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Hannah’s Song of Praise
1Sa_2:1-10
My heart rejoiceth in the Lord [Jehovah],
My horn is exalted in the Lord [ Jehovah];
My mouth is enlarged [opened wide] over mine enemies,
Because I rejoice in thy salvation.
2 There is none holy as the Lord [Jehovah],
‘For there is none beside thee,
Neither is there any [And there is no] rock like our God.
3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly;
Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth;
For the Lord [Jehovah] is a God of knowledge,
And by him actions are weighed.
4 The bows of the mighty men are broken,
And they that stumbled are girded with strength.
5 They that were full have hired themselves out for bread,
And they that were hungry ceased [ins. to hunger];
So that [Even6] the barren hath borne seven,
And she that hath many children hath waxed feeble.
6 The Lord [Jehovah] killeth and maketh alive,
He [om. He] bringeth down to the grave (underworld) and bringeth up.
7 The Lord [Jehovah] maketh poor and maketh rich,
He (om. He) bringeth low and lifteth up.
8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,
And [om. And] lifteth up the beggar [needy] from the dunghill,
To set them among princes,
And to make [And he makes] them to inherit the [a] throne of glory:
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s [Jehovah’s],
And he hath set the world upon them.
9 He will keep the feet of his saints,
And the wicked shall be silent9 in darkness;
For by strength shall no man [not by strength shall a man] prevail.
10 The adversaries of the Lord [Jehovah] shall be broken to pieces;
Out of heaven shall [will] he thunder upon them.
The Lord [Jehovah] shall [will] judge the ends of the earth,
And he shall [will] give strength unto his king,
And exalt the horn of his anointed.
The content of the Song is: 1) The manifestation of deep joy in the Lord at the deliverance vouchsafed by Him over against enemies (1Sa_2:1). With lofty flight the four-membered strophe rises from the depth of the heart’s joyful emotion on high, where the source of salvation and help in the living God is seen and praised. The heart (as elsewhere the soul) is the central organ of all painful and joyful feelings. The “horn” is the symbol—derived from horned beasts, which carry the head high in consciousness of power—of vigorous courage and consciousness of power, of which the Lord is the source, (comp. Deu_33:17; Psa_75:5; Psa_89:18; Psa_89:25). The repetition of the “in the Lord” emphasizes the fact that the joyous frame of mind and lofty consciousness of power has its root in the Lord, and presupposes the most intimate communion with the living God. The “mouth opened wide over my enemies,” intimates that the joy and courage that filled her soul had found utterance, partly in exulting over adversaries, as contrasted with the silence of subjection to them, partly in proclaiming the glory of the Lord in thanks and praise for the help received from Him in the attacks of foes. The ground of her joy in the Lord is His salvation, His help against enemies. 2) The praise of the majesty of God in His holiness and His faithfulness, which is as firm as a rock (1Sa_2:2). The “holy” indicates here in the broad sense the infinite superiority of God to everything earthly and human, His isolation from the world, but at the same time His absolute completeness of life in contrast with the nothingness and perishableness of everything in the sphere of the creaturely, as in Psa_99:2-5; comp. 1Ki_8:27. This is evident from the double negation: “none is holy as the Lord; for there is none beside thee.” The ground of this exclusive holiness is the aloneness and absoluteness of God; there is no God beside Him, He shares the divine being [Germ. Sein und Wesen] with none; therefore He is apart from everything human and earthly, and lifted up above it.—The words “there is no rock like our God,” express the aloneness and exclusiveness of God’s character as set forth by the name rock. This superiority of God to all earthly and worldly being, this absolute glory beyond everything finite and human does not exclude, but is the ground of His self-revelation as the Fixed, Unchangeable, Immovable amid everything earthly and human. The “our God” presupposes the revelation of God by which He, as the Holy One, has chosen His people to be His possession, announced Himself to this people as their God, and made a covenant with them. The symbolical designation of this covenant-God by Rock, which occurs frequently, was suggested naturally by the configuration of the ground in Palestine, where masses of rock surrounded by steep precipices offered an image of solid and sure protection. God is a rock in His firm unshakable faithfulness; and it is the more necessary to suppose this attribute to be here set forth, because His relation to His people as covenant-God is assumed in the words “our God.” This term has the signification of faithfulness and indestructible trustworthiness in Deu_32:4, also; where it is clearly the same as àֱîåּðָä “faithfulness,” Psa_18:3, (2) sq.; Psa 92:16.—The presupposition is the declaration “there is none beside Thee.” Jehovah, as the Holy One who has revealed Himself to His people as their God in His lofty elevation above the earthly and human, and is alone the truly existing living God, is for this very reason the Rock also in the absolute sense, the unchangeable, unshakably faithful, trustworthy God, and therefore claims from men, to whom He has revealed Himself as their God, and is known as such, unconditioned complete confidence, as it is expressed in this brief sentence, “none is a rock like our God.”
3) The manifestations of the holy and faithful God in His conduct, as it is determined by His omniscience and omnipotence, partly towards the ungodly, partly towards the godly, 1Sa_2:3; 1Sa_2:8).
1Sa_2:3. The negative particle is omitted before “come out” ( éֵöֵà ) as before “speak” ( úְּãַáְּøåּ ), and the sense requires that it be supplied (Gesenius, §152, 3). Partly by the “more,” [Heb. literally, “do not increase to speak.”—Tr.], partly by the doubling of the noun [ âְּáֹäָä “pride;” in Eng. A. V. the intensive doubling is rendered by “exceeding,”—TR.], the boastful vaunting character, the haughty soul of the ungodly is characterized, showing itself, as it often does, in arrogant words, and becoming, as it were, a second nature. The warning, “talk not so proudly, proudly,” stands in contrast with the praise of God’s grandeur in His holiness, and brings out the more sharply the contrast between human pride and the humility which is appropriate towards the holy God. Herder’s reference of the word (Geist d. ebräisch. Poesie 2, 282) to the “heights, which were used for defence, and in which pride was felt” is untenable, the Heb. not permitting it. The talking with so many proud and arrogant words stands in contrast with the expression of humility and gratitude in 1Sa_2:2 : “My mouth is opened wide, etc., there is none holy.”.......” òָúָ÷ “arrogance” specially marks the haughty talk as the expression of a bold defiant soul, which will not bend, and manifests itself particularly towards the pious and God fearing by bold words, comp. Psa_75:6; Psa_94:4; Psa_31:19. Sins of word, corresponding to the proud nature, are here emphasized, because what the heart is full of the mouth will speak.
His warning is supported by pointing to God’s omniscience and omnipotence, in which the relation of His holiness to earthly and human things is shown. “For Jehovah is a God of omniscience.” The plu. “knowledges” ( ãֵּòåֹú ) indicates that God knows and is acquainted with every individual thing, that, as He is raised above every created thing, and thus present with all things and creatures, so they are present and known to Him; and thus it expresses the thought that the concrete content of God’s omniscience is everything finite and created. The proud and bold men, who speak so haughtily, must recollect that God knows all their deeds and hears their words, that therefore they cannot withdraw from His rule.—Secondly, reference is made to God’s power, which controls all things according to a fixed unchangeable plan. We must first inquire whether the “actions” ( òֲìִìåֹú ) is to be understood of human or divine deeds, and then whether we are to read “not” ( ìֹà ) or the Qeri “by him” ( ìåֹ ). The first question can be decided only by the connection. The preceding context speaks not of the deeds, but of the words of ungodly men. In what follows it is similarly not works and deeds of men that are treated of, but the conditions and relations of human life, with which divine agency has to do; in 1Sa_2:4, sq., the thought expressly confines itself to divine deeds. We cannot therefore with Böttcher (Aehrenlese, in loco) suppose a question, and, retaining the Kethib, render, “and are not deeds measured?” that is, “ is not care taken that human deeds shall not become immoderate, insolent?” nor, with Thenius, adopting the Qeri, “and by Him actions are measured,” that is, “He determines how far human doing may go;” nor, with Luther, paraphrase “the Lord does not suffer such conduct to prosper.” But, if we have to suppose only divine deeds, then the translation “to him or by him actions are weighed or measured” is certainly to be preferred to the other—“are not actions weighed or measured, that is, determined?”—because of the vagueness of the thought in the latter. The thought, then, is this: God’s actions are weighed, measured, fixed; He proceeds, in His working, by unchangeable paths established by Himself, so that none can free himself from His omnipotence, as none can withdraw from His all-pervading omniscience. Against the explanation “by Him the actions of men are weighed” (Bunsen: according to their essential worth), Keil properly urges: “God weighs the spirits, the hearts of men indeed (Pro_16:2; Pro_21:2; Pro_24:12), but not their deeds. This expression is never found.” It is without ground, however, that he introduces the idea of righteousness, since we have here to do with nothing but the free, unrestricted activity of the divine omnipotence, to which, as to His omniscience, men are absolutely subject. [The correctness of this interpretation is open to doubt. The conception of God weighing His own actions, acting with prudence and forecast, is not, I believe, found elsewhere in the Bible; the higher conception of immutable wisdom is every where presented. On the other hand, that God weighs the actions of men, if not (as Keil says) explicitly stated, is yet involved in many passages, in all, for example, which set forth His righteous retribution; as, “Thou renderest to every man according to his work” (Psa_62:12); “God shall bring every work into judgment” (Ecc_12:14); and comp. Psa_10:18; Psa_11:5; Psa_14:2; Pro_15:3; Job_34:21; Job_34:23; Jer_9:23-24; Joe_3:12. And this interpretation agrees very well with the context. The word “actions” may well include all exhibitions of human character, and the antithesis throughout the Song is between the wicked and the righteous. The thought, therefore, may be: Jehovah is holy and immutable. Give ho exhibition of pride, for He knows and weighs your actions. He reverses human conditions, bringing down (i. e. the wicked), and setting up (i. e. the righteous). Expositors are about equally divided between these interpretations. With Erdmann are Targum, Sept., Theodoret, Patrick, Keil; in favor of the other, Syr., Clarke, Henry, Ewald; doubtful, Vulg., Synop. Crit., Gill, “Wordsworth. Deu_32:4 does not seem to bear on the decision, for it is Jehovah’s righteousness that is there emphasized.—Tr.]
1Sa_2:4-8 further carry out the thought of God’s almighty working in human life by a series of sharply contrasted changes of fortune. In this it is assumed that God’s omnipotent working is just, but it is not explicitly declared till afterwards. “The preceding thought is carried further: Every power which will be something in itself is destroyed by the Lord; every weakness, which despairs of itself, is transformed into power” (O. v. Gerlach).
1Sa_2:4. As in Isa_21:17 we have bows of heroes instead of heroes of the bow, so here the symbol of human power and might is poetically put first instead of the personal subject. [Dr. Erdmann translates: “the heroes of the bow are cast down,” which is, however, giving up the poetical form. Better: “the bows of heroes are broken.” So in Isa_21:17 : “the residue of the bows of the heroes shall become small.”—Tr.] The “broken” ( çַúִּéí ) refers, according to the sense, to the latter (since “heroes” is the logical subject) instead of to “bows,” the breaking of which indicates the broken power of those who, like heroes of the bow, trust to their might. The strong are overcome by God, as a hero loses his power when his bow is broken. The antithesis: “And they that stumbled [or, stumble] are girded with strength.” As stumbling, tottering indicates weakness and powerlessness, so “being girded” with strength denotes fitness for battle, power prepared for battle. The strong He deprives of strength, the powerless He makes strong—according to the free working of His power.
1Sa_2:5. The “full,” who in the abundance of their wealth had no need, have hired themselves out for bread, that is, must earn their bread in order to appease their hunger. On the other hand, the hungry “cease” ( çָãֵìåּ ) either “to be hungry,” or, “to work for bread.” The latter is preferable on account of the contrast with “hire themselves out for bread” in the first clause; so Herder (“they now have holiday”) and Bunsen (“they no longer need work for bread”). Clericus: “Hannah here rightly attributes to divine providence what the heathen wrongly attribute to fortune, of whose instabilitv they speak ad nauseam.” See J. Stobæi, florileg. tit. 105 The òַã [“till,” rendered in Eng. A.V. “so that”] is taken by some expositors in the sense “even” [Germ. sogar]. Clericus explains it as a sort of ellipsis “as if she said that all experienced the vicissitudes of human affairs, even to the barren woman, who,” etc. Similarly Keil explains it as a brachylogy: “it goes so far that”..… This adverbial construction, with the presupposed logical zeugma, would have as much in its favor as the view of Thenius, who asks: “Might not òַã be an adverb: the long barren?” But there are passages in which òַã , from its sense of continuance, must be taken simply as a conjunction, meaning “in that or while” (Jon_4:2; Job_1:18; 1Sa_14:19); in the two last passages it is followed as here by åְ [“and”], and introduces an occurrence contemporaneously with which, or following on which, something else occurred. Here then: “while the barren bears seven.” “Seven children” is, according to Rth_4:15, the “complete number of the divine blessing in children” (Keil). Comp. Psa_113:9 : “he makes the barren woman dwell in the house, the joyful mother of children.” [Erdmann translates: “he makes the barren woman of the house dwell as a joyful mother of children.”—Tr.] [Psa_113:7-9 resembles 1Sa_2:5; 1Sa_2:7-8 so closely as to suggest an imitation. It would be very natural in a later writer, in composing a Psalm celebrating Jehovah’s majesty and power, to take such general expressions from a well-known song, which we may suppose was committed to writing by Hannah herself, and through Samuel transmitted to the prophetic students, among whom, no doubt, were many psalmists. The Book of “Samuel” itself was probably in circulation soon after Rehoboam’s time.—Tr.] “And she who had many children languishes away.” Clericus remarks: “being exhausted before the end of the, usual bearing-time of women, and perhaps left solitary by the death of her children.” As to this last point comp. Jer_15:9. [The view held by some that in Hannah’s barrenness and subsequent fruitfulness there is a mystical or typical meaning, deserves consideration. It is advocated by Jerome, Augustine, Patrick, Gill, Wordsworth, and the Bib. Comm. Hannah is said to be the type of the Christian Church, at first barren and reviled, afterwards fruitful and rejoicing. As to such a typical character we must be guided, not by outward resemblances, but by fixed principles of biblical interpretation. If Hannah’s late fruitfulness is typical, it must be because it sets forth a spiritual element of the spiritual kingdom of God. These facts may guide us to a decision: 1) God’s relation to His people is set forth under the figure of marriage; He is the husband, His people the wife (Isaiah 54; Jeremiah 3; Hosea 1-3); 2) Isaiah (1Sa 54:1) describes God’s spiritual people as barren, yet with the promise of many children; 3) Paul (Gal_4:27) quotes this passage of Isaiah, refers it to the Church of Christ as distinguished from the Jewish dispensation, and declares that this antithesis is given in Sarah and Hagar. The barren Sarah is the new dispensation, the fruitful Hagar the old. Besides Sarah, other barren women in the Bible become the mothers of remarkable sons: Rebecca, Rachel, Samson’s mother, Hannah, Elizabeth. Are these all typical of the new dispensation or the Church of Christ? The answer is to be found in Paul’s treatment of Sarah’s history. What he declares is, that Sarah is the mother of the child of promise, while Hagar’s child was the product of natural fruitfulness. Thus Sarah sets forth the dispensation which is based on promise or free grace and faith; Hagar represents the dispensation of works. Paul quotes Isa_54:1, to show simply that the spiritual Jerusalem, the Church of Christ, is our mother. Throughout his argument it is the spiritual element of promise and faith on which Sarah’s typical position is based. Only, therefore, where we can show such spiritual element are we justified in supposing a typical character. There must be involved the truth that the origination and maintenance of God’s people depend on His promise and not on human strength. This is not necessarily involved in the history of every barren woman who becomes fruitful—certainly not in that of Rachel, probably in that of Rebecca, probably not in the others. These histories teach indeed that fruitfulness is the gift of God; and, as an encouragement to faith, He has in some instances granted to the barren to be the mothers of sons to whom He has assigned important positions in the development of His kingdom. But this fact does not in itself show that these mothers sustained to the kingdom of God the relation which Sarah sustained. Hannah seems to be simply a pious mother whose prayer for a son, contrary to human probabilities, is granted.—Tr.].
1Sa_2:6. This Keil connects with the preceding, explaining: This comes from the Lord, who kills, etc. But here, as in the remaining members of the Song, we must suppose a logical asyndeton. The contrast of death and life, killing and making alive demands even a wider extension of these conceptions than is indicated in the last clause of 1Sa_2:5. Killing denotes (with a departure from the ordinary sense) bringing into the extremest misfortune and suffering, which oppresses the soul like the gloom of death, or brings it near to death—making alive is extricating from deadly sorrow and introducing into safety and joy. This is confirmed by the second member: “He brings down to Sheol and brings up.” The same contrast is found in Deu_32:39, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal;” Psa_30:4 (3), “Thou hast brought up my soul from Sheol, Thou hast made me alive,” etc.; Psa_71:20, “Thou, who hast showed us great and sore trouble, wilt quicken us again, and wilt bring us up again from the depths of the earth,” [Eng. A. V. reads, with Qeri, me; Kethib, us.—Tr.]. Psa_86:13 : “Great is Thy mercy towards me, and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol,” (comp. Job_5:18, and Psa_88:4-6). So also in Psa_66:9, misfortune is conceived of as death, salvation as revival. Calvin: “in the word ‘death’ Hannah properly embraces everything injurious, and whatever leads step by step to death, as, on the other hand, the word ‘life’ includes everything happy and prosperous, and whatever can make a fortunate man contented with his lot.” [As is apparent from the above exposition, there is no reference in this verse to the doctrine of the resurrection. The word ùְּׁàåֹì “Sheol,” improperly rendered in Eng. A. V. “hell” and “the grave,” means “the underworld,” (Erdmann, the same, “unterwelt”), the gloomy abode of all the dead, conceived of by the Hebrews as the negation of all earthly activity. It thus became an image of darkness and suffering, only here and there illumined and soothed (as in Psalms 16) by the conviction that God’s love would maintain and develop into fulness of joy the life which He had bestowed on His servants.—The word is usually supposed to mean a “hole,” “cleft” like, Eng. hell (=“hole,” “hollow,” German hölle.—Tr.].
1Sa_2:7. By His power the Lord determines the contrast of rich and poor, high and low; comp. Psa_75:8 (7). The thought of the second clause is developed in 1Sa_2:8, with the first half of which Psa_113:7-8 agrees almost Word for word. Being low is here regarded as being despised, for “dust and dunghill” indicate a condition of deepest dishonor and disgrace, in which one is, as it were, trodden under foot; comp. Psa_44:26 (25). The “raising and lifting” denotes the divine government, by which shame and contempt are changed into honor and glory. The contrast to the dust and the dunghill is the sitting in the company of nobles and princes, on the throne of honor. Calvin: “Hannah goes on to say the same thing of honors and dignities as of fortunes, namely, that, when we behold in this world so many and so great vicissitudes, we should lift up our gaze to the providence of God, who rules all things in heaven and earth by His will, not imagining that there is anything fortuitous in our lives, (… but knowing that God’s providence controls everything).”—The two last clauses point to the foundation of the Lord’s determination and arrangement of the contrasted relations of life and fates of men: “for the pillars of the earth are Jehovah’s, and He hath set the earth upon them.” The control and government of God here portrayed is founded on the fact that He is the creator and sustainer of the earth, and therefore by His omnipotence exercises unrestricted rule over the earth-world. Here we have clear and plain the highest point of view, from which all that is said from 1Sa_2:4 on is to be looked at: the all-embracing power of the Lord. Clericus: “Hannah, therefore, means to say that God easily effects any change in human affairs, since He is creator and lord of the earth itself.”
4. The Song culminates (1Sa_2:9-10) in the prophetic testimony to the omnipotent rule of the holy God in the manifestation of His justice towards the godly and the ungodly, and in conducting His kingdom to glorious victory over the world, a) To the godly the Lord will grant His protection and salvation, and will guard them from misfortune, comp. Psa_56:13 (14): “Wilt Thou not deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life [Germ, as Eng. A. V.: ‘the living’]?” So Psa_116:8; Psa_121:3; “he suffers not thy foot to fall.” The tottering [or falling] of the feet is not to be taken here in an ethical sense; the preservation of the feet from slipping, tottering, stumbling, often denotes deliverance from long-continued misfortune and suffering, so Psa_15:5; Psa_55:23; Psa_66:9. “His saints” points to the intimate association between God and His people, and its correlative is “my God,” “our God.” b) The godless will be the objects of His punitive justice. They will perish in darkness. The darkness is the symbol of misfortune and misery, as light of safety and life, Job_15:22; Psa_107:14. Godlessness is voluntary remoteness from the light of salvation, which God sheds abroad; and so its walking in darkness must end in destruction. For, not by strength, that is, by his own strength, shall a man prevail; “shall a man be strong” ( éִâְáַּøÎàִéùׁ ) is an allusion perhaps to the “mighty men” ( âִáֹּøִéí ) in 1Sa_2:4. The godless rely on their own strength with which to help themselves in the darkness. But it is universally true that “we do nothing by our own strength.” Psa_33:16-17. He who leans on his own strength (which cannot be without turning away from the Lord, who alone can help) will receive his just reward, he will perish in darkness. Clericus: “No one can avoid calamity by his own strength, unhelped by divine providence.”—Human weakness is here specially brought out by the order of the words; on man [Heb. àִéùׁ last word in 1Sa_2:9] follows immediately Jehovah [in the Heb., first word in 1Sa_2:10], which further stands as absolute subject (comp. Psa_11:4) and thus in sharper contrast. As “prevail” in 1Sa_2:9 alludes to 1Sa_2:4, so here the “broken” to the “broken” in that verse.—The thought, that God’s justice is shown in the punishment of the godless, is first very strongly and sharply expressed by the immediate collocation of the two verbs after Jehovah: “broken are his opposers,” and then illustrated by the allusion to a judicial process which ends with the carrying out of the sentence. The ungodly strive with God as in a judicial contest ( îְøִéáָéå [Qeri]), but they are confounded in the presence of the process of law to which the Lord comes. The thunder, the sign of His fear-inspiring and destructive power, is the announcement of His proximity lo the tribunal. The “judge” ( éָãִéï ) denotes the holding of the court. The judicial work of God is the outflow of His holiness, justice and almightiness, which three attributes of God have been celebrated up to this point. The object of the judicial interposition of God is not only the members of the chosen people, but the ends of the earth, that is, all peoples, the whole world. As before the whole earthly creation, founded and maintained by God’s power, was brought before us in order to establish God’s almighty control over the earth, so here our view is extended from punitive justice as it shows itself in the sphere of God’s people to God’s judgment as it stretches over the whole earth, to the all-embracing world-judgment. The prophetic view often rises to this universality of God’s judicial control as the judge of the whole world (Gen_18:25), which corresponds to the idea of the universal salvation embracing all the nations of the earth; so, for example, Mic_1:2 sq.; Isa_2:9 sq.; 1Sa_3:13; Psa_7:8 sq.; 1Sa_9:8. The conception of this general judgment over all the peoples of the earth, and that of the special judgment over Israel and every individual member of Israel are closely connected. The aim of both is to lead God’s kingdom to victory and glory. The broad glance at the ends of the earth filled with the judicial glory of King Jehovah fixes itself in the concluding words on the highest aim and end to be reached by the exercise of God’s judicial justice, namely, the unfolding of God’s power and dominion in the kingdom in Israel and in the person of His anointed. “And He will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.”
According to Ewald, this Song is an interpolation by a later hand, because 1Sa_2:1 is the immediate continuation of the concluding words of the first chapter, and is therefore a proper ending like 1Sa_1:19, (“ they worshipped and returned”); but we reply that the words, 1Sa_1:28, “they worshipped the Lord there,” form an appropriate introduction to the following prayer, and that the latter contains nothing out of keeping with the continuity of the narrative—rather its content quite suits the situation, and therefore from this point of view there is no necessity for regarding it (from its content) as a later insertion which breaks the connection.—But particularly two things in the content have been adduced against the ascription of the Song to Hannah or to Hannah’s time: the celebration of a glorious victory over foreign enemies, and the assumption of the existence of the theocratic kingdom in the conclusion.—But, as to the first, where in the Song is there the mention of a victory gained in war with foreign enemies? The only passage in which warriors are spoken of contrasts the “mighty bowmen” with the stumbling who are girded with the strength, not to portray heroes of war, but to show how this contrast also (which is parallel with others, none of which have anything to do with war) is brought about by the Lord’s omnipotent rule. The description of these contrasts and of the power of God which reveals itself in them is so general that it is impossible to discover here the character of a Song of victory which presupposes a war. The “enemies ” against whom the Song is directed are not the national enemies of the people of Israel, the heathen nations with whom they had to fight, but the ungodly within the chosen people as opposed to the truly pious and God-fearing. The contrasts which are introduced have their root in the fundamental view of the religious-moral opposition of pride and humility in reference to the holy God (1Sa_2:3, a), culminate in the testimony to God’s righteous judgment on godly and ungodly, and in their movement between these poles exhibit only the religious-moral condition of the people of Israel as the historical background. Nothing is said of opposition to external national enemies. Hence it is just as unfounded to regard David as the author of the Song (Bertholdt, Einl. III. 915), especially to suppose it a Song of praise for his victory over Goliath and the resulting defeat of the Philistines, (Thenius 1 ed., Böttcher), as it is arbitrary to suppose one of the oldest Kings of Judah its author. Neither one nor the other can be demonstrated, or even shown to be probable.—The second argument against the ascription of the Song to Hannah, and for referring it to the period of the Kings seems weightier; for the words of 1Sa_2:10, “He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of His anointed,” seem to assume the existence of a king. But nothing obliges us so to understand it. If we put ourselves in the period of Samuel’s early life, the fact is incontestable that in the consciousness of the people, and the noblest part of them too, the idea of a monarchy had then become a power, which quickened more and more the hope of a realization of the old promises that there should be a royal dominion in Israel, till it took shape in the express demand which the people made of Samuel. The divine promise that the people should be a kingdom is given as early as the patriarchal period, comp. Gen_17:6; Gen_17:16. The idea of the kingdom as bringing prosperity to the whole people connects itself with the Tribe of Judah, Gen_49:10. Judah will come forth victorious from the battle which awaits him, will remain in possession of everlasting imperishable dominion, and will never lose the sceptre. The period of the Law further develops the idea of this kingdom. The whole people is to be a priestly kingdom (Exo_20:6). In Balaam’s prophecy the royal power and dominion to which Israel would attain is celebrated under the figure of the Star which rises on Jacob, and in their victory over their enemies, Num_24:17; Num_24:19. This old prophecy is altogether unintelligible if the consciousness of the people did not attach the hope of future development and prosperity to the idea of the kingdom. That the law of the king in Deuteronomy 17 belongs to the legal period has been improperly doubted, (comp. Oehler in Herzog’s R.-E. s. v. Königthum). The proposition made to Gideon to be king (Jdg_8:23), though rejected by him, shows how in the period of the Judges the felt national disintegration brought out more strongly the desire for a single government which should embrace the whole people and protect them against external enemies. The phrase of refusal “Jehovah shall rule over you,” is based on the external non-theocratic conception of the kingdom which underlay that application, and at the same time expresses in the clearest manner the consciousness of the divine rule of which the kingly rule was to be the organ. At the close of the period of the Judges the need of such a theocratic kingdom was felt the more strongly, because the office which was entrusted with the duty of forming and guiding the theocratic life of the nation, namely, the high-priestly office, was itself with the people involved in the deepest degradation. The hope thereon based, that the Lord would set up a kingdom as the instrument of saving the people from their deep corruption, is expressed in our Song in the concluding mention of the anointed of the Lord, who would receive his power from Him, whose horn would be exalted by the hand of the Lord. The same thought is expressed by that man of God (1Sa_2:35), who announces to the High-priest Eli the judgment of his house and the raising up of a faithful priest who will walk before the anointed of the Lord; that is, he indicates a direct interposition by God in the fortunes of His people, by which a new order of things will be brought about under the guidance of a true theocratic priesthood in connection with a divinely established kingdom.
This was a testimony of the prophetical spirit which animated that man of God, that spirit of the prophecy and announcement of divine truth and promise, which had by no means completely died out in the time of the Judges. When God introduced the new era of Israel’s fortunes, the elevation of the theocratic development of His people’s life to a new plane by the prophet Samuel as instrument of His revelation, and first of the continuous theocratic line of prophets, He selected persons in the border-time between the old and the new in whom theocratic hopes dwelt in living power, informed them by direct influence of His Spirit of the approaching fulfillment of this hope, and prepared and impelled them to announce and to celebrate by prophetic testimony God’s new revelations of salvation. The “man of God” made such an announcement to Eli, who, according to the divine counsel, was to fall together with his house, that a new true priesthood might arise, which should be closely connected with the “anointed of the Lord,” the theocratic kingdom, in its effort to attain its end and aim, namely, God’s dominion over His people. Hannah made such an announcement respecting her child Samuel, she knowing by divine revelation that he was to be God’s instrument for great things, the renewer and restorer of the theocratic life under the God-given kingdom. She, like that man of God, is filled with the spirit of prophecy, whose representative and instrument she was the more fitted to be, as she belonged to the pious class of the people, and walked before God. Her song is a product of this prophetic spirit, which lifts her far above the joy (felt in her heart, and uttered at the outset) of her heard prayer and God’s acceptance of her child to be His possession, and above her personal experience of the might of the living God, and makes her see and celebrate His manifestations of might in his kingdom, which he has established in his people, and will develop in new glory by the revelation of His power and justice. From the depths of humble piety she looks up away from her poor self to the height of the holiness and faithfulness of the living God. The foundations on which rests all God’s revelation to His people, as well as His dominion over them, are His holiness and rock-firm faithfulness. On them is built God’s government in His kingdom and people, to which Hannah is led by the divine providence in her own life to look up. As she looks, her experience of her “adversaries” and of their pride and presumption is broadened and generalized into a view of God’s absolute government and dominion which brings to shame all the pride and insolence of the ungodly, and which is revealed, partly in the unlimited, unconditioned rule of His might, which accomplishes the life-changes of godly and ungodly in the extremest contrasts, contradicting all human calculation (1Sa_2:4-8), partly in the government of His justice, in which He shows Himself as the unchangeable rock of the godly, and gives the ungodly over to destruction (1Sa_2:9-10). From the idea of this government of justice the song rises finally with rapid flight to the conception of a judgment which the living, just God stretches with His dominion over the ends of the earth, and to the idea of a kingdom, which, in this divine domain, and by this ruling and governing of God, develops its power beyond the limits of Israel, and in the possession of this God-given power is the instrument of the divine dominion—a wide extension of the prophetic view, under the guidance of the divine Spirit, beyond the present which is the foundation of the word of the prophetic testimony. Thus the prophetic-historical description of the establishment of the kingdom in Israel is introduced by this lyric-prophetic witness of the God-ordained and God-serving power of the theocratic kingdom; and on this follows soon the prophetic announcement of the intimate relation in which the renovated priesthood is to stand to the “anointed of the Lord.” Hannah “beholds in her individual experience the general laws of the divine economy, and divines its significance for the whole history of the kingdom of God” (Auberlen, Stud. u. Krit., 1860, p. 564).
In this song—uttered, in the spirit of prophecy, in the beginning of the development of the theocratic life, in so far as that development was determined by the kingdom which the people hoped for and God gave—Hannah passes unconsciously, impelled by the divine Spirit, over all the intermediate steps of the development of the kingdom of God, and points to the final goal, at which the divinely established, divinely equipped, royal dominion extends itself over the ends of the earth. To this answers, on the one hand, the idea of a universal revelation of salvation, which appears in that tribe-promise of the Shiloh, to whom the obedience of the nations belongs, and farther back in the patriarchal promises; and, on the other hand, there is connected with it the prophetic content of the songs of praise of Mary and Zachariah (Luk_1:46 sq. and 68 sq.), where there is express reference to the words of Hannah in view of the approaching final fulfillment of the idea, contained in her prophetic announcement, of the dominion of the anointed of the Lord which in divine power is to extend over the ends of the earth.
[Wordsworth: “The Magnificat of Hannah is an evangelical song, chanted by the spirit of Prophecy under the Levitical Law. It is a prelude and overture to the Gospel. It is a connecting link of sweet and sacred melody between the Magnificat of Miriam after the passage of the Red Sea—symbolizing the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Christ—and the Magnificat of Mary, after the Annunciation of His Birth..… Let this Song of Hannah be read in the Septuagint, and then the Magnificat in St. Luke’s original, and the connection of the two will be more clearly recognized.… The true characteristic of Sacred Poetry is, that it is not egotistical. It merges the individual in the nation, and in the Church Universal. It looks forward from the special occasion which prompts the utterance of thanksgiving, and extends and expands itself, with a loving power and holy energy, into a large and sympathetic outburst of praise to God for His love to all mankind in Christ.…… The Magnificat of Hannah is conceived in this spirit. It is not only a song of thanksgiving; it is also a prophecy. It is an utterance of the Holy Ghost moving within her, and making her maternal joy on the birth of Samuel to overflow in outpourings of thankfulness to God for those greater blessings in Christ, of which that birth was an earnest and a pledge. In this respect it may be compared with the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32) and the Song of David (2 Samuel 22).”—Augustine, in his comment on this Song (De Civ. Dei, 17, 4), follows the translation of the Sept. (which is often incorrect), and, along with some good thoughts, has much wrong exegesis and unfounded spiritualizing.—Tr.]
1Sa_2:2. The two characteristics of the life of God’s children in their relation to the living God: 1) The humble reverence before Him, in view of His holiness; 2) The heartiest confidence in Him, in view of His unchangeable faithfulness.
1Sa_2:3. The humbling of the natural man’s pride through the testimony concerning the living God: 1) Concerning his universal knowledge; 2) His universal wisdom which determines and regulates all the details of His action (1Sa_2:3); 3) His universal power which determines every change in the fortunes of human life, (1Sa_2:4-8). [The division 2) must be modified if the view of Tr. be adopted as to the reference of the term “actions.” See Exegetical on 1Sa_2:3.—Tr.]
[1Sa_2:3. “ By Him actions are weighed.” I. The manner of His weighing—with perfect knowledge (1Sa_2:3), with absolute rectitude (1Sa_2:2), with immutable justice (1Sa_2:2).—II. The result of His weighing is often a total reversal of men’s fortunes (1Sa_2:4-8). Application: Be not proud of present prosperity, but look well to the way in which you enjoy and use it (1Sa_2:3).—Tr.].
[Henry: 1Sa_2:1-3. Hannah’s triumph in God’s perfections, and in His blessings to her. I. She celebrates His glorious attributes: (1) His purity. (2) His power. (3) His wisdom. (4) His justice. II. She solaces herself in these things. III. She silences those who are enemies to her and to God.
1Sa_2:4-8. Providence in the changes of human life: 1) The strong are weakened and the weak strengthened, when God pleases (1Sa_2:4). 2) The rich are impoverished and the poor enriched (1Sa_2:5). 3) God is the Lord of life and death (1Sa_2:6). 4) He advances and He abases (1Sa_2:7-8). 5) And in all this we must acquiesce, for God is sovereign. “The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s.”—Tr.]
1Sa_2:4-8. The unity amid change of the opposite ways which the pious and the ungodly must go: 1) One starting-point, the Lord’s inscrutable will, which determines them; 2) One hand, the almighty hand of the Lord, which leads them; 3) One goal at which they end, humble submission under that hand.—The wonderful guidance of the children of men upon quite opposite ways: 1) The opposite direction in which they go, (a) from the height to the depth, (b) from the depth to the height; 2) The opposite design which the Lord has therein with men, (a) to lead them from the heights of pride and haughty self-complacency to humble submission under His unlimited power,(b) to exalt them from the depths of humble self-renunciation to a blessed life in the enjoyment of His free grace; 3) The opposite end, according as men cause the divine design to be fulfilled or defeated in them: (a) everlasting destruction without God, (b) everlasting salvation and life in and with God.
1Sa_2:3-10. The contrasts which the change in the relations of human life presents to us in the light of divine truth: 1) God’s holiness and man’s sin; 2) God’s almightiness and man’s powerlessness; 3) God’s gracious design and man’s destruction.
1Sa_2:4. Weakness and strength come from the Lord: 1) He makes the strong weak; 2) He makes the weak strong.
1Sa_2:5. The Lord alone gives full satisfaction: 1) He leads from false contentment in carnal fulness to wholesome destitution; 2) He changes hunger into blessed fulness with true contentment. [Fanciful and strained.—Tr.]—Blessed are they that hunger: 1) Because the Lord brings them from full to hungry, 2) From hungry to full.
1Sa_2:6. How the living God shows Himself as the Lord of life and of death: 1) In that He leads from life into death, 2) From death into life.
1Sa_2:7-8. The sovereign rule of the grace of God: 1) It makes poor, in order to make rich; 2) It humbles, in order to exalt.
1Sa_2:9-10. The Lord our God is a just God: 1) Upon the pious He bestows salvation in His light; 2) The ungodly he causes to perish in darkness.—As man with his whole life places himself towards God, so will God in the judgment place Himself towards him as a just Judge: 1) Either in the severity of His punitive justice; 2) Or in the kindness of His saving grace.—The great Either—Or—which God’s word writes over every human life: 1) Either with the pious for the Lord, or with the ungodly against Him; 2) Either trusting alone in the saving might of divine grace, or wishing to be strong by one’s own power; 3) Either preserved by the Lord with the pious to everlasting life, or banished with the ungodly to everlasting condemnation.
1Sa_2:10. The judgment of God’s punitive justice (“The Lord will judge”): 1) Whom it threatens—the ungodly, “adversaries.” 2) How God makes it approach with warning signs (“out of heaven shall be thunder”). 3) How it discharges itself against all the world that is opposed to God (“ The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth”). 4) How it promotes the perfecting of His Kingdom.
[Providence in the national government of Israel. Not only was the secular spirit in the nation beginning to desire a king (1Sa_8:5), but the inspired Hannah here predicts it with devout hope. Theocracy, Monarchy and Hierarchy each contributed in turn to the welfare of Israel, and each helped to prepare the way for the great Anointed, at once Prophet, King, and Priest, who should reign over the spiritual Israel.—Interesting lectures might be made on “Psalms outside of the Book of Psalms.” (See above, additions to Historical and Theological.)—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[Instead of “Jehovah,” 28 MSS., 3 printed copies, LXX. and Vulg., read “my God,” which some prefer as a variation; Syr. and Ar. omit the word. It is better to keep the Heb. text.—Tr.]
[“Because” is omitted in Vat. LXX. (probably by clerical error), retained in Chald. and Syr.—Tr.]
[The Heb. here repeats the subst. ðְּáֹäָä ðְּáֹäָä , “pride, pride,” in a superl. sense. Wellhausen takes these words as a quotation, and the ä as He local, “do not say, high up! high up!” but this rendering has little in its favor.—Tr.]
[Lit. “knowledges.” Ewald and Erdmann render “an omniscient God.”
[Kethib is ìà , “not,” and so Syr. and Ar.; the Qeri ìåֹ , “by him,” is found in many MSS., and LXX., Chald. and Vulg. See Dr. Erdmann’s note.—Tr.]
[On these interpretations of çãìå and òã see exegetical note.—Tr.]
[Heb. ùְׁàåֹì , Sheol. See exeget. note.—Tr.]
[The Heb. has no pronoun here. Some MSS. have a Yod paragog. which may represent an original Waw in the text. The sense is not affected.—Tr.]
[Heb. has the sing. in Kethib, but the plur. of Qeri suits the connection better. (So Vulg.) The Kethib may be only a scriptio defectiva. (In Psa_16:10 Kethib is plur.; Qeri, not so well, sing.)— çָíִéã is literally “a favored one,” “beloved,” rendered by Erdmann “fromm” (pious).—Erdmann renders “shall perish.” The word means first “ be silent,” and then “perish,”—silence being a sign of destruction.—Tr.]
[Here again Kethib is sing., and Qeri plur., and the verb is plur. Lit. “Jehovah—his adversaries shall be broken.” LXX.: “the Lord will make his adversary weak;” Vulg.: “dominum formidabunt adversarii ejus;” Chald.: “Jehovah will destroy the enemies who rise up to hurt his people.” This simpler construction (reading the verb as sing.) is adopted by Wellhausen and the Bible Commentary—but there is not sufficient ground for changing the existing Hebrew text.*—Tr.]
[There is no reason for supposing here a reference to the eastern custom among Oriental women, (Druses and others), of wearing silver-horns on the head to which the vail is attached, and which by their position indicate the woman’s position as maiden, wife, or mother. There is no trace of such a custom among the ancient Hebrews. The word qeren “horn,” is used of the horns of beasts, of horns for blowing and drinking, or for any horn-shaped vessel, (so, the name of Job’s daughter Qeren-happuk “paint-horn,” “eyepigment-horn”), and of a mountain-peak. It signifies also “ray of light,” and the derived verb “to emit rays of light,” as of Moses, Exo_34:29. From the incorrect translation of the Vulg., “horned” probably came (as Gesenius suggests) the custom of the early painters of representing Moses with horns.—Tr.].
[These ideas are not properly indicated by the word “holy,” but may be said to be connected with and suggested by the lofty Heb. conception of the holiness of God.—Tr.]
[Bible-Commentary: “That the name was commonly applied to God so early as the time of Moses, we may conclude from the names Zurishaddai, “my Rock is the Almighty,” (Num_1:6; Num_2:12), and Zuriel, “my Rock is God,” (Num_3:35).—Tr.].
[More literally “there is not a rock like our God.”—Tr.].
[This is not correct. The neg. is not omitted before úּãáøåּ which is, according to the Heb. syntax, merely an appendage of úּøáåּ , forming with it a compound notion.—This paragraph is improperly assigned in the Germ. to 1Sa_2:4.—Tr.].
[The Heb. plu. means not more than “great knowledge;” our author’s exposition cannot be gotten from the simple Heb. word, but is an interpretation into the word (here probably warranted) of ideas gotten from the Scriptures in general.—Tr.].
[The word çãìִ is used in the Bible either absolutely =“cease to exist” (Jdg_5:6-7; Psa_49:8 (9); Deu_15:11), or with an explanatory word (Job_3:17; Pro_10:9), or its complement is suggested by the immediate action or context (Amo_7:5; Zec_11:12). Here the statement is “the hungry ceased to exist as such.” as in Jdg_5:6; Deu_15:11–Tr.]
[Dr. Erdmann’s translation of this clause (1Sa_2:5) is hardly satisfactory. The word òַã (lit.“continuance) is used in the senses “while,” “until,” “so that,” and the question is, which is the appropriate sense here. Erdmann renders: “while the barren bears, the fruitful waxes feeble,”—that is, the clause, according to him, affirms the contemporaneousness of the two things. This would be appropriate in a narration, but is inappropriate and feeble here. To judge from the passages cited, he supposes the sense to be: “and while the barren is still bearing (that is, in the midst of her bearing), the fruitful languishes,” which is plainly out of keeping with the context. Rather we are to take òַã —in its well-sustained sense of “till”—as marking the limit of the action involved in the preceding context. The mutations in human life, brought about by God, reach to this astonishing point, namely, that the barren becomes fruitful and the fruitful barren. So Vulg. (donec) and Sept. ( ὄôé ). The other versions do not translate the òã . Gesenius and F&uu