A Passionate Hope--Hannah's Story

by Jill Eileen Smith

  She didn’t tell him that his words added to her fear. No. She had learned long ago to trust the Lord, hadn’t she? She could not return to faithless doubt now.

  He turned to go. “I have to speak to Tahath, but if you could pack me a bag, we will leave at first light.”

  She nodded. In her condition, she would have Rona help her, but she would decide what would go in the sack. “Dinner will be ready on time,” she called as he stepped through the gate. But she had a foreboding feeling that something was about to change, and she was not sure she was ready to face it.

  40

  As Elkanah and Tahath approached Shiloh, the shining city did not carry the light it usually did. Elkanah glanced at his brother. “The crowds are large and it is not feast time.”

  “The war drum is coming from Philistine territory. With so many years of quiet from them, why now? It makes no sense.” Tahath held the reins of the lone donkey that carried their belongings. His brother showed even greater signs of aging than he did, and Elkanah wondered what had possibly crossed his mind to think that two grandfathers could help in a time of such upheaval. Did they think they would talk the tribes of Israel out of going to war? Did they think they could somehow talk sense into Hophni and Phinehas at this late hour? Did he doubt Samuel’s words about the prophecy?

  “It is the Lord,” Elkanah said at last, realizing that there was no other explanation. “Samuel warned me that something was coming, something that God would do to punish the house of Eli. Perhaps He is going to use the Philistines to accomplish it.”

  Tahath shook his head. “I do not like it. It is not that I doubt Samuel. Obviously God is with him. But war . . .” He shook his head again. “War is never a good thing, brother.”

  Elkanah could only nod his agreement. “There is nothing to do but go and see if we can help Samuel. And fulfill our Levitical duties.”

  They made their way down the hill and hurried past the crowds toward the housing where they would normally stay, then sought out Samuel.

  “Father!” Samuel ran to Elkanah and held him close. “I’m glad you came.” They kissed each other’s cheeks and held each other at arm’s length.

  “How tall you have grown, my son.” Elkanah straightened to better look up at this son whose hair came to the middle of his back and whose beard was beginning to fill in.

  Samuel smiled and greeted his uncle. “Yes, Father, I have grown, but I am not as glad of that as I am of your presence now. I sense the prophecy is going to come true in the next few days. Hophni and Phinehas are belligerent and leading the people to take the ark into battle with the Philistines. Eli is distraught about the ark but too weak to stop them, and they do not listen to me.” He glanced about, though the place they stood was quiet in comparison to the rest of the city. “Hophni and Phinehas are even now with the men of Shiloh and the other tribes that have gathered. The Philistines are just over the ridge, and war will surely start within the next day or two.”

  “I did not realize it was so imminent,” Tahath said. “We would have come sooner.”

  “There was nothing you could have done to stop it, Uncle. Things happened so quickly even I could not have gotten word to you in time. I am pleased that God sent you to me.” Samuel faced his father. “Ima is well?”

  Elkanah nodded. “She is due to give birth in a week or so. But do not fear. She has many of your aunts to help her.”

  Samuel smiled. “I shall be pleased to come visit soon and see all of my brothers and sisters.”

  “Only one sister so far, my son.”

  “This one is also a girl,” he said, his tone more confident than Elkanah had ever heard.

  “I am glad to know it,” Elkanah said, amazed at the gift God had given his son. This son whom God had taken so long to give them. This son whom Hannah had directly prayed to have.

  “I am glad you are here, though, for Eli will not take it well when he hears the news. Phinehas’s wife is about to bear a son, and I do not know how I will restore order once things begin to fall apart here.” Samuel’s look showed his earlier lack of confidence, and Elkanah realized that though God was with this young man, he still needed his father. The thought brought a sense of joy to Elkanah’s heart. This son whom he had agreed to loan back to God still wanted an earthly father.

  Suddenly he felt new purpose and his feelings of aging slipped away. How good it was to be needed in the very place he had always loved and prayed would become an honorable house of worship. And now it was at last coming to pass.

  “God will show you how to restore things, my son,” he said, wrapping one arm around Samuel. “But in the meantime, your uncle and I will do all we can to support you to make things right in God’s sight once more.”

  Samuel smiled, and the three of them moved off to find a place to pray for all that was about to happen in Israel.

  Hannah sat with her spinning, one eye on Tehila while Rona turned the grindstone. The boys were happily playing in the field in front of the courtyard where Hannah could see them. Good to his word, Eitan had come each day to check on them. Hannah never would have expected him capable of such caring in his younger days. Elkanah’s firstborn had truly grown into a man of whom Elkanah could be proud.

  But with each passing day, it was not Eitan’s presence that comforted her. She longed for Elkanah’s safe return, to know how things fared in Shiloh, in Israel, with Samuel and the whole priesthood.

  She moved the spindle and distaff with practiced ease, feeling the pressure of the babe, knowing the time was soon. Chayim and Doron were already asking her daily if it was time to get Aunt Dana. But each dawn and midday and evening before she put them to bed, she assured them the time was not yet.

  The afternoon breeze was cooler today, as winter rains would soon be upon them. She looked at the sky, but only white clouds dotted the horizon. In the distance, she heard a call and turned her head to listen.

  “Aunt Hannah!” The voice was Eitan’s, a surprise to hear in the middle of the day.

  Hannah straightened and slowly stood, her heart shifting inside of her. Had something happened to Elkanah? Had Eitan heard something she had not?

  She met him at the courtyard gate. “What is it?”

  He drew in a breath as if trying to speak.

  “Did you run the whole way?” Where had he come from?

  “I ran from my mother’s house,” he said, looking at her with a cautious expression as though afraid of what she might say. “Aunt Hannah, we can’t find her.”

  Hannah let the spindle stop and set it on top of the stone wall. “Why don’t you sit a moment and start at the beginning.” She motioned him inside the court and to a bench not far from where they stood.

  He sat on the edge while she leaned against the house, reading the fear in his eyes. “I left for the fields this morning, and my wife said that at that time all was well. My mother was sitting in her usual spot, doing nothing unless asked to help. It is often this way. If not for our wives, there would be no food cooked or clothes made for my brothers and me. Ima has been listless for so long . . . well, we are used to it.”

  Hannah nodded. She knew this from Elkanah.

  “But today when Chaya returned from helping Yemima with something in the cooking room, Ima was not in her seat. So she looked for her throughout the house. Then all of the women searched the house, the yard. At last Yemima came to find me, and we have combed the fields and anywhere Ima used to go, even the river where she used to wash the clothes, but there is no sign of her.” He raked a hand over his beard. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Hannah stared at this man who used to annoy her, the one she always thought would turn out to be like his mother but who had proven her wrong. Concern etched itself across his dark brows. Peninnah had been a burden to her children and to Elkanah for years, but this . . . Where would she go?

  “Obviously she is somewhere, and more importantly, I don’t think she wants to be found right now.” But a sense of fear in her middle t
old her that finding Peninnah was exactly what they needed to do. “What she wants, though, is not what she needs. She needs us to find her. Have you checked Elkanah’s father’s house?” Amminadab had inherited the house and property—the firstborn’s double portion—when his father passed into Sheol, but everyone still referred to it as belonging to Jeroham.

  “I sent Hevel there. We even went to Ima’s old home before she married but found nothing. I’m growing worried.” He stood and paced as though he could no longer contain his energy.

  Hannah watched him, her mind racing. Peninnah would not recall the place near the river where Lital’s body had been found all those years ago. The place where Hannah had gone in her despair upon the birth of Peninnah’s third child. So there was no reason to check it now.

  “You are sure you looked up and down the river?” she asked just the same.

  Eitan looked at her with an odd expression. “What are you saying?”

  Hannah sighed. She had never told anyone her true thoughts that day at the river, though she knew Elkanah had suspected. But Peninnah had been so sorrowful since Samuel’s birth. Even before that, with the loss of her mother, and then with her last son. Her bitterness had kept everyone at arm’s length, and even as her sons married, she could not seem to pull herself back to the light. Was it possible that she had come to the last of her hope?

  “A long time ago I felt as your mother feels now, as though my life held no worth. I went to the river.” She stopped and held his gaze until he seemed to grasp her meaning.

  “But the river is long and wide and we could search for days.” Despair tinged his tone.

  “Let me take you to where I went. Perhaps she knows more than I think she does.” Had Elkanah told Peninnah the full tale of Lital? Had she somehow discovered the place where Hannah and Meira had found their friend’s body? Peninnah had been a child then but had known enough to want to see. She was just demanding enough that it could have happened.

  “Is it wise for you to walk too far from home?” Eitan’s gaze held skepticism. “If you just tell me where to go, I will take one of my brothers.”

  Hannah shook her head. “No. I want to go with you. And when we get there—if she is there—I want you to let me talk to her alone. Agreed?”

  Eitan nodded. “If you promise me not to have this baby along the way.”

  Hannah laughed, and it coaxed a smile from him despite the dire circumstances. “I promise.” She had no pains to indicate the birth was that close. “Let’s go.” She gave instructions to Rona to watch the children, then led Eitan to the place where she and Meira had once found Lital’s body and the river that had beckoned.

  Peninnah stood at the incline above the water’s edge, staring at the black depths. Was she in the right place? Nothing looked the same as it did when Elkanah had shown her the forest years ago. So many years had passed. He hadn’t come because he wanted to. He had come only because she had badgered and begged him. Like she had done with so many things in her life. She only got her way by pushing for it.

  She was so tired of pushing. Nothing brought pleasure anymore. She had lived with this weight of bitterness like a millstone about her neck for so long that she longed to be free of it. She wearied of trying to pretend life brought joy. There was no joy. There was nothing close to the joy Hannah sang about since Samuel’s birth. Nothing had been the same since Hannah had gotten her way.

  A feeling of heaviness settled over her. Even her bitterness could not give her the motive to keep striving, keep working at gaining what she’d always wanted most. Elkanah’s love. She should have set her sights on a different man, one without a wife, instead of thinking she had some power to win him away from Hannah.

  Hannah. Perfect Hannah. And in the end even God had blessed the woman. Everything Peninnah had ever longed for or loved had been lost to her. She was worse than a burden to her children. She was a useless life.

  The waters rippled past her as she continued to stare into their depths. Up ahead was an outcropping of rocks that made the waters rougher, and even farther down was a dip large enough to take a body far, far away. Where they would not find her. Where she could finally be free of this awful weight of grief she could not shake.

  She stepped forward, making her way slowly down the bank. One sandaled foot touched the surface and pulled back. So cold. But that was good, wasn’t it? Soon she too would be cold, unfeeling. And the pain in her heart would finally cease.

  Hannah hurried as quickly as her bulging body would allow. The woods were beyond Dana’s house, past the place where Yafa and Assir used to live. If she was wrong, then this exercise was going to bring on this baby sooner than she expected. But she had to try. For Elkanah’s sake.

  “Is it much farther?” Eitan asked, his tone worried. Was he worried for her? No. Probably only for his mother. “I should have brought Aniah with me.”

  “We are almost there.” Hannah puffed for breath. She should slow down. She must slow down. But something told her—perhaps Adonai?—that there was so little time.

  They rounded a bend and continued on a little way until they came to the place Hannah remembered. She stopped, trying to catch her breath, her eyes searching the area. Eitan began calling, “Ima? Ima?” and walked up and down the edge of the river. But he’d gone too far to the right.

  Hannah drew in a breath and went left and closer to the embankment, heart pounding. Please, Adonai, don’t let her be like Lital. What would she do if they found her body without its soul? A shiver worked through her.

  “Peninnah?” she called as she neared the edge, fearful of getting too close lest she lose her balance and fall. “Peninnah?”

  She leaned forward as far as her belly would allow and caught sight of a woman sitting at the river’s edge, head bent, unmoving.

  “Eitan!” Hannah shouted.

  He was at her side in a heartbeat. “Did you find her?”

  Hannah nodded and pointed.

  Eitan crept down the incline. “Ima?”

  Hannah breathed a relieved sigh when the woman turned her head.

  Eitan scooped her into his arms, carried her up the incline, and set her among the grasses a safe distance from the water. Hannah waddled closer and exchanged a look with Eitan. He came to help Hannah kneel beside his mother and then backed away.

  “Peninnah, will you please look at me?” Hannah said.

  Peninnah did not move for the longest time, and Hannah’s knees felt as though they would cramp. But at last Peninnah looked up and held Hannah’s gaze.

  “I never should have married him,” she said, her voice lifeless. “It was always you he loved.”

  Hannah took one of Peninnah’s hands, surprised when she didn’t pull away. “I will admit, I never wanted to share Elkanah with anyone, not even a slave wife. I also did not want to claim a child that wasn’t mine just to say I had children. So when he married you, hard as it was, you gave him children, and that was a good thing. You have fine sons and daughters who love you and daughters-in-law who love you and a full house, Peninnah. They have all been frantic to find you.”

  “I am just a burden to them. You don’t understand. You have never been a burden.”

  Hannah silently prayed for words to break through the woman’s pain. At last she drew a breath and squeezed Peninnah’s hand. “We can all feel as though our lives have become a burden to others, especially when they seem to have no purpose. When I was barren, I felt that way nearly every day.” She paused, waiting for Peninnah to fully meet her gaze. “When you birthed a third son, I could not bear my life a moment more. So I stood at this very spot.” She waved a hand toward the water’s edge. “And I expect we shared the same thoughts.” Hannah glimpsed a slight show of interest in Peninnah’s dark eyes. “I almost went through with it too. What good was I to Elkanah if I could not have children? What woman in Israel doesn’t want sons?”

  “For years I wished you were gone,” Peninnah said softly. The admission didn’t surprise Hannah, b
ut she was amazed the words did not sting as they once would have.

  “I know you did.”

  They stared at each other for the longest moment, until Hannah winced at a sudden cramp in her middle. “Oh!”

  Peninnah pulled her hand from Hannah’s as she looked Hannah up and down. “You are nearly due.”

  Hannah nodded but could not speak.

  “And yet you came all this way. For me?”

  She nodded again as Peninnah pushed to her feet and called Eitan to help Hannah stand.

  “Are you in labor?” Peninnah’s words seemed to hold genuine concern.

  Hannah shook her head. “It is the first pain. Perhaps I simply knelt too long.” She rubbed her middle. “Though I think we should go home.”

  They started walking, Eitan holding his mother’s arm and Peninnah linking hers through Hannah’s. Suddenly the woman came alive with concern over the child. “When we get you home, you must rest. My girls can watch the children if you want them to, and is Dana going to deliver? We must send for her right away.”

  Peninnah prattled on, more animated than Hannah had ever seen her, more concerned and caring than Hannah had experienced in all the years she had known her. Had her brush with ending it all changed her so completely? Had she met Adonai in that dark place?

  Another pain came with the thought, and the closer they came to home, the more intense the pains grew. Apparently she wasn’t so far off in thinking that hurrying to help Peninnah was going to bring this baby sooner than she expected.

  She couldn’t get home fast enough.

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later

  Hannah held her newest daughter in her arms—Shiri, meaning “my song.” For indeed this child had brought a new song to her heart. Like the prayer and song she had known since Samuel’s birth, this female child had brought a different kind of music. The song of new beginnings—of a new relationship with someone who had been her fiercest rival.