her womb (v. 5b). The fact was enough; the aggravation was worse, especially when she was worshiping at Shiloh. Though it would not comfort Hannah, it helps us to remember that Hannah is not the first barren woman noted in Scripture. We remember Sarai/Sarah and how Genesis 11:30 (“Now Sarai continued barren; she had no child”) hangs like a dark cloud over the next ten chapters of Genesis. The mathematics of Genesis 25 (vv. 20–21, 26b) show that Rebekah had no children for the first twenty years of