(28) I have lent him to the Lord.--The rendering of the Hebrew here, "I have lent," and in Exodus 12:36, is false. The translation should run: "Therefore I also make him one asked of the Lord; all the days that he liveth he is asked of the Lord." The sense is: "The Lord gave him to me, and now I have returned him whom I obtained by prayer to the Lord, as one asked or demanded."

And he worshipped the Lord there.--"He," that is, the boy Samuel: thus putting his own child-seal to his mother's gift of himself to God.

Verse 28. - I have lent him. The word lent spoils the meaning: Hannah really in these two verses uses the same verb four times, though in different conjugations, and the same sense must be maintained throughout. Her words are, "For this child I prayed, and Jehovah hath given me my asking which I asked of him: and I also have given back what was asked to Jehovah; as long as he liveth he is asked for Jehovah." The conjugation translated to give back what was asked literally means to make to ask, and so to give or lend anything asked. The sense here requires the restoration by Hannah of what she had prayed for (comp. Exodus 12:35, 36), but which she had asked not for herself, but that she might devote it to Jehovah's service. At the end of ver. 28 the sing. "he worshipped" is rendered in the pl. by all the versions except the Sept., which omits it. But he, i.e. Elkanah, includes all his household, and it may be correctly translated in the pl., because the sense so requires, without altering the reading of the Hebrew. In the sing. it puts an unnecessary difficulty in the way of the ordinary reader.

1:19-28 Elkanah and his family had a journey before them, and a family of children to take with them, yet they would not move till they had worshipped God together. Prayer and provender do not hinder a journey. When men are in such haste to set out upon journeys, or to engage in business, that they have not time to worship God, they are likely to proceed without his presence and blessing. Hannah, though she felt a warm regard for the courts of God's house, begged to stay at home. God will have mercy, and not sacrifice. Those who are detained from public ordinances, by the nursing and tending of little children, may take comfort from this instance, and believe, that if they do that duty in a right spirit, God will graciously accept them therein. Hannah presented her child to the Lord with a grateful acknowledgment of his goodness in answer to prayer. Whatever we give to God, it is what we have first asked and received from him. All our gifts to him were first his gifts to us. The child Samuel early showed true piety. Little children should be taught to worship God when very young. Their parents should teach them in it, bring them to it, and put them on doing it as well as they can; God will graciously accept them, and will teach them to do better.Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord,.... To be employed in his service, not for a few days, months, or years, but for his whole life. The Targum is,"I have delivered him, that he may minister before the Lord;''as she had received him front him as an answer of prayer, she gave him up to him again according to her vow: as long as he liveth he shall be lent unto the Lord, or as the Targum,"all the days that he lives he shall be ministering before the Lord;''

or "all the days he shall be asked" (or "required") by or for the Lord (e); that is, he shall be lent unto him, and serve him as long as it is desired:

and he worshipped the Lord there; in the tabernacle at the same time; either Elkanah, who with Hannah brought the child to Eli, and now gave thanks to God for giving them the child, and prayed unto him that he might be received into the service of the sanctuary; or else Eli, to whom the child was brought for admittance, who when he heard that Hannah's request was granted, which he had entreated also might be or had declared it would be, bowed his head, and gave thanks to God for it; or rather the child Samuel, as he was taught and trained up, bowed himself before the Lord, and worshipped him in the tabernacle as soon as he was brought into it, though a child; for he only is spoken of in this and the preceding verse; and by some interpreters (f) the name Samuel is supplied; the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, read in the plural number, "and they worshipped the Lord there": that is, Elkanah and his wife; so Mr. Weemse (g) translates and interprets it.

(e) "Quamdiu" h. e. "expetitus aut requisitur", Peter Martyr; "quoties a Jehova postulatur", Piscator. (f) Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (g) Observat. Nat. c. 18. p. 77.