Hannah's Song

A mother has just said goodbye to her little boy, leaving him to grow up in God's house. You might expect her to cry. Instead, she lifts her head, and she sings.

We are at Shiloh, in the hill country of Ephraim, where the house of the Lord stands. Hannah, who for years had no children and was mocked by her rival, has prayed and been heard. God gave her a son, Samuel. And just as she promised, once he was weaned she brought him to Eli the priest, to serve the Lord all his life. Israel at this time is in a dark season. There is no king. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Even Eli's own sons, who are priests, are greedy and corrupt. And in the middle of this, one grateful mother prays a song.

Hannah begins with joy. “My heart rejoiceth in the LORD, mine horn is exalted in the LORD.” A horn here is a picture of strength, like a strong animal lifting its head. She is no longer bowed down. She smiles at her enemies, she says, because she rejoices in God's salvation. Then she praises who God is. There is none holy like the Lord. There is no one besides you. There is no rock like our God. Hannah had leaned her whole weight on God in her trouble. She found him as solid as rock.

Then Hannah turns to the proud. Stop talking so proudly, she says. Let no arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God who knows, and he weighs every action. And then she sings of God turning the world upside down. The bows of the mighty are broken, and those who stumbled are dressed in strength. Those who were full now hire themselves out for bread, and those who were hungry are hungry no more. The woman who could not have children has borne seven, and the one with many sons pines away. The Lord kills and makes alive. He brings low, and he lifts up.

Listen to the heart of her song. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes.” The ones nobody notices, sitting in the dirt, God sets beside princes. The pillars of the earth belong to him. He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked will be silent in darkness. For not by strength shall anyone prevail. And then, at the very end, Hannah says something surprising. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed. Israel did not even have a king yet. But Hannah sang of one.

More than a thousand years later, a young woman from Nazareth sang a song that sounds remarkably like Hannah's. In Luke's Gospel, Mary rejoices in God her Saviour, and sings that he has put down the mighty from their seats, exalted them of low degree, filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty. Scholars have long noted how closely Mary's song, often called the Magnificat, echoes Hannah's. Two mothers, one long promise.

Hannah's song is in First Samuel chapter two, verses one to ten. The boy she gave back to God would anoint Israel's kings, and the anointed one she sang about would one day be born in Bethlehem. So here is a question to carry with you. Hannah sang about a God who lifts up the lowly. Who around you is in the dust, and how could you help lift them up?