John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to part two of this week’s podcast.

Hank Smith: 00:07 Gaye, let’s transition over to the book of I Samuel. I read this in the church’s Come Follow Me manual. We’ve talked about Ruth and Naomi, but it says also, can you see yourself in the story of Hannah? Maybe like Hannah, you long for blessings you have not yet received. Ponder what messages you can learn from the example of this faithful woman. I’m excited to talk about Hannah with you, Gaye, and to share about her.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 00:35 As I mentioned earlier, we’ve got two books here who are starting with very ordinary women, but who are in distress because of their barrenness. With Naomi, it was because her children had been taken from her, but with Hannah, it was because she hadn’t been able to conceive and bear any children. There are plenty of women who experience this today. As an outsider, you can think you’ve got a husband or whatever, but this is a reminder of the very, very real and very, very deep emotional burden that infertility can have on a woman, and especially in the ancient world where men had more wives, they could get their children in other means, but for a woman not to have children, was absolutely devastating. I think of Rachel in Genesis 31, the depth of her cry out to Jacob when she says, “Give me children or else I die.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 01:49 Again, you’ve got to feel what those words are and what it means for somebody to be in this kind of position, because marriage and children was what gave women their sense of status and worth in the ancient world. Even though you’ve got someone here with Hannah, who is married and she has a husband, and that’s good, but even that doesn’t compensate for the loss of not having a child. What I’m really interested in here is, why start with this story? I think there is so much more going on than just saying, “Oh, God blesses her so that she can have Samuel and then we can get into the important stuff.” These first three chapters are really very cleverly powerfully put together that like in the book of Ruth here, there’s lots of things going on that caught up in this experience of Hannah.

Hank Smith: 02:51 Gaye, I’ve noticed probably more this year than any other in the Old Testament, moms come up over and over again. They don’t even want to tell you about someone without telling you about their mother, so far. With Isaac and with Jacob, and then even Moses’ mother is highlighted, is that a cultural thing? Is that we’re a family? If I’m an Israelite reader, am I thinking, “It always starts with a mother?”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 03:17 Well, I think so, because this is important, especially later in Judaism, it’s the mother who is going to be the connection to Judaism. It probably has very practical reasons, you can tell pretty clearly who the mother is. It’s sometimes more difficult to know the father in the situation.

John Bytheway: 03:36 Not only was Abram’s name changed to Abraham, Sarai’s name was changed to Sarah. I want to remember that when I talk about the Abrahamic Covenant that it was Abraham and Sarah that made that all possible.

Hank Smith: 03:49 I’ve never seen how often before they introduce someone, they tell us about the person’s mother.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 03:55 Let’s set the scene here in chapter one. We’re introduced to a man by the name of Elkanah and he is married to Hannah. Some scholars are going to argue that Hannah was the first wife, so the primary wife. Probably because of her barrenness, he marries again, similar to Sarah and Hagar, so that Elkanah can have children. This family lives in Ramah, which is a ways away from Shiloh. That’s the other place that we need to know about. Shiloh is the place of the tabernacle. So when Israel first conquered the land of Canaan, there was no Jerusalem originally, but Shiloh, in the land of Sumeria, was set up as the place of the tabernacle. That’s where the temple was from, that’s where the priests were and things like that. Elkanah, we learn, is going to go up every year. He’s going to leave Ramah and go on pilgrimage and is going to go to the temple there. Then in verse five, we learned that Elkanah loved Hannah, but that she was barren.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 05:05 The Lord had shut up her womb. Notice again we’ve talked about the competition between women in the biblical text, verse six, “And her adversary,” and we are talking here now about Peninnah, “Also provoked Hannah, sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.” This seems to be something like in Hagar, “You might be the primary wife, but I’ve got the kids and I’m going to rub that in when I can.” That’s an important part of this story in helping us to understand what Hannah is experiencing through this process. If you go to verse seven, “And as he, Elkanah, did year by year, Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, so Peninnah provoked her, therefore she wept and did not eat.” So this situation is tough for Hannah to be in. How does Elkanah respond to this? I can understand him doing this, saying, “Am I not better to thee than 10 sons?” I can understand that he’s trying to comfort her, I’m just not sure how comforting that might have been to Hannah.

John Bytheway: 06:16 I know. I look at that and I think my wife would go, “Let me get back to you on that.”

Hank Smith: 06:22 Gaye, you just really summarized my life there. I get what you’re trying to do, but it’s really not that helpful.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 06:30 And then these kind of experiences, home life experience and the anxiety that comes from that, is going to be accelerated or intensified when she goes up to the temple and we are introduced to Eli, who is the priest. So verse nine, “Now, Eli, the priest, sat upon the seat by a post of the temple of the Lord. And she, Hannah, was in bitterness.” That’s that word that we talked about with Naomi, mara, bitter, the same word. She was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. She vowed a vow, “Oh, Lord of hosts, if thou will indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid servant, and remember me and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all of the days of his life and there shall be no razor come upon his head.” What she’s doing here is saying, I think that this is really interesting, because she desperately wants a son, but it seems to me she doesn’t want the son for herself.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 07:44 I don’t think she wants the son necessarily for the status of it, but she wants to contribute to the work of the Lord. She sees the bearing of a son as one way that she can be a part of this great work of God on earth. I just think that that’s really, really important. We could read this in terms of a selfish post, but she’s saying, “Lord, I want a son, not so that I can say to Peninnah, ‘Na, na, na, na, na, na,’ back to her, but so that I can find a way to serve thee.'” But what’s interesting the contrast here, and we’re going to see this contrast going throughout these chapters, is that Eli is the priest. He’s supposed to be the righteous one.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 08:31 He’s the one who represents God, there shall be no razor come upon his head. Hannah is saying is that, she is going to offer her son as part of a Nazarite vow. A Nazarite vow, was a way for a non-priest to dedicate themselves to God for a period of time. Sometimes it’s a lifetime thing, but it can be for shorter times, where they dedicate their work to God, the aim that therefore, that period of the vow, that they can become holy. The word here is kadosh, which is the only way that the holiness of God is described. For a short period of time, they can become holy like God. So that’s taking us back to Leviticus, where in chapter 11 and chapter 19, God is saying, “So why am I giving you all of this law of Moses stuff? My aim is, that you may become holy, kadosh, like I am holy, kadosh.” All of those rules and regulations that we can sometimes get so caught up on, if we miss that aspect of it, then we’ve missed something really, really important.

Hank Smith: 09:49 I like what you said here, Gaye, that Hannah’s not looking to get back at anyone, wrote by verse 11, she wants to contribute to this work.

John Bytheway: 09:58 It wasn’t purely just a selfish desire, it was, “I want to help.” She didn’t say, “Give me a son so I can … “

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 10:06 Stop all of these, people mocking me. Look at how Eli responds, now, this supposedly righteous person, verse 12, “And it came to pass as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth.” The word here means, he watched. She’s praying silently, but she’s mouthing the words as she goes, and what’s his interpretation? “Oh, this woman must be drunk.” He chastises her a little bit, “How long wilt thou not be drunk and put away thy wine from thee.” She’s being chastised here, unrighteously, but notice how she responds to a priesthood leader misjudging her.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 10:54 Hannah answered and said, “No, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit, I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Please don’t count thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial.” Now I’m going to stop and emphasize that, because it’s going to come up later in the next chapter, “For out of abundance of my complaint and grief, have I spoken this.” You’re pouring out your soul at the temple and somebody comes and says, “I don’t think you should be here, you’re drunk and what.” But she responds with, this declaration of faith and her continued hope that, again, God has not forgotten her, but is aware of her needs and her heartaches and her feelings of bitterness, or mara.

Hank Smith: 11:54 Gaye, this is so important. How often are we going to be in a miserable situation and someone who should be helping us, does something offensive?

John Bytheway: 12:02 Misjudged.

Hank Smith: 12:03 She could be done right now. Here’s this religious leader who’s supposed to be good to you and says something offensive, that seems like enough to go, “You know what? I’m done with all these people.” People are going to say offensive things, even priesthood leaders.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 12:17 Let me tell you a story about me and my mom, where I’ve learned this principal and it’s had rippling effects on my life in very, very important ways. I was in the eighth grade at high school, and in Australia, that’s the first year of high school. Something had happened at school that really upset me and I came home and I was in tears, I was sobbing. I walked in the door and mom knew that something was wrong with me and so she came up, “What’s the matter?” She took me into my room, we sat on the bed, she put her arm around me, and I tried to explain to her what it was. I don’t even remember what it is now. She listened to me and consoled me for about, oh, I don’t know, a minute-and-a half. You got to know my mom, she’s wonderful and I love her. Then she just stopped and said to me, “Gaye, that’s enough. Stop crying.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 13:07 Then she said this, “You didn’t come to this earth to live with perfect people, so get over it.” As I’ve thought about that, over the years, I think what she might have been saying is, “You ain’t so perfect yourself, so don’t expect it in other people until you’re doing it.” But it’s this idea, I’ve loved this idea and I’ve treasured that idea. I expect other people to be perfect, but I want to be treated with mercy, because I know I’m not perfect, but why can’t we see that we’re all in this journey together and none of us are going to do things perfectly right. We’re trying, but we make mistakes, and we’ve got to give people some grace, as we see them, because they do things a little bit differently or don’t do things perfectly. In this case, for Eli, this is our first glimpse that perhaps all is not well with Eli as the spiritual leader of Israel at this point, because he doesn’t recognize the spiritual turmoil that Hannah is experiencing.

Hank Smith: 14:15 We’re going to find out later he himself is struggling.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 14:18 That becomes an important part of these first three chapters.

Hank Smith: 14:22 I really like Hannah’s response here. We often talk about Pahoran’s response to Moroni, but we should maybe bring up Hannah’s response to Eli as often as we bring up that Book of Mormon story.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 14:33 So in verse 19, “She’s been to the temple, they rose up in the morning and worship before the Lord and returned and came to the house of Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her,” and I think that that’s really important. I think then if we jump down to verse 22, Elkanah is going to continue to go up to the temple, but Hannah goes not up, for she said unto her husband, “I will not go up until the child be weaned and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord and there abide forever.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 15:09 Now, again, I can’t even imagine what Hannah is going through, at this point. I wonder, the text doesn’t say it, but I’d love when I get upstairs to track her down and ask her if she ever had second thoughts about this vow that she has made. I wonder if she’s thinking with that child in her arms, “How can I give him up? I have longed, I have waited so long, the Lord finally hears me. Can I really send him off to Shiloh, to a totally different city, to be in the temple? Where it seems that the people were aware, that not all was well in the priesthood at the temple.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 15:57 “Maybe I should just keep him home, maybe I should just keep him away from the wickedness that I hear about going on.” Now, I’m presuming. None of this is in the text, but as I try to put myself in her shoes, I imagine that those were maybe some of the questions that I would be considering. When she says, “Yeah, I’m not going to go up to the temple this year, give me a little bit longer with him,” I can understand, maybe the tension, that she’s struggling with at this point. But ultimately, ultimately, her vow is what wins through for her.

Hank Smith: 16:36 Does anybody else even know she’s made this vow?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 16:39 I don’t know, because she said it in her heart.

Hank Smith: 16:42 This displays her integrity even more so, thinking, “Well, no one besides God knows about this vow,” but she remembers. This is over in verse 27, “For this child I prayed and the Lord hath given me my petition, which I asked him, as long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 16:59 The word lent is interesting, because the word can mean to lend, as in, “I’m giving him too for a period of time,” honestly, this was going to be for his entire life. But it can also mean to consecrate him, to entrust him to the Lord. There is some irony there that entrusting him to the Lord, means entrusting him to Eli, and Eli isn’t going to be the perfect role model, but trusting in the Lord that in spite of the environment, that it will ultimately be the best thing for Samuel.

John Bytheway: 17:33 Can you talk about what this means in this time and place in culture? She’s basically saying, “You, now will be the one to raise him, not me anymore.” She’s taking him someplace, dropping him off. Is that what’s happening?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 17:47 He’s going to belong to the temple. He’s going to be a servant of the temples.

John Bytheway: 17:51 And he will stay there, live there, be taught there, from now on.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 17:55 He’s going to come of age, and as we look at the 1 Samuel, we are going to see him not in the temple for the rest of his life, as he gets his prophetic call, that we’ll talk about, but he is going to set up a judgment in Ramah, so he’s going to go to his hometown and people are going to come to him to get his insight and his judgment and those kind of things. But he will be there until at least he comes of age until the work of the Lord takes him elsewhere.

Hank Smith: 18:23 I know this isn’t intended in the text, but 1 Samuel 1:28, “He’ll be lent to the Lord.” I have a good neighbor, he said once sending a child on a mission, he said, “I didn’t know the private pain of sending a child on a mission.” He said, “It’s been more painful than I thought it would be.” John, you can speak to that. This idea of like, “Okay, there she goes, off to Tahiti.”

John Bytheway: 18:46 Oh, and when you learn that they’re having a bad week or a bad day, and you’re not there, I hadn’t heard it described that way, private pain, but you pray for their companions. You pray for their mission presidents. You pray for their circumstances.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 19:03 I love chapter two, and especially the early parts of this, because we are getting an insight into how Hannah feels. We’ve talked about how difficult this must have been, but chapter two opens up with her singing praises to God, and I love this. I think about Mary being told that she’s going to be the mother of the son of God and all of the thinking about the costs that involves, but then her Magnificat where she praises God, I see Hannah doing something here, and so I love this. Maybe we can read at least a little bit of it. Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoices in the Lord. Mine horn,” and this is an image for power that will come up again, “My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies because I rejoice in salvation. There is none Holy kadosh as the Lord, for there is none beside him, neither is there any rock like our God.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 20:10 Talk no more so exceedingly proudly. Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him, actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken and they that stumbled are girded with strengths.” So notice we’ve got these opposites going on. The people who are normally thought to be in power, the ones that have meaning, but God is going to turn things upside down and he’s going to pick someone like Hannah, who’s a nowhere person, or Mary from a nowhere, podunk place, and he’s going to use people. The world doesn’t recognize the strength in them, but God does, and he will use them in his work.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 20:52 “They that are full, have hired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry ceased so that the barren have born seven and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth and make us alive. He bringeth us down to the grave and he bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich. He bringeth low and he lifteth up. He raises up the poor out of the dust. Then he lifteth the beggar from the dunghill.” I love this in terms of she’s talking about those people who are in the margins of society, the world might not be aware of them, but God will, and he will reach out and he will help them. They will have a work to do and a part to play in this kingdom of God that he’s establishing. I think Hannah sees herself as part of those marginalized, but who God has reached out to and helped showing that she can also be of use to God and his kingdom.

Hank Smith: 21:51 Is this a song?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 21:52 Yes.

John Bytheway: 21:53 Okay. You mentioned Mary and what we sometimes call the Magnificat, my soul doth magnify the Lord. She just goes on and on not about how great she is, but how great God is and that’s what Hannah is doing here too. I think Nephi does it too in 2 Nephi 4. “I know in whom I have trusted,” and then he talks about how wonderful God is.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 22:14 That’s what I mentioned briefly before is at the end of 2 Samuel, David is going to also offer up a Psalm, and it is very much tied to this using some of the same motifs about God being the rock and all of that, so this is tying Hannah with David as well.

Hank Smith: 22:35 Now, we’re going to get to the problems in Eli’s house. Is that right?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 22:38 Yes. Here we got the contrast between a mother and her son, young son, and the priest and his children.

John Bytheway: 22:46 I know I’m looking at verse 12. I’m looking at Hannah saying in verse 16, “Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial.” How did you say it, Gaye?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 22:56 I said Belial, but I’m an Australian, so I probably got it wrong.

John Bytheway: 23:00 But then it says in Samuel 2:12, “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 23:06 Yes. That, again, hearkens to Eli is that he can’t see, well, spiritually, he’s not perceptive. He’s willing to see Hannah as being worthless, good for nothing. That’s what the word Belial means, although, in the dead sea scrolls, it does become a term for Satan, but he can’t see it in his own children, and so we are coming through this. What is it that his children, what’s the evidence that his children are going to be very, very different that the contrast to what we see with Samuel? Well, verse 12 through 16, the evidence of their unrighteousness and the fact that they are sons of Belial is that they’re taking the temple sacrifices and abusing them. Now, in any temple sacrifice, part of the animal was offered up to God, and so that becomes the burnt offering. Part of the animal was also given to the priests. That’s how they survived and fed their families. But then the rest of the animal was to be given back to the family who was offering the sacrifice, and that’s how they eat meat.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 24:16 It’s probably one of the few times they’re eating meat, but the sons of Eli are abusing that, and so that they’re taking greater portions of the meat; therefore, they’re taking it away from the people who are offering the sacrifice. So they’re enriching themselves on the sacrifice of others. That’s the first thing. How do we see that judged? Verse 15? “Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord.” Then if we go to verse 22, “Now Eli was very old and heard all that his sons did unto Israel, and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.” So here’s the second reason that they’re not upstanding, doing what a priest should be doing and the Levites. He said unto them, “Why do ye do such things for I hear of your evil doings by all of this people. Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear ye make the Lord’s people to transgress.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 25:21 That’s the second place where we see these things going on, but what happens, verse 25, “They hearkened not unto the voice of their father.” This is setting up the events that are going to take place later on in 1 Samuel. Then if we jump down to verse 29, now we have a man of God is coming and he’s also going to condemn Eli’s sons, and he says, verse 29, “Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation, and Eli, you honourest your sons above me to make yourselves fat with the cheapest of all of the offerings of my people.” Now, this is another example of this idea that all is not well, not just with his sons, but with Eli. I hope that we’ll contrast that with Hannah, who’s willing to, even though I think every fiber of her being is saying, “Keep my son and let me, look after him,” and who’s going to honor God more than her personal desires, but contrast Eli, he honors the sons of above me as God. These are all setting the theme for what I think happens.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 26:38 Eli is told his sons are going to die. He’s going to die. There’s going to be some repercussions for this sinning in the temple. That leads us up to chapter three, and this for me is one of my favorite parts. I love the imagery and what’s going on here, as we see Samuel as a child coming into the temple, and notice it’s not just what happens, but how the author chooses to portray this. I want you to notice the light darkness theme. That’s going to be a theme that comes up very much in the gospel of John. Jesus is the light of the world, but notice the darkness that’s happening as Samuel is serving with Eli. I can imagine that some people listening and reading this and thinking about Eli, seeing his sons and their wickedness and feeling, “I can’t always control once these children become of age, they use their agency and they make their choices, and there’s not a whole lot that I can do as a parent, even as adults, try to teach them and work with them,” and those kind of things.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 27:46 I love this quote from President Hinckley. It’s an oldie, but I think it’s a goodie in, “Behold Your Little Ones” in 1978 ensign. He says, “I recognize that there are parents who, notwithstanding an outpouring of love and a diligent and faithful effort to teach them, see their children grow in a contrary manner and weep while their wayward sons and daughters willfully pursue courses of tragic consequence. For such I have great sympathy, but such is the exception, rather than the rule, nor does the exception justify others of us from making every effort in showing forth love, example and correct precept in the rearing of those, for whom God has given a sacred responsibility.” I think the issue here with Eli is that through his own choices, he becomes complicit in what his children are doing. That’s why I think the Lord’s judgment is upon Eli as well as his sons.

Hank Smith: 29:01 Maybe I’m seeing something that’s not here, but I noticed that when Eli talks to his sons, he’s very concerned about what the people think, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people.” It does seem that Eli, when you’re saying he’s complicit in this, isn’t overly, maybe I shouldn’t say he isn’t overly concerned with what they’re doing, but how it looks publicly. I notice as a parent, that’s when I get into trouble is when I’m more concerned with how my children’s behavior looks publicly on me than actually what the real issue is, and the unfulfilled needs that they have in their life, perhaps, that’s causing the behavior, whatever it is when I’m more concerned about my reputation-

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 29:44 I want to go back to verse 29, where the man come from God, that Eli honors his sons above God. Whereas, again, Hannah, it’s the opposite here, so we’ve got the contrast coming through here. I love chapter three and seeing the coming of age of Samuel, but I also love the way that the author is setting this up. It’s not just what they say, but how they say it that’s painting a picture that I think is important for us to see. Verse one, “And the child, Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli.” Now, I want you to notice the recurrence of themes of light and darkness that are in this chapter. It’s something that’s really important in John’s gospel, and I hope that we are thinking about Jesus being the light of the world and that darkness is the absence of light. The word of the Lord was precious at this time, and the word here means it’s scarce, that God isn’t talking to his people in those days and there was no open vision.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 30:53 The idea here is vision or revelation, but I hope that you are appreciating that in order for us to see physically or spiritual, we need light to be able to see. “And it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his place and his eyes began to wax dim.” Physically, he’s not seeing as well as he used to do so he could not see, but I think the author here is saying, “Yeah, he’s got physical deficits with vision, but these are reflective of the much more important spiritual deficits that he has.” “And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord.” Again, I want you to think, don’t think in terms of modern ideas of you turn on a light and the light is brilliant and you can see everything and there’s no shadows. I want you to imagine here, this is a candle and candles convey light, but it’s a flickering kind of light. There’s still darkness there and it pierces the darkness, but it doesn’t get rid of the darkness.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 31:59 So this idea of light in the temple, it’s gone out, it’s now night, so there’s no light in the temple of the Lord where the arc of God was and Samuel was laid down to sleep, again, darkness. “And the Lord called to Samuel,” and I want to stop here and say the name Samuel means God hears. I think Hannah did that because this child was because God hears. But in this chapter, we see Samuel as one who hears God, which I think is very, very important to see. “The Lord called to Samuel and he answered and said, Here am I.” The word is hineni. This is just, yes. But it also in other places in scriptures has this sense of yes with an intenseness that I’m willing to listen to. I think if we think in terms of Moses where Jesus is going to say to God, “Behold, here am I.” Certainly, when Isaiah is called to be a prophet of God, he uses this word hineni.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 33:08 This is this sense here that even as a young child, Samuel is willing to listen, but he didn’t understand. He hasn’t had experiences with God yet, and Eli is the one who is charged to help him see and to hear and to recognize which I think is some irony. You know the story, he runs to Eli and said, “Here am I, for thou has called me.” Eli said, “I didn’t call you go back to sleep.” He said, “Okay,” and he goes back to bed. The Lord called yet again, Samuel, and Samuel jumped up again and went to Eli and he says, “Here am I, you did call me.” He said, “No, I didn’t. Go back to bed.” Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed to him. He’s young, he’s learning. “And the Lord called a third time. And he arose up and went to Eli and said, Here am I.” Now, Eli whose spiritual and physical dimness recognizes what’s going on here.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 34:14 He is able to say to him, “Go lie down, and it shall be. If he call thee, that thou shalt say, speak Lord for thy servant heareth.” Samuel went and laid down in his place and the Lord came and stood and called, as at other times, “Samuel, Samuel,” then Samuel answered and said, “Speak, for thy servant heareth.” Now, it’s not happenstance, that this is happening in the tabernacle, the place where when God comes to earth, he chicanes, he dwells. It’s not his permanent dwelling. He dwells in the temple in heaven, but when he comes to earth, he comes to the temple. This is him perhaps understanding that Samuel needs more than Eli, even though Eli is going to play a part here, but he’s coming directly to Samuel so that he can teach him as he goes on. The Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of everyone that heareth, it shall tingle. In that day, I will perform against Eli.”

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 35:22 Now, again, Samuel’s young, but the Lord thinks he’s mature enough to take this judgment, that he’s letting Samuel know about the judgment against Eli, “All the things that I have spoken concerning his house when I begin, and I will also make an end, for I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity that which he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not,” so here’s the second reason why this judgment is on Eli as well. “And therefore I have sworn under the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever, and Samuel lay until it was morning,” so light, “and opened the doors of the house of the Lord.” You can imagine that Samuel was afraid to tell Eli this judgment. I wouldn’t want to be doing it, especially a young child, but Eli wanted to know, and so he told him.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 36:18 Then we get verse 19, very similar to what Luke says about Jesus, “And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and did let none of his words fall to the ground, and all Israel for Dan, even to Beersheba,” so there are geographical terms to know that we’re talking all of Israel, not just tribes of Israel, “knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord, and that the Lord appeared again in Shiloh.” I think that’s just the Lord has returned to his temple, not because of Eli and his sons, but because of this young child, Samuel. Light has now returned to Israel. Temple is now functioning again because of Samuel. One of the things I love about Samuel is even though there were prophets prior to Samuel in both Third Nephi and also in Acts, they talk about the time of the prophets from Samuel. Samuel is identified as the beginning of the prophetic tradition in Israel.

Hank Smith: 37:29 Yeah, because in the Book of Judges you didn’t really see that this type of person, but after this, we’re going to see Elijah and Elijah and Isaiah and these prophetic figures. This is great, Gaye. I feel bad for Eli. Should I?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 37:43 Absolutely, we should.

Hank Smith: 37:45 His response to Samuel is, “It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good,” in verse 18 he’s saying, “Yes, I’m aware. I know.” I’m glad it’s okay to feel bad for Eli here, Gaye.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 37:58 Well, we have to, because there are plenty of times that the Lord is going to call us to account for the things that we haven’t done as well.

Hank Smith: 38:08 It’s important that the Lord have boundaries. I can hear someone reading this, being uncomfortable with what Samuel is saying about Eli’s house, but it’s going to be between the Lord and Eli.

John Bytheway: 38:19 Right, because I think we feel bad for Lehi. We feel bad for Nephi when I couldn’t keep the family together, when he’s mad with his brothers. As we’ve talked about there, Eli seems to be complicit to some degree at the end of verse 13, “He restrained them not.” Was he not even trying? We don’t know, but we all just have to try to take care of our own house and we’re all doing the best we can.

Hank Smith: 38:41 I actually really like how complicated this is and messy and unclear.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 38:47 Because life is like that.

Hank Smith: 38:49 Yeah, because as a parent, you’re going, “Well, how do I restrain?

John Bytheway: 38:52 I know, yeah.

Hank Smith: 38:53 What am I supposed to do?

John Bytheway: 38:54 Don’t do that guys.

Hank Smith: 38:56 That’s between you and the Lord. You’ve got to go to him. Maybe it sounds like Eli, didn’t go to the Lord, that he looked the other way, didn’t ask the Lord what he was supposed to do. Who knows? That’s complicated stuff. That’s messy.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 39:10 I think the most important thing that I take again is the role that Hannah plays here in the bringing forth of someone like Samuel who is placed in an environment, which should have been much better than it is, but even so he’s able to thrive. I wonder how much of the faith of Hannah has been impacted, even though she only had Samuel for a few years, but how much of that mother’s faith has impacted this young man and helped him to be receptive? He certainly needed some help, but to be receptive to the things of God, and then spent his life in the service of his people and of his God.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 40:02 If we rush too quickly to Samuel, I think we missed something really, really powerful. There are plenty of women in the church who just don’t see themselves in the scriptures, but they should absolutely see themselves in Hannah and her faith and her determination to contribute. There’s something there for anyone who would be a disciple to learn from Hannah and from her experiences as each one of us try to deal with the things that life throws us as well. I love this story and I love the impact and how we see it played out in the growing faith of this young prophet who brings God back to Israel.

Hank Smith: 40:46 That’s great. That is great. This has been just fantastic. I’ve got notes through the Book of Ruth and through these first three chapters of Samuel that just changed these chapters for me forever. John, I’m sure you feel the same. Before we let you go, I think our listeners would be interested in your journey of becoming a Bible scholar and also a faithful Latter-day Saint. What’s that journey been like for you, and also as a bit of an immigrant too yourself?

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 41:15 That’s right.

Hank Smith: 41:15 Right? Born in Australia, and yet here been in the U.S. for what? 30 years now.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 41:22 Yep. It’s been a while.

Hank Smith: 41:23 Tell us that whole journey.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 41:25 Yeah. It’s an interesting journey even to me. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and say, “Is this really happening?” I think I’ve got to go back a ways to answer that. I grew up in a very, very small branch of the church in Australia in a place called Redcliffe and early on, it was a dependent branch. My mother and grandmother had joined the church in 1958, when I mean small, I mean, small. They provided a really important spiritual legacy to me. This was a time when you still had budgets at church. I grew up with my mother and grandmother sewing and cooking all month to have a store so we could raise money so we could pay for renting the scout hall that we met in, those kinds of things. When we built a chapel, my mother and grandmother were out there with picks and shovels, digging the trenches. That’s what I have in my mind, but this small branch has some difficulties, but some real pluses. One of them was, I had a friend when I was 11, who was given a missionary triple combination for their birthday.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 42:35 We were really quite close, and so everything he did I wanted to do. So I decided if he’s got this missionary triple combination, I wanted one too. I thought it was a righteous desire, so I went up to my mom and said, “Mom, I want a triple combination,” and she said, “No.” I was a little bit, “Hang on. This is a good thing.” She said, “We’ve got plenty of scriptures out there. You just go get one of them.” Well, she didn’t understand that I wasn’t talking about any one. I wanted missionary with thumb tabs and the really fine paper and all of those things. I kept asking her and she kept rejecting me, and so eventually I had to change my approach and I went up to her and I remember saying, “Okay, mom, so if I save this money for myself, can I get one?” Then she said, “Yes.” Now, in retrospect, looking back, my dad was out of work at that time for an extended period of time, and I’m sure that made things very, very tight for her in a way that I wasn’t aware as a kid.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 43:33 But I remember the day I had to save up. I remember it was $12 that I eventually saved it up. And I remember traveling to Brisbane about an hour away. Mom took us so that I could go and buy this scripture. I brought it home, and because I think it was really good that I had to pay for it myself because I treasured it. I came home and I spent hours unsticking the pages and those kinds of things. Then, one day I was at my sister’s and I saw my brother-in-law’s missionary scriptures, and I thought, “Oh.” I thumbed through them. And I saw that he’d color coded everything. Yellow meant Godhead, red meant restoration, purple meant resurrection, all of these kind of things. I decided if I’ve got missionary scriptures, I should mark them like missionary scriptures. This started me on a journey that I could never have understood, because I went through that triple combination and I marked everything that my brother-in-law had put there. In the process I’m going, “Oh, that’s a cool scripture. Oh.” I was 11. I know I’m a little weird. I know that, but that was my beginning.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 44:42 After I finished with my triple combination, I went to mom and said, “I want a Bible. Well, this time she didn’t say no, because she saw how invested I was in this. So for Christmas that year I got a Bible, and I went and did exactly the same things. The scriptures opened up to me even as an 11-year-old that I would never even considered. That started me on this journey of just loving to read everything I could get about the church or the scriptures. I even tried to sign up when I was a little bit older for Hebrew classes, but they never carried, so that’s one thing that was really important. The second thing, this small branch that has been really helpful to me is because it was so small when you graduated from primary, you got your first calling. That’s just the way that it happened. You get your, “Here’s your certificate from primary. Oh, by the way, we’re calling you to be the junior Sunday school chorister or something like that. That wasn’t anything because of me, it was just there was big needs.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 45:46 By the time I was 16, I was the junior Sunday school coordinator, and you know that you learn more when you are teaching than otherwise. When I was 17, I was called to be the gospel doctrine young adult teacher. Again, it’s not because of me, but what I’m saying is all of these things put me in a place where I was learning and studying and things like that. It seemed for years, that’s how it went. So I was never called in Young Women’s until I came here and I was 45, was my first calling to Young Women’s, but I was always teaching, teaching institute. I moved and I went up to, I was in small branches in Townsville, and so I was called as the institute teacher. We only had three young adults there, but that’s what we did. I’ve studied as a physical therapist. One of the things about Australian physical therapists is that they often take off and go backpacking around the world.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 46:45 I went to one hospital in Townsville and everybody seems had just come back from that, and so every lunchtime they’re talking about their experiences in India and all of these things. At that time, a friend of mine wrote to me and said, “I’m thinking about backpacking. Do you want to come?” I thought, “Okay.” So we took off and we spent six months traveling, but the first place we wanted to go was Israel. I wanted to go to Israel. I wasn’t experienced at that point, but we went there. So we had a, “Let’s go Europe,” in one hand and a Bible in the other hand and let’s see what we can find. That changed forever the way I read scripture, because there is a holiness of place, and I felt that. I never had a guide or anything like that, it was just with us with scriptures. Well, I had such a good experience there, and then I came home and I was working in a new hospital, and Elder Faust came to our stake conference.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 47:46 Just before he started his talk, he says, “The Jerusalem Center is about to open up,” and he said, specifically, “This is not just for BYU students.” He says, “Any of you young women who want to go, you should go.” When he said that I had tingles all up and down my spine, and I girded up my loins and I actually went up and talked to him after. I never do that. I never go up and talk to general authorities, but I did to him. He said, “Oh, okay. So you call this person, da, da, da, da.” Then, within about three months, I was at Jerusalem from Australia, and this is when The Jerusalem Center was just opening up in 1987. It wasn’t the sites because I’d seen the sites. But I had teachers who knew the scriptures. Steven Ricks was one of them and he knew them inside and out, and I just used to sit there being so amazed at his knowledge and how his knowledge of language and culture and context, and I was just, “Oh,” I was like sitting under this waterfall, and it was just pouring on me.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 48:53 I’m going, “Oh, I love it. But I can’t take all of this in.” That was such a life-changing experience that I came home, went on my mission and then came back and thought, “I want more of this.” I came to BYU and got my second degree in Near Eastern Studies, and I was just doing it for fun. I had a career I could go back to, but I finished another bachelor’s and they said, “Well, why don’t you get a master’s?” I thought, “Okay,” and did that. When I started doing that, I went into the religion department, Steven Robinson, to see if I could teach some classes, and he did, and the rest is history. They sent me off to Claremont. They didn’t let me stay at BYU, which is what I would’ve liked to have done. I thought, “Oh, how am I going to pay for this? I’m a foreigner. I don’t have access to all of the loans. This isn’t cheap.” I did it with a lot of hope and faith.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 49:49 I got there and I thought I’d jumped into the deep end and couldn’t swim, because everybody had been studying this stuff for years. The things that I learned at Claremont were, which was very textually based is the questions that scholars ask of texts. They’re different to the questions that we sometimes ask in the church, and I found that with my church background, I answered the questions differently than what my peers at Claremont did because of the restoration. But I found that questions were really, really intriguing to me, one of those places, again, where that just changed the way I thought about, read and studied scriptures. Ever since, I love the scriptures. I love the Old Testament. This is one of my favorite books. I’m a person who thinks that context is really, really important, not just a nice thing, but it’s critical for us to be able to even make the connections to how this applies in our life. I do this, some skills that I learned there have been very, very important to my study, the scriptures, and feeling the spirit bless me to see in ways that I haven’t seen before. I really believe that the spirit comes to the seekers, not to the passive, so I’ve got to be looking for questions and reading them so that the spirit can teach me and direct me.

Hank Smith: 51:19 Yeah. I picture a little 11-year-old girl, in a tiny little branch with her triple combination and what that has turned into, has been spectacular.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 51:30 You can see why I pinch myself every now and then, right.?

John Bytheway: 51:33 Brings us full circle about an unexpected life, because that is a beautiful story. I’ve never heard that about you, and I love that. I want every 11-year-old to hear that story.

Hank Smith: 51:45 That is just awesome. We want to thank Dr. Gaye Strathearn for being with us today. Wow. Wow. Wow. Gaye, you have just richly blessed John and I and all of our listeners. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Gaye Strathearn: 51:59 Thanks for having me.

Hank Smith: 51:59 We hope to see you again.

John Bytheway: 52:01 We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. We hope all of you will come back next week for another episode of followHIM.