1 Samuel 1
This blog post is an excerpt from the booklet entitled, "Women of the Bible" - Volume 3.
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"And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret." - 1 Samuel 2:6
We begin our story in 1 Samuel chapter 2. You may be familiar with the name, "Hannah" in the Bible who prayed for a son. But you may not know as much about Peninnah. She is a Bible woman who plays a significant and sinister role in Hannah's life.
Peninnah's name means “coral.” She was from Ramah which is only about eight miles from Jerusalem. She was the second wife of Hannah’s husband, Elkanah. Some men in the Old Testament chose multiple wives which was not God’s way. Every time they did so, problems would arise. This story is no exception.
Peninnah had been able to bear Elkanah children and Hannah was barren meaning she was unable to give birth. What might have made this even harder was that the Lord had shut up Hannah’s womb. This means being barren was God’s will for Hannah at that time. Can you imagine being tormented and treated unkindly when you haven’t even done anything wrong?
And then on top of that, you learn that God chose this very path for you. Well, Jesus addresses this exact problem in His Sermon on the Mount. It is found in Matthew 5 and says:
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. ~ Matthew 5:11-12
But why did Peninnah have to be so rude? Wouldn’t you think having what Hannah wanted would have made Peninnah feel confident and therefore more gracious to Hannah’s plight? Unfortunately, the opposite was true. Our Scripture actually says Peninnah became an adversary (enemy) to Hannah. She provoked her unmercifully which caused her to fret and to be unable to eat. Peninnah’s spirit towards her made her grief even worse. I pray that the devil will never be able to use my spirit to purposely grieve or hurt someone else.
This is why I wanted to highlight the story of these two women because every one of us has at times been a Hannah and perhaps even a Peninnah. If these 2 women were having problems because one of them was teasing the other about a clothing issue or a hair and makeup problem, they could easily look into a mirror and fix the problem or at least make it better.
After all, a mirror is a reflection which allows you to see things you cannot see on your own. I can see your face, but I cannot see my own face unless I look at some type of reflection or ask another person for help. Have you ever asked someone, “Do I have anything in my teeth?” This is about the physical, but Peninnah was causing an emotional and spiritual problem.
If we were going to talk about inner beauty, what would the reflections of that be? We know outer beauty is defined by things like hair, body shape, and fingernails. But what is inner beauty?
Inner beauty is displayed by character, countenance, attitude, sense of humor, kindness, and so on. These qualities make a person beautiful to others. 1 Peter 3:4 speaks of it as, “...the hidden man of the heart, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit…”
Most times, we can see the lives and qualities of others clearly, but we can’t always see our own lives or problems as clearly. The world paints a picture of beauty, but so does God. We are beautiful to God because He sees His Son in us.
When I read about Hannah’s story, I think of the spiritual mirror we have in God’s Word that shows us how to deal with this type of problem. God gave us His Word to help us see what He sees in us. We can see the reflection of God’s love from the words found in the Bible:
In this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through him. ~ 1 John 4:9
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ~ 1 John 4:10
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God,
and God in him. ~ 1 John 4:16
The Bible says we can see ourselves through the mirror called God’s Word. We understand the concept of a mirror to get ready each morning or to see our own reflection, but God’s Word is the mirror that helps us form God’s image in our lives.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. - 2 Corinthians 3:18
God’s Word changes us and gets rid of the imperfections. It gives us practical instruction to handle problems and difficult people in this life. 1 Peter 3:8-9 says, “…love as brethren…be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing.” Railing for railing means to argue and fight back and forth. Hannah did not return evil for Peninnah’s evil. Also, Hannah did not mistreat others just because she had been mistreated. It is said, “Hurting people hurt people.” Isn’t it so natural to be cruel, to lash out, and to magnify our problems? We must be so careful when we are hurting or have been hurt that we do not turn that hurt onto others. A quote that has helped me see how this can happen says, “If you never heal from what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”
But how can we heal from the kind of hurts that Peninnah inflicted upon Hannah? This is why we need Jesus! The beloved Bible passage of Psalm 23 starts by saying, “The Lord is my shepherd.” But it goes on to add a beautiful part that says, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”
After Hannah prayed, Peninnah disappears from the story never to be mentioned again. It is very possible this is because the Lord answered Hannah’s prayer. God always takes care of our enemies when we leave them to Him.
One woman wrote this: I asked God, “Why are you taking me through these deep waters?” He answered, “Because your enemies can’t swim.” This was certainly true of the Israelites at the deep waters of the Red Sea. Because of their faith and belief in His miracles, God allowed them to cross over on dry land and closed the waters onto Pharaoh’s army which caused them to drown.
I love to study Bible women because their stories are so rich and similar to ours, even though they lived thousands of years ago. The Bible is so true and relevant for us today. It helps us to choose to do right and follow the Lord. We must give to God our hurts and burdens so we are not hurtful to others. You can be either be a Hannah and be blessed or you can be a Peninnah and be forgotten. The choice is up to you but this is not always an easy fix like putting on some makeup or straightening your hair when looking in a mirror. The emotional pain needs to be healed.
I want to share something I learned when studying about mirrors for our theme. It is used on people with amputations or those who have had a stroke. It’s called, “Mirror Therapy.”
Mirror therapy works by essentially “retraining” the brain in relation to pain. A patient looks at the reflection of his good arm or leg in the mirror. Because a mirror reflects an opposite or backwards image, the brain sees the good limb as the opposite limb and believes it is whole.
Because the pain signals are processed in the brain, we can change the brain “input” and get a different “output.” When mirror therapy is practiced, the brain receives information that both limbs are intact and functional causing the brain to tell the body it is healed.
This is when healing begins from what is called “phantom pain.” This happens when the source of pain is gone but the brain remembers and signals the body to believe the pain is still there. This can also be a phantom itch or a sense of heat or inflammation from an injury that is no longer there.
The outcome is that a person feels made whole instead of being broken or imperfect. True healing only comes from looking into God’s Word and allowing it to change us. We must ask the Lord for help! We treat phantom emotional pain with the Word of God. We replace our thoughts with His thoughts towards us.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." - Jeremiah 29:11
One of the goals of our Daughters of the King ministry is to help women and teen girls give the broken pieces to the Lord so they can heal and then be made whole. God never intended for Christian women to be hurting and walking around hurting others. We must give our hurts to the Lord and then receive the “mirror therapy” of God’s Word to continue to be made whole. Then we can help instead of hurt others.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer; he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty; and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. ~ James 1:23-25
I’d like to think Hannah trusted God to bring justice to her situation and prayed that He would be the one to take care of Peninnah. She could have been claiming the Bible verse that says, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.”
But that was Hannah. What about Penninnah? She had a choice. When Hannah told her how much her actions had been hurting her, she could have apologized and changed the dynamic of their relationship. Yet, she chose to continue to hurt Hannah - intentionally. Maybe she felt justified. Maybe because she was hurting in some way or had been hurt by others, she thought it was okay? Whatever the reasons, Peninnah will forever have the testimony of being an "adversary" instead of a "friend."
As we end this story about Peninnah, maybe there have been times when you see yourself in her actions. I know I do! If we're not careful, we can grow worse and worse like Peninnah. But the good news is that each of us has the power of the Holy Spirit to help change what we’ve been and help us to become better like Hannah.
If we are going to choose to be like Hannah instead of Peninnah we must:
· Check our speech and mirror it to God’s Word.
· Check our love towards others and mirror it to the love shown to us by Christ on the Cross.
· Check our life and mirror it to the life Jesus lived while here on earth.
Below is a card we passed out to remind the ladies that God's Word is our spiritual mirror. May I encourage all of us to evaluate how we treat others and ask the Lord to keep us from being jaded, broken, bitter or unkind. If we look into the Bible each day and allow its words to change us and make us whole, we (like Hannah not Peninnah) will become the Christian ladies God saved us to be.
