1 Sam 2:1-11, 18-21 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
In the last lesson, Hannah brought the weaned Samuel to Shiloh and said to Eli, “Therefore I have also given him to the LORD. As long as he lives he is given to the LORD” (1 Sam 1:28).
Next, the passage records a prayer of Hannah’s.
1Hannah prayed, and said, “My heart exults in the LORD! My horn is exalted in the LORD. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.
2There is no one as holy as the LORD, for there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God.
3“Don’t keep talking so exceedingly proudly. Don’t let arrogance come out of your mouth, for the LORD is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed.
4“The bows of the mighty men are broken. Those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread. Those who were hungry are satisfied. Yes, the barren has borne seven. She who has many children languishes.
6“The LORD kills and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol and brings up.
7The LORD makes poor and makes rich. He brings low, he also lifts up.
8He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill to make them sit with princes and inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s. He has set the world on them.
9He will keep the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked will be put to silence in darkness; for no man will prevail by strength.
10Those who strive with the LORD shall be broken to pieces. He will thunder against them in the sky. “The LORD will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
11Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. The child served the LORD before Eli the priest.
The next verses (vv. 12–17) tell of Eli’s two sons serving as priests; this lesson does not read them.
18But Samuel ministered before the LORD, being a child, clothed with a linen ephod.
19Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.
20Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, “May the LORD give you offspring from this woman for the petition which was asked of the LORD.” Then they went to their own home.
21The LORD visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. The child Samuel grew before the LORD.
My heart exults in the LORD. This is how Hannah’s prayer begins: “My heart exults in the LORD! My horn is exalted in the LORD” (v. 1). In the whole prayer, she never mentions Samuel by name; what she speaks of is the LORD.
No one as holy as the LORD. “There is no one as holy as the LORD, for there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God” (v. 2). She goes on: “Don’t keep talking so exceedingly proudly … for the LORD is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed” (v. 3).
Turned around. She speaks of one reversal after another: “The bows of the mighty men are broken. Those who stumbled are armed with strength” (v. 4); “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread. Those who were hungry are satisfied” (v. 5); “Yes, the barren has borne seven. She who has many children languishes” (v. 5). She is not telling one person’s story; she is saying how the LORD works.
Out of the dust. “The LORD kills and makes alive” (v. 6); “The LORD makes poor and makes rich. He brings low, he also lifts up” (v. 7). “He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill to make them sit with princes” (v. 8). She also says, “for no man will prevail by strength” (v. 9).
His king. The last line of the prayer is: “He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed” (v. 10). In Lesson 1 we read that in those days “there was no king in Israel” (Judg 21:25). Yet Hannah’s prayer ends with ‘his king’.
A little robe. Hannah went home, and “The child served the LORD before Eli the priest” (v. 11). “Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice” (v. 19). In Lesson 1, “year by year, when she went up to the LORD’s house” (1 Sam 1:7), she was provoked: “Therefore she wept, and didn’t eat” (1 Sam 1:7). In this lesson, going up year by year just the same, she carries a little robe.
The LORD visited Hannah. Eli blessed them (v. 20). Then the passage says: “The LORD visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters” (v. 21). This is where 1 Samuel’s account of Hannah ends; the last line of this section is: “The child Samuel grew before the LORD” (v. 21).
When Hannah prayed, Israel had no king yet (Judg 21:25). But as far back as Moses, the law had spoken of setting up a king: “When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you … and say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me’” (Deut 17:14), “you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God chooses as king over yourselves” (Deut 17:15).
Readers can see this: in Hannah’s day, a king was something that had not yet happened. Her prayer says, “He will give strength to his king” (v. 10): the one who gives the king strength is the LORD.
Perhaps you are still waiting; perhaps you have already received. Hannah’s prayer does not begin with what she received, but with “My heart exults in the LORD!” (v. 1). What she speaks of is what kind of God the LORD is: there is “no one as holy as the LORD” (v. 2), and “He raises up the poor out of the dust” (v. 8).
This lesson does not promise you that if you give, you will receive more. What it shows you is this: someone who once wept there year after year now rejoices, in the same place, in what kind of God the LORD is.
This week: Write one line of your own prayer, beginning with “My heart exults in the LORD!”, and go on to write what kind of God the LORD is — not what he has given you, only who he is.
The last line of Hannah’s prayer is: “He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed” (1 Sam 2:10).
Samuel, the son she had asked for, later anointed David at the LORD’s command: “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the middle of his brothers” (1 Sam 16:13).
In the New Testament, Paul, speaking in the synagogue at Antioch, tells the history of Israel. He says God “gave them judges until Samuel the prophet” (Acts 13:20), and that “he raised up David to be their king” (Acts 13:22). Then he says: “From this man’s offspring, God has brought salvation to Israel according to his promise” (Acts 13:23) — and he names him: God “raised up Jesus” (Acts 13:33).
The passage does not say that Hannah was prophesying of Jesus. These are simply read side by side: an age that had no king yet, a child asked of the LORD, and the line Paul traces to Jesus.
Scripture: World English Bible.