1 Samuel 1:10 Meaning She Was in Bitterness of Soul

Taṇhā: Craving Craving is the thirst for what is absent. Hannah's has a shape and a name: a son, while the other wife's children crowd the table at Shiloh and the portions are handed round. Wanting a child is a good and human thing, and it burns all the same, since fire does not care whether the fuel is honorable.

Domanassa: Grief of mind Grief of mind is painful feeling that belongs to the heart, not the body. No one has struck Hannah and no wound bleeds, yet the hurt is as sharp as a cut. Bitterness is a taste word, and the mouth keeps it: she goes up to the festival year after year and comes home with the same flavor.

Parideva: Lamentation Lamentation is sorrow that breaks into weeping. Hers will not stay inside any longer: she cries while her lips move without sound, and Eli, watching from his seat by the doorpost, takes her for a drunk woman. Grief looks for somewhere to go, and hers goes toward Yahweh rather than toward Peninnah, who provoked it.

Saṃvega: Urgency Urgency is the jolt pain gives when it turns a person around. Bitterness could have curdled into resentment at the rival who taunted her; instead it lifts her from the meal she refused to eat and walks her to the house of Yahweh. Pain that only circles keeps its owner in one place, while hers points somewhere and she follows it.

Saddhā: Trusting confidence Confidence is the heart's leaning toward what it trusts. Praying gives the weeping a direction, the way a channel gives water somewhere to run. Her tears and her wanting are all she carries in, and she carries them while the womb is still closed and nothing at all has been promised her.