1 Samuel 1:21–23

1 Samuel 1:21 — Elkanah's household ascends without Hannah. The opening verse establishes the pattern of faithful Israelite piety: the yearly pilgrimage to Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant then resided, and the accompanying sacrifices and fulfillment of vows. Elkanah's "vow" here is likely the votive offering associated with Hannah's pregnancy, or perhaps a personal pledge made alongside hers at Shiloh (1 Sam 1:11). The fact that "all his house" went up — including Peninnah and her children — makes Hannah's absence conspicuous and deliberate. She does not simply stay home out of convenience; she is exercising a reasoned, motherly judgment in service of a higher obligation.

1 Samuel 1:22 — Hannah's explanation and her doubled consecration. Hannah's words to Elkanah reveal the interior logic of her decision. The phrase "not until the child is weaned" indicates a period of approximately two to three years in ancient Israelite culture — far longer than in modern Western practice — during which nursing and physical proximity were inseparable. Hannah's delay is not a postponement of her vow but a preparation for it. She intends to bring Samuel "that he may appear before Yahweh." The Hebrew verb used here (וְנִרְאָה, wěnirʾāh) carries the cultic sense of formal presentation in the sanctuary, echoing the language of pilgrimage and liturgical appearance. Her final phrase — "and stay there forever" (weyāšab šām ʿad-ʿôlām) — makes clear the radical nature of her vow: Samuel will not simply visit the sanctuary; he will dwell there permanently, given irrevocably to God. Hannah is not holding her son back from God; she is nursing him toward his destiny.

The typological resonance here is profound. Just as Hannah nourishes Samuel at her breast before offering him to God's service, so the Church recognizes in this image an anticipation of the Virgin Mary, who nourished the Word Incarnate in His humanity before He entered His public mission and ultimately offered Himself on the cross. The nursing mother who prepares a child for divine consecration becomes a recurring figure in salvation history.

1 Samuel 1:23 — Elkanah's consent and intercession. Elkanah's response is noteworthy for what it contains and for what it omits. He does not assert his patriarchal authority to override Hannah or demand she fulfill the communal religious obligation of the pilgrimage immediately. Instead, his first word is consent: "Do what seems good to you." This respectful deference to his wife's spiritual discernment on a matter of grave religious consequence is remarkable in the ancient Near Eastern context. His blessing — "may Yahweh establish his word" — is somewhat ambiguous in Hebrew (dĕbārô, "his word"). The "word" could refer to God's prophetic word spoken through Eli in 1:17, the promise of a son; or to Hannah's own vow, understood as now constituting God's word spoken through her; or to the divine purpose that Samuel himself will become. All three readings illuminate one another. Elkanah here acts not merely as a passive bystander but as a priestly intercessor for his household, invoking God's faithfulness over a moment of sacred transition.

Catholic tradition finds in this passage a rich matrix of themes touching on consecrated life, the theology of the vow, and the sanctity of motherhood.

The theology of the vow. The Catechism teaches that a vow is "a deliberate and free promise made to God concerning a possible and better good which must be fulfilled by reason of the virtue of religion" (CCC 2102). Hannah's vow, made in the anguish of infertility (1 Sam 1:11), was freely offered and now, in the fullness of its fulfillment, must be kept with integrity. Her delay is not evasion but prudence — she refuses to deliver to the Temple a child who is not yet capable of the life to which she has pledged him. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that vows bind in justice and religion, and that circumstances of readiness and proper preparation are legitimate considerations in their execution (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 88).

Motherhood and consecration. St. John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem (§18) reflects on how motherhood can be ordered entirely to the gift of self. Hannah's nursing of Samuel is not an act of possessiveness but of preparation for gift — she is forming the very instrument of her oblation. The Church Fathers frequently saw Hannah as a type of Holy Church, who "nurses" her children in faith in order to present them mature to God (cf. Origen, Homilies on 1 Samuel).

Samuel as a type of consecrated life. Samuel's permanent dwelling in the Temple prefigures the tradition of religious consecration that the Church formally affirms in Lumen Gentium §44, where the consecrated life is described as an "eschatological sign" anticipating the Kingdom. Hannah's act of oblation is the prototype of every parent who offers a child to the priesthood or religious life.

This passage speaks with quiet urgency to Catholic parents today. In an era when children are often treated as projects of parental self-fulfillment, Hannah models a radically different disposition: she loves her son with full maternal intensity and, precisely because of that love, holds him loosely. Her "not yet" is not reluctance but fidelity — she will not rush the gift before it is ready.

For parents discerning a child's possible vocation to priesthood or consecrated life, Hannah's posture is instructive. The work of formation — the "nursing" — is itself an act of obedience to God, not a delay of it. Elkanah's willingness to support his wife's spiritual discernment also challenges Catholic spouses to recognize that the other's prayer life and commitments before God are not obstacles to marriage but its deepest content.

More broadly, any Catholic who has made a vow or serious commitment — in marriage, in religious life, at Baptism or Confirmation — can find in Hannah's quiet faithfulness during the waiting period a model of interior fidelity. The vow is alive between the making and the keeping.