1Sa 1:12-14, 12 As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth 13…Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. 14 And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.”
A hasty observation is a misconception in which a conclusion is not logically justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence. Eli the priest observed and judged Hannah by watching her motions and gestures, moving her lips as though she was speaking to herself. Eli was right not to assume that she was a mad woman but wrong to conclude that she was drunk and advising her to put wine away.
Observers ought to be cautious how they condemn the devotions of others, lest they conclude it to be hypocrisy. Hannah had a heavy heart, she had not eaten and was weak both physically and spiritually. Now in her troubled soul, she was reproached by Eli as if she had eaten and drunk. 1Co 4:5 reads “Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time,…” Wrong diagnosis leads to wrong prescription.