Gratia et Arca Veti Testamenti

Hannah, Samuel and Eli the Priest

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

During daily Mass at Our Lady of Grace today I learned two new things, (a) the meaning of the name Hannah and (b) the end of the Ark of the Old Covenant. Fr. Kirby (whom Gov Nikki Halley has just awarded the Order of the Palmetto - congratulations!) gave the homily for the Thursday in the 4th Week of Advent whose readings included:

• The Account of Hannah Presenting Samuel to Eli in 1st Samuel 1:24-28
• Hannah's Song of Rejoicing in 2nd Samuel 2:1-8
• Mary's Magnificat in Luke 1:46-56

HANNAH MEANING GRACE

Hannah (meaning grace) was one of two wives, the other being Peninnah (meaning jewel), of a man named Elkanah (meaning God has possessed or God has created). These names are significant because of their relation to what would happen a little over a millennium later. Peninnah had many sons and daughter but Hannah had none. In those days it was a mark of shame not to have children (so unlike today). Even though Elkanah would give a double portion of the sacrifices to Hannah, nothing would console her grief except a child. So she prayed silently at Shiloh one day and Eli the priest saw her. Initially he suspected her drunk from seeing her lips move with no sound, but she explained to him the desire of her heart and he said to her in 1st Samuel 1:17, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have requested." And Scripture says in verse 19, "When they returned Elkanah had intercourse with his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered her." Samuel (meaning heard of God) was then born, and after he was weened, she brought him to Eli in dedication to the Lord. It is significant that God created (Elkanah) through Grace (Hannah) the boy child Samuel just as some 1105 years later the Holy Spirit (God) would overshadow the Blessed Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Grace) so that she would conceive the Christ Child (truly heard of God, hence the name Samuel) within her womb. And truly Hannah's song of rejoicing presages Mary's Magnificat in the Gospel of St. Luke.

FATE OF THE ARK OF THE OLD COVENANT

One of the things which has always puzzled Biblical archaeologists and others is the eventual fate of the Old Covenant. But first we have to understand what replaced that Ark. Fr. Kirby explained that just as Mary pregnant with Jesus went to visit Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea for three months, so did a similar thing happen to the Old Ark of the Covenant. 2nd Samuel 6 gives the account of the return of the Ark of the Old Covenant to Jerusalem by King David. Some interesting parallels exist here:

• The Ark of the Old Covenant was holy, being filled with the presence of God, such that Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ox cart by which it was being transported, God struck him dead on the spot.
• The Ark of the Old Covenant then remained at the House of Obed-edom in the hill country of Judah for three months.
• David the King danced before the Ark of the Old Covenant on its eventual return to Jerusalem.

In the same Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant:

• Mary was filled with the Christ Child, God Himself, and as such could not be touched by mortal man, hence her perpetual virginity.
• Mary made haste to stay with her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judah for three months.
• John the Baptist leaped - danced - within the womb of Elizabeth upon being in the presence of Mary and Jesus within her womb.

The parallels are very clear. Indeed, Hebrews 9:4 tells us what was within the Ark of the Old Covenant: "...the manna, the staff of Aaron that had sprouted, and the tablets of the covenant." Those things also were within Mary:

• Jesus the Bread of Life - the Manna
• Jesus the High Priest - the staff of Aaron
• Jesus the Fulfillment of the Law - the Tablets of the Covenant

So to make way for the Ark of the New Covenant, what happened to the old Ark? Fr. Kirby said that it was destroyed in the final Babylonian attack against Jerusalem in 2nd Chronicles 36:15-21. However, 2nd Maccabees 2:5-8 says the following:

When Jeremiah arrived there, he found a chamber in a cave in which he put the tent, the ark, and the altar of incense; then he sealed the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up intending to mark the path, but they could not find it. When Jeremiah heard of this, he reproved them: “The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy. Then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will be seen, just as they appeared in the time of Moses and of Solomon when he prayed that the place might be greatly sanctified.”

So after Mass I asked Fr. Kirby what might actually have happened: did the Babylonians find the hiding spot and destroy the Ark? He explained what Ezekiel 9:3 and Ezekiel 10 indicate: that the Glory of the Lord departed from above the mercy seat, from between the Cherubim on the Ark of the Old Covenant because of the idolatry being committed in the Temple, and then finally left the Temple itself and all Jerusalem as the Babylonians came in to finally level the city. Without the Glory of the Lord there was no Ark. For all intents and purposes it was destroyed at that point. This had to be done in order to make way for the Ark of the New Covenant, for God's final Pact with Mankind - the promise of Grace, hence the name Hannah.