Hannah’s Song

1 Samuel 2

            The first half of 1 Samuel 2 records the song Hannah sang when she brought little Samuel back to the tabernacle to serve the Lord. In itself, we might gloss over it as just one more song/psalm in the Bible (and there are a lot of them). This one is important, though, because it is so clearly the model for Mary’s song after she finds out she is pregnant with Jesus. The themes are very similar: that the Lord is worthy of praise because he brings down the proud and arrogant and raises up the lowly. Hannah, because of her inability to have children, would have been scorned; people would have wondered what she had done wrong to deserve such a fate; she would have borne a shame that we cannot quite understand in our day and age. Similarly, Mary, a young, unmarried girl, would have had no standing of her own; her whole identity would have been wrapped up in being someone’s daughter. Their songs reflect the dignity and honor that the Lord gives the individual, even the individual that the world counts as nothing. There’s a beautiful message about the Gospel there. “The Lord raises the poor from the dust.”

            In contrast to the gratitude and faith of Hannah, chapter 2 continues with the misdeeds of Eli’s sons, who were priests and yet are described as scoundrels. (It’s different Hebrew word than in Judges 11:3.) They are said, literally, not to know the Lord, which doesn’t mean ignorance but a willful refusal to submit to him. They are not content with the priest’s assigned portion of the offering, but they extort a better portion before the sacrifice is even completed.  We find out toward the end of the chapter that they have sex with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting, making the tabernacle little better than a shrine of Baal.

            But even here the echoes with the story of Jesus are replete. Contrasting Samuel, the Ephraimite, with the sons of Eli, the Aaronic priests, the author notes that little Samuel “grew in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people,” a phrase used almost identically of John the Baptizer (Luke 1:80) and especially Jesus (Luke 2:40, 52). And there is the promise that the Lord will raise up a faithful priest. In the nearer context, that will be Zadok, who served as priest for David, but ultimately it will be Jesus, who will offer the final sacrifice, his own body, for the salvation of all humans.