1S1-20: Though Your Children Come From You, They Belong NOT To You

“She conceived;
and in due time
she gave birth to a son,
whom she named Sh’mu’el,
“because I asked Adonai for him.””
-1 Samuel 1:20

If you’re a parent with children, I gotta question for you.

Before your son or daughter was born, how did you decide to name him or her?

Did you go to your family tree to find something?

Or did you ask family or friends for suggestions?

I heard of one couple who each made up a list of ten names…

And then decided that any name they chose had to be in the most recent “Top 100 List of Most Popular Names” for each gender.

This reminds me of an interesting court case that occurred in Japan where I’m living now.

A father named his son AKUMA which literally means “The Devil”.

He was taken to court for for naming his son such a harmful name that would be sure to cause his boy lots of trouble growing up.

The reason I bring all of this up is because it’s interesting to compare how we do things today compared to how folks did things in ancient times.

So connecting this back to Hannah’s story, in verse 20 we’re told she gave birth to a son and named him SHEM’EL.

As you can see by the Hebrew, it literally means “Name of God”.

Some scholars will make the mistake of thinking it means “ASKED of God” because Hannah’s son came as an ANSWER to prayer.

But that line of thinking just ain’t right homies.

Because all you gotta do is looked at the two Hebrew words that make up his name: SHEM and EL.

Let’s talk a little bit more about what the word SHEM or “name” meant in those days.

Biblically speaking, I’ve already explained many times before that a “name” was NOT just a form of identification like how we use names in the West by calling our kids Rodney, Jack or Jerry for instance.

A Biblical name always reflected the character traits or attributes of the person being named.

There was only one exception to this.

In the case of Levirate Marriage, since the goal was to produce offspring for the childless widow who would go on to become an heir for the deceased husband, the name given was the name of the deceased husband/father.

That’s why in the Bible you see the expression “raise up a son in her husband’s name”.

So what was going on inside Hannah’s mind when she named her son SHEM’EL?

Two things.

FIRST, in her mind, the REAL father of her son was not Elkanah but God Himself.

Because God was the one who had reactivated her womb and enabled her to give birth to new life.

So she was giving God the glory…and rightfully so.

SECOND, Samuel’s name was also meant to reflect the fact his life would be dedicated to God from childhood.

We can see this is exactly what happened because he started serving at God’s sanctuary since he was a little boy.

So here’s the takeaway I’m getting from this.

I think it’s best summed up in this quote from the poet Kahlil Gibran:

“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters
of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you
yet they belong not to you.”

I wish I could’ve told that to my mother who so emotionally smothered me during my childhood she rendered me totally incapable of ever being able to enter into an intimate relationship with another woman my whole entire life…

And turned me into raging sex addict in my younger years.

Sorry for letting my bitterness about this seep out a bit here…

But this is my blog and gosh dang I had to express it because that’s what happened…

And I’m still coming to terms today with the evil and emotional incestuous devastation I was subjected to.

Over and out.

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

“For this reason a man
will leave his father and mother
and be united to his wife,
and the two will become one flesh.”
-Ephesians 5:31