A Certain Man. 1st Samuel 1:1-2 In various places and times in the scriptures, we learn that God, by His grace, takes people from obscurity and uses them to bring about blessings to His people. Some of the judges were not well-known men or women and were used by God despite what could be considered unfavorable circumstances. The incarnation of Christ began in a very humble setting, but the angels of heaven watched and worshipped. Some of those recorded in the book of Acts were not well-known people, but a brief word is mentioned to inform us that God knows every effort put forth to bring glory to him.
It is not uncommon for people to say today that they are inadequate to do certain work for God because of their background and lack of education or some other reason. None of these excuses means anything to God, who is determined to bring the proud man down and the humble man up. This principle and practice of God is testified to at the beginning of the book of First Samuel.
Elkanah lived in a small village in the hill country of Ephraim with mountains all around that probably would limit the production of his fields and expose his flocks to the wild animals inclined to live in the mountains. In this place of small beginnings, where streams of water begin to become large rivers, roads from little villages lead to large highways to travel. Small fields that produce little provide sustenance for many as their produce is added to many other small fields in a city market.
Obscurity in a small place does not limit God nor give us an excuse for not diligently seeking to live our lives for Him. Our surroundings, even on this evil day when most people have no interest in or time for God, do not absolve us from our responsibility to serve Him and obey His word. Great congregations of people may attend places of "worship," but our commitment is to "worship the Father in spirit and truth." This has nothing to do with the building or the number of people gathering together. This is me and God, my Gracious Heavenly Father.
Elkanah is introduced at the beginning of the book as a "certain man" of a certain place, from a certain tribe, from a certain family background who had "two wives." Apparently, to some people living in those days, polygamy was a sign of wealth because of potentially having a lot of children. It also may have been accepted as a practice because of those sons who died in battle and the need of others to carry on the family name and preserve the family inheritance. For whatever reason, Elkanah had two wives; some problems come with doing things our way rather than the way God intends.
Husbands have a certain lack of understanding of women that can lead them not only to be ignorant of what their wife needs but even to be insensitive to what they should be like toward her. To have two wives would double that problem. It calls for a deliberate desire to understand one's wife on the part of a husband to find and maintain that special bond that makes marriage such an important part of life. When a man begins to take his wife for granted, he has created a low wall between them that can gradually build up to create a barrier between them.
This man took one of his wives, Peninnah, for granted because she bore him children and would be busy caring for them from day to day. He got used to her. That is not a good thing to happen in any relationship, particularly the husband-wife relationship. Underlying bitterness toward her husband moved Peninnah to take out her bitterness and jealousy on Hannah. Elkanah apparently made it no secret that he especially loved Hannah. In his male simplicity, he didn't realize his love for Hannah, and his lack of personal attention to Peninnah was the cause of friction in his household.
Even though a man may be legitimately busy with his daily work and work for the assembly and meeting other people's needs, that does not excuse him from his priority of loving his wife "even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it." When we sense things are not right between us as a married couple, it is the husband’s responsibility to find out the cause of the difficulty and deal with it as quickly as possible. To look for areas of blame to excuse ourselves is never right. Find the problem, act to find the solution, and if there is blame somehow, take that and be grateful that you can do so.