Why Did Hannah Pray Silently?

By Gabi

The first chapter in the book of Samuel is about a woman named Hannah who is married to a man named Elkanah who also has another wife, Peninnah.  In it, Hannah desperately wants a child and prays for one often.  But she is unable to have any and, because of this, is tormented a lot by Peninnah who has many children.  Elkanah loves Hannah more than Peninnah, though, and about halfway through the chapter, when Hannah is crying and not eating because she is so upset that she can’t have children, he tries to comfort her and asks her if he isn’t better or more important to her than children.  Hannah then acted as if she was feeling better, and she ate.  Then the whole family went to the Temple where they make sacrifices and pray, and Hannah prayed for a child.  She prayed silently, though, and since at the time of this story no had ever prayed silently the priest, Eli, thought she was drunk and told her to stop drinking and leave.  She replied that she wasn’t drunk and was praying silently.  He understood and told her that he would ask Gd to hear her prayer.  At the end of the chapter Hannah’s prayer was heard and she had a son, Samuel.  My question is: Why did Hannah pray silently?  She prayed silently for two reasons: one is that it was so important to her that she thought if she prayed differently Gd would answer her prayer, and the second is that she didn’t want to offend Elkanah.

Hannah prayed silently because having a child was so important to her that she felt like she had to pray in a more personal way.  My support for this is Samuel 1:13 and 1:16.  In 1:13 the text says that Hannah was “speaking in her heart”, which shows how special the prayer was to her.  In Samuel 1:16 Hannah says that because of how important her prayer was, and how worried she was, she had to pray silently.  Again, this shows how because of how much Hannah wanted Gd to answer her prayer she felt that it had to be said silently.

The second reason why Hannah prayed silently is that she didn’t want to hurt or offend Elkanah.  After Hannah stopped eating and drinking because of how sad she was that she didn’t have children Elkanah asks her, in Samuel 1:8, why she is so sad, and isn’t he “better to her than ten sons?”  I interpreted what Elkanah said as him trying to cheer her up.  This along with Samuel 1:5, which is about how Elkanah loved Hannah more than his other wife, Peninnah, shows that Hannah must have known Elkanah loved her a lot and wanted her to feel better even though she didn’t have a child.  So she didn’t want to hurt him by having him know that she was still praying for a child and that he hadn’t made her feel better.

Hannah prayed silently for those two reasons:  She thought her request was so important and special that she wanted to pray in a more personal way, and she didn’t want to hurt Elkanah.  My evidence from the text really supports this because I have two verses from Samuel for each of my answers.  The section in Samuel that is about Hannah praying silently is important because it has such important lessons in it.  One lesson is when Eli thought Hannah was drunk because her lips were moving but she wasn’t praying aloud.  This teaches you that appearances can be deceiving and not to judge a book by its cover.