And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart exulteth in Jehovah, my horn is lifted up in Jehovah; my mouth is opened wide over mine enemies; for I rejoice in thy salvation.
Years earlier Hannah prayed at Shiloh in tears, her lips moving with no sound. God gave her the son she asked for. Now she has handed Samuel back to God, and her song is all about the LORD.
The prayer behind this song was silent. The answer was public, and so is the praise.
When she poured out her request in sorrow, "only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard." She prayed "in secret" to Him who "hears in secret," and He had rewarded her "openly." But this prayer becomes a song of joyful praise. She really does have glorious things to tell about Him who is awesome in His praises. Her song begins by celebrating the glorious perfections of the LORD.
Notice who is missing from the verse: Samuel.
"My heart exults in the LORD," she sings. Her joy was not so much in the gift (Samuel) as in God the Giver. Hers was not a merely natural joy, but the joy of the Lord, a joy of the Spirit. How often we are more occupied with the thing given than with Him who graciously gave it. Not so with Hannah here... she rises above the level of nature to the LORD Himself. She speaks only of Him, not once mentioning the child whose birth gave occasion to it all.
She sang at the moment of loss, not of gain.
She had barely held him in her arms before she had to part with him and set him apart for God. Her life was to be more lonely than ever... Yet Hannah is full of a joy which overflows in a song of triumph. This is because God had revealed Himself to her in grace. He had revealed Himself again to His faithful servant. She had received everything from Him, kept back nothing for herself, and returned everything to Him. Having given up her son, she understands better all that God is in Himself.
The horn is an image drawn from Israel's worship, and it points away from the singer.
"My horn is exalted in the LORD," is her second word. Older translations of 1 Chronicles 25:5 say that the sons of Heman were appointed "to lift up the horn." They were... the temple-court musicians. Their task was to lift up the horn, to sound out the praises of the God of Israel. So Hannah declares her horn exalted in the LORD. She does not blow the trumpet to her own praise, as the Pharisees of a later, more favoured day did. She lifts it to celebrate the infinite perfections of Him who alone is worthy.
God hands this strength to the least likely person.
Along with joy, Hannah found strength: "my horn is exalted in the LORD." This power "is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). She has turned her back on all that is high, on everything of renown in Israel. So God shares this strength with a weak woman, humiliated and despised.
Older translations read "my mouth is enlarged over my enemies." The enemies she has in mind are far larger than Peninnah, her rival at home.
It is Israel's and God's enemies she has in view, not Peninnah. Speaking for all Israel, she looks on in faith to the time when the enemies of her people... would be brought under, as under the rule of David... This rescue of Israel from her enemies was still many days away. But faith sees it as done already, and Hannah rejoices in it beforehand.
The times were dark and judgment was near, yet the song climbs.
You say, how can we sing, with things in such a state and judgment close at hand? It was the same when Hannah sang that song of Shiloh. She was like a lark. You might say to the lark, How can you sing? Do you not see the fog on the ground? This is how I sing, the lark would say — higher and higher, far above the fog, in the blue sky above. So sang Hannah, higher and higher still. As the sun fills the sky of the lark, so the Lord Himself was before her soul.
Her words reach far past her own family.
This is a wonderful outpouring of faith. Its language goes far beyond the circumstances of the moment. The gift of a son to Hannah, we might suppose, hardly called for this. But God always has Christ before His mind. Through Samuel's mother, a humble instrument, His Spirit spoke of Christ as the final resource of Israel and of the earth.
- In the LORD. Twice in one line Hannah puts her joy and her strength in the same place — not in the child, not in herself, but in God the Giver.
- Secret to song. The prayer no one could hear became praise anyone can read. God answered openly what she asked in silence.
- Surrender first. She sings after handing Samuel over. Having kept nothing back, she understands better what God is in Himself.
- Strength in weakness. The lifted horn is a trumpet of praise. God puts that trumpet in the hands of a humiliated woman, not the great of Israel.
- Wider than her rival. Her mouth answers God's enemies, and her song runs past David to Christ — faith singing above the fog.
There is none holy as Jehovah, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God.
Hannah has just received the son she asked God for, and her thanksgiving turns at once from the gift to the Giver. In one line she names three things about Him: He is holy, He is alone, He is a rock.
Her song stops speaking of herself almost at once. One writer counts how far it goes:
Having spoken of her joy and triumph, her song proper now begins. She makes no more mention of herself; it is all the Lord, in His character and wonderful ways. She speaks His name nine times in her song of ten verses. She seems wholly lost in Him... When believers praise and thank God, they may be too taken up with their own concerns — their needs and circumstances. This is not the highest form of worship. It is not what occupies Hannah here. She rises above her own blessings. She is taken up with the varied and majestic attributes of God.
Of all she could have named first, she names His holiness. The same commentator notes how little we welcome it:
His holiness is first: "There is none holy like the LORD," she says. Holiness has first place in this cluster of glories. It is, we may say, one of the essential attributes of Deity; and without it, who could adore or even reverence Him? Yet it is the very trait of His nature to which men are most averse, and which they are most likely to overlook. He has therefore reminded us over and over again in His Word that He is holy. In this attribute of His being He is incomparable.
The middle clause shuts everything else out. One commentator warns how fast we lose sight of it:
How soon we may slip away from this; how soon we get occupied with men! Such was the Person of the Holy One to her, that He exceeded all others. What an exclusion, and what a song!
Hannah does not say there are no other rocks. She says none is like this one:
Then she said, "there is no rock like our God." Look at Deuteronomy 32 and see how often that chapter calls God a Rock. Then think of the other rocks — the rocks of the nations, their idols, their support. Think of the huge contrast between God and them... "Our God" she said. This indicated some sense of relationship in her soul. She thought of God's stability, God's permanence. Nobody could overthrow God. Nothing could overthrow God. He is able in His power to bring into effect what He desires.
Commentators differ on which quality each clause carries. One reads the verse as a short list of God's perfections:
Recognizing that all blessing depends on God, she rightly begins by celebrating His glories. God is holy — "There is none holy like the LORD." God is omnipotent — "there is none besides you." God is eternal — "there is no rock like our God."
Another takes the rock as a picture of something else again:
None is holy as He; no, none can be put beside Him: the rock is a faint image of His faithfulness, who is not simply her — but "our" — God.
One writer holds salvation and holiness together:
Verse 2 celebrates the Lord's holiness. The believer cannot separate these two things. Anyone who has found God as Saviour understands that He is "holy... for there is none besides Him." But we must be holy to belong to Him. This is why He has sanctified us for Himself. From now on, all our conduct should show this.
This shapes how we come to Him:
We cannot go into God's presence and pray for His interests while we hold thoughts of revenge or anger against our fellow believers. We must clear all these things out of our minds and consciences... That subdues us when we go into the presence of God, when we remember that He is holy. There cannot be any levity in His presence, there cannot be anything that speaks of man and his glory in His presence.
- Holy — Hannah names holiness first, the one attribute people are most likely to overlook, and the one in which God has no rival.
- Alone — "none besides you" shuts out everyone and everything else, and hearts slip away from that fast.
- Rock — other nations had rocks, their idols; none matches His stability, and He is not just a rock but our God.
- Ours — because He is holy and He is ours, He has sanctified us for Himself, and all our conduct should show it.
- Absorbed — she stops speaking of herself; she names God nine times in ten verses, and that is worship at its highest.
Do not multiply your words of pride, let not vain-glory come out of your mouth; For Jehovah is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
Hannah has just called God holy and the one rock. Now she turns from praise to warning: proud talk must stop, because God knows hearts and weighs what people do.
The warning is not abstract. Hannah had lived for years under the scorn of a rival wife. Peninnah had children while Hannah had none, and she used a public act of worship to press the point.
This was the case with Peninnah. With proud contempt and scorn for Hannah's tenderness of conscience, she took this public chance to provoke her. She did it all the more boldly because she could point to her many children as proof of the Lord's blessing, while Hannah's barrenness must be a sure sign of His displeasure. This intensified not only her grief but her isolation. In the middle of a crowd of outward worshippers, and in the presence of Eli, she was alone — but alone with God.
The word "knowledge" here is not information about events. It is an accurate reading of people — and it reaches deeper than what they do.
Being all-knowing, He is unerring in His estimate of men. He does not simply take note of what people do. He weighs their thoughts in the balances of the sanctuary.
reader: He reads the heart and weighs motives, rather than outward acts. "Do not judge by appearances," says our Lord, the appointed Judge of all (John 7:24). And in 1 Corinthians 4:5 His servant Paul reminds us with force of "that day," the day when the thoughts of many hearts come to light. Then He will make motives plain. He will weigh purposes as well as actions.
This is why the second half of the verse answers the boasting in the first half.
What are men in the face of such glory as this? He sharply reproves their great pride and arrogance, for the LORD is a God of knowledge also. He is all-knowing as well as all-powerful. He sees and weighs every activity in the scale of pure righteousness. He understands every motive.
Peninnah's children and the priests' high position looked like proof of God's favour. Hannah's line about weighing takes them off the scales.
The foundation of everything is the known and enjoyed salvation of the Lord. Because of this her heart rejoices in Him — and, like the heavenly hosts, in His holiness. Without His salvation, what use is the natural prosperity of Peninnah, or even the high position of the priests? Not these outward things, but actions will be weighed, for the Lord is a God of knowledge.
The verse also touches how we pray. Right words can come from a heart that does not match them.
There are many passages in the word of God that tell us God is a heart-knowing God. We might come before Him with very correct expressions, but it may not be true of our hearts. God knows the heart, and by Him actions are weighed. The story the Lord told in Luke 18 speaks of two men who went up to the temple to pray. One said, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men." He went on to say he was a very good man. By our standards he was a very good man — though a proud and arrogant one. But the other could not lift his face to heaven. He beat his chest and declared what he truly was in the presence of God. God heard him and answered his prayer, because He is a heart-knowing God.
If God weighs actions, the measuring applies to work done in His name as much as to a rival's boasting.
It should also remind us of the truth the godly woman Hannah stated in her prayer, recorded in 1 Samuel 2: "the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." We seek to serve the Lord. When He weighs our actions, how will they appear — weighty, or of little worth?
The song says far more than one answered prayer would explain, and commentators point beyond Hannah's own circumstances to account for it.
A wonderful outpouring of faith. Its language goes far beyond the circumstances of the moment. We might suppose the gift of a son to Hannah hardly called for this. But God always has Christ before His mind. Through Samuel's mother, His humble instrument, His Spirit spoke of Him as the ultimate resource of Israel and of the earth.
- Weighed, not counted. God does not just watch what we do. He weighs thoughts, motives and purposes in the balances of the sanctuary.
- Weighed, not guessed. Because He is a God of knowledge, His estimate of a person is never wrong — He is all-knowing as well as all-powerful.
- Weighed, not admired. Outward advantages — children, position, prosperity — are not what goes on the scales.
- Weighed, not worded. Correct expressions in prayer can be untrue of the heart; the man who told God what he really was went home heard.
- Weighed, including ours. The same scales test our service. Will our work prove weighty, or of little worth?