Hear and Obey
By Professor Colin Smith
What would you say if I told you there was one word at the center of the Book of I Samuel? You might think I was crazy, but it's true! Almost every major story in the Book of I Samuel has a single word at its center. The word is "shema." In English, the word means to "hear" or "obey." I Samuel is built around characters who have a relationship with God that is characterized by hearing and obeying God.
From the very beginning, God has desired to have a personal relationship with His creation. Examples of this relational aspect of God is all across Scripture. God made Adam and talked with him. God warned Cain, spoke to Noah, had a personal relationship with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. God not only revealed His name to Moses, but He also spoke with him face to face as a friend. Good or Bad, the judges from Deborah to Gideon, Jephthah, and even Sampson all had an individual personal relationship with God. So it is not surprising that I Samuel is built around characters who have a personal relationship with God.
The Book of I Samuel contains critical insights about good healthy personal relationships. Good relationships are built on trust and require healthy communication. The Book of I Samuel is about people who communicate with God. Some characters such as Hannah, Samuel, and David have this healthy relationship with God. While others such as Eli and Saul have fractured relationships with God that lack faith and communication. We see throughout this story that the key to successfully communicating with God in the Book of I Samuel is "hearing" and "obeying" Him.
Let’s begin. I Samuel starts with a man named Elkanah, who had two wives: Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children while Hannah was childless. To understand how much of a predicament being childless was for Hannah, we must first understand the family values of Ancient Hebrews. In Israel, having a large family was considered to be a great blessing from the Lord. Psalm 128 describes the "blessed man" who "feared the Lord" and "walked in His ways" It says;
Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
who walk in obedience to him.
You will eat the fruit of your labor;
blessings and prosperity will be yours.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
Yes, this will be the blessing
for the man who fears the Lord.
We can see that the Hebrew people valued self-sufficiency; You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. A key to economic self-sufficiency in ancient Israel was a wife who could bear many children. If a wife could deliver many children, those children could work the land and expand the family industry. "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table." So the blessed man, the man who walks in obedience to God, is the man whose wife produces many children. The ideal family structure in ancient Israel was where the man worked with his hands to grow food, and the woman worked in the home and produced children. The Psalm ends with a blessing. "May you live to see your children's children's children— peace be on Israel." This blessing is an idealized picture of life in Ancient Israel. Where families grow and fill the land (Genesis 1:28; 9:7.) A table full of children would be a blessing for a family of farmers that relies on the work of its members.
Knowing the importance of having children in ancient Israel, you can only imagine the pressure that Hannah faced to provide children for Elkanah. When she could not provide for children, her husband says her rival Peninnah provoked her. If Hannah were not providing children, it would have been easy for an ignorant person to claim that according to Psalm 128, her poor performance reflected badly on her husband, Elkanah. He looked like he did not fear the Lord or walk in obedience to Him. Most likely, it was Hannah who had this charge leveled against her by her rival Peninnah.
However, Hannah's predicament was not uncommon in the history of Israel. Three of the matriarchs (Sara, Rebekah, and Rachel) struggled with infertility. In the case of Sara, God had promised her husband Abraham descendants more numerous than the stars of the sky (Genesis 15:5; 26:4,) but she could not see how it was possible in her advanced age to produce a single child. When it comes to having a problem with infertility, Hannah was in good company. Despite this, Hannah still felt alone. She tried to turn to her husband, but he could not give her a child, and his attempts to comfort her were futile. Alone and with seemingly nowhere to turn to, Hannah turned to God. It was at this moment when no one else could help that Hannah requested God. She asked God to look at her affliction, remember her, and give her a male child.
At that moment, God hears her request and grants it. God knows that her barrenness was not unrighteous. Unfortunately, Eli, the priest, sees Hannah crying out to God and thinks her to be a wicked drunk woman. Ironically, Hannah and Eli are opposites. Hannah is a woman who looks unrighteous because she has no children but is righteous. On the other hand, Eli is a man who looks righteous because he is a priest but he has become unrighteous through allowing his children to corrupt the house of the Lord with their wickedness.
There are a few simple takeaways from this story:
1. God hears, and God listens to our requests.
2. God knows your heart even if man thinks otherwise. If you are truly living a life to please God, do not focus on appearances but concentrate on pleasing the one who knows the actual condition of your heart.
3. Don't wait until everything in your life is OK to communicate with God.
When you are a wreck and don't have all your ducks in a row, and when your life does not look perfect like all the people posting on social media there is hope. Reach for God because your need for Him is the greatest. God listens when His children cry out to Him.
God is stirred to action when we say "only He will do." If your life is in disorder, perhaps God has allowed it to draw you closer to Him. If people knew what it meant to be God's favorite, many would not want to be His favorite. God tests, tries, and refines His favorites with pain, suffering, loss, and heartbreak. God teaches His favorite children to rejoice in sufferings. God uses trials to draw His favorite children closer to Him. If your life is like Hannah's, it may seem like God is the cause of your pain, and you might want to run from God, but you need to fight that urge and draw close to God and refuse to let go.
After explaining she is not drunk but pouring her heart out to God, Eli responds to Hannah by saying, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him." From that moment, Hannah went on her way, ate, and was no longer sad. Her behavior was evidence of her faith. Genesis 15:6 says, "Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness." In the same way that Abraham believed God's words, Hannah believed God, and in doing so, proved she was righteous. Hannah's actions vindicated her before she was pregnant.
Later we read, "Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So over time, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the Lord for him." The Hebrew name Shamu-El (שְׁמוּאֵל) means "God has heard." She means "heard" or "I was heard." "El" is the generic name for "God." To ""listen"" and ""obey"" are the same word in Hebrew ""shema."" "Shema" describes being mindful of what was said and then being willing to do it.
In James 1:22, James says, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." Here James is trying to explain to Western thinkers that God does not desire mental action or endless teaching but that His Words outwardly be put into action. I Samuel is a book about people who hear God; God hears them.
