“But Hannah, a man of my position has responsibilities! I have businesses, I have employees, I
have to provide for us and for them. I’m not doing this to make you unhappy or because I don’t
love you! I will never love any other woman as deeply or perfectly as I love you!” Elkanah cried to
his wife.
Hannah just looked away and wept. How could her husband of twenty years do this to her? How
could he take another wife? Why wasn’t he satisfied with just one wife? How had she failed
him?
“Hannah my dearest one, I have to leave an heir, I have no choice,” Elkanah whispered. “We have
been married 20 years and we have never had a child. I don’t know if it is you or if it is me, but
one of us, at least, cannot have a child. It is not because you have failed me, dear one, it is God
that gives children or withholds them. Remember what our father Jacob said to his dearest
Rachel when she begged him to give her a child, ‘Who am I, God?’ God gives and he has not given
us what I most need right now. I am now 45 years old. You are 37. We don’t have much longer to
live, perhaps. Women your age, even fertile women who have had many children, aren’t bearing
like women of fifteen or twenty. Maybe we married too late or maybe we didn’t do something
right. Maybe we sinned in the eyes of God and he is unwilling to bless us with a baby, although
we have both made sin offerings at the Temple. All I know is we are not likely to ever bear a
child, an heir to my businesses, and I must have that. I have too many businesses and too many
other families whose livelihoods depend on my lineage continuing. I have to take a second wife,
in hopes that she will give me at least one heir. It is not because I don’t love you or because you
have displeased me. You could never displease me, I love you more than I love my own life.
Peninnah is very young. She will perhaps be more fertile. Her father has guaranteed that she
will give me at least one child or he will take her back into his home and refund my bride-price.”
Hannah sat silently while Elkanah spoke. She knew that everything he said was correct. Their
culture allowed men to take as many wives as they could afford to keep, and Elkanah was very
rich and could have had dozens of wives. In fact, many of his friends and business associates
had plural wives, some as many as a dozen, but Elkanah had never even spent time with the
family of another girl and had never even suggested making a second marriage. Until now, that
is, after it had become apparent that Hannah would never be able to give him an heir.
Hannah looked shyly at Elkanah and nodded. She would consent to a second marriage for the
sake of Elkanah’s wealth and the families that depended on it. A pain shot through her heart that
she thought would kill her and she could not speak for fear that she would sob, but she again
nodded her consent to Elkanah’s marriage to thirteen year old Peninnah. “You will always be my
favorite wife, Hannah. Nothing will change that. You are the wife of my youth and my best friend
and business advisor,” Elkanah held her hand and assured her.
The wedding took place a month later, just enough time for Peninnah’s mother to
prepare the feast and for her father to invite the many guests. Because Peninnah was his
favorite daughter, he throw the party of the year with two days of feasting and dancing and two
more after the marriage ceremony. As first wife, Hannah was required to attend the entire
celebration. She sometimes sneaked away for short periods of rest, but always she was sought
out by Elkanah or one of the other guests and required to return. Hannah had been to many
weddings and had always had a grand time dancing and feasting and being lively with joy, but
this time, her heart was so heavy she couldn’t even eat one morsel of food, nor could she find her
feet to dance. She dreaded the second day of the event because that was the day her husband
would go home to another woman and perhaps he would fall in love with that woman and come
home to Hannah no more. Although Hannah was required by custom to smile and be happy for
her husband, her heart was bleeding dry with fear of abandonment.
A week later, the bridal week in which a husband never left the side of his new wife, Elkanah
came home to Hannah. He came through the door and found her about her chores, shocked to
see him standing near the door.
“Why do you look surprised Hannah?” he cried with a smile. “Did you think I would leave you for
Peninnah?” He laughed a good-humored teasing laugh and swept Hannah up in his arms and
kissed her. “Peninnah will never be to me what you are to me. She is my wife, but she is not my
soulmate, not my best friend. What could a 45 year old man have in common with a 12 year old
girl? What would they have to say to each other. She is happy at getting a good marriage, but
she doesn’t love me the way you love me, as a soulmate. She is not my wife that I love, the wife of
my youth..” These words thrilled Hannah beyond her wildest expectations! Elkanah still loved
her! Peninnah did not steal his love away from her!
“But her breast are a soft as a doe’s hide and her body is as lovely and supple as a young willow,”
he went on. “Her lips are lucious like fresh fruit and I am very happy her father consented to
have her wedded to me.”
These words cut Hannah to the bone. Tears formed in her eyes, but she struggled and won
against them flowing out and down her cheeks. While Elkanah gulped down a hearty meal, he
remarked, “Peninnah can’t cook worth a darn. I missed your cooking so much.” Hannah felt little
comfort in his words. He was comparing his old workhorse wife to his new bride. Her breasts
were soft and her lips lucious, but Hannah, old wife Hannah, the best he could say about her was
that she made a decent galley maid. Part of Hannah’s soul whithered that day. She loved
Elkanah as much as ever, but he now loved her less.
Less than a year later, Peninnah gave birth to a child, a son, the heir that Elkanah needed so
much. Now Peninnah could not be returned to her father’s house. Hannah had been praying all
year that she would be barren as well and could be sent back to her father. Hannah was
required to be at the circumscision ceremony and party that followed it, but she stayed outside
in the garden and did not enter the house. If she never saw the inside of the house Elkanah
shared with Peninnah, never saw the nursery basket or the bed where the baby was conceived,
the images couldn’t haunt her.
Elkanah spent the first six months at Peninnah’s house while he doted on his new baby and the
girl who had birthed him. For six months, Elkanah sent food and money to Hannah, but he never
saw her. He sent her a note saying that his business and the demands of his new family kept him
away, but he would return to Hannah as soon as he could. Hannah didn’t go hungry, nor was she
in want, but her heart was starving for the love of her husband and her soul was empty from the
thought that she was now no longer needed in Elkanah’s life. Every day she sent him presents of
her fine cooking, a loaf of special bread, a rich cake, a roast or stew that were his particular
favorites, and Elkanah always thanked her by messenger when he sent the food and money, but
he didn’t come home to her and make love to her or make her feel loved. Every day she felt more
like the hired cook and less like a wife.
When she least expected it, Elkanah came home to her and stayed with her every night for four
months. She felt like she was in heaven! It was just like their marriage used to be before
Peninnah had ruined everything!
But then word came that Peninnah had given birth to another son. Elkanah packed up and moved
back to Peninnah’s house. Hannah had no hope of him ever coming home again. He kept her
well in every way except that he offered her no love or companionship for an entire month. Then
he started to come home to her every other night, behaving as a husband on those evenings,
which thrilled Hannah. Despite everything, Elkanah was the only man she could ever love. If only
she had a child, then Elkanah would love her more and stop going to Peninnah’s home. Hannah
knew such thoughts were foolish, but she was very afraid that her husband would leave her
permanently someday.
Less than a year later, Hannah received word that Peninnah had birthed another child, a
daughter. Peninnah continued to have a child every year after that for six more years. She had
given Elkanah eight children altogether. By the birth of the third child, Hannah had given up all
fantasies that Peninnah would disappear and life would be back to normal with Elkanah at home
every night. She accepted that she was too old to ever have a child, too old to be the best-loved
wife, too old to be Elkanah’s only love. She had no doubt that he loved her as much as before, but
it was incredibly painful for her to be held in his arms only every other night, after having his
arms all to herself for so long.
As Peninnah grew older and matured as a woman and a mother, she became insolent against
Hannah, treating her disrespectfully whenever they encountered each other in the market or at
worship. She would often be seen by Hannah speaking to her friends, saying, “Yes, that’s
Elkanah’s elderly wife, the one who is barren. Elkanah tells me all the time that he only keeps her
because she is too old to get another husband. Of couse he loves me more because I have born
him children. God has shown his love for me, but he has cursed Hannah with an empty womb.”
Although Hannah didn’t believe that what Peninnah said, it still hurt her. She wished that back
years ago when Elkanah first married Peninnah, she would have made more of an attempt to
befriend her. Other women found a way to accept their husband’s other wives and admit them
into the family. Why did Hannah resent Peninnah so much while her friends had not resented
their “sister wives”? Hannah had made a mistake being envious of Peninnah’s time with Elkanah
and of her children. Weren’t they Elkanah’s children? Didn’t that make her their stepmother?
Shouldn’t she have been a more active person in their lives? If she had treated Peninnah’s
children as precious treasures because they were Elkanah’s. maybe now Peninnah would have
treated her with mercy and charity instead of anger and disdain. But in her heart, she knew that
Peninnah loved Elkanah, too, and that Peninnah’s mean words came from the same jealousy that
drove Hannah’s avoidance of her; she wanted Elkanah all to herself.
And what if Elkanah died! Women couldn’t work to earn a living. Who would take care of
Hannah? Certainly not Peninnah or her children. If Elkanah died, Hannah would be thrown out of
her home by Peninnah’s oldest son, because her house would become his possession. But if she
had a son of her own, she would be saved. The son of the first wife would be considered the
oldest son even if the second wife had an older son. Hannah’s son would inherit her house and
he would provide for her in her old age.
Every year, Elkanah took his whole family down to Jerusalem for the annual Passover. Hannah,
Peninnah and the children all walked up to Jerusalem for the festival.
That year, Hannah’s heart was so broken and so fearful of the future, she couldn’t hide her
emotions. Elkanah saw her and said, “Hannah, aren’t I better to you than ten sons would be?” He
was trying to be merry and lighthearted, to cheer her up. Hannah knew that it was true, Elkanah
never kept her wanting for anything but his exclusive love and a secure future. When the
festival meal was passed around, Elkanah made certain that Hannah ate her fill, and some to
spare. He gave her not only the standard portion for a wife, but the portion that would have gone
to her child as well, if she had had a child. He spared no expense in providing for her, especially
during the feast.
But Hannah’s heart could not be soothed and she left the feast and went into the temple and
began to pray. “Lord, please! Just one child! If you will give me just one child, I will be able to
bear everything else that causes me pain. I will be so grateful for that child that I will dedicate
him back to you. He will be raised to serve you, to be your servant. I will not make him take a
profession that will make me rich, though he comes out of my body, he will be your child. Please
God, just one child. That’s all I am asking and I will never ask for anything else as long as I live.”
have to provide for us and for them. I’m not doing this to make you unhappy or because I don’t
love you! I will never love any other woman as deeply or perfectly as I love you!” Elkanah cried to
his wife.
Hannah just looked away and wept. How could her husband of twenty years do this to her? How
could he take another wife? Why wasn’t he satisfied with just one wife? How had she failed
him?
“Hannah my dearest one, I have to leave an heir, I have no choice,” Elkanah whispered. “We have
been married 20 years and we have never had a child. I don’t know if it is you or if it is me, but
one of us, at least, cannot have a child. It is not because you have failed me, dear one, it is God
that gives children or withholds them. Remember what our father Jacob said to his dearest
Rachel when she begged him to give her a child, ‘Who am I, God?’ God gives and he has not given
us what I most need right now. I am now 45 years old. You are 37. We don’t have much longer to
live, perhaps. Women your age, even fertile women who have had many children, aren’t bearing
like women of fifteen or twenty. Maybe we married too late or maybe we didn’t do something
right. Maybe we sinned in the eyes of God and he is unwilling to bless us with a baby, although
we have both made sin offerings at the Temple. All I know is we are not likely to ever bear a
child, an heir to my businesses, and I must have that. I have too many businesses and too many
other families whose livelihoods depend on my lineage continuing. I have to take a second wife,
in hopes that she will give me at least one heir. It is not because I don’t love you or because you
have displeased me. You could never displease me, I love you more than I love my own life.
Peninnah is very young. She will perhaps be more fertile. Her father has guaranteed that she
will give me at least one child or he will take her back into his home and refund my bride-price.”
Hannah sat silently while Elkanah spoke. She knew that everything he said was correct. Their
culture allowed men to take as many wives as they could afford to keep, and Elkanah was very
rich and could have had dozens of wives. In fact, many of his friends and business associates
had plural wives, some as many as a dozen, but Elkanah had never even spent time with the
family of another girl and had never even suggested making a second marriage. Until now, that
is, after it had become apparent that Hannah would never be able to give him an heir.
Hannah looked shyly at Elkanah and nodded. She would consent to a second marriage for the
sake of Elkanah’s wealth and the families that depended on it. A pain shot through her heart that
she thought would kill her and she could not speak for fear that she would sob, but she again
nodded her consent to Elkanah’s marriage to thirteen year old Peninnah. “You will always be my
favorite wife, Hannah. Nothing will change that. You are the wife of my youth and my best friend
and business advisor,” Elkanah held her hand and assured her.
The wedding took place a month later, just enough time for Peninnah’s mother to
prepare the feast and for her father to invite the many guests. Because Peninnah was his
favorite daughter, he throw the party of the year with two days of feasting and dancing and two
more after the marriage ceremony. As first wife, Hannah was required to attend the entire
celebration. She sometimes sneaked away for short periods of rest, but always she was sought
out by Elkanah or one of the other guests and required to return. Hannah had been to many
weddings and had always had a grand time dancing and feasting and being lively with joy, but
this time, her heart was so heavy she couldn’t even eat one morsel of food, nor could she find her
feet to dance. She dreaded the second day of the event because that was the day her husband
would go home to another woman and perhaps he would fall in love with that woman and come
home to Hannah no more. Although Hannah was required by custom to smile and be happy for
her husband, her heart was bleeding dry with fear of abandonment.
A week later, the bridal week in which a husband never left the side of his new wife, Elkanah
came home to Hannah. He came through the door and found her about her chores, shocked to
see him standing near the door.
“Why do you look surprised Hannah?” he cried with a smile. “Did you think I would leave you for
Peninnah?” He laughed a good-humored teasing laugh and swept Hannah up in his arms and
kissed her. “Peninnah will never be to me what you are to me. She is my wife, but she is not my
soulmate, not my best friend. What could a 45 year old man have in common with a 12 year old
girl? What would they have to say to each other. She is happy at getting a good marriage, but
she doesn’t love me the way you love me, as a soulmate. She is not my wife that I love, the wife of
my youth..” These words thrilled Hannah beyond her wildest expectations! Elkanah still loved
her! Peninnah did not steal his love away from her!
“But her breast are a soft as a doe’s hide and her body is as lovely and supple as a young willow,”
he went on. “Her lips are lucious like fresh fruit and I am very happy her father consented to
have her wedded to me.”
These words cut Hannah to the bone. Tears formed in her eyes, but she struggled and won
against them flowing out and down her cheeks. While Elkanah gulped down a hearty meal, he
remarked, “Peninnah can’t cook worth a darn. I missed your cooking so much.” Hannah felt little
comfort in his words. He was comparing his old workhorse wife to his new bride. Her breasts
were soft and her lips lucious, but Hannah, old wife Hannah, the best he could say about her was
that she made a decent galley maid. Part of Hannah’s soul whithered that day. She loved
Elkanah as much as ever, but he now loved her less.
Less than a year later, Peninnah gave birth to a child, a son, the heir that Elkanah needed so
much. Now Peninnah could not be returned to her father’s house. Hannah had been praying all
year that she would be barren as well and could be sent back to her father. Hannah was
required to be at the circumscision ceremony and party that followed it, but she stayed outside
in the garden and did not enter the house. If she never saw the inside of the house Elkanah
shared with Peninnah, never saw the nursery basket or the bed where the baby was conceived,
the images couldn’t haunt her.
Elkanah spent the first six months at Peninnah’s house while he doted on his new baby and the
girl who had birthed him. For six months, Elkanah sent food and money to Hannah, but he never
saw her. He sent her a note saying that his business and the demands of his new family kept him
away, but he would return to Hannah as soon as he could. Hannah didn’t go hungry, nor was she
in want, but her heart was starving for the love of her husband and her soul was empty from the
thought that she was now no longer needed in Elkanah’s life. Every day she sent him presents of
her fine cooking, a loaf of special bread, a rich cake, a roast or stew that were his particular
favorites, and Elkanah always thanked her by messenger when he sent the food and money, but
he didn’t come home to her and make love to her or make her feel loved. Every day she felt more
like the hired cook and less like a wife.
When she least expected it, Elkanah came home to her and stayed with her every night for four
months. She felt like she was in heaven! It was just like their marriage used to be before
Peninnah had ruined everything!
But then word came that Peninnah had given birth to another son. Elkanah packed up and moved
back to Peninnah’s house. Hannah had no hope of him ever coming home again. He kept her
well in every way except that he offered her no love or companionship for an entire month. Then
he started to come home to her every other night, behaving as a husband on those evenings,
which thrilled Hannah. Despite everything, Elkanah was the only man she could ever love. If only
she had a child, then Elkanah would love her more and stop going to Peninnah’s home. Hannah
knew such thoughts were foolish, but she was very afraid that her husband would leave her
permanently someday.
Less than a year later, Hannah received word that Peninnah had birthed another child, a
daughter. Peninnah continued to have a child every year after that for six more years. She had
given Elkanah eight children altogether. By the birth of the third child, Hannah had given up all
fantasies that Peninnah would disappear and life would be back to normal with Elkanah at home
every night. She accepted that she was too old to ever have a child, too old to be the best-loved
wife, too old to be Elkanah’s only love. She had no doubt that he loved her as much as before, but
it was incredibly painful for her to be held in his arms only every other night, after having his
arms all to herself for so long.
As Peninnah grew older and matured as a woman and a mother, she became insolent against
Hannah, treating her disrespectfully whenever they encountered each other in the market or at
worship. She would often be seen by Hannah speaking to her friends, saying, “Yes, that’s
Elkanah’s elderly wife, the one who is barren. Elkanah tells me all the time that he only keeps her
because she is too old to get another husband. Of couse he loves me more because I have born
him children. God has shown his love for me, but he has cursed Hannah with an empty womb.”
Although Hannah didn’t believe that what Peninnah said, it still hurt her. She wished that back
years ago when Elkanah first married Peninnah, she would have made more of an attempt to
befriend her. Other women found a way to accept their husband’s other wives and admit them
into the family. Why did Hannah resent Peninnah so much while her friends had not resented
their “sister wives”? Hannah had made a mistake being envious of Peninnah’s time with Elkanah
and of her children. Weren’t they Elkanah’s children? Didn’t that make her their stepmother?
Shouldn’t she have been a more active person in their lives? If she had treated Peninnah’s
children as precious treasures because they were Elkanah’s. maybe now Peninnah would have
treated her with mercy and charity instead of anger and disdain. But in her heart, she knew that
Peninnah loved Elkanah, too, and that Peninnah’s mean words came from the same jealousy that
drove Hannah’s avoidance of her; she wanted Elkanah all to herself.
And what if Elkanah died! Women couldn’t work to earn a living. Who would take care of
Hannah? Certainly not Peninnah or her children. If Elkanah died, Hannah would be thrown out of
her home by Peninnah’s oldest son, because her house would become his possession. But if she
had a son of her own, she would be saved. The son of the first wife would be considered the
oldest son even if the second wife had an older son. Hannah’s son would inherit her house and
he would provide for her in her old age.
Every year, Elkanah took his whole family down to Jerusalem for the annual Passover. Hannah,
Peninnah and the children all walked up to Jerusalem for the festival.
That year, Hannah’s heart was so broken and so fearful of the future, she couldn’t hide her
emotions. Elkanah saw her and said, “Hannah, aren’t I better to you than ten sons would be?” He
was trying to be merry and lighthearted, to cheer her up. Hannah knew that it was true, Elkanah
never kept her wanting for anything but his exclusive love and a secure future. When the
festival meal was passed around, Elkanah made certain that Hannah ate her fill, and some to
spare. He gave her not only the standard portion for a wife, but the portion that would have gone
to her child as well, if she had had a child. He spared no expense in providing for her, especially
during the feast.
But Hannah’s heart could not be soothed and she left the feast and went into the temple and
began to pray. “Lord, please! Just one child! If you will give me just one child, I will be able to
bear everything else that causes me pain. I will be so grateful for that child that I will dedicate
him back to you. He will be raised to serve you, to be your servant. I will not make him take a
profession that will make me rich, though he comes out of my body, he will be your child. Please
God, just one child. That’s all I am asking and I will never ask for anything else as long as I live.”
