He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. (v. 2) This suggests that Hannah was Elkanah’s first wife.10 The couple suffered the all-too-common sadness of being unable to have children, and so, apparently, Elkanah took a second wife. Such an arrangement was not forbidden in Old Testament times but commonly led to the kind of difficulties we will hear about in this chapter (see Deuteronomy 21:15–17).