Jehovah killeth, and maketh alive; he bringeth down to Sheol, and bringeth up.
These words come from Hannah's song of thanks, and they reach far past her own case. She credits God with both ends of human life — death and life. Older translations read "the grave" where the ESV says "Sheol," the place of the dead. It raises the question every sufferer asks: who is in control when life goes down as well as up?
The verse puts the start and the end of a life in the same hand. God's claim on us does not stop at the grave.
God's sovereignty reaches to life and death themselves. Our coming into the world is completely under His control. Once born, our life is in His hand, and death also answers to His will. This is the sobering statement of the prophet Daniel before the godless king Belshazzar: "the God in whose hand is your breath." He is "the sovereign Lord of life and death." He kills; death is His black-winged messenger. He is the One who returns "man to dust" and says, "Return, O children of man!" (Ps. 90:3). On "the last day" His voice will reach all who sleep in the grave. He "makes alive," and "brings up" from the grave. Resurrection is the sovereign act of His power.
The two actions are not a matched pair. Anyone can do the first. Only God does the second, as the raising of Lazarus showed.
Death and decay disappeared, and Lazarus, still wrapped in grave-clothes, came out. This great sign, the sixth that John records, showed the glory of God, since the giving of life is His glorious prerogative. Brutish man can kill all too easily: only God can "kill and make alive" (see 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7).
Paul met the same test when he stood on trial before Festus.
To Festus it was all the fantasy of a disturbed mind, for the gods he worshipped held no power beyond the grave. Weak man can kill and bring someone down to the grave. That is an easy thing. Only of the living God can anyone say, "The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up" (1 Sam. 2:6).
Hannah is not reciting theory. She sings from what God had already done in her own life.
For it is the Lord Himself who is able to kill, and able to make alive. He knows how to bring one down even to the grave. He is just as able to bring up. Hannah had learned something of this resurrection power of God in her own body. She recognizes that only God's work accomplishes anything. Some He makes poor, others He makes rich. He will often bring one down so that He can lift him up later.
If God does both, the way down has a purpose. In the verse, killing comes before making alive.
Moreover, God has His own way of dealing with us to make us conscious of our need. He rolls in death upon the soul to make alive. He brings us near to the grave that we may learn our utter weakness. He strips us of everything we trust in, making us poor to make us rich. He brings us low in our thoughts of self, to lift us up (6, 7).
Hannah's song also looks forward. It pictures Israel's restoration, and the story of each believer at the same time.
Hannah's beautiful song is the soul's thankful acknowledgement of how God acts toward Israel. She sings of the LORD who kills and brings to life, who makes poor and makes rich, who raises the poor from the dust and seats the needy with princes. God will work all this out most fully in Israel in the latter day. He works it out now in everyone whom grace raises from his ruined condition in nature to blessedness and peace in Jesus.
- Down. God brings low first. He rolls in death upon the soul. He strips away what we trust and brings us near the grave, so we learn our own weakness.
- Up. The same hand that brings down raises up. Resurrection is the sovereign act of His power. The way back belongs to Him alone.
- Only God. Any man can kill; that is easy. Making alive is God's glorious prerogative. No idol and no human power can copy it.
- Proved. Hannah sang this because she had lived it. She knew God's resurrection power in her own body first.
- Everyone. What God did for her, He will do fully for Israel in a coming day. He does it now for everyone whom grace lifts out of ruin into peace in Jesus.
Jehovah maketh poor, and maketh rich, he bringeth low, also he lifteth up
Hannah's song rises out of a private sorrow: years without a child. Yet its words sweep far past her own story to the way God governs everything. This line puts wealth and poverty, humbling and honour, in one pair of hands. Why does God empty a life before He fills it?
The two opposites in this verse are not accidents of circumstance. The same truth cuts two ways, depending on where you stand.
Riches and poverty are alike at His disposal: "The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts." He gives the one or the other as suits His purpose. Knowing this should keep the rich humble, and make the poor content. Dear fellow believer, let us "be content with what you have," as Scripture urges us. For our God has revealed Himself to us in grace, and He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5).
What Hannah says of people holds for nations too. The same hand moves the rise and fall of powers, and even the thinking of the public.
He rules or overrules the hearts of all men, and the whole realm of human thought and action. He rules public opinion in all its forms, at all times, with all the characters great and small who figure in it. So He orders the rise and fall of nations, the course of their histories and the extent of their territories... "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will" (Prov. 21:1). "For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another" (Ps. 75:6-7).
Read with the previous verse, these pairs are not random swings of fortune. Each downward move has a purpose.
God has His own way of dealing with us to make us conscious of our need. He brings death in upon the soul to make it alive. He brings us near the grave so that we may learn our utter weakness. He strips us of everything we trust in, making us poor to make us rich. He brings us low in our thoughts of self, to lift us up.
Being brought low is not a delay before the lifting up. It is the condition of it.
This is God's way of acting. He never honours us while we are thinking that we are something. Deep humbling has often come before great blessing — sometimes humbling even in the eyes of others. We were brought low, and the Lord lifted us up.
Hannah's next line names the two ends of the scale: the dust at one end, a throne at the other. Commentators hear the gospel in it.
How well verse 8 fits the gospel of the grace of God! That grace reaches down to the poorest of the poor. It raises him out of the dust of his broken, sinful state. It lifts the beggar from the rubbish heap of a corrupted life, to set him among princes, in dignity above the level of the world. And greater still, it makes him inherit the throne of glory. This reminds us of the words of the Lord Jesus in Revelation 3:21: "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne."
One woman's experience gave rise to the song, but it never stopped there. Commentators see it worked out in Israel's future and in each believer now.
Hannah's beautiful song is the soul's thankful acknowledgement of how God has acted towards Israel... All this will be seen in full in Israel in the latter day. It is seen now in everyone whom grace has raised from his ruined condition in nature to blessedness and peace in Jesus.
Some go further. They hold that the song's closing words reach past Samuel to Christ Himself: "nothing but Christ can meet what is here in the mind of the Spirit of God" (William Kelly).
- Sovereign. Riches and poverty are both His to give, handed out as suits His purpose. That truth humbles the rich and steadies the poor.
- Stripped. He makes poor in order to make rich; He empties our trust in ourselves before He fills us.
- Lowered. The order never reverses — He does not honour us while we still think we are something.
- Lifted. From dust and rubbish heap to a place among princes, a lifting that ends in the throne of glory.
- Wide. The same hand rules nations and public opinion, so no one need climb by human favour. The song runs on past Hannah, past Samuel, to Christ Himself.