1 Samuel 1:28 - Exposition

I have lent him. The word lent spoils the meaning: Hannah really in these two verses uses the same verb four times, though in different conjugations, and the same sense must be maintained throughout. Her words are, "For this child I prayed, and Jehovah hath given me my asking which I asked of him: and I also have given back what was asked to Jehovah; as long as he liveth he is asked for Jehovah." The conjugation translated to give back what was asked literally means to make to ask, and so to give or lend anything asked. The sense here requires the restoration by Hannah of what she had prayed for (comp. Exodus 12:35 , Exodus 12:36 ), but which she had asked not for herself, but that she might devote it to Jehovah's service. At the end of 1 Samuel 1:28 the sing. "he worshipped" is rendered in the pl. by all the versions except the Sept; which omits it. But he, i.e. Elkanah, includes all his household, and it may be correctly translated in the pl; because the sense so requires, without altering the reading of the Hebrew. In the sing. it puts an unnecessary difficulty in the way of the ordinary reader.

HOMILETICS