Now let us look a bit at the second of these, the portrait of Hannah the Hebrew woman.
First the broader lines for perspective. This peculiar Hebrew nation had two deep dips down morally between Egypt and Babylon; between the first making, and the final breaking. The national tide ebbed very low twice, before it finally ran out in the Euphrates Valley.

Elijah stemmed the tide the second time, and saved the day for a later night. The Hannah story belongs in the first of these ebb-tides; the first bad sag; the first deep gap.

The giant lawgiver is long gone. His successor, only a less giant than himself is gone too, and all that generation, and more. The giants gave way to smaller-sized leaders. Now they are gone also.

The mountain peaks have been lost in the foothills, and these have yielded to dunes, and levels; mostly levels; dead levels. These mountains must have had long legs. The foothills are so far away, and are running all to toes. Now the toes have disappeared.

It is a leaderless people, for the true Leader as originally planned has been, first ignored, then forgot.

The people have no ideals. They grub in the earth, content.
There is a deep, hidden-away current of good. But it needs leadership to bring it to the surface.

A leaderless people! This is the niche of the Hannah story.