He raiseth up the poor out of the dust; from the dung-hill he lifteth up the needy, To set [him] among nobles; and he maketh them inherit a throne of glory; For the pillars of the earth are Jehovah's, and he hath set the world upon them.
Hannah had been childless and mocked. Her song describes a God who lifts people off the ground and seats them among princes. The verse raises the obvious question: on what basis does God do this, and who qualifies?
(Note: these writers quote an older translation. Where the ESV has "needy," "ash heap" and "a seat of honor," it reads "beggar," "dunghill" and "throne of glory.")
The song is not a private thank-you note. One writer reads it as a statement of how God always acts, as a lesson for a fallen nation, and as a prophecy that runs on to the kingdom of Christ.
In the beautiful song of 1 Samuel 2, Hannah recognises this great principle of sovereign grace and of the power of God. He brings down the proud and those who trust in the flesh, and He lifts up the weak and powerless. "For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them He has set the world." Israel was poor and fallen, a feeble remnant waiting for the LORD. This is what they needed to learn: everything hung upon God and God alone. He did not look for power in man. He shows His power in the way He acts, destroying all His enemies, and He will at last give strength to His king and lift up the power of His anointed. The song is a prophecy of God's ways with Israel. It reaches from the moment Hannah spoke it to the setting up of the thousand-year kingdom in the Person of the Lord Jesus.
The second half of the verse looks like a change of subject. It is not. The same power that holds up the world is the power that holds up the person it has lifted.
Hannah next ascribes to God almighty power: "For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them He has set the world." This is a poetic figure of speech, though none the less forceful for that. Who but the One whose "strength is infinite" could hold this globe up and keep it moving in its circuit, as if it weighed no more than "the small dust of the balance"? Job 26:7 puts it beautifully: "He hangs the earth on nothing." In His wisdom, grace, and power, He is able to keep us without falling: "He will keep the feet of His saints."
God does more here than relieve poverty. Three things move at once — what the person lacks, what the person is, and where the person sits.
Having shown us our nothingness He unfolds to us His fulness — the purpose of His heart. Not only does He meet our need but He changes our condition — the beggar becomes a prince. Further, He gives us a new position suited to the new condition. From "the dust" and "the dunghill" we pass to "the throne of glory." In all these blessed ways He acts as sovereign.
The verse names two kinds of people, and only two. That limit matters.
Notice only this: God gives this honour to the poor and the beggar, and to them alone. The conditions are binding. Grace has no voice for any but the poor and the beggar. She seeks for those who know themselves to be spiritually destitute. She has nothing for the proud.
So "the dust" is a place a person can choose to enter.
And yet none shall reach the throne but those whom grace finds in the dust. To go into the dust is repentance. Repentance is both the requirement for blessing and the step up to it. Happy the soul that is in the dust!
Two men, far apart in Scripture, show both halves of the verse.
Scripture illustrates this all the way from Joseph to Lazarus. God raised the first from slavery to rule over Egypt. The second was a beggar on earth, and he was taken to "Abraham's bosom" in paradise.
The last clause reaches far past anything Hannah could have seen in her own day.
How consistent verse 8 is with the gospel of the grace of God! 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 dunghill of a corrupted life and sets him among princes, in dignity above the level of the world. 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."
- Dust first. Grace speaks only to the poor and the beggar. Going down into the dust is repentance, and everything else stands on that step.
- Lifted, not climbing. God brings down the proud and raises the weak, because He looks for no power in man but shows His own.
- Condition changed. He does more than relieve need. The beggar becomes a prince, and God gives him a place that matches his new condition.
- Held there. The One who owns the pillars of the earth and hangs the globe on nothing also keeps the feet of His saints. Those He lifts cannot fall back.
- Throne at the end. From dust, to a seat with princes, to an inherited throne of glory — the song runs on to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, who promises His throne to the one who conquers.
He keepeth the feet of his saints, but the wicked are silenced in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.
Hannah's song rises out of a dark time, when Israel had fallen and even the faithful were poor and weak. Verse 9 sets two futures side by side: God guards the feet of His own, while the wicked end in darkness — and human strength decides neither.
Hannah's song is prophecy, and prophecy has its own occasion. It comes when God's people have broken down. It points past the ruin to the Deliverer God will raise up.
Prophecy is God's special intervention, and it applied to His people when they had failed. So when Shiloh was overthrown and the ark taken, God raised up Samuel… The prophets showed the people their sins, and they kept pointing to the Messiah, the great Deliverer. So it is in Hannah's song (1 Sam. 2:9-10). There Jehovah's sovereign rule over the world and the lifting up of the Messiah are fully shown.
The sentence has a subject, and it is not the saint. Where the ESV says "his faithful ones," older translations read "his saints." For anyone afraid of falling away, everything turns on a single pronoun.
There is one anxious question some of my readers might like to ask Hannah. Is it this: "Could my feet slip so far, could I fail so badly, that I am lost after all? Instead of the throne of glory, with my Lord and like Him, could I sink at last to the lowest hell?" What does the inspired Hannah say? Listen: "He will keep the feet of His saints." Not "I," but "He," "will keep the feet of His saints."
This keeping has a goal. Believers cannot hold their ground on their own, so God's power carries them to what He has promised.
The people of God have a glorious inheritance ahead of them, and God's power keeps them for it. "He will keep the feet of His saints." In their own power they cannot stand against "the wicked" and "the adversaries of the Lord," for "by strength shall no man prevail." In the Lord's safe keeping they need not fear, for He will silence the wicked and break His adversaries in pieces (1 Peter 1:3-5).
Feet get dirty on a journey. So the keeping is a daily work, and the Lord does it with His Word.
Every day the Lord Himself applies the Word to heart and conscience. He keeps the feet of His saints. He cleanses them with the washing of water by the Word, from the dirt they pick up as they pass through this polluted scene.
A promise of keeping can be misread as permission to drift. The eye that guards also watches.
Child of God, weak, failing, and needing much mercy, rejoice in what our Saviour has said: "They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28). And may the certainty of this make you not more careless in your walk, but more careful not to grieve such love. For if He keeps the feet of His saints, His eye is upon them. He sees every misstep they make, and notices when they wander into forbidden paths.
The second half of the verse answers the complaint that evil goes unanswered. Delay is not indifference.
The judgment of the sinner is sure, though God bears long with him in his rebellion and unbelief. "Where is the God of justice?" men ask today, as they unbelievingly asked long ago (Mal. 2:17). We answer, He is bearing long with man's refusal to repent. But His Word declares He "will by no means clear the guilty"… Small man would block the carrying out of His judgments. Yet though people join hands to resist God's purposes… "by strength shall no man prevail."
Commentators differ on how far this clause reaches. One warns against using it as a picture of souls already in torment:
It is a mistake to apply Ps. 31:17, 1 Sam. 2:9, Ps. 63:11, Matt. 22:13, to souls in torment.
If no one wins by strength, who does God give strength to? Hannah's answer is a Person.
The great principle in Hannah's song is the sovereign grace and power of God. He brings down the proud man who trusts in himself, and He lifts up the weak and powerless… Israel was miserable and fallen, and the faithful remnant was poor and weak. They needed to learn that everything depended on Him alone. He alone could keep the feet of His saints, silence the wicked, and bring all man's strength to nothing. He alone could break all His adversaries and, last of all, give strength to His King and raise up the horn of His Anointed… He does not give strength to His people, but to His Anointed.
- Setting — Hannah sings into failure: Shiloh overthrown, the ark taken. Prophecy still points past the wreck to the coming Deliverer.
- Keeper — the promise turns on one word: not I will keep my feet, but He will.
- Method — He keeps them day by day, applying His Word to heart and conscience to wash off the dirt of the road.
- Effect — this safety makes a believer more careful, not more casual; the eye that guards also sees every misstep.
- Verdict — human strength decides nothing; God gives His strength to His Anointed King, and the wicked end in silence.
They that strive with Jehovah shall be broken to pieces; in the heavens will he thunder upon them. Jehovah will judge the ends of the earth; and he will give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.
Hannah's song ends far beyond her own story. She had prayed for a child, and God gave her one. Yet her closing words reach to the ends of the earth, to a King and an Anointed One. Israel had no king when she sang. So who is this King, and when does He receive His strength?
The timing of that closing line is what makes it remarkable.
Verse 10 could only be said through divine inspiration. At that time there was no king in Israel. There was no suggestion of a king. Yet here was Hannah speaking about a king, speaking about the Lord's anointed. It was fulfilled in part in David, the son of Jesse. It will be fulfilled fully in Jesus, the Son of God — God's king, God's anointed — when every adversary will be overthrown and destroyed.
Notice who says it first.
It is remarkable that both the expressions "The Lord of hosts" and "the Anointed" (Christ's title), often found further on in Scripture, are used first by Hannah, the once barren and sorrowful woman. Such are God's ways. He uses the things that are weak, and the things that are despised, to proclaim His praise, that no flesh may glory in His presence.
Both key words in the closing line carry a settled meaning across Scripture.
The horn speaks of exaltation and power. Zacharias, anticipating the birth of Christ, speaks of Him as "a horn of salvation" (Luke 1:69; see also Ps. 18:2; Ps. 75:10; Ps. 148:14). The anointed is the title of one appointed to rule. Christ, in His day, was anointed by the Holy Spirit, and the oil is a picture of the Spirit. In the day of His exaltation He will see the righteous judgment upon all His enemies.
Hannah's song opened with her own horn lifted up.
Verse 10 predicts, as we have seen, the coming of Messiah, the true King. God will exalt the horn of His Anointed. Direct association with Him is the power granted to Hannah in verse 1: "My horn is exalted in the LORD."
Hannah's son was never destined for a throne. The words are also too large for any ordinary king.
It is clear to the spiritual mind that the Spirit of God is going a long way beyond the child of Hannah here. Samuel was to be among priests; he was not destined for the throne. But had he been, there is a strength and height of purpose here which goes far beyond an ordinary king. In fact nothing but Christ can meet what is here in the mind of the Spirit of God… "The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; against them He will thunder in heaven." This looks onward to a greater day, even to the day of the LORD Himself.
The verse does not say God will strengthen Israel.
Israel, miserable and fallen, and a faithful remnant that was poor and weak, needed to learn that everything depended on Him alone. He alone could keep the feet of His saints, silence the wicked, bring all man's strength to nothing, break all His adversaries and, last of all, give strength to His King and raise up the horn of His Anointed… He does not give strength to His people, but to His Anointed. He raises up the King on whom everything depends, the pivot of all things, the only means of sustaining a relationship between Himself and His people.
The verse moves through events in a set order.
In verse 10 the next thing is the time of tribulation, when the adversaries of the LORD are broken to pieces. Then the judgment of the living: "The LORD will judge the ends of the earth." After this, the reign of Christ on earth.
So which king is meant?
This is the grand finale of Hannah's song… This is not Saul, nor even David, but He whom David in Spirit called "LORD." This "King" to whom the LORD gives "strength" is He who "was crucified in weakness." Now, all power on earth and in heaven is in His hand. In the coming day of His kingdom and power, the horn of His royalty will be exalted above the kings of the earth.
- Weakness speaks first. A barren, despised woman is the first in Scripture to name "the Anointed." God chooses weak vessels so no one can boast.
- Weakness is where the King begins. The King who receives this strength was crucified in weakness. His exaltation follows His lowliness.
- Strength is given, not held. God does not strengthen the people. He strengthens His Anointed, and everything for the people depends on Him.
- Strength reaches the ends of the earth. Adversaries broken, thunder from heaven, judgment of the whole earth, then the reign — the verse moves in that order.
- Strength was promised before there was a throne. Israel had no king when Hannah sang, so only Christ can fill the words. Commentators differ over how much David fulfils them.