“May your servant find favor in your eyes.” The High Priest represented Yahweh.

“So the woman went her way.” There is much in a seemingly unimportant sentence. The text does not name Hannah, but says, “the woman.” It was Hannah as a woman, a wife, and a potential mother that was at stake here, and she had just been blessed by the High Priest. As a woman, Hannah went forth, grasping onto the blessing of Eli as the Word of Yahweh that she would have a son, and she was no longer downcast. Hope had been given, joy had been restored.