1 Samuel 1:19-20 - Exposition

They rose up. After solemn worship early the next morning Elkanah returned to his home at Ramah, and God answered Hannah's prayer, and gave her the wished for son. She calls him Samuel, lit. Shemuel ( Numbers 34:20 ; 1 Chronicles 7:2 ), which was an ordinary Hebrew name, and means "heard of God," not "asked of God," as in the margin of the A.V. It seems to have been the mother's right to give names to her children ( Luke 1:60 ), and Hannah saw in Samuel, whom she had asked of God, a living proof that she had been heard by him. The name, therefore, is of fuller significance than the reason given for it. Ishmael has virtually the same meaning, signifying "God heareth."

THE VOW FULFILLED ( 1 Samuel 1:21-28 ).