bitter (literally or figuratively) · adjective, feminine singular construct
soul
נָ֑פֶשׁNa.fesh
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
prayed
וַתִּתְפַּלֵּ֥לva.tit.pa.Lel
H6419
to judge (officially or mentally) · conjunction + verb, hithpael sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
wept
וּבָכֹ֥הu.va.Khoh
H1058
to weep · conjunction + verb, qal infinitive absolute
sore
תִבְכֶּֽהtiv.Keh
H1058
to weep · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 7:11 Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Job 10:1 My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
Luke 22:44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Psalms 91:15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
Hebrews 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save h…
Judges 21:2 And the people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore;
Isaiah 54:6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
Job 9:18 He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 1:9-18
Elkanah had gently reproved Hannah for her inordinate grief, and here we find the good effect of the reproof.
I. It brought her to her meat. She ate and drank, Sa1 1:9. She did not harden herself in sorrow, nor grow sullen when she was reproved for it; but, when she perceived her husband uneasy that she did not come and eat with them, she cheered up her own spirits as well as she could, and came to table. it is as great a piece of self-denial to control our passions as it is to control our appetites.
II. It brought her to her prayers. It put her upon considering, "Do I well to be angry? Do I well to fret? What good does it do me? Instead of binding the burden thus upon my shoulders, had I no…
her adversary also provoked her sore--The conduct of Peninnah was most unbecoming. But domestic broils in the houses of polygamists are of frequent occurrence, and the most fruitful cause of them has always been jealousy of the husband's superior affection, as in this case of Hannah.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 1:9
Eli - sat upon a seat - על הכסא al hakkisse, upon the throne, i.e., of judgment; for he was then judge of Israel.
By a post of the temple of the Lord - I think this is the first place where היכל יהוה heychal Yehovah, "temple of Jehovah," is mentioned. This gives room for a strong suspicion that the books of Samuel were not compiled till the first temple was built, or after the days of Solomon. After this the word temple is frequent in the books of Kings, Chronicles, and in the prophets. Perhaps those Psalms in which this word occurs were, like many others in the Psalms, not of David's composition; some of them were evidently made long after his time.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 1:10
And she was in bitterness of soul,.... Because of her barrenness, and the taunts and reflections she had met with on that account; her life was bitter to her, she could take no pleasure in any of the comforts of it:
and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore; her prayer was with strong crying and tears; it was very fervent and affectionate; she prayed most vehemently, and wept bitterly. This perhaps was about the time of the evening sacrifice, about three or four o'clock in the afternoon; seeing it was after dinner that she arose up and went to prayer in the house of God, at the door of the tabernacle, or near it, as it should seem by the notice Eli took of her, who sat there.
The Church Fathers
What did she say? Instead of saying anything at first, she began with wailing and shed warm floods of tears. And just as, when rain storms fall, even the harder ground is moistened and softened and easily bestirs itself to produce crops, so too did this happen in the case of this woman: as though softened by the flood of tears and warmed with the pangs, the womb began to stir in that wonderful fertility.
There were two women with the honored name of Anna: one married, who gave birth to holy Samuel; the other a widow, who recognized the Saint of saints when he was still an infant. The married one prayed with grief of soul and affliction of heart, because she had no sons. In answer to her prayer Samuel was given to her, and she offered him to God as she had vowed in her prayer to do. It is not easy to see how her prayer agrees with the Lord's Prayer, except, perhaps, in those words, "Deliver us from evil," because it seemed no slight evil to be married and to be deprived of the fruit of marriage, when the sole purpose of marriage is the begetting of children.
Take note of the woman's reverence: she did not say, "If you give me three, I shall give you two;" or "if two, I shall give you one." Instead, "If you give me one, I shall dedicate the offspring wholly to you." "He will not drink wine or strong drink." She had not yet received the child and was already forming a prophet, talking about his upbringing and making a deal with God. What wonderful confidence on a woman's part! Since she could not make a deposit on account of not having anything, she pays the price from what is coming to her. Just as many farmers who are living in extreme poverty but have no money to buy a calf or sheep, get them on credit from their masters by pledging to pay the price from the crops that are due, just so did she do, too—or rather much more: she did not take her son from God on credit but on condition of returning him wholly to him once again and reaping the fruit of his upbringing. She regarded it as sufficient reward, you see, to devote her labors to God's priest.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Hannah — Favour, grace, one of the wives of Elkanah the Levite, and the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 1; 2). Her home was at Ramathaim-zophim, whence she was wont every year to go to Shiloh, where the tabernacle…
Barrenness · .Hannah — .Hannah
Children · .Hannah — .Hannah
Hannah · Her trials and prayer, and promise — Her trials and prayer, and promise
Samuel · Miraculous birth of — Miraculous birth of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 1:9-11
Hannah's prayer for a son. - Sa1 1:9-11. "After the eating at Shiloh, and after the drinking," i.e., after the sacrificial meal was over, Hannah rose up with a troubled heart, to pour out her grief in prayer before God, whilst Eli was sitting before the door-posts of the palace of Jehovah, and vowed this vow: "Lord of Zebaoth, if Thou regardest the distress of Thy maiden, and givest men's seed to Thy maiden, I will give him to the Lord all his life long, and no razor shall come upon his head." The choice of the infinitive absolute שׁתה instead of the infinitive construct is analogous to the combination of two nouns, the first of which is defined by a suffix, and the second written absolutely…
the Tabernacle: Literally the Temple of the Lord. Solomon’s Temple had not yet been constructed, so the word Temple here means the Lord’s sanctuary.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 1:9
Eating in Shilo. The 'ה' is not dotted and the 'א' is voweled with a short kametz and its [meaning is] 'after eating in Shilo and after drinking,'14Eili therefore suspected that she was drunk because prayer usually takes place before eating or drinking—Da’as Sofrim. and this expression is properly used both for masculine and feminine. After אָכְלָה is a gerund. It is constructed like ,15Vayikra 25:6.לְאָכְלָה an expression equivalent to an infinitive [i.e., לֶאֶכוֹל].
And Eili the kohen was sitting on the chair. On that day he was seated on a large chair,16The defective spelling of ישֵׁב [instead of יוֹשֵׁב] indicates that he just recently sat down because he was a newly appointed judge. Se…
