1 Samuel 1:9

The tabernacle had been the house of God in the wilderness. Israel carried it, with all its sacred furniture, into Canaan and pitched it at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1). So this was the place Israel came to with their yearly sacrifices (1 Sam. 1:3). It was still called "the tent of meeting" (1 Sam. 2:22), but also "the temple of the LORD," and "the house of the LORD" (1 Sam. 3:3, 15). These later names only pointed forward to the house that would later be built in Jerusalem.

One resource remained to her: to present her affliction before the Lord. Only God's heart could give her an answer in grace; so she presents herself before Him at Shiloh. A new trial awaits her there… What suffering! She has no resource in herself; the world is hostile to her; those who bear the Lord's name judge her and do not understand her! How can she eat and drink and rejoice, when her soul's only desire has found no answer?

Eli, the high priest, was a man of much personal piety. He comes before us as a weakened old man sitting by a post of the temple (verse 9). He mistakes the exercises of a godly soul for the ravings of a drunken woman (13). Sitting where God had provided no seat would show a lack of spiritual energy. His mistake about Hannah would show a lack of spiritual discernment.

Eli was a stranger to such exercise. He sat on a seat by a post of the temple, in effect sitting as a judge instead of standing as priest… He knew how to reprove her. He did not give the help and compassion which was the very purpose of priesthood (Heb. 5:1-2).

Others went to worship there with their thank-offerings; she drew near with her tears… But here is the remarkable thing in the story. God draws our attention to the high priest himself, who did not share His mind. This was the very man who should have entered into the greatest difficulties of God's people. Here he was among the last to understand. I have no doubt that Peninnah, bad as she was, knew more of the secret of Hannah's grief than Eli did… So at the very start God shows us a failure. Up to that moment this man was outwardly the appointed channel of communication — from God to the people, and from the people to God.

The sights around the tabernacle doors stirred her devoted heart deeply. The shameless immorality and greed of Hophni and Phinehas told a repulsive tale of wickedness — and that in front of the sanctuary! They flaunted sin in the very face of Israel's God; "men treated the offering of the LORD with contempt"… Eli himself should above all others have understood this. He should have been low in the dust before God over such a shameful state of things. Instead he seemed hardly troubled. A good, easy-going man, he sat calmly at the temple entrance — not to watch and correct his corrupt sons, but to observe, misread and rebuke a godly woman at prayer!

She asked at Shiloh for a son, and she asked for him for Shiloh… There may be two parties at Shiloh who do not understand each other. Eli sits on a post, and Hannah weeps bitterly. But God grants the weeping woman what she asked.