What does 1 Samuel 1:17 mean?
Eli accepts Hannah's assertion that her emotional state in the temple is not because she is drunk or a "worthless woman" (1 Samuel 1:16). She explains she has been pouring her heart out to the Lord, speaking to Yahweh with intensity out of her anger and anxiety. After this, Eli stops trying to correct her and blesses her, instead. Speaking out of his priestly authority, Eli tells Hannah to go in peace. More importantly, he affirms her prayer and his desire that God will grant her request. Some say that Eli's words are a prophecy that God will grant Hannah's petition.Would the Lord have granted Hannah's request if Eli had not intervened and gave her his blessing? We can't know that. It's more likely the Lord wanted to connect Eli to the granting of Hannah's request. Eli did not know Hannah prayed for a son whom she would deliver to this very temple in a few years. Eli did not know the boy would be raised and trained by him. He could not know that Hannah's son would become one of the most important leaders in Israel's history. The Lord, though, did know all of that, and He wanted to include Eli from the beginning.
Some point out that Hannah and Elkanah speak of and to the Lord using the names "LORD of Hosts" (1 Samuel 1:11) and "YHWH" (LORD) (1 Samuel 1:15, 20, 23, 26–28), showing a more personal connection to their God. Eli, on the other hand, speaks of the "God of Israel," a more formal name that may show his more professional and process-oriented relationship to God. Serving God seems to have been Eli's job. It was Hannah's life.
First Samuel 1:1–20 describes how Samuel the prophet came to be born. His mother Hannah was barren and mocked by her husband's other wife, who had many children. During a family feast at Shiloh, Hannah prayed out of her deep despair. She vowed to give her son back to God if He would allow her to conceive. Once Eli, the priest, understood that Hannah was not drunk, he told her the Lord would grant her request. Satisfied, she returned home and soon gave birth to a boy. She named him Samuel.
Elkanah lives in Ephraim with two wives. Hannah is barren, while his other wife has many children. At the annual family sacrifice and feast in Shiloh, Hannah weeps and pours out her grief before the Lord. She vows to give a son to Him for lifelong service if the Lord gives her a boy. After confronting Hannah for drunkenness and then seeing that she was praying from her depth of emotion, Eli the priest blesses Hannah and affirms her prayer. Elkanah and Hannah conceive, and she gives birth to a son that she names Samuel. Once he is weaned, she presents him to Eli at the temple and gives him over to the Lord as long as he lives.
