baby’s face — Hannah experienced it all.

The Israelites saw children as a particular blessing from the Lord, recognizing his power to open or close a woman’s womb. Women who couldn’t bear children were considered subfemale, unable to fulfill their divine purpose on earth. When a woman was unable to fulfill this “duty,” her emotional pain was tremendous. And more than likely, barren women also felt they were denied the possibility of being the one chosen to bear the Messiah.

Infertility brought with it not only a debilitating personal sorrow but also the reproach of a woman’s husband, the disapproval of a woman’s family, and the rejection of society. Husbands looked to their wives to produce many sons to help in supporting the family. A woman’s extended family, both her own and her husband’s, looked to her to continue the family line and saw her as one who had not fulfilled her responsibility when she didn’t produce children. And the social circles of young women of childbearing years by their very nature included many other young women, women who were often producing one child after another. Their fertility mocked the infertility of the barren woman every time she went to the market or to the well or to a community social event.

Scripture tells the stories of a number of women who were barren. Sarah laughed when told she would finally have a son. Rachel clutched Jacob and begged him to give her sons, as if he could open her womb. Hannah’s pain made her seek help from the only One truly capable of providing it.

If Hannah had never had a child, she would still have gone down in Scripture’s narrative as a woman of faith. Hannah is not a woman of faith because she bore a child; she is a woman of faith because she sought God when she was in her deepest distress, because she realized that only he could answer her questions and that only he could provide the consolation and purpose in life she so desperately sought.