Provocations in Domestic Life
H. W. Beecher. 1 Samuel 1:7 And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat. A garden has a great many flowers in it. Some of them are weeds, some of them are purslane, and some of them are nettles, which are not very desirable for bouquets. In the garden, however, we can take our choice; but in the family we cannot. There we have to take all. If there is a complaining one, we have to take that one; if there is a weak and dull-eyed one, we have to take that one; if there is a moody and morose one, we have to take that one; and it takes but one bitter lemon to spoil the whole of your lemonade. If of half-a-dozen lemons five are perfectly good, and the other is bad, the whole mixture is bad; for the nature of this one bad lemon enters into it. So one person may spoil the pleasure of twenty. A mother may keep a cloud resting on the whole household from morning till night; thank God she sleeps at nights. A father may fret and worry the whole household; and therefore Paul says, "Fathers, provoke not your children." They are apt to make the children cross, or to create in them an unrestful, unquiet disposition. It does not take more than one smoky chimney in a room to make it intolerable. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat. WEB: [as] he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of Yahweh, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.