Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 1:11
And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
11. vowed a vow ] The law of vows, with special limitations in the case of married women, is given in Numbers 30.
look on the affliction of thine handmaid ] The rendering of the LXX. “If thou wilt indeed regard the low estate of thine handmaiden” ( ) gives the words adopted by the Virgin Mary (Luk 1:48).
I will give him) The vow is twofold, involving (1) the lifelong consecration of the child to the service of Jehovah, for as a Levite he would serve from the age of 25 or 30 to 50 only, and very possibly at this time many Levites, e.g. Elkanah himself, had no official duties: (2) the special Nazirite vow, the characteristics of which were ( a) abstinence from intoxicating drinks, as an act of self-denial and a protest against sensual indulgence: ( b) the free growth of the hair, symbolizing apparently the complete dedication of all the man’s powers to Jehovah: ( c) the avoidance of defilement by a dead body, as a token of absolute purity of life. See Numbers 6. The vow was usually taken for a limited time only, but Samson, Samuel, and St John the Baptist were dedicated to a perpetual Nazirate from their birth.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
vows are characteristic of this particular age of the Judges. (Compare Jdg 11:30; Jdg 21:5; 1Sa 14:24.) For the law of vows in the case of married women, see Num 30:6-16; and for the nature of the vow, see the marginal references.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Sa 1:11
And she vowed a vow.
About setting our hearts upon things
And Hannah,–what shall we say of her passionate longing and prayer for a child? Was this sinful, like the longing of the Israelites for gross and stimulating food? or was it foolish, and wanting in judgment, like good King Hezekiahs prayer for a longer life? There are traces in the story of its having been neither the one nor the other. In the first place, the granting of her request turned out thoroughly well; it turned out not only for her own happiness and honour, but for the good of the Church and people of God, which does not look as if God was displeased with it. Then look at the mind of the woman herself–what a holy and good woman she seems to have been. Then observe, too, how little of herself there is in her petition, as it is expressed in her vow. She vows that she will give the child Unto the Lord all the days of his life. Her child, as being a Levite, would, in the ordinary course of things, be bound to the service of the tabernacle from the age of twenty to the age of fifty; but Hannah vows that she will give him up to the service of the Lord from his earliest childhood. And so she did. It was clear that she had great, disinterested, patriotic views for the child, altogether distinct from any consideration of her own comfort in him; and probably in making her vow she must have been guided by some intimation from the Holy Spirit that a great honour was in store for her, but that she must seek it in the appointed way in which all blessings are to be had–in prayer and sacrifice of the mere natural inclinations. (Dean Goulburn.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. I will give him unto the Lord] Samuel, as a descendant of the house of Levi, was the Lord’s property from twenty-five years of age till fifty; but the vow here implies that he should be consecrated to the Lord from his infancy to his death, and that he should not only act as a Levite, but as a Nazarite, on whose head no razor should pass.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
She vowed a vow; knowing that her husband would willingly consent to it, otherwise she had not power to do it.
If thou wilt indeed look on, to wit, favourably, so as to remove it.
The affliction, i.e. the barrenness and reproach which attends it.
Give him unto the Lord, i.e. consecrate him to Gods service in his temple, as far as in me lies; for if he had any blemish, she might not do it.
All the days of his life; not only from his twenty-fifth to his fiftieth year, as all the Levites, and so he himself, were obliged by God, Num 4:3; 8:24, but for his whole time; which is still to be understood with a reservation of Gods right, which her now must give place to, as indeed it did; for God called him to be a prophet, and a general of the army, and a judge.
There shall no razor come upon his head, i.e. he shall be a perpetual Nazarite; for under this one rule, as the chief, all the rest are contained; as elsewhere the whole Mosaical law is understood, under the title of circumcision.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. she prayed . . . she vowed avowHere is a specimen of the intense desire that reigned inthe bosoms of the Hebrew women for children. This was the burden ofHannah’s prayer; and the strong preference she expressed for a malechild originated in her purpose of dedicating him to the tabernacleservice. The circumstance of his birth bound him to this; but hisresidence within the precincts of the sanctuary would have tocommence at an earlier age than usual, in consequence of the Nazaritevow.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And she vowed a vow,…. Which might be confirmed by her husband; otherwise the vow of a woman, if disapproved of by her husband, was not valid, Nu 30:8 and Elkanah might make the same vow his wife did, and so it stood; for as this was a vow of Nazariteship, it is a tradition of the Jews r, that a man may vow his son to be a Nazarite, but a woman may not; but as this instance contradicts the tradition, they endeavour to explain away this vow, as it may respect a Nazarite, as will be observed hereafter:
and said, O Lord of hosts; this is properly the first time this title was used by any that we know of; for though it is expressed in 1Sa 1:3 there it is used as the words of the writer of this history, and so long after this prayer was put up; [See comments on 1Sa 1:3]; and it is an observation in the Talmud s, that from the day God created the world, no man called him the Lord of hosts till Hannah came and called him so:
if thou wilt indeed look upon the affliction of thine handmaid the sorrow of heart she had, the reproach she met with, on account of her having no children:
and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid; which petitions are the same in other words, and are repeated to denote her vehemence and importunity in prayer, and may allude to usages among men, that will look upon a person in distress, and turn away and forget them, and never think of them more; which she deprecates may not be her case with God:
but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child; or, “a seed of men” t; a son in the midst of men, as the Targum; such as is desirable by men, as a male child for the most part is; though some Jewish writers interpret it of the seed of righteous, wise, and understanding men, such as be fit to serve the Lord, which seems to be a sense foreign to the text; a man child she asks, because no other could serve the Lord in the temple; and that she meant by this phrase such an one is clear, because she vowed that a razor should not come on its head, which is never said of females, as Kimchi observes:
then will I give him unto the Lord all the days of his life; to serve him, and minister unto him in the sanctuary; being born a Levite, it was incumbent on him to serve the Lord, and he had a right to his service; but then a common Levite did not enter on it until twenty five or thirty years of age, and was not always serving, but was dismissed from it at fifty Nu 8:24; but the child she vows, if the Lord would give her such an one, should be trained up in his service from his infancy, and continue it all the days of his life; and was to be also a perpetual Nazarite, as Samson was, as follows:
and there shall no razor come upon his head; as was not to come upon a Nazarite, during his Nazariteship, Nu 6:5 and as such a vow made by a woman contradicts the tradition of the Jews before mentioned, they give another sense of this clause; as the Targum, which paraphrases it,
“and the fear of man shall not be upon him;”
but about this there is a division u; but that Samuel was Nazarite, and a perpetual one, is the sense of their best interpreters.
r Misn. Sotah. c. 3. sect. 8. s T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 31. 2. t “semen virorum”, Montanus. u Misn. Nazir, c. 9. sect. 5.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(11) And she vowed a vow.The vow of Hannah contained two solemn promisesthe one pledged the son she prayed for to the service of the Eternal all the days of his life. The mother looked on to a life-long service in the ritual of the Tabernacle for him, but the Being who heard her prayer destined her son for higher work; in his case the priestly duties were soon merged in the far more responsible ones of the prophetthe great reformer of the people. The second promise undertook that he should be a Nazarite. Now the Nazariteship included three thingsthe refraining from intoxicating drinks, the letting the hair grow, and the avoiding all ceremonial defilement by corpses even of the nearest kin. Samuel was what the Talmud calls a perpetual Nazarite.
These strange restrictions and customs had an inner signification. The abstinence from wine and strong drink typified that the Nazarite determined to avoid all sensual indulgence which might cloud the mind and render the man unfit for prayer to, and work for, the Lord; the avoiding contact with the dead was a perpetual outward protest that the vower of the solemn vow renounced all moral defilement, that he gave up every thing which could stain and soil the life consecrated to the Eternals service; the untouched hair, which here is especially mentioned, was a public protest that the consecrated one had determined to refrain from intercourse with the world, and to devote the whole strength and fulness of life to the Lords work. The LXX. (Greek) Version here inserts the words, and he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, wishing to bring the passage into stricter accordance with Numbers 6. The original Hebrew text, however, contents itself with specifying merely the outward sign of the untouched hair, by which these solemnly consecrated ones were publicly known.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. All his life, and no razor upon his head So he would differ from the ordinary Nazarite (compare Numbers vi) in that the vow was binding not for a certain number of days, but for his whole lifetime.
Samson and John the Baptist are supposed to have been the only other examples of a Nazarite for life.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
(11) And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
God is pleased, sometimes, that we should be particular in our askings. See Isa 45:11 ; Joh 16:24 . The dedication of this man-child, which Hannah prayed for to God, as a Nazarite, perhaps was taken from Hannah’s knowledge of the story of Samson. There was some similarity in the cases. Samson was a child of promise, and Samuel a child of prayer. See Jdg 13 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Sa 1:11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
Ver. 11. And she vowed a vow. ] Not without the consent of her husband, 1Sa 1:22 who else had power to vacate and disannul it. Num 30:8 A vow is a binding of one’s self to God by a holy and religious promise, to do or not to do something that is lawful, possible, and useful for our increase in godliness. This promise is to be made with prayer, and paid with thanksgiving.
And remerber me, and not forget thine handmaid.
Then I will give him unto the Lord.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
vowed a vow = made a solemn vow. Figure of speech Polyptoton. App-6. See note on Gen 26:28.
remember me, and not forget. Figure of speech Pleonasm (App-6) for great emphasis.
no razor. See Num 6:5. Jdg 13:5; Jdg 16:17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
vowed: Gen 28:20, Num 21:2, Num 30:3-8, Jdg 11:30, Ecc 5:4
look: Gen 29:32, Exo 4:31, 2Sa 16:12, Psa 25:18
remember: 1Sa 1:19, Gen 8:1, Gen 30:22, Psa 132:1, Psa 132:2
a man child: Heb. seed of men
I will give: Samuel, as a descendent of Levi, was the Lord’s property, from twenty-five years of age till fifty; but the vow here implies that he should be consecrated to the Lord from his infancy to his death, and that he should not only act as a Levite, but as a Nazarite.
there: Num 6:5, Jdg 13:5
Reciprocal: Gen 15:2 – childless Gen 25:21 – entreated Exo 2:25 – looked Lev 5:4 – to do evil Lev 27:2 – When Deu 23:23 – That which Jdg 11:31 – shall surely Jdg 11:39 – to his vow 1Sa 1:22 – and there 1Sa 1:27 – For this 2Sa 15:8 – thy servant Psa 27:4 – dwell Psa 56:12 – Thy Psa 66:14 – when Psa 119:132 – Look Pro 31:2 – the son of my vows Lam 1:9 – behold Mat 2:23 – He shall Mat 19:14 – Suffer Mar 10:14 – Suffer Luk 1:48 – regarded
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Sa 1:11. But wilt give unto thy handmaid She thrice calls herself Gods handmaid, out of a profound sense of her meanness, and his majesty. And she desires a man-child, because only such could wait upon the Lord in the service of the tabernacle, as she intended her son should do, if God bestowed one upon her. Then will I give him unto the Lord That is, consecrate him to his service in his house. No razor shall come upon his head He shall be a perpetual Nazarite, part of whose description this is, Num 6:5.