1 Samuel 1-3

What I Noticed Today (1 Samuel 1-3)

1 Samuel 1

Samuel’s birth and dedication to God are recorded in 1 Samuel 1.

In verses 1-18, Hannah makes a vow to the Lord:

• Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, was barren.
• She wept and prayed before the Lord at Shiloh (where the Ark of the Covenant was).
• She prayed that if the Lord would give her a son, she would give the son to the Lord for his lifetime.

• Eli, the priest, saw her and ultimately blessed her for her prayer.

In verses 19 -28, Samuel is born and dedicated to the Lord:

• Sometime later, God opened Hannah’s womb, she had a son, and she named him Samuel.

• As promised, after Samuel was weaned, Hannah took him and a three-year-old bull, some flour, and some wine to the Lord’s house at Shiloh.
• The bull was sacrificed, and Samuel was brought to Eli, the priest.
• Hannah gave Samuel to the service of the Lord.

1 Samuel 2

1 Samuel 2 contains Hannah’s song of praise to the Lord for the privilege of giving her son to serve the Lord.

• She is not bitter at giving up her son. Rather, she is joyful that he will serve the Lord!
• Samuel faithfully served the Lord as a young man and grew in favor with God and man.

In verses 12-17, Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phineas were worthless young men.

• Given to bad behavior, they even desecrated and disrespected the sacrifices to God.

In verses 18-21, Samuel continued to serve the Lord with Eli, the priest:

• Each year Hannah would make a robe and take it to Samuel when she and her husband traveled to Shiloh to make their annual sacrifices.
• Eli would bless them and pray for the Lord to give Hannah more children.
• The Lord gave Hannah three more sons and two daughters.
• Samuel grew in stature and in favor with the Lord.

In verses 22-26, Eli confronts his sons about their bad behavior:

• Eli heard about what his sons were doing.
• He rebuked them for their sinful behavior (but did nothing to stop them).
• Because of their disrespect and rejection of God, God rejected them.

In verses 27-36, the priesthood of Eli is rejected by the Lord:

• A man of God appeared before Eli and told him the Lord would no longer honor Eli or his sons as priests because of their actions.
• The man told Eli no one in his family would grow old.
• Both his sons would die on the same day.
• After that, the Lord will raise up another priest who will be faithful to Him. He will be the Lord’s anointed one for all time (a reference to Jesus Christ).

1 Samuel 3

As 1 Samuel 3 opens, we see that Samuel is now a young man serving Eli, the priest faithfully. The word of the Lord was rare, and prophetic visions were not common.

In verses 1-10, the Lord calls out to Samuel:

• God calls Samuel three times, but Samuel doesn’t recognize that it is God calling at first. At first, Samuel thinks it is Eli calling him.
• Eli told Samuel it was the Lord calling him. He told him to listen again and to respond that he was listening.
• Samuel finally recognized God’s voice.
• God gave Samuel a vision of a bleak future for the household of Eli.
• Eli called Samuel the next morning, asking what the message was the Lord had given him.
• Samuel told Eli everything God had said, and Eli accepted the Lord’s judgment.

In verses 19-21, God was with Samuel as he grew, and word spread throughout the countryside (from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south) that God had established Samuel as His prophet.

Some thoughts for further consideration:

• I am so impressed by Hannah’s faith. Remember, these were dark days for the Israelites. As we just saw in Judges, “man did what was right in his own eyes.” Many had turned away from God. Yet, Hannah remained incredibly faithful to God, clinging to His promises.
• Eli, no doubt, loved his sons, but he should have taken action against their sinful behavior. The result of not doing so was that they lost the privilege of serving God.
• Samuel was serving God, but he didn’t recognize God’s call at first. He had to hear God several times before he realized that it was God speaking to him. We can be the same way today. We serve in some respect, but don’t recognize when He is calling us to serve Him, to do the work He has called us to do!

What did you notice in your study today? Feel free to visit the website and leave a question or a comment.

Tomorrow: 1 Samuel 4-7