A Passionate Hope--Hannah's Story

by Jill Eileen Smith

  “I could purchase a slave woman for you like Leah and Rachel had—her child would be yours.” His face lit, his idea so full of hope.

  “And where do you expect to buy a slave? Would you go outside of Israel as Abraham did when they acquired Hagar? And don’t forget that Laban gave those women to Rachel and Leah. We don’t even know where they originally came from. Maybe they were related. Maybe they were of another culture. But we cannot say they were of Israel because there was no Israel at that time.” Her words were rushed, and she did not understand why she was trying to knock down his solution. It made better sense for him to take a maid of hers to wife than to marry a woman who would have full rights as a second wife.

  “So you’re telling me I should marry Peninnah, that you would be equal and her children would not be your children? Is that really what you want, Hannah?” He released her hand and rubbed his neck as though trying to ward off a headache.

  “No. I don’t want it.” She drew a deep breath and begged her racing heart to slow. “But I don’t want you to have a slave wife either.” She looked away. “I don’t know what I want. But if you marry Peninnah, you must promise me that she will always remain second to me. She cannot claim the right of firstborn if I should ever have a child. And I will not share the same house with her.” She lowered her tense shoulders and faced him again.

  He stroked his beard, his look thoughtful. “Jacob did not bless Reuben more than Joseph. Rachel’s son got the double portion. But the law protects the firstborn, no matter which wife bears it.”

  “Then I ask too much.” She looked at her feet. “You cannot break the law.”

  “Jacob set the precedent. If Peninnah’s firstborn is not worthy, as Reuben was not . . .” He let his words trail off. “Beloved, I would give you anything. I would keep Peninnah in a house far from you. Her children would never usurp the rights of yours.” He placed a hand on her shoulder.

  She looked into his eyes and could not stop hers from brimming with tears again. “We need not worry about it now. Perhaps Peninnah will also be barren.” Though she knew it was not a kind thing to hope for.

  “Whatever happens, I will make sure Peninnah’s children do not have more rights than yours,” he said. “But I’m still so uncertain . . .”

  “As am I, but it seems as though you have little choice if you are to honor your parents’ wishes.” Emotion nearly closed her throat, but she swallowed it back.

  “We always have a choice, beloved. And it is you and God I want to please, not them.”

  “But I want you to have sons.”

  “There is no guarantee even Peninnah will bear them.”

  “I know. And then you will have two barren women to contend with.” She half smiled. “If she dies in childbirth, I will raise her child. Make sure her mother cannot reclaim him. She will be your wife, he will be your son. I will care for him if anything happens to her.”

  He nodded. “I will do whatever you say.”

  For a heady moment she almost felt a strange power over the situation. But the brief feeling didn’t last as she realized power and control were illusions. She could no more stop this marriage than she could produce a child or make her mother-in-law stand up for her. She just prayed Peninnah would be agreeable and not contentious.

  18

  Six Months Later

  Elkanah stood at the door to Hannah’s house as men began to gather in the courtyard. His back to them, he faced Hannah, an exceeding sense of sorrow filling him. “Are you sure you will not come?”

  Hannah crossed her arms over her chest as though warding off a chill. “I would be in the way. This is Peninnah’s wedding at her mother’s house. Do you really think they want your first wife among the attendants?”

  He sighed, something he did often of late. “They would have no say in the matter. You belong to me, and it is my decision what becomes of this wedding.” He said it to make it so, but by her skeptical look, he knew he was simply trying to convince her without good cause. Everyone knew that women handled the wedding details. Men simply acquiesced to their desires.

  “You know it is the bride’s day. Do you truly want to take this from her? To have her ever aware of your other wife when she is longing for her time alone with you?” She shook her head. “No, beloved. It was not an easy decision to make, but I am at peace with it.” She drew in a breath and let her arms fall to her sides. “Now go, or you will be late.”

  He nodded, then stepped closer and gently kissed her. “You know I will be gone a week.”

  “I know.”

  He caught the hint of sorrow in her eyes and wanted in that moment to undo everything that had already been set in motion.

  “Don’t worry about me, Elkanah. I have Dana and her family and plenty to do here. It is time I got used to living alone . . . at least part of the time.” She glanced past him. “Tahath is waiting for you.”

  “You will not live alone nearly as much as you think, my love. I will be here so often you will want to be rid of me.” He said it to coax a smile, but her smile was sad, making him wish he could retract the words.

  “I will miss you,” she said softly. “Do not let her make you forget me.” Her smile widened a little, and she stepped closer to touch his shoulder. “It will work out, Elkanah. You know we cannot stop it now. Perhaps this was the way God intended it.”

  “I would like to agree with you, but somehow I do not think so.” God had never condoned polygamy, though their forefathers had practiced it.

  Please, Adonai, don’t let my family end up as contentious as my forefathers.

  “I love you,” he said, backing away from her.

  “And I you.” She smiled again as he moved into the courtyard and joined his brothers and the men of the town who would accompany him to Peninnah’s mother’s house.

  They jostled him and laughed as though he were a new groom, heading down to the river and over the stone bridge they had built to more easily access Yafa’s home. In the distance, he could see the lights ablaze in the courtyard and the house whitewashed and shining like freshly washed wool.

  The crowd pushed him on, though his feet felt weighted and his heart along with them. The house drew nearer, and the virgins emerged carrying torches and singing songs of the bride’s beauty. Elkanah’s heart kicked over. He could never believe Peninnah nearly as beautiful as Hannah.

  Oh Adonai, am I doing the right thing?

  But he knew no answer would come, either to his mind or to his heart. He had made his choice, whether wise or foolish, and he would have to live with it now.

  “Are you all right?” Tahath whispered, leaning close as they were nearly to the courtyard. “You look whiter than mountain snow.”

  Elkanah met his brother’s concerned gaze. “I have never wanted anyone other than Hannah.”

  Tahath placed a hand on his shoulder. “You are nervous. That is all. Trust me when I say this will be better in the long term. You will have your sons and our parents will be appeased.”

  “While Hannah bears the brunt of all that is wrong with this situation?” His brows dipped in a disapproving scowl.

  “Hannah will adjust. And you know you can choose which wife to spend the most time with. Once Peninnah conceives, your duty to her is done, so you can go and live with Hannah.” Tahath shrugged as if the whole thing was simple.

  “You know things are never as easy as that.” He glanced at Tahath, then looked at the noisy crowd.

  Tahath gave a slight nod, but before he could respond, the women noticed Elkanah and shouts of the groom’s arrival filled the air. He was ushered quickly into the house, knelt with his gifts at the bride’s feet, and sat with her on the wedding dais as the rest of the guests presented the bride with jewels and all manner of utensils and linens. One guest even gave her a goat, which caused him to force back a chuckle. One goat alone could not produce milk unless it mated and birthed a kid. But she could mate it with one from his flock. Perhaps that was the intent. To symbolize the jo
ining together and the hope of producing, which had gotten him into this situation in the first place.

  “Welcome, my son,” Yafa said once the feast was under way and she could pull away from the guests. “I trust you are enjoying the food and wine.” Her smile quivered the slightest bit. “I wish my Assir had been here to witness this day.” She gazed at Peninnah. “My child, may you bring much joy to this man’s house and many children to rest on his knee.”

  “Thank you, Ima,” Peninnah said, her cheeks growing pink just above the veil. She turned to glance Elkanah’s way. “I hope I please you.”

  It was Elkanah’s turn to feel heat crawl up his neck.

  They had signed the ketubah at the betrothal six months before, but now the feast would last a week, and soon he would take Peninnah to the marriage tent. How would he possibly not think of Hannah while he held Peninnah in his arms?

  “I am sure you will please me,” he said, knowing that the only thing he truly hoped for was that the girl was pleasant to Hannah.

  Peninnah seemed not to notice that he meant anything other than what was said. She took a fresh fig from the tray passed to them and broke it apart, sharing some with him. The fruit was not nearly as sweet as the date he had shared with Hannah . . .

  Would he never stop the comparisons?

  A sigh lifted his chest. Peninnah noticed and looked at him, her expression clearly troubled. “Does something displease you, my lord?”

  He shook his head. “No. Nothing.” What a liar you are, Elkanah.

  She nodded and smiled. “I am honored to join your family,” she said above the cacophony of voices coming from men and women milling about the room and throughout the house. “I hope your first wife will accept me, as I know you love her. I know you are a man of integrity, and I watch the way you treat her. I hope I can expect the same . . .” Her voice trailed off, and her cheeks turned an even deeper shade of pink. It had cost her to say the words, but was that a challenge in her tone?

  He gave her a slight nod, not certain how to respond to such a statement. How foolish of her to think that a man could love two women equally. She would have had a better chance at being loved by marrying a man who was hers alone. As it stood, he was trying desperately to tolerate this situation.

  Why did he ever agree to this?

  The question went unanswered even in his thoughts as drums began their distant chant from the outer court, and Peninnah looked at him, her eyes shining. It was time. There was no running away. Not with his mother watching him with a gleam of triumph and joy in her eyes.

  He felt like a weight had settled in his middle, and he had to force himself to reach for Peninnah’s hand. It felt clammy, so unlike Hannah’s had been that first night.

  “Come,” he said, pulling her to her feet.

  The crowd cheered as he led her through the house and into the yard, where a white bridal tent stood waiting for them. A tent that had seemed like glory when he married Hannah but now looked more like gloom this second time around.

  Oh Adonai, why couldn’t You have blessed Hannah with children? Why did I end up in this place?

  But he knew he would never understand or receive the answers he craved, so he led Peninnah beneath the curtains and let the drums drown out the sounds of everything they said and did. He felt as though every action was perfunctory, every word prescribed.

  When he emerged with the bridal sheet to give her mother, he could not help the guilt that fell over him that he had said little to Peninnah nor whispered loving words in her ear. He had not asked her questions or tried to get to know her better as he had with Hannah. He had simply done what all men did in the bridal tent. He hadn’t meant to leave Peninnah in tears.

  Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the LORD. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb. And her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the LORD had closed her womb. So it went on year by year. As often as she went up to the house of the LORD, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

  1 Samuel 1:3–8

  19

  One Year Later

  Peninnah lifted her sleeping son, Eitan, from her breast and placed him in the small basket Elkanah had fashioned for him. She gazed at the basket, large enough to hold the boy until he grew a little more, but in a few months he would surely need a bigger bed. Elkanah had assured her that he would handle the matter but said little more.

  She studied the child, the sense of motherly pride mixing with a hurt so deep she wondered how she could possibly continue to bear it. What misguided thinking had caused her to imagine that Elkanah could love two women equally? She had thought . . . in fact, expected him to beam with pride—if not love, at least with pride—when she announced she had conceived.

  But the words had brought little more than a smile and a kiss on the cheek and the occasional question as to her welfare. Other than that, he seemed to have disappeared to live with Hannah or stay out in the fields with the sheep.

  She turned away, swiping at unwanted tears. This was not the way it was supposed to be. She loved Elkanah, had loved him from afar long before she had asked her father to give her to him. And he would have if he had lived. Her mother had taken little convincing after that. Why couldn’t Elkanah see how much she loved him, how good she was for him, for his family?

  She touched Eitan’s cheek and turned away, crawling onto the bed, exhausted. Tears wet her pillow even as anger filled her heart. Her life was so unfair! This was not the way things were supposed to happen. Once she bore a child, Elkanah was supposed to become devoted to her, to care for her more—at least more than he had in the months before she conceived. She could tell he came to her out of obligation by his lack of communication and refusal to answer her questions.

  She deserved better!

  She swallowed the bitter taste of bile and forced the tears into submission. Somehow she must do something to fix things, to make him see. Surely there was a way to gain his affection.

  Footsteps drew her attention and her heart skipped a beat, hoping, always hoping. But it was only her mother, who entered the room carrying fresh linens for the babe.

  “I’ve made porridge with your favorite figs and date syrup.” Her mother came closer to where she still lay crumpled on the bed. “You know you must eat.”

  Yafa had come to live with her when she conceived, and Elkanah had not objected. Yafa had given up her home to Elkanah’s father on Galia’s insistence that she would be cared for as mother to their son’s wife, and since no one was likely to marry an aging woman who was long past childbearing years, Yafa had been eager to accept.

  “The baby will be fine while he sleeps. Come to the table and eat, Peninnah.”

  Peninnah curled tighter, hating that it was her mother still giving her direction instead of the husband whose babe lay sleeping nearby. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You have to eat if you want to produce milk to feed him.” Yafa sat beside her and stroked her hair as though she were a small child. The action was both comforting and infuriating.

  She shrugged aside her mother’s attempts to rouse her. “I don’t care. I’ll eat when I’m ready.”

  “You’re acting like a child.”

  Peninnah sat up as though startled and glared at her mother. “I am a woman grown, a mother the same as you are. Don’t call me a child.”

  Yafa stiffened and crossed stout arms over her chest. “Then don’t act like one. Go out to the cooking room and eat. I will watch Eitan.”

  The order was given with a tone of iron, and Peninnah was sudd
enly too weary to argue. The fact that her stomach had been rumbling since daybreak did not help her fight. She sank back, shoulders slumping against the pillows. “I can’t make him love me, Ima. I thought Eitan’s birth would change things. But if anything, Elkanah stays with Hannah even more.”

  Yafa’s expression softened, and she touched Peninnah’s arm. “I am sorry, my daughter. I could speak to Galia. Perhaps his father can talk to Elkanah.”

  “What good would that do? They already badgered him into marrying me. They cannot follow him around and watch his every move, nor can they make him obey them. He is not a child, Ima. He does what he pleases.” Admitting the truth felt like a knife piercing her heart.

  Her mother looked at her for the longest moment as though searching for the right words to say. “You know, there is a way . . . It is one that may not work . . . but if you want to change the way a man feels and seducing him has not worked, then perhaps the next step is to go after the object of his desire.”

  Peninnah stared at her mother. “What are you saying?”

  Yafa shrugged. “Only that Elkanah loves Hannah even though she is barren. But Hannah is a kind, pleasing woman. Take away her reason for kindness . . . make her miserable . . . and she will grow bitter. Men do not like bitter women.”

  Peninnah turned the thought over in her mind. Was she herself bitter? The nagging truth could not be denied. “Is that why he avoids me? Am I bitter?” She searched her mother’s face and found the unwanted confirmation there. “But he makes me so angry. How do I switch places with Hannah when all I want to do is complain?”

  “You must change, Peninnah. You must show Elkanah a beguiling, loving woman. Dress up when he is coming. Use ochre and henna and kohl to enhance your beauty. And never complain about Hannah. Simply find constant ways to praise Elkanah. In time, he will grow to love your praises more than her kindness.” Yafa shifted and stood. “Now go and eat.”