Comfort without taking center stage
A teaching for husbands · 1 Samuel 1:4–8
4And whenever the day came for Elkanah to present his sacrifice, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. 5But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved her even though the LORD had closed her womb. 6Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival would provoke her and taunt her viciously. 7And this went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival taunted her until she wept and would not eat. 8“Hannah, why are you crying?” her husband Elkanah asked. “Why won’t you eat? Why is your heart so grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”
Context
Elkanah lived in an arrangement that was common at the time and a source of much pain: he had two wives. Peninnah had children, Hannah did not. Every year, on the pilgrimage to worship at Shiloh, the rival provoked Hannah until she wept and would not eat. Elkanah loved Hannah and gave her a double portion of the sacrificial meal. The text then records the question he asks his wounded wife.
What the Bible teaches
Elkanah gets a lot right. He loves Hannah at a time when a childless woman was seen as a failure, honors her publicly with a double portion and notices that she is crying and not eating. Many husbands wouldn’t even notice. But his question slips: “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” He tries to comfort her by talking about himself and, without meaning to, turns her pain into a review of his performance.
The pain of infertility, pregnancy loss, grief or depression isn’t solved with an argument. Hannah didn’t need a comparison; she needed company and room to weep before God, which is what she does right afterward. To comfort is to be able to stay close to sadness without rushing it and without taking offense at it.
The text is also honest about Elkanah’s household. Polygamy, accepted in that culture, produced rivalry and suffering, and the Bible narrates it without approving it; the design of Genesis 2 is one man and one woman. And for couples waiting for children who don’t come, the passage says something precious: you are already a whole family, and God sees the tears of both of you.
In practice
When she is sad this week, trade advice for a question: do you want to tell me more? Then stay close. If the sadness lingers, offer to look for help together.
To talk about
When you’re sad, what helps most for me to do, and what gets in the way?
Prayer
Lord, you saw Hannah’s tears. Give me a heart that notices my wife’s pain and the patience to stay by her side without hurrying and without putting myself at the center. Comfort us in the waiting and in the losses we don’t understand. Amen.
See also: Hannah.