What Does 1 Samuel 1:27 Mean?
For this child I prayed, and the LORD has given me the request I asked of him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him:THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both “my petition” and “I asked,” presenting the child as the request made visible.
THE MEANING
The child is both the occasion of the speaker’s prayer and the answer she receives from the LORD. What she asked is now present in her life as something tangible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that a request can only remain an inward longing: here what is asked becomes a child received in life.
THE ROOT
שְׁאֵלָתִי
she'elati
GROWS FROM
שׁאל
sha'al
to ask or request
The Hebrew pairs she’elati, “my petition,” with sha’alti, “I asked,” repeating the same root where English uses a noun and a verb. The request and the act of asking remain joined as the child becomes its visible answer.
ALSO GROWS
sha'al: to ask, inquire, or request
שָׁאַל
This verb is the root behind “I asked,” echoing the word translated “petition.”
she'elah: a request or petition
שְׁאֵלָה
This related noun shows that “petition” itself grows from the same root as asking.
וַיִּתֵּן
wayyitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
to give, set, or place
“has given” in this verse is wayyitten. The verb carries the sense of giving, setting, or placing. The answer is not left abstract: the child is placed within the speaker’s life as what she asked for.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: a gift
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root names something given, illuminating how the request arrives as a received life.
natun: given or set in place
נָתוּן
This related form carries the sense of what has been placed, echoing the child’s arrival as the answer to the request.
THE PATTERN
Scripture links asking with receiving through what the LORD gives.
You give him the craving of his heart, and the asking of his lips you do not hold back. Selah.Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.Until now you have asked nothing in my nature. Ask, and you will take hold, so that your joy may be filled.THE THREAD
When the days had come around, Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, the asked-for one, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.The same שׁאל (sha’al) root appears here in “my petition” and “I asked,” and in Hannah’s words, “I have asked him of the LORD.” The echo links the prayer’s answer to the asking that gives the child his name in this verse.
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