Do not regard your maidservant as a base woman: in some languages it may be confusing or unnatural for a speaker to refer to herself in the third person as Hannah does here. Numerous translations substitute the first person singular pronoun “I” or “me” for the word maidservant in order to make clear that Hannah is referring to herself (Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, German common language version [Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch], Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Revised English Bible). Such a substitution may lose the element of humility that the speaker is expressing in relationship to the person being spoken to. If a literal translation risks being misunderstood or confusing for the reader, perhaps one can say something like “Do not regard me, your maidservant, as a base woman.” Another possibility is to make two separate sentences saying “I am your servant. Do not consider me to be a base woman.”
As a base woman: the Hebrew construction at the beginning of this phrase is not translated literally in Revised Standard Version. It includes the Hebrew preposition l- plus the noun “face,” forming a complex construction that functions here as a comparative preposition and is correctly rendered as.
Base woman is literally “a daughter of Belial.” See also 2.12; 10.27; 25.17; 30.22. The words “daughter of” (like “son of”) plus a noun often function in Hebrew as an adjective stating the nature or character of the person being described. The exact meaning of the Hebrew word belial is not clear, though it is clearly a term of contempt. Perhaps it is formed from two words meaning “without” and “worth.” In the Old Testament this word is used in contexts that suggest the idea of “evil”; by the time of the New Testament, it had become the name of the prince of evil (see 2 Cor 6.15). A literal translation (so King James Version) will have zero meaning. A translation such as “worthless” (Good News Translation, New Revised Standard Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “so devoid of shame” (Revised English Bible) seems correct in this context.
Speaking: not to Eli (verses 15-16) but to God (verses 10-13). Perhaps in some languages it will be wise to make this explicit. Several modern versions do so by using the word “praying” (New International Version, New Century Version, Good News Translation).
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .