Hannah’s Forceful Prayer for a Child in Rabbinic Literature

b. Berakhot 31b

220–600

Hannah said before the Holy One, “Master of the universe, if You will look upon [ra’oh] [me now,] fine, and if not, [in any case] You will see [tir’eh] (1 Samuel 1:11). I will go and seclude myself [with another man] before Elkanah, my husband. Since I secluded myself, they will force me to drink the sotah water [to determine whether or not I have committed adultery. I will be found innocent,] and [since] You will not make Your Torah false, [I will bear children as the Torah] says: [And if the woman was not defiled, but was pure, then] she shall be acquitted and she shall conceive (Numbers 5:28).”

Translation adapted from the Noé Edition of the Koren Talmud
Bavli.

Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

Credits

From Koren Talmud Bavli, Noé Edition, trans. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019). Accessed via the William Davidson digital edition, sefaria.org. Adapted with permission of Koren Publishers Ltd.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

Engage with this Source

Talmudic literature depicts Hannah’s prayer as an argument with God that Hannah wins. Hannah warns that if God does not grant her request, she will take extreme measures, secluding herself with another man so that she will be forced to undergo the trial for a suspected adulteress prescribed in Numbers 5:11–31. Since the biblical text says that a woman cleared of the charge of adultery will become pregnant, God will have no choice but to grant her a child. For other forceful prayers in rabbinic literature, see Rabbinic Depictions of Individual Prayers.

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Ancient Jewish Literature

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