The first and second halves of 1Sam. 2 are so different, they should have been given their own chapter. However, I do not like to split things up, so all of the exegesis on these will be found in this one document. I will have the entire outline and all of the charts, maps and short doctrines listed at the very beginning; however, I will repeat these for the second half and have links throughout so that you can easily access the second half of this chapter exclusively.

Outline of Chapter 2:

Charts, Maps and Short Doctrines:

       v.      3           The Less Literal Translations of 1Sam. 2:3a

       v.      8           God and the Reversal of Fortune for Certain Men

       v.      8           The Less Literal Translations of 1Sam. 2:8

       v.     10           A Comparison of the Greek Texts

       v.     10           Jehovah Destroys His Enemies in the Time of Samuel

       v.     10           How Does Israel Contend with God in 1Samuel?

       v.     11           Hannah’s Psalm and Mary’s Song

       v.     12           Adam Clarke on Child-Rearing

       v.     15           1Sam. 2:12–15 as per the New Living Testament

       v.     17           Eli’s Sons are Responsible for these Offertory Customs

       v.     17           The Purpose of the Meat Offerings

       v.     19           The Defining Factors of a Cult

       v.     23           Why Didn’t Eli Remove his Sons from the Priesthood?

       v.     27           Modern-Day Kooks

       v.     30           The Hithpael Stem of a Verb

       v.     30           What is God Saying to Eli?

       v.     32           The 3 Faces of 1Sam. 2:32a

       v.     32           1Sam. 2:31–32 (revised)

       v.     33           The Fulfillment of 1Samuel 2:33

       v.     35           The Fulfillment of 1Samuel 2:35

       v.     36           1Samuel 2:31–36 and its Fulfillment

       v.     36           A Summary of the Offenses of Eli’s House, God’s Sentence and Fulfillment

       v.     36           The Characteristics of a Prophet of God

       v.     36           The Parallels Between Samuel and Christ Jesus

In looking back at this, you may realize that you have never seen so many charts, doctrines, and doctrinal references. I should warn you up front that this is going to be probably the most difficult chapter in all of the book of Samuel (at least 1Samuel). There are a plethora problems with respect to the correct text and then the proper interpretation of the text. So, be forewarned.

I ntroduction: 1Sam. 2 is enough chapter for two chapters at minimum. For the first ten verses, we have a song composed by Hannah. It is an unusual thing to be found in the midst of narrative; however, this was a song obviously inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and therefore belongs in His Word. Furthermore, this is a continuation of the previous chapter. Hannah has brought Samuel to Eli to serve God and in the first half of this chapter, we hear her prayer to God. These first 11 verses are such a different topic than the latter portion, that I will break this chapter into two parts. However, I will keep the outline and the charts at the beginning here and keep both portions as one document (although I will repeat portions of the outline and charts in part two of this chapter). Since we are used to examining God’s Word chapter by chapter, I will keep this together as one chapter, although it should be broken down into two or three sections, with part I remaining with 1Sam. 1.

The introduction to the second part of this chapter will be found at the beginning of Part II.

Part I                                                                                                                                            Hannah’s Psalm

Part II                                                                                                                             Eli’s Sons and Eli’s Son

Secondly, we examine the degeneracy of Eli’s sons. Now here is an unusual situation. Eli would appear, at least to those who attend services at the Tent of God, to be somewhat of a crappy parent. His kids, although they served God (or appeared to) were corrupt and they corrupted the worship of Jehovah God. By contrast, we then examine the childhood of Samuel, who appears to be made of much different stuff. Finally, Eli has to take a stand against his own children and then end of the chapter is Eli rebuking his two sons.

The first part of this chapter that we will study is Hannah’s prayer, or Hannah’s psalm. What you would expect is for Hannah to dwell on her thankfulness to God for allowing her this son and a prayer for several more to follow. You would expect her to pray on behalf of little Samuel, for his future. However, this psalm is nothing like one would expect. Hannah is taken by the Spirit of God and she will praise God’s knowledge and His actions, completely apart from her own circumstance. She will comment on how there is often a reversal of fortune (vv. 4–5, 8), which is one of the few portions of this psalm which speaks to Hannah’s situation directly. Specifically, she praises God for His knowledge and His actions (vv. 1–3); she speaks of His opposition to his enemies (v. 4) and the reversal of fortune which occurs in His plan (v. 5). In vv. 6–7, God’s great power is again referenced, with His reversal of fortune mentioned again in v. 8. In v. 9, we have God’s constant vigilance in our lives (and the lives of the wicked), and v. 10 ends with a promise from God to shatter His enemies and to exalt His own. At the end of v. 10, we have a promise concerning His King and His Anointed, given in a time of Israel’s history where there was no king.

Then, in v. 11, Elkanah and Hannah will simply return to their home, leaving Samuel behind at the House of God.

Barnes: The song of Hannah is a prophetic Psalm. It is poetry, and it is prophecy. It takes its place by the side of the songs of Miriam, Deborah, and the Virgin Mary, as well as those of Moses, David, Hezekiah, and other Psalmists and Prophets whose inspired odes have been preserve in the Bible. The peculiar feature which these songs have in common is, that springing from, and in their first conception relating to, incidents in the lives of the individuals who composed them, they branch out into magnificent descriptions of the Kingdom and glory of Christ...of which those incidents were providentially designed to be these types. The perception of this is essential to the understanding of Hannah’s song.

What ties this chapter together is that it begins with this prophetic prayer or psalm of Hannah’s and then is completed when a prophet of God speaks to Eli, also giving great prophecies. The prophecies at the end by the man of God will be, however, much more specific. Each prophecy will culminate in information concerning our Lord.

Hannah’s Prayer

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         And Anna prayed, and said:... [This is the end of 1Sam. 1:28 in the Latin].

Masoretic Text                       And so prayed Hannah and so she said:...

Peshitta                                 And Hannah prayed and said,...

Septuagint                             And she said,... [This is the end of 1Sam. 1:28 in the Greek].

Significant differences:          That Hannah prays is not mentioned in the Greek.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

BBE                                       And Hannah, in prayer before the Lord, said,...

CEV                                       Hannah prayed:...

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         Hannah prayed out loud,...

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

HNV                                       Channah prayed, and said:...

Young’s Updated LT             And Hannah prays, and says:...

What is the gist of this verse? Hannah is about to make an inspired prayer, and this time it will be audible.

Translation: Then Hannah prayed and said:... Hannah is still apparently at the Tent of God with Eli and v. 11 of this chapter indicates that she is with her husband, Elkanah. She has given her son over to him and now she prays to God as somewhat of a dedication to His faithfulness. Unlike much of what we study, there is no reason even to refer to the other translations here. What you see is what you get. Like the rest of Samuel, this is a simple phrase.

I would like to, however, draw attention to the first verb, however, which is the 3^rd person feminine singular, Hithpael imperfect of pâlal (ל ַל ָ) [pronounced paw-LAHL], which means, in the Hithpael, to pray, to intercede, to make intercession for, to ask for a favorable determination. Paul tells us in Philip. 4:6: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. Hannah is about to leave her only son with Eli the High Priest, and is certainly going through a cacophony of emotions, so what she does is pray—and it is a magnificent and incredible prayer. And what she prays about is interesting—she is concerned about her only son; she may be concerned about having other children—but her prayer deals with the character and power of God. Although the saying is corny—I don’t know what my future holds, but I do know Who holds my future—it is still apropos. You might be expecting some prophecy with regard to Samuel or words respecting his future. That is not Hannah’s prayer. The bulk of this psalm praises Jehovah, the God of Israel and His greatness. Hannah does not remind God of her vow or how she has kept her vow or what she expects in return. Instead, she recognizes God’s perfect character and His omnipotence.

In the New Testament, in Luke 1:46–55, Mary is in her 3^rd trimester, carrying the baby Jesus and she is visiting Elizabeth, a relative of hers (perhaps her aunt?). Elizabeth is carrying John the Baptizer. At some point in their visit (from the book of Luke, it appears as though this occurred when they first met), Mary gives a prayer to God, or a psalm, and this is called the Magnificat [pronounced mag-NIF-e-KAT]. The psalm we are about to exegete, the psalm, or prayer, of Hannah, is called the Magnificat of the Old Testament. We will compare the two side-by-side once we complete the exegesis of Hannah’s prayer.

After the birth of John the Baptizer, his father Zacharias will be filled with the Holy Spirit and also speak a psalm, which is a prophesy of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are also several similarities between his prophetic psalm and the psalm of Hannah.

David, at the end of the book of Samuel (2Sam. 22–23), will also write a psalm (actually, two of them), and there are some similarities between his and Hannah’s psalms as well. These two particular psalms essentially frame the book of Samuel. We have a short introduction which leads to the Psalm of Hannah (1Sam. 1); and after the great psalms of David, we have essentially an addendum to the book of Samuel.

We will of course make mention of these other psalms as we run into similar passages. However, bear in mind, Hannah spoke her prayer first; and all of these psalms were inspired by God the Holy Spirit. The NIV Study Bible comments: [the psalms of Hannah and David] highlight the ways of God that the narrative relates—they contain the theology of the book in the form of praise. Hannah speaks prophetically at a time when Israel is about to enter an important new period of her history with the establishment of kingship through her son, Samuel.

One of the things which I found interesting is that, in digging through the Hebrew vocabulary for this chapter, I have dealt with a great many words which I have not seen before, even after going through the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, several psalms, the first half of Job and 1Chronicles 1–8. With this poem, we will introduce a few dozen new words into our Hebrew vocabulary. Now, we should expect this, as we have a new speaker, who is definitely not the author of the book of Samuel. As we have seen, the author of the book of Samuel, thus far, is a fairly simple person, whose vocabulary and writing skills are limited; Hannah, on the other hand, will reveal her great poetic mind and marvelous vocabulary.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         My heart hath rejoiced in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my God: my mouth is enlarged over my enemies: because I have joyed in thy salvation.

Masoretic Text                       Has rejoiced my heart in Y^ehowah

is exalted my horn in Y^ehowah.

Has Opened wide my mouth against my enemies

because I have rejoiced in Your salvation.

Peshitta                                 My heart is magnified in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God; my mouth utters words against my enemies; because You have caused me to rejoice in Your salvation.

Septuagint                             My heart is established in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God; my mouth is enlarged over my enemies, I have rejoiced in Your salvation.

Significant differences:          The first verb in the Latin and Hebrew is rejoiced; in the Syriac it is magnified; and in the Greek, it is established.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

BBE                                       My heart is glad in the Lord, my horn is lifted up in the Lord: my mouth is open wide over my haters; because my joy is in your salvation.

CEV                                       You make me strong and happy, LORD. You rescued me. Now I can be glad and laugh at my enemies.

The Message                         I'm bursting with God-news! I'm walking on air. I'm laughing at my rivals. I'm dancing my salvation.

NLT                                “My heart rejoices in the Lord!

Oh, how the Lord has blessed me!

Now I have an answer for my enemies,

as I delight in your deliverance.

REB                                       ‘My heart exults in the Lord,

in the Lord I now hold my head high;

I gloat over my enemies;

I rejoice because you have saved me.

TEV                                       “The Lord has filled my heart with joy;

how happy I am because of what he has done!

I laugh at my enemies;

how joyful I am because God has helped me!

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         “My heart finds joy in the LORD. My head is lifted to the LORD. My mouth mocks my enemies. I rejoice because you saved me.

JPS (Tanakh)                        My heart exults in the Lord;

I have triumphed [lit., my horn is high] through the Lord.

I gloat [lit., my mouth is wide] over my enemies;

I rejoice in Your deliverance.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       “My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in the LORD. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.

NRSV                                    “My heart exults in the Lord;

my strength is exalted in my God.

My mouth derides my enemies,

because I rejoice in my victory.

Young’s Updated LT             “My heart has exulted in Jehovah, My horn has been high in Jehovah, My mouth has been large over my enemies, For I have rejoiced in Thy salvation.

What is the gist of this verse? Hannah feels exalted and invigorated. She rejoices in the deliverance of Jehovah.

Now, you will note from the beginning of this psalm, Hannah is enamored of the Giver and His character rather than with the gift. Her psalm exalts the person and the character of God, rather than the gift that God has given her. The next time that you pray for something, imagine what you would say if you got what you prayed for. Would it be, “Geez, thanks—a million times, thanks. This is just what I wanted! I will treasure this gift and I will be using it all the time!” This is not Hannah’s verbal response. She thanks the Giver for His person and character. Your parents might be rich and they might be poor. What they give you in terms of material things is inconsequential. What they give you by way of love, time and discipline—these are gifts which last a lifetime and these are the gifts which reflect the character of your parents. When you thank God, make certain that you thank Him for the character and devotion of your parents. These things are far greater than any material gift that they will ever give you.

Translation: My heart has rejoiced in Y^ehowah;... The perfect tense in v. 2b refers to a completed action. This does not mean that Hannah is not still happy; however, given what we studied in chapter 1, her act of rejoicing (which is looked upon as a whole) began when Eli, the High Priest, asked that God grant her request and culminated when she bore Samuel.

Translation: ...my horn [or, my strength] has been lifted up in Y^ehowah. Second line begins with the verb to exalt, to raise, to lift up and even to offer up. What is raised up is the feminine singular noun horn. We covered the Doctrine of Horns back in Lev. 4:18; however, what seems to be the gist of its meaning is that a person’s horn refers to their strength. The origin of this connotation is that the horn refers to the ox, a powerful animal, whose power, in part, is in his horn. Horn can also refer to arrogant pride (Psalm 75:4–5) and to political and military power as well (Psalm 75:10 89:17 Daniel 8:20–21). Affixed to qeren (horn) is the personal pronominal suffix my and this is followed by in Jehovah, giving us: my horn [or, my strength] has been lifted up in Jehovah. When a person’s horn is lifted up, it means that they have been delivered by God from a status of disgrace to a position of honor and strength. If you will recall Hannah in the previous chapter, she felt as if she was in a place of disgrace, as she could not bear children for her husband.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown offer a different interpretation here: Allusion is here made to a peculiarity in the dress of Eastern women about Lebanon, which seems to have obtained anciently among the Israelite women, that of wearing a tin or silver horn on the forehead, on which their veil is suspended. Wives, who have no children, wear it projecting in an oblique direction, while those who become mothers forthwith raise it a few inches higher, inclining towards the perpendicular, and by this slight but observable change in their headdress, make known, wherever they go, the maternal character which they now bear. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Translation: My mouth has opened wide against my enemies... The third line also begins with a verb: the Qal perfect of to become large, to grow, to be wide. What becomes large is my mouth, which is followed by the preposition ׳al (upon, beyond, against, which is followed by the masculine plural, with a Qal active participle of to be an enemy, which means to be at enmity, to be hostile. As a participle, it can be reasonably rendered enemy, but it is more literally, the one being at enmity with you.

Our third line is, therefore: My mouth opens wide against my enemies. If I opened my mouth wide before my enemies, they might put a live insect in it. I suppose that the sense which is conveyed is that she holds her enemies in derision? My first guess is that she yawns at her enemies. However, what is probably the case is, her open mouth means that she is going to speak against the enemies. As Clarke writes: My faculty of speech is incited, stirred up, to express God’s disapprobation against my adversaries. This psalm is Hannah opening her mouth against these enemies.

Now, who is the enemy that we are speaking about? We would first assume that it is Peninnah, the other wife. However, because of the plural, we actually have wider application than that. Hannah uses the word enemies in the plural. This is actually a very important point of interpretation here which will help to explain the subsequent verses. Vv. 2–3 are spoken specifically to the enemies of God. The remainder of the psalm can be taken that way, but v. 3 introduces the 2^nd person masculine plural, which has to refer to some group of persons—this verse indicates that group refers to the enemies of Hannah, who would reasonably be those who do not hold to the omnipotence and holiness of God (and are therefore, the enemies of God). Hannah speaks to these enemies—however, realize Hannah speaks this prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit, and it is the Holy Spirit Who speaks to His enemies through this prayer as well. All of my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed; they will turn back; they will suddenly be disgraced (Psalm 6:10).

Translation: ...for I have rejoiced in Your deliverance. The fourth line explains why the other lines are true. We begin with the explanatory use of the preposition kîy followed by the verb to rejoice, to be glad. This is followed by the bêyth preposition followed by the noun deliverance, salvation. With y^eshûw׳âh we have the 2^nd person masculine singular suffix. This gives us: For I have rejoiced in Your deliverance [or, salvation]. Hannah begins to speak out against her enemy Peninnah because God has delivered her from childlessness. What Peninnah has to say is no longer important because Hannah knows that God has delivered her from barrenness. Furthermore, as a believer, Hannah can speak out against all of her enemies and all of the enemies of God. God has taken care of that. These enemies here are the enemies of Israel as well, and, in this book, those enemies may reasonably be seen as the Philistines.

This particular line, For I have rejoiced in your salvation [or, deliverance], is found throughout Scripture. Psalm 9:13–14: Be gracious to me, O Jehovah, Behold my affliction from those who hate me, those who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may tell of all Your praises, that in the gates of the daughters of Zion, I may rejoice in Your salvation [or, deliverance]. Psalm 13:5: But I have trust in Your grace; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation. Psalm 35:9: And my soul will rejoice in Jehovah; it will exult in His salvation. Finally, concerning God’s deliverance of man, we have Isa. 12:2: Observe, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid, for Jehovah God is my strength and song—He also has become my salvation.

As J. Vernon McGee points out, there are three stages or three tenses of salvation. The past tense is that we believed in Jesus Christ (or, Jehovah Elohim in the Old Testament) and God saves us or cleanses and justifies us. “A point of doctrine: he who hears My word and believes Him Who sent Me, has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (John 5:24). The present tense is God’s function in our lives today—he delivers us in a variety of situations from a multitude of sins and from both seen and unseen enemies. It is this daily deliverance which Hannah is speaking of. The future tense of salvation is God’s deliverance of us from spiritual death. This is done based upon our faith in Him at some point in our previous lives (i.e., past salvation). Those who have not believed in Him face eternity in separation from God; those who have believed in Him spend eternity with God, eternally separated from our old sin natures. Beloved, now we are children of God and it has not yet appeared what we will be. We know that, when He appears, that we shall be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is (I John 3:2).

Before, Hannah could barely eat; she prayed quietly from her the bitterness of soul to God. In this psalm, we have a completely different attitude. Her mouth is opened wide against all enemies; her own power is exalted; and she is rejoicing in her own soul as she speaks this psalm.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         There is none holy as the Lord is:

for there is no other beside Thee,

and there is none strong like our God.

Masoretic Text                       ‘None holy like Y^ehowah;

none besides You;

and no rock like our Elohim.

Peshitta                                 There is none holy like the Lord;

for there is none besides You;

and there is none powerful like our God.

Septuagint                             For there is none holy as the Lord,

and there is none righteous as our God;

there is none holy besides You.

Significant differences:          In the LXX, we have the addition of the word righteous, which would be one distinguishing characteristic of God; the other versions essentially allow for a number of distinguishing characteristics. In the 3^rd line, only the MT says there is no rock like our Elohim. The Latin and Peshitta may do some interpreting, using the words strong and powerful. The LXX seems to essentially repeat the 1^st line. The Dead Sea Scrolls are in agreement (what can be read from them) with the LXX (only a few letters are unreadable or missing in the Dead Sea Scrolls). This would suggest that the LXX might be the better text. Still, most translations follow the Hebrew text.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

BBE                                       No other is holy as the Lord, for there is no other God but you: there is no Rock like our God.

CEV                                       No other god is like you. We”re safer with you than on a high mountain. [I included this rendering, not because it provides some new insight, but because it illustrates how far afield the CEV occasionally goes from the original text].

The Message                         Nothing and no one is holy like GOD, no rock mountain like our God.

REB                                       There is one but you,

none so holy as the Lord,

none so righteous as our God.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God”s Word™                         There is no one holy like the LORD.

There is no one but you, O LORD.

There is no Rock like our God.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

WEB                                      There is none holy as Yahweh; For there is none besides you, Neither is there any rock like our God.

Young’s Updated LT             There is none holy like Jehovah, For there is none save You, And there is no rock like our God.

What is the gist of this verse? God’s uniqueness is exalted here.

As you read this and the next verse, bear in mind that this is Hannah speaking by means of God the Holy Spirit, directly to her enemies, which are, given the means of her inspiration, the enemies of God. Therefore, I have included single quotes on the next two verses (which could really be extended throughout this entire psalm). On this verse, the single quotes do little to advance our understanding of what is being said. However, when going into the next verse, this will all make sense.

Translation: ‘There is no holy one like Y^ehowah,... We begin with the Hebrew construct which means in the condition of being not = without. We often supply a verb for this substantive and render it there is no. This is followed by the adjective sacred, holy, set apart, sacrosanct. When this adjective stands by itself, it functions like a substantive. It should be rendered holy one, set-apart one, sacred one, consecrated one, one set apart to God. Although here, in Job 15:15, it refers to God’s angels, it also can refer to believers (Deut. 33:3 Psalm 106:16). This is followed by like Y^ehowah, giving us: There is no holy one like Y^ehowah. God is unique among all other things. He is in a class by Himself. He is not simply a national god; He is not one member of this huge pantheon of gods—there is no one holy like Jehovah.

We have several names applied to God; one of the most common is Elohim, which is plural (the -im ending is an indication that a word is in the plural in the Hebrew). This title is applied both to God individually and to God the Trinity, as well as to heathen gods. However, we have a proper name for God in the Old Testament—Y^ehowah, or Jehovah, or Yahweh; and, although this name is applied to the various individual members of the Trinity (although primarily to the Second Person of the Trinity), it is never applied to any god outside of the Trinity. My point in this is, Islam has a god they call Allah; he is not the God; Hinduism has a veritable pantheon of gods—none of them are the God; the nations which surrounded Israel all worshipped various gods—none of them were the God. There was One God then, and there is One God now—Scripture has consistently taught us that from the very beginning. One God in purpose, in character, in unity; three in person—and this is taught from the very beginning in Gen. 1 to the very end in Rev. 22:17–21.

Translation: ...for there is no one [righteous] besides You;... This continues the thought of the previous verse. God’s uniqueness is recognized by Hannah in this psalm.

Translation: ...and no one is righteous like our God,... This is probably the more accurate reading, as it is found this way in the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the other hand, it would not seem too out of line for a scribe to insert, accidentally or to fill out the phrase, the word righteous. In any case, there is no one like God and there is no one righteous like God.

Given the many men and women who authored portions of the Word of God, you would expect many theological differences. After all, in the Protestant branch of the Church in the United States, there are those of a liberal bend who even hold that in whom you believe is not as important as that you believe. We do not have those theological differences in Scripture. Here, Hannah speaks, “There is no holy being like Jehovah, for there is no one besides You.” 400 years previous, Moses wrote: “Who is like You among the gods, O Jehovah? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” (Ex. 15:11). And later Moses wrote, “And there rock is not like our Rock; even our enemies themselves can discern this.” (Deut. 32:31). Two centuries later, Isaiah quoted God, Who said, “I am Jehovah, and there is no other; besides Me, there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am Jehovah, and there is no other.” (Isa. 45:5–6). And Isa. 40:18: To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare to him? (see Jer. 10:6 as well). And, over a thousand years later, Peter cries out to the men of Jerusalem: “And there is no salvation in anyone else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12). During the time that Scripture was written, during those 3000 or so years, the religions of man took many forms and followed many paths, including corrupted views of the Truth. Even in the United States, over the past 400 years, we can examine the Protestant branch of Christianity and see that, despite its foundation in the Truth of God’s Word, it is, in many ways, a reflection of the society around it and that many of our church traditions, practices and beliefs stem as much from society as they do from the Word. However, what Scripture teaches us concerning the character and person of God (as well as the person and character of man) is unwavering—from generation to generation, the message of God’s Word remains the same, regardless of the author or the society of its time period.

Translation: ...and there is no rock like our Elohim. Rock gives us the idea of never changing and stability. Note that the word in the Greek is righteous; however, few of the translators which I checked chose the Greek alternative (the exception is the REB). You will also note the change of person. In the first part v. 2, Jehovah is spoken of in the 3^rd person; in the second part of the verse, He is spoken of in the 2^nd person singular; and in the third part, we are back to the 3^rd person again. V. 1 was similar in the first two lines, Hannah speaks of God in the 3^rd person, but then, in the fourth line, says Your salvation, which brings him into the 2^nd person. The point in mentioning this, is that we cannot depend upon person alone to identify of whom or to whom we are speaking.

Although we have studied several psalms, few of them had been written prior to the writing of this Psalm (I believe that Moses’ psalms and Deborah’s psalm are the only pre-Hannah psalms). Hannah, in many ways, set some precedents with her psalm. At the end of this verse, she refers to the Rock, Who is Christ Jesus, Jehovah Elohim. Jacob used a similar word in Gen. 49:24, referring to the strength of Joseph: His arms are made strong from the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel).” Jacob, in this blessing, refers both to Joseph and to Jesus, of Whom Joseph is a type.

A few hundred years later, Moses wrote a psalm (called the Song of Moses by several translators) which is placed at the end of Deuteronomy, and it is here where God the Son is first called the Rock. The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just. He is a God of faithfulness and without injustice—He is righteous and upright (Deut. 32:4; see also vv. 18, 30, 31). I should also quote Psalm 18:2: Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. And Psalm 18:31: For who is God, except Yahweh? Who is a rock, besides our God. In this verse, Hannah continues the tradition of the Jacob and Moses by referring to our Lord as the Rock. David will later continue this tradition, referring to Jehovah Elohim as the Rock in 2Sam. 22:3, 32, 47 23:3. Then, we find similar references throughout the psalms, including Psalms 18, 19, 28, 31, 61, 62, 71, 73, 78, 89, 92, 94, 95, 144. In fact, the only references to Jesus Christ as the Rock are found in Poetry (see also Isa. 2:10 26:4 30:29 and Habak. 1:12). What actually occurs is this metamorphous concerning God’s Rock. At first, references to God as the Rock of Israel emphasize the stability, strength and protection which we are assured of in God. However, as Scripture progresses, the Rock tends to take on a decidedly Messianic connotation. This is not a change, per se, except in our perception. God has always been our strength and protection and stability; God has always been fully manifested in the person of His Son; His Son has always been our Savior and Messiah. We put it altogether today, recognizing that Jesus is God, Jesus is Messiah, Jesus is the Rock of Ages; however, throughout the Old Testament, this was a gradual, progressive revelation. Today, we know that our Lord is our Rock, as He tells us in Matt. 16:18: “Upon this Rock, I will build My Church.” 

I want you to notice the focus of this psalm—it is not about Samuel. As Matthew Henry writes: What great things she says of God. She takes little notice of the particular mercy she was now rejoicing in, does not commend Samuel for the prettiest child, the most toward and sensible for his age that she ever saw, as fond parents are too apt to do. No, she overlooks the gift, and praises the giver; whereas most forget the giver and fasten only on the gift. Every stream should lead us to the fountain; and the favours we receive from God should raise our admiration of the infinite perfections there are in God.

It appears as though this verse could be difficult. However, there are two points of interpretation which help us to grasp what is here. We suddenly find the author speaking to these seemingly unnamed 2^nd person masculine plural persons. These are the enemies of Hannah who are, by inspiration of the co-author of this Psalm, God the Holy Spirit, enemies of God. Secondly, in the Hebrew, we find a negative in the final line, which makes little or no sense. Let’s begin with what others have done:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         Do not multiply to speak lofty things, boasting:

let old matters depart from your mouth:

for the Lord is a God of all knowledge,

and to Him are thoughts prepared.

Masoretic Text                       ‘You [all] will not multiply; you [all] will [not] talk high high;

will come bold [impudent words] from your mouth

for a God of knowledges is Y^ehowah

and not measured are actions [or, and to Him, measured are actions].’

Peshitta                                 Talk no more so exceeding proudly;

Let not arrogance come out of your mouths;

for the Lord is a God of knowledge,

and no devices can stand before Him.

Septuagint                             Boast not, and utter not high things;

let not high–sounding words come out of your mouth,

for the Lord is a God of knowledge,

and God prepares His own designs.

Significant differences:          I believe the differences in the first line are simply of interpretation—the LXX translators of this portion were attempting to given the gist of what they found in the Hebrew text. Again, in the second line, I think the difference is a matter of interpretation; however, the Latin makes little sense: old matters? The Syriac is in line with the Hebrew. As for the final line—every translation seemed to go its own way. Based on these ancient translations alone, we can tell there are going to be problems.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

BBE                                       Say no more words of pride; let not uncontrolled sayings come out of your mouths: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, by him acts are judged.

CEV                                       I can tell those proud people, "Stop your boasting! Nothing is hidden from the LORD, and he judges what we do.".

The Message                         Don't dare talk pretentiously—not a word of boasting, ever! For GOD knows what's going on. He takes the measure of everything that happens.

REB                                       ‘Cease your proud boasting, let no word of arrogance pass your lips, for the Lord is a God who knows; he governs what mortals do.

TEV                                       Stop your loud boasting; silence your proud words. For the Lord is a God who knows and he judges all that people do.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         "Do not boast or let arrogance come out of your mouth because the LORD is a God of knowledge, and he weighs our actions.

JPS (Tanakh)                        Talk no more with lofty pride, Let no arrogance cross your lips! For the Lord is an all-knowing God, By Him actions are measured.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

Updated Emphasized Bible   Do not multiply words so loftily—loftily,

Nor let arrogance proceed from your mouth,— for <a God of knowledge> is Yahweh,

And <for himself> are great doings made firm.

HCSB                                    Do not boast so proudly,

or let arrogant words come out of your mouth,

for the LORD is a God of knowledge,

and actions are weighed by Him.

WEB                                      Talk no more so exceeding proudly;

Don't let arrogance come out of your mouth;

For Yahweh is a God of knowledge,

By him actions are weighed.

Young’s Updated LT             You multiply not—you speak haughtily—

The old saying goes out from your mouth, For a God of knowledge is Jehovah,

And by Him actions are weighed.

What is the gist of this verse? This is difficult to summarize, because the translation is difficult. It seems to say that we should not be arrogant or express our arrogance because Jehovah is a God of knowledge and He therefore knows all about us—He has weighed our actions. He knows we have no reason to be arrogant.

Translation: ‘You will not multiply [your] arrogance; you will [not] proclaim arrogance [or, Stop speaking with such (unrestrained) arrogance]. We begin this verse with the negative al (ל-א) [pronounced al], which is only used with the imperfect and not the imperative. Then we have the 2^nd person masculine plural, Hiphil imperfect of to become much, to become many, to multiply, to increase in population and in whatever else. In the Hiphil, it means to cause to become many, to make much, to multiply, to increase, to enlarge, to cause to greatly increase. Then we have the 2^nd person masculine plural, Piel imperfect of to talk. This is followed by a doubling of the feminine singular adjective high, exalted, proud, arrogant.

There is another consideration, and I do not know how valid it is. The two verbs in the forms that they are in, apart from the vowel points, could be mistaken for one another—that is, two of their letters are commonly mis-written in Scripture for two other letters—indicating that it is possible that we should have a repetition of the verb as well. Although I doubt this, I mention it, as you would not notice it in the English. Now, as for giving this some kind of understandable and literal translation, forget about it. Literally, what we have is: You [all] will not multiply; you [all] will [not] talk high high. It might be taken as two separate sentences smooshed together with one negative which applies to them both, giving us: You will not multiply [your] height [pride]; you will [not] talk proudly. There was a lot of cheating going on with that translation. First of all, high is almost always found in connection with mountains and very rarely do we find it meaning proud or prideful. However, we do have some exceptions (Psalm 138:6 Isa. 5:15). These two exceptions allow us to view this word more metaphorically than we would otherwise. Because of the meter of the psalm, and because of the similarity of thought, these are placed together as one sentence, although we could reasonably separate them into two.

What appears to be the case is that the negative plus the verb râbâh means stop [whatever]; so an even more likely rendering would be: “You [all] stop continuing to speak [with] great arrogance.” This makes a great deal of sense in the English and does not do much damage to the Hebrew. This is a common theme of Scripture as well (see Psalm 94:4 Prov. 8:13 Isa. 37:23 Dan. 4:30–31, 37 Mal. 3:13 Jude 1:15–16)

The psalm is a prayer which is said to God in the Tent of God, and in the first half of this verse, notes that we cannot approach God in pride or in the swelling of our self worth. God is not impressed by our personal greatness or our personal morality on any level. It is nothing to Him. Anything in our life that can be truly classified as great came from Him. So we have no reason to boast before Him; we have nothing which commends us to Him. McGee: Sometimes we hear people ask, “Why didn’t God hear my prayer?” To be quite frank, why should He? What claim do you have on Him? If you have accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour, you have a wonderful claim on God, and you can come to Him in the name of Jesus Christ. As His children we have His right and claim. That we have nothing to bring to God or nothing that we can offer Him is a common theme in Scripture. Our salvation is not by works, but by His grace (Eph. 2:8–9).

Translation: Unrestrained [or, arrogant] [speech] comes forth from your mouths... The second line begins with to go out, to come out, to come forth. This is followed by the masculine singular adjective forward, arrogant [of speech], at least, according to (BDB definitions) or bold, impudent, impudently (Gesenius definitions). It is actually a relative rare word in Scripture, being found only in 1Sam. 2:3 Psalm 31:19 75:6 94:4.* Its verbal cognate means to move, to proceed, to advance, to move forward. This word generally refers to speech or words which move straight ahead, which proceed with very little thought or restraint; the Arabic equivalent appears to mean unrestrained. After this, we have from your mouth, which gives us: Unrestrained [speech] comes forth from your mouth. Your is plural. In the English, we would say, Unrestrained [speech] comes from your mouths. The plural suffix with the singular noun just isn’t what we do in English.

I should add that, in the English, we would have switched v. 3a and v. 3b around. In our way of thinking, we would say, “Unrestrained arrogance comes out of your mouth; you need to stop speaking with arrogance.” The Hebrew writing style is often the opposite of our thinking process. We might get the idea more readily if we think of it in this way: Stop continually speaking in great arrogance [because] you put no restraints upon that which comes out of your mouths.

One parallel verse comes from Psalm 94, which is an imprecatory psalm, the kind of psalm that most pastors ignore, but should not. We all have enemies, whether we want them or not. We have individual enemies, we have criminals who are our enemies, and there are some foreign peoples who are our enemies. We are not able to simply lash out at our enemies—particularly, our personal ones. However, God gives us an out—Him. God allows us to come to Him in prayer and He will deal with our enemies. Psalm 94 deals primarily with the enemies of Israel, and the psalmist writes: How long will the wicked, O Jehovah, how long will the wicked jubilate? They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly. All who do wickedness vaunt themselves (Psalm 94:3–4). Another parallel passage is Psalm 31:18: Let the lying lips be dumb, [those lying lips] which speak arrogantly against the righteous with pride and contempt. Psalm 75:4–5: I said to the boastful, “Do not boast.” And to the wicked, “Do not lift up the horn. Do not lift up your horn on high. Do not speak with insolent pride.” See also Psalm 73:8 94:4 Mal. 3:13 Jude 15.

We can, of course, simply apply the first half of this verse to Peninnah; however, what follows in the next verse indicates that there is a more universal application than that.

Translation: ...for a God of [all] knowledge [is] Y^ehowah... Knowledge is a rare word, showing up for the first time in Scripture right here (actually, it is found in Job 36:4 prior to this). Thieme identifies this noun with omniscience. Scofield appears to agree, as Scofield ties this passage to 1Sam. 16:7 where God looks at the heart of a man, rather than on the outside. We find allusions to God’s knowledge, be it foreknowledge or omniscience, throughout Scripture: “Then hear in heaven, Your dwelling place, and forgive and act and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart You know, for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men.” (1Kings 8:39). “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind, for Jehovah searches all hearts and He understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” (I Chron. 28:9). O Jehovah, You have searched me and You have known me; You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my sleeping and You are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, observe, O Jehovah, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before and You have lain Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too incredible to me—it is too high—I cannot attain it (Psalm 139:1–6). See also 1Kings 8:39 2Chron. 6:30 Psalm 44:21, 94:7-10, 147:5 Prov. 15:11 Jer. 11:20 17:10 Heb. 4:12 Rev. 2:23.

Now, how does this relate to the previous part of this verse? God first tells us (through Hannah) to stop speaking with great arrogance because we are unrestrained in what we say; and then He tells us that He is a God of knowledge. What is the deal? How are these two thoughts related? God is omniscient. He knows that you have nothing to brag about; God knows you have nothing to be arrogant about.

Application: We have no reason to be arrogant and we have no reason to speak from our arrogance, because God knows us inside and out. He is a God of knowledge. By the way, speaking arrogantly does not mean that you stand tall and speak dogmatically. Arrogance means you either disregard God’s Words (which can make you sound very humble, when you say, this could be true, or that could be true) or you stand on your own authority.

Example: Let me give you an example of extreme arrogance. I was recently exchanging views with some people online, and they present this picture of Jesus which is completely and totally different from the Jesus in Scripture. That is arrogance. They make up things about Who Jesus is, and, at the same time, reject clear Scripture which tells us Who He is. They wanted to present Jesus as a great moral teacher. That is arrogance. Jesus cannot be seen as a great moral teacher. There is nothing in Scripture which would allow for that.

Translation: ...and, with respect to Him, actions are measured [or, (evil) actions are not measured].’ The final line is very difficult. This verse begins with the wâw conjunction, the negative and the 3^rd person plural, Niphal perfect of to regulate, to measure, to estimate. What is measured, regulated or estimated is the feminine plural noun wantonness, [evil] deeds, actions. It is a difficult word to determine a meaning for. It is used to refer to actions of God in Psalm 9:11; so I will go with the more neutral rendering actions. Now, this verb and noun are not found at all in the books of Samuel; they are found in this verse only, and several times in Ezekiel. Some of the words are found in various other passages of poetry. The point is, this vocabulary, apart from it being poetry and not prose, is not the vocabulary of this chapter of Samuel. It is as though another author is writing this portion, which, in fact, is what is happening. This is no great revelation; it just confirms what we would expect. A different writer will have a different vocabulary and a different writing style.

And actions are not measured. I must admit that this final line makes little or no sense to me in the Hebrew. It is the negative which is the problem here, which is lô (אֹל) [pronounced low], and it means not, no. This generally negates the word immediately following it. The Massorah suggests that this is one of the passages where אֹל stands for ל (which means, to Him). Now, I don’t know if the suggestion is that this was an error in transmission or whether this was a reasonable substitution—I simply got this notion out of Keil and Delitzsch, which is where I go when a passage is giving me a tough time. What that would give us is: to Him rather than a negative. To Him [or, with respect to Him], actions are weighed. I am not aware of any translation, including the very literal Young’s Translation, which renders this as a negative. Rotherham footnotes this line, but does not give the alternate version of what is found in the Massoretic text. However, Rotherham tells us that this is how it should be read (without the negative) and says that it is both written and read in this way in one early printed edition and in the Aramaic. Owen tells us that it is a negative, but does not translate it as a negative.

Now, how does this all fit together? God tells us to stop speaking arrogantly, to not let this arrogance proceed from our mouths because God knows all about us—He knows that we are not the great person that we think we are; God has weighed our actions; He knows what we have done.

A parallel passage to this final line is Prov. 24:12, which ties this back to God’s omniscience. If you say, “see, we did not know this,” does He not consider Who weighs the hearts And does He not know Who keeps your soul? And will He not render to a man according to his works? God is able to weigh or to measure all that a man is because God is able to observe all that a man is, on the inside and the outside. See also Prov. 16:2.

Hannah has made four observations about God’s character so far, which Matthew Henry sums up: (1.) His unspotted purity. This is that attribute which is most praised in the upper world, by those that always behold his face (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). When Israel triumphed over the Egyptians God was praised as glorious in holiness (Ex. 15:11). So here, in Hannah's triumph, There is none holy as the Lord. It is the rectitude of his nature, his infinite agreement with himself, and the equity of his government and judgment in all the administrations of both. At the remembrance of this we ought to give thanks. (2.) His almighty power: Neither is there any rock (or any strength, for so the word is sometimes rendered) like our God. Hannah had experienced a mighty support by staying herself upon him, and therefore speaks as she had found. (3.) His unsearchable wisdom: The Lord, the Judge of all, is a God of knowledge; he clearly and perfectly sees into the character of every person and the merits of every cause, and he gives knowledge and understanding to those that seek them of him. (4.) His unerring justice: By him actions are weighed. His own are so, in his eternal counsels; the actions of the children of men are so, in the balances of his judgment, so that he will render to every man according to his work, and is not mistaken in what any man is or does.

Although this could continue the quotation of above, that is not absolutely necessary. Furthermore, we leave the 2^nd person plural, which leaves that particular train of thought.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       Bows of soldiers [are] shattered [and dismayed] ones;

and exhausted ones gird on strength.

Peshitta                                 The bows of the might men are broken, and they that are weak are girded with strength.

Septuagint                             The bow of the mighty has waxed feeble, and the weak have girded themselves with strength.

Significant differences:          This sounds as though the Greek translators made a thought-for-thought translation again (which is common for the book of Samuel).

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

BBE                                       The bows of the men of war are broken, and the feeble are clothed with strength.

CEV                                       Our LORD, you break the bows of warriors, but you give strength to everyone who stumbles.

The Message                         The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength.

NLT                                Those who were mighty are mighty no more; and those who were weak are now strong.

REB                                       Strong men stand in mute dismay, but those who faltered put on new strength.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumble are armed with strength.

JPS (Tanakh)                        The bows of the mighty are broken, And the faltering are girded with strength.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

HCSB                                    The bows of the warriors are broken, but the feeble are clothed with strength.

Young's Updated LT              Bows of the mighty are broken, And the stumbling have girded on strength.

What is the gist of this verse? The weapons of the strong are destroyed; those who were weak are strengthened.

Translation: The bows of [enemy] soldiers are shattered [and dismayed];... This verse begins with bows of soldiers (or, strong, mighty men). Then we have the masculine plural adjective shattered, dismayed, confounded. This means that Hannah is clearly not talking about her personal rival, Peninnah.

The idea here is that God’s strength is so great, that those who oppose him have no chance. This comes from a verb which has these same two meanings and both are apropos. God’s strength shatters the weapons of His enemies; however, further, those who oppose Him are dismayed. A phrase like the bows of the mighty is a metonym, and it actually stands for the soldiers themselves. In other words, we are not speaking of some force which comes along and literally breaks into pieces the bows of the enemy archers; it is the enemy soldiers themselves who are destroyed in battle. The adjective is a perfect choice here, as it carries with it the two meanings. The bows of the soldiers are broken; and the soldiers themselves are dismayed and confounded. It is marvelous poetry, allowing for both a literal reading on the one hand, and a metonymic reading on the other.

Translation: ...those who are exhausted put on [God’s] strength. The second line begins with the conjunction and the masculine plural, Niphal participle of a ver which means to stumble, stagger, teeter. This sort of construction allows for this word to act like a noun and describes those who are on the verge of total exhaustion.

This is followed by the 3^rd person plural, Qal perfect of to gird, to encompass, to equip. What the weakened and exhausted are equipped with is the masculine singular noun strength, valour, power, might. This gives us: ...those who are exhausted put on [God’s] strength. Isa. 40:31 gives us an excellent parallel passage: Yet those who wait for Jehovah will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not get tired; they will walk and not become weary. Isa. 57:10: “You were tired out by the length of your road, but you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewed strength—therefore, you did not faint.”

In war, God functions in two areas—He gives us strength in order to fight, and He takes from our opposition: For you have clothed me with strength for battle; You have subdued under me those who rose up against me (Psalm 18:39). We have specific examples given in the Hall of Faith of Heb. 11, vv. 32–34: And what more will I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power o fire, escaped the edge of the sword. From weakness, they were made strong; they became mighty in war and put foreign armies to flight. See also 2Sam. 1:27 Psalm 76:3.

Psalm 37:15, 17 provide us with a parallel passage to this entire verse: Their sword will enter their own heart, and their bows will be broken. For the arms of the wicked will be shattered, but Jehovah sustains the righteous.

Although some have tried to tie this to specific groups of Israel’s enemies, there just isn’t enough information here to single out any group. I think this is more of a general statement and one which would have had to apply from the standpoint of history, rather than the near future, as the near future for Israel was going to be rather bumpy and Israel was not going to immediately vanquish all of her enemies.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                         They that were full before, have hired out themselves for bread:

and the hungry are filled,

so that the barren hath borne many:

and she that had many children is weakened.

Masoretic Text                       Those satiated in the bread have been hired out;

and hungry ones have ceased.

Unto a barren [woman], she has given birth [to] seven

and a woman of sons is forlorn.

Peshitta                                 Those who were full have hired out themselves for bread;

and those who were hungry have food left over;

the barren has given birth and is satisfied,

and she who has many children is lonely.

Septuagint                             They that were full of bread are brought low;

and the hungry have forsaken the land;

for the barren has born seven,

and she that abounded in children has waxed feeble.

Significant differences:          The text of the Latin, Hebrew and Syriac seems to make more sense than that which we find in the Greek. Everything has been turned around. Those who were wealthy are now hiring themselves out to be able to eat and those who were hungry are now filled (or they cease working). The second half of this verse is pretty much identical, except in the Greek when the woman who had a lot of children has become feeble; the other texts make more sense.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

BBE                                       Those who were full are offering themselves as servants for bread; those who were in need are at rest; truly, she who had no children has become the mother of seven; and she who had a family is wasted with sorrow.

CEV                                       People who once had plenty to eat must now hire themselves out for only a piece of bread. But you give the hungry more than enough to eat. A woman did not have a child, and you gave her seven, but a woman who had many was left with none.

The Message                         The well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts, while the hungry are getting second helpings. The barren woman has a houseful of children, while the mother of many is bereft.

NJB                                        The full fed are hiring themselves out for bread

but the hungry need labour no more;

the barren woman bears sevenfold

but the mother of many is left desolate.

REB                                       Those who had plenty sell themselves for a crust,

and the hungry grow strong again.

The barren woman bears seven children,

and the mother of many sons is left to languish.

TEV                                       The people who once were well fed now ire themselves out to get food, but the hungry are hungry no more. The childless wife has borne seven children, but the mother of many is left with none.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         Those who were well-fed hire themselves out for a piece of bread, but those who were hungry hunger no more. Even the woman who was childless gives birth to seven children, but the mother of many children grieves all alone.

JPS (Tanakh)                        Men once sated must hire out for bread,

Men once hungry hunger no more.

While the barren woman bears seven,

The mother of many is forlorn.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

Updated Emphasized Bible   ║The sated║ have for bread taken hire,

But ║the famished║ have left off their toil,—

So that ║the barren║ hath given birth unto seven,

While ║she that hath many sons║ languishes.

HNV                                       Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread. Those who were hungry have ceased [to hunger]. Yes, the barren has borne seven. She who has many children languishes.

Young’s Updated LT             The satiated for bread hired themselves,

And the hungry have ceased.

While the barren has borne seven,

And she abounding with sons has languished.

What is the gist of this verse? Everything has been turned around. Those who were wealthy are now hiring themselves out to be able to eat and those who were hungry are now filled (or they cease working). Women who were barren, suddenly have an abundance of children and those who had man sons are now languishing without support from these sons.

The previous verse began a set of transpositions. The strong in battle became neutralized; the formerly weak were given God’s strength. One might even assert that the theme of this psalm is a reversal of fortune at the hands of God, which is very much in keeping with Hannah’s own personal experience.

In this verse, we have a similar reversal—those who have had all of their physical needs met without work have suddenly had to go to work; those who worked, yet remained hungry because they could not make enough to support themselves—they no longer have to work. Women who were once barren, suddenly found themselves having children; a woman who was seemingly fertile inexplicably stopped having children.

Translation: Those [previously] sated with food have been hired out... We begin with the masculine plural adjective those fill with, those who are satiated. This is followed by in the bread or by means of the bread. Then we have the 3^rd person plural, Niphal perfect of to be hired out, to have been hired, to be recompensed. This gives us: Those [formerly] satiated with food have been hired. The idea here is that there are a group of those who have been prosperous, they have enough money and food and they have been the ones to do the hiring. Now they find themselves being hired out as they do not have enough to get by.

Translation: ...and [those who are] hungry have ceased. The parallel line begins with the wâw conjunction and the masculine plural adjective those who are hungry, the hungry ones, the ravenous, the starving, the hungry. This is followed by the 3^rd person plural, Qal perfect of to cease and desist, to leave off, to cease, to leave, to forsake. This is a word given many different renderings in the KJV: ceased, left, forbear, were unoccupied, leave, forsake, left off, have failed (and these are all Qal renderings). Gesenius renders this to leave off, to cease, to desist; as well as to forsake, to leave. The parallelism would imply that they have ceased being hungry. The starving ones have ceased [starving]. The pausal form of this verb means that this is the end of this line.

The key to this half of the verse is one’s relationship to God. Certainly, there are men who are rich beyond imagination—they have worked hard for a long time; they have been involved in some shady business practices; their decisions are generally based strictly upon income. However, apart from a relationship with God, this will all be for naught. Have you ever accumulated wealth or several material items in your dreams and when you wake up, it’s all gone? This is what death will be like for the unsaved rich man. This poor man cried out and Jehovah heard him and delivered him out of all his troubles. The angel of Jehovah encamps around those who fear Him and He rescues them. Taste and see that Jehovah is good—how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Fear Jehovah, you His saints, for to those who fear Him, there is no want. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek Jehovah will not be in want of any good thing (Psalm 34:6–10). Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure (James 5:1–3).

I want you to understand what Hannah is saying. The tables have been turned and God did it. We may think that there is a particular pecking order in life and we will find out that we had it backwards. There are celebrities and sports stars and the rich whose talent, beauty and wealth will, for all eternity, mean nothing. In the hierarchy of eternity, they will be on the bottom if they have not believed in the Messiah Jesus. They will burn in hell forever. The less-attractive, the uncoordinated, those who struggled to make ends meet—if they have believed in Jesus Christ, their faith at a bare minimum places them face to face with the Messiah. Had they any works done while filled with God the Holy Spirit, then they can only go up from eternal happiness and blessing. Hannah had the feeling of this pecking order in the Elkanah household. Her co-wife, Peninnah, apparently provoked her in jealousy (1Sam. 1:6); so this is not simply sour grapes that we are speaking of here. Not only will her position in the household of Elkanah change, but so will her position in all of Israel. She will bear a child whose life is inextricably linked to kingdom Israel. On Samuel’s shoulders, by his guidance, Israel will go from being a nation without a king, ruled locally by various judges, to a world power ruled by kings. Notice how things changed for Hannah and Peninnah. The only reason Peninnah is mentioned at all in 1Sam. 1 is because she is the co-wife with Hannah. Remove that relationship and Peninnah would not even be a footnote in Israel’s history. The point of this is that God, in His matchless grace, turned their social positions completely around. Whereas Peninnah would have thought that she would be long remembered for bearing all these children and for these children bearing her name, so to speak, for hundreds of years; Hannah has one child and we recall him, and therefore his mother, for millenniums.

The same will be true of Israel and her enemies. At the time, the enemies of Israel loomed large over Israel, and they would continue to do so for some time into the future. However, now, 3000 years later, we only recall the names of those other nations because they are a footnote in the history of Israel.

Translation: A barren woman has given birth to seven... Then we have the preposition as far as, even to, up to, until. Then we have the feminine singular adjective barren, which refers specifically to Hannah. She was the barren one, and here the word is used as a substantive. This is followed by the feminine singular, Qal perfect of the verb to bear, to be born, to bear, to bring forth, to beget. Then we have the feminine singular numeral seven. In this case, it refers to bearing seven children, the number seven bearing with it the connotation of perfection or completion (see Ruth 4:15, for instance). We are not necessarily speaking of a woman bearing literally seven children; the idea is that she has borne a complete and almost ideal, family. As far as the barren one, she bears seven [children]. We find a parallel to this portion of the verse in Psalm 113:9a: He makes the barren woman to dwell [in a state of blessing] in the house as a joyful mother of children. Hannah is not speaking necessarily of herself directly in this verse. As mentioned, the number seven is associated with God’s complete will and blessing, so it is metaphorical in nature rather than specific. Hannah will have 6 children in all (see v. 21). This is not a mistaken prophecy but a general statement of God’s perfect blessing upon His faithful but barren ones. Six is the number of man, so a blessing from God would not be expressed in terms of 6 of anything (on the other hand, we do have the 6 worst sins in the book of Proverbs).

Translation: ...but a woman with sons languishes. Our contrasting line begins with the wâw conjunction and the feminine singular adjective construct many, much, great. This is followed by the masculine plural noun sons. Then we have our verb, the 3^rd person feminine singular, Pual perfect to be weak, to languish. The Pual is the passive of the Piel (intensive) stem. And [one] many of sons has been made to languish. This is a state brought on by something beyond that person’s control. God turns a lot of what we see and perceive upside down. In the next verse, Hannah will state the power and authority of God, and then after that, give more examples of the changes which God makes. We find a parallel to this spoken by the Lord is Isa. 54:1: “Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed in labor, for the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the married woman,” says Jehovah. When Israel is in a state of war while under judgment, a woman with many sons is no better off than one without. “I will bereave them of children; I will destroy My people; they did not change their mind about their ways...She who bore seven sons pines away—her breathing is labored. Her sun has set while it was yet day; she has been shamed and humiliated. So I will give over their survivors to the sword before their enemies,” declares Jehovah (Jer. 15:7b, 9). The idea in the ancient world, and less so today, is that a mother could depend upon her sons for sustenance when she became old. In fact, the general life cycle would be taking her sons into the most successful period of their lives as she simultaneously would reach a point of greatest need.

We have a few additional parallel passages. There is a parallel in the Magnificat, which was already noted above. Our Lord spoke the most well-known parallel passage: “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first.” (Mark 10:31). Our Lord spoke of this in the context of divine reward for our work here on this earth; however, God’s overruling will is a constant in this life, and Hannah has simply given us a few examples.

Matthew Henry comments on this verse: Riches are not to men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill (Eccles. 9:11), nor is it always men's own fault that they become poor, but (1Sam. 2:7) the Lord makes some poor and makes others rich; the impoverishing of one is the enriching of another, and it is God's doing. To some he gives power to get wealth, from others he takes away power to keep the wealth they have. Are we poor? God made us poor, which is a good reason why we should be content, and reconcile ourselves to our condition. Are we rich? God made us rich, which is a good reason why we should be thankful, and serve him cheerfully in the abundance of good things he gives us. It may be understood of the same person; those that were rich God makes poor, and after awhile makes rich again, as Job; he gave, he takes away, and then gives again. Let not the rich be proud and secure, for God can soon make them poor; let not the poor despond and despair, for God can in due time enrich them again.

Throughout, Hannah has been speaking of God’s sovereignty, and therefore, His ability to reverse fortunes. In this verse, she speaks of his absolute sovereignty over even life and death. This verse concentrates on God’s authority over all things:

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       Yehowah executing and making alive;

Causing to bring down to Sheol and so causing to ascend.

Septuagint                             The Lord kills and makes alive;

he brings down to the grave, and brings up.

Significant differences:          None (finally!).

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       You take away life, and you give life. You send people down to the world of the dead and bring them back up again.

NLT                                The Lord brings both death and life; he brings some down to the grave but raises others up.

REB                                       ‘The Lord metes out both death and life; he sends down to Sheol, he can bring the dead up again.

TEV                                       The Lord kills and restores to life; he sends people to the world of the dead and brings them back again.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

BBE                                       The Lord is the giver of death and life: sending men down to the underworld and lifting them up.

God’s Word™                         "The LORD kills, and he gives life. He makes people go down to the grave, and he raises them up again.

JPS (Tanakh)                        The Lord deals death and gives life, Casts down into Sheol and raises up.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

HCSB                                    The LORD brings death and gives life; He sends some to Sheol, and He raises others up.

Young's Updated LT              Jehovah puts to death, and keeps alive, He brings down to Sheol, and brings up.

What is the gist of this verse? Jehovah has the power over life and death; He can take men down to Sheol (the place of the dead) and bring men up from Sheol.

Translation: Y^ehowah kills and He brings to life;... First of all, there are a bunch of participles in this verse (4 of them), which grabs our attention. Luckily, in this verse, what we have is fairly straightforward. We begin this verse and the next with Y^ehowah. The verb is the Hiphil participle of to kill, to destroy, to put to death, to execute. Now, you might be thinking, doesn’t the Bible say, “Thou shalt not kill”? Don’t be such an idiot! God has all of the facts and He can remove anyone from this life at any time by any means. Furthermore, undiscerning one, the words are different. In the Decalogue, it actually reads: You will not murder. It is a different verb altogether. They are not even cognates—in fact, they do not have any letters in common, even vowels. I recall going to a liberal Baptist church in Berkeley one Sunday morning and having the Bible teacher turn to the Ten Commandments and totally go off on this commandment saying, “And there are no exceptions. The Bible says Do not kill and that’s it.” He was so wrong, I could barely contain myself—however, at that time, I was a lot less argumentative, so I just let it go. Throughout the Mosaic Law, there are numerous occasions where God prescribes execution for a litany of offenses—in fact, for offenses which we might consider to be not so offensive as to warrant execution. However, we are not God, and we do not realize how destructive these offenses can be. In any case, God has the power and the authority to execute anyone; He has the power and authority to remove us from this life.

Then we have the wâw conjunction followed by the Piel participle of to live, to have life, to revive, to recover health, to be healed, to be refreshed. In the Piel, this verb means ➊ to cause to live, to make alive; ➋ to keep alive; ➌ to call back to life; to restore life. Strong's #2421 & 2425 BDB #310. This gives us: Y^ehowah kills and he causes life. As Job put it: “Jehovah has given and Jehovah has taken away. Blessed be the name of Jehovah.” (Job 1:21b).

McGee: Only God has the power to give life, and only He has the right to take it away. Until you ane I have the power to give life, we have no right to take life away. So far, only God has that power. Believe me, God will take the...[responsibility] for the deaths of Ananias and Sapphire in Acts 5. He does not apologize for the fact that He intends to judge the wicked...God does not apologize for what He does. Why? Because this is His universe; we are His creatures; He is running the universe His way. McGee continues: Not long ago I talked to a young university student who had received Christ as Saviour but who was still unwilling to accept many things. I said to him, “If you do not like the way God has worked out His plan of salvation, and you don’t like the things He is doing, you can go off somewhere and make your own universe, set up your own rules, and run it your own way. But as long as you are in God’s universe, you are going to have to do things His way.” 

We certainly have a number of parallel passages throughout Scripture on this, which is a further testament to God’s sovereignty. “See now that I, I am He and there is no god besides Me—I put to death and I give life. I have wounded and I heal and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.” (Deut. 32:39). “Do not be afraid—I am the First and the Last and the Living One and I was dead; and behold, I am alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” (Rev. 1:17b–18). See also 2Kings 5:7.

Translation: ...He brings down to Sheol then He brings up. In the second line, we have the Hiphil participle of to cause to go down, to cause to come down, to bring down. It is often used of going from a higher elevation to a lower elevation, which is what is in view here. This is followed by the proper noun Sheol, followed by the wâw consecutive and the 3^rd person masculine singular, Hiphil imperfect of to cause to go up, to lead up, to take up, to bring up. This gives us: Causing to bring down [to] Sheol and so He brings up.

Now, we might simply breeze by this second half, but what Hannah says here is remarkable. We do not simply having God cause some men to be brought down and others to be brought up; the implication with the change of the verb forms (to the Hiphil imperfect) and the wâw consecutive is that, we could be speaking of the same person or persons being brought down to Sheol and then back up again. My thinking is that this is brand new to Scripture. We haven’t had something like this before mentioned. We certainly know that God is capable of bringing one down to Sheol; we also know that God is able to make one raise up—that is, improve their life in this life and even to bring them up to Himself; however, the idea here is that God brings someone down to Sheol and then it appears as though He is bringing him back up again from Sheol. What we would expect is another participle which follows a wâw conjunction along with maybe even a destination, e.g., heaven. However, Hannah tells us that God brings down to Sheol and then He brings that same one up again. This is unexpected, but it is progressive revelation provided by the co-author of this psalm, God the Holy Spirit. It is not odd that God chose Hannah to say this—her son, Samuel, will be brought back up from the dead at the end of 1Samuel.

Our Lord will be brought down to Sheol after He is crucified and then God will bring Him back up again. The Old Testament saints have been brought down into Sheol (into a compartment called Abraham’s bosom) and they will be brought up again when God resurrects them. This great truth is brought to us by a woman who wrote this psalm inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The psalmist also speaks of God’s eventual redemption of the body of the believer: As the pregnant woman approaches giving birth, she writhes and cries out in her labor pains—thus we were before You, O Jehovah. We were pregnant , we writhed in labor, we have birth, as it were, but to wind. We could not accomplish deliverance for the earth nor were inhabitants of the world born. Your dead will live. Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits (Isa. 26:17–19). And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones lives?” And I answered, “O Jehovah Elohim, You know.” Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel...Behold, I will open your graves and I will cause you to come up out of your graves, My people, and I will return you to the land of Israel.” (Ezek. 37:3, 11–12). Resurrection is not a major topic in the Old Testament, although it is found there. It does not assume the prominence of this topic in the New Testament. In fact, one religious body of unbelievers during the time of Jesus, the Sadducees, did not believe in the resurrection. However, the simple fact that is mentioned tells us that there were those who believed in the Old Testament and believed in the resurrection. My point in all of this is that the resurrection is taught in the Old Testament, albeit briefly; and in this psalm of Hannah, we find a clear mention of God taking one down to Sheol and then bringing him back up again, which is bodily resurrection.

I should add that resurrection was a part of the psyche of the Old Testament believers, going all the way back to the Patriarch Joseph. Even though he assumed a great position of authority in Egypt and could have enjoyed a tremendous Egyptian memorial at his death, he chose to remain in an above ground, moveable casket, so that when Israel was removed from Egypt to the Land of Promise, the bones of Joseph could be taken with them. Not only was this a testimony of Joseph’s faith in God’s promises to Israel concerning the Land of Promise, but he was also making a statement that his bones should be in the Land of Promise so that when God raised him from the dead, he would be raised up in the Land of Promise. This showed remarkable faith, understanding and foresight on the part of Joseph, who stands out as one of the great believers of the book of Genesis. My point in all of this is that believers back to the time of Joseph had some understanding of the final resurrection. However, this is the first time that this has been clearly presented in Scripture.

One of the marvelous doctrines of Scripture is that it is God-breathed. That is, although there were many human authors (the number of which is generally under-reported), there is one Divine Author, and He provides the consistency of doctrine. The two major theological branches in the time of our Lord could not agree upon the existence of the resurrection; but the Bible has no problem here. It consistently teaches that we will be raised up on the last day. And, although such an issue was apparently one of great debate accompanied by great emotion in the time of the incarnation, this is not a debatable issue in Scripture. That is, of all the many writers of Scripture, we don’t have any two of them disagreeing about the resurrection. If this were a book written simply by men, such a topic would certainly be presented in two ways by two different factions; however, since the Bible is God-breathed, there are no disagreements with regard to the resurrection (or, with regards to anything else, for that matter).

So out of seemingly nowhere comes this barren woman, looked down upon by her co-wife. She prays to God and God gives her a son; and then she writes this marvelous psalm which states unequivocally that God would raise the dead. Furthermore, Eli, the High Priest, recognizes that she is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he preserves her psalm until it is placed into Scripture (it is officially acknowledged as Scripture by its inclusion in this narrative).

What we have throughout Scripture is testimony to God’s sovereignty in the matters of life and death. We have the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus in John 11:41–44 (compare John 5:21). We have the raising of a lad from the dead by Elisha in 2Kings 4:32–35. And we also have Elijah raising the widow’s son from the dead in 1Kings 17:20–24. These are instances of God’s power witnessed to give credence to His complete sovereignty over life and death.

Why is it Hannah to come up with this break through? Why does she speak of God resurrecting from the dead? Her son, Samuel, is a shadow of Jesus Christ (see The Parallels between Samuel and Jesus Christ at the end of this chapter). What will Jesus Christ do that will set Him apart from all mankind, and confirm that His death for our sins is propitious? He will rise from the dead. God the Father will bring Jesus from the dead. So, it is only apropos that Hannah, whose son will also be raised from the dead (1Sam. 28) to speak of the resurrection. Do you see how incredible the inspiration of Scripture is? Do you see the hand of God the Holy Spirit? Hannah certainly recognizes God’s power here, but she does not know that the Son of God will be raised up from Sheol; she does not know that her own son will die and be raised up from Sheol. Yet, God the Holy Spirit inspires her to write this.

Now, when explaining the second line in the previous verse, you may have thought I had a screw loose and was making too much of the Hebrew. You were wrong. In this verse, we have the construction that we would have expected in the previous verse. First, the other translations:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                &