Then Elcana her husband said to her: Anna, why weepest thou? and why dost thou not eat? And why dost thou afflict thy heart? Am not I better to thee than ten children?

“Would you like to understand what watchfulness in prayer is? Go to Hannah, listen to her very words, "Adonai Eloi Sabaoth." No, rather, hear what preceded those words; "they all rose up," says the history, "from the table," and she did not give herself right away to sleep or to repose. She appears to me even when she was sitting at the table to have partaken lightly and not to have been made heavy with food. Otherwise she could never have shed so many tears. When we are fasting and foodless, we hardly pray in such a manner, or rather never pray in this way. Much more Hannah would not ever have prayed in this fashion after a meal, unless even at the meal she had been like those that do not eat. Let men be ashamed at the example of this woman. Let those be ashamed who are suing and grasping for a kingdom, at her, praying and weeping for a little child.”

“Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou?.... Since it was a time of rejoicing, as every festival was, especially at the ingathering of the fruits of the earth: and why eatest thou not? since they were at a feast, and she had the best part and portion of the provision: and why is thy heart grieved? to such a degree that she could neither eat nor drink: am not I better to thee than ten sons? which, as Jarchi says, Peninnah had borne to him; his meaning is, that the share she had in his love and affections ought to have been esteemed by her more than if she had ten or many children by him; and it suggests that Peninnah would have been glad to have such a share in his affections as Hannah had; and it would have been more eligible to her, than to have borne him so many children as she had.”