If there were ever a day that felt like Mother's Day to Hannah, this was it. This was the day she would get to see her son, Samuel, for the first time since last year. Each autumn, Hannah and her family would make the pilgrimage from their home in Ramah to the religious center of the nation in Shiloh for the Feast of Tabernacles - the annual celebration of the harvest, a time to renew the covenant between Israel and her God - one of the three holiest festivals of the Hebrew year. To be sure, Hannah was a religious woman, but religion was not so much on her mind THIS day as was her boy.

Even though Shiloh was only twelve miles to the east of Ramah, the journey had taken two days. The narrow, rocky roads that wound their way among the limestone hills and fertile valleys made travel slow and…