What Does 1 Samuel 1:11 Mean in the King James?
And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The same Hebrew verb names both the child Hannah asks the LORD to give and the child she promises to give to the LORD, making the answer itself an act of dedication.
THE MEANING
Your need is presented as an affliction to be seen and remembered. The answer is pictured as a seed, a life dedicated to the LORD through all its days; giving runs both from the LORD to the handmaid and from the handmaid to the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that receiving an answer means possessing it outright: here, the requested gift is promised into lifelong dedication.
THE ROOT
וְנָתַתָּה
wənātattā
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, put, or set.
“give” in this verse is wənātattā. The request and the promise use forms of the same verb: the LORD gives the child to Hannah, and Hannah gives him to the LORD. The repeated root holds receiving and entrusting within one movement.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: To give, put, or set.
נָתַן
This is the root behind both acts of giving in the verse.
mattānāh: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
The child is described as something given, while the promise places that gift in the LORD’s service.
זֶרַע אֲנָשִׁים
zeraʿ anāshîm
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow or scatter seed; as a noun, seed or offspring.
The Hebrew phrase behind “man child” is literally “seed of men.” That image carries both the child she seeks now and the possibility of life continuing forward.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow or plant seed.
זָרַע
The verb gives the child’s seed imagery a sense of growth and what may come from it.
zeraʿ: Seed or offspring.
זֶרַע
This is the word used for the child Hannah asks to receive.
עֳנִי
ʿōnî
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To be bowed down or humbled; to afflict.
The word for affliction carries the sense of being pressed down or humbled. Hannah’s plea asks that this bowed-down condition be seen and remembered.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānî: Afflicted or poor.
עָנִי
This related form names a person living under hardship, close to the condition Hannah brings into view.
ʿinnûy: Affliction or humiliation.
עִנּוּי
This noun from the same root shows the language’s link between suffering and being brought low.
THE PATTERN
A life received from God can be dedicated to God for its whole span.
For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people.I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.THE THREAD
All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the LORD, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.The no-razor vow echoes the Nazirite instruction, where uncut hair marks separation to the LORD. It gives Hannah’s closing promise a concrete shape: the child’s dedication spans the life she names.
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