The Song of Hannah
Notes
Transcript
Recap
hannah had been very down, barren
belittled by those around her
very close to God, prayed to Him consistently and earnestly
God blessed her with the child
We will go through the song and then look at it’s similarities to the song of mary, as there are many
1 And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, Mine horn is exalted in the Lord: My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; Because I rejoice in thy salvation.
Importantly she bothered to pray
a lot of times we neglect to talk to the Lord
we might tells ourselves we’re busy, or any other variety of excuses
if there is one thing human beings are good at, it’s making excuses
think about it - what a shame is if we neglect to pray
firstly, look at what God has done for us
He gave us life, He blesses us with every single second that we have
He’s given us His Word, which is such a blessing to us, teaching us and helping us
He’s given us peace
He’s given us Christ, renewal of our soul and our lives
He actually listens to us when He doesn’t have to
Doesn’t it sound crazy that we have the opportunity to pray and we don’t take it as seriously as we should?
When we look at the example of Hannah, we see that she didn’t neglect to pray
not only did she pray and thank God after she had Samuel
but she did before as well
so it’s not just that she thanked Him afterward, she was always praying to Him
2 There is none holy as the Lord: For there is none beside thee: Neither is there any rock like our God.
When we see someone say that there is “none beside thee”, this kind of has a double meaning
it not only means that there is literally no other God besides God
as proven by nature, His Word, and many other things
God has made Himself quite clear to humanity
it also means that no one or nothing can even compare to God
we know that God is love, God is truth, God is justice, God is mercy
never a man spoke like Christ
We see the imagery of God being our rock goes back a long way
God should be the foundation of our lives
it’s not so much that we just can lean on Him, that we can always count on Him
certainly it is that, but it means so much more
3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly; Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: For the Lord is a God of knowledge, And by him actions are weighed.
Hannah here lays out one of the primary reasons why we shouldn’t be prideful or arrogant
all we have to do is think about ourselves compared to God
after all, He see’s us all the time, is with us always, and knows even our thoughts
so even if we don’t say something out loud, we can still very much have problems of the heart
This is the main problem that Christ talked about
if we’re good on the outside but bad or even dead on the inside, what does it matter?
Jesus called these people a whitewashed tomb, great on the outside, dead and rotting on the inside
4 The bows of the mighty men are broken, And they that stumbled are girded with strength.
When Jesus says the first shall be last and the last shall be first, it’s the same kind of thing as this
We know God really looks out for the poor, downtrodden, and broken of society
A lot of these people who are viewed as “last” in society are lifted up, and many of the “first” of society are maybe not as first as they thought they were
it’s essentially to say that Christ is the great equalizer, we’re all on the same playing field through grace
this verse is sort of speaking to the same concept, similar to what is seen here
6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
5 They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; And they that were hungry ceased: So that the barren hath born seven; And she that hath many children is waxed feeble.
we see the first part of the verse connected to the previous
because verses weren’t in the Bible until 1551 by a guy named Stephanus, so it was much more “book like” before
Later, we see Hannah talking about how God had blessed her with being able to have children
we’ve only seen samuel so far, but later it will talk about the fact that she has other children
she went from being barren for much of her life, to not only having samuel, her first born son, but other children as well
she was faithful, she was close to God, and God blessed her very much for it
He changed her life completely, completely and utterly turned it around
6 The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
What Hannah is acknowledging here is that her whole life, everyone’s life for that matter is under God’s sovereignty
everything is in God’s hands, He alone has the power of life and death
we’ve seen a few resurrections in the Bible, we’ve seen God take out those who He wanted to
we not only see this physically, but we know that the Lord God can make alive spiritually
He gives us the ability to put on the new man, He makes us new
Like Ezekial with the dry bones story, God takes us as a sinner, dead spiritually, and breathes life into our sinful self
God is the glue that holds this world together, He’s got the whole world in His hands
7 The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringeth low, and lifteth up. 8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, To set them among princes, And to make them inherit the throne of glory: For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And he hath set the world upon them.
We shouldn’t look at life as unchangeable, even though we may feel like it at times
God has changed many lives and many times, the person had to deal with a good bit of suffering first
So when we talk about raising the poor out of the dust and the garbage pile
dust - sackloth and ashes - we know that in times of mourning or hardship that the Jews would wear sackloth and dump ashes upon themselves
the sackloth and ashes business is thought to be an outward representation of one’ s inner condition, it is also sometimes used by those who are repenting
garbage pile - the trash area outside of the city was the resort of those in deep trouble.
it’s such good imagery for how God lifts us up from such a terrible place
9 He will keep the feet of his saints, And the wicked shall be silent in darkness; For by strength shall no man prevail.
we know that God looks out for us, and as we talked about last week, “if God is for us, who can be against us?”
think about what that means, we have the God of the world, over everything, willing to stand behind us, who are nothing compared to God
We see talk about God’s judgement in this verse as well, and we know that he’s the perfect judge
so just as God is there for believers in Him, the wicked are looking to judgement in the future
we see at the end Hannah says that by strength, no man can prevail
at the end of the day, we need God, there is not one work or bunch of works that we could ever possibly do that could change that
we can’t fight God, He doesn’t go away just because we ignore Him and don’t think about Him, all knees will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord in the end
10 The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; Out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; And he shall give strength unto his king, And exalt the horn of his anointed.
We see some more about how God’s judgement will be upon the earth, and cannot be escaped
we also see the severity of God’s judgement, God cannot let sin go unnoticed or unpunished
if we think about sin, it’s not only just something that God doesn’t want us to do, it’s active rebellion against our loving God
it’s out and out devilish to be sinning, that is where sin originally comes from, the ideas of the devil, the prompting of the devil
we need to ask God to increase our faith. we know that God is with us all the time, and for us to sin is literally sinning in His presence
it’s not always easy, and we’re not always thinking about this, but if we care and put real effort into it, God will help us along the way
we come to an interesting part of Hannah’s Song, she talks about God giving strength to a future King, a king that He will lifted up, exalt, and anoint
we see something with a double meaning, David was soon to come on the scene
remember, Israel didn’t have a king at this time, she was still in the time of the judges and Samuel would end up being the last of the Judges
we know that Samuel would end up anointing both saul and david
we know that David was a man after God’s own heart, he was the apple of God’s eye, and played a key part in the history of Israel
we know that Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords
He has been lifted up and ascended to the right hand of God
we know that He is exalted by God and ideally by us
we also know that He is God’s anointed, remember the woman with the alabaster box of oil? Mary, martha’s sister, anointed Christ
3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
GO BACK TO SAMUEL VERSE
Let’s look at what the word “Christ” means - it means anointed in Greek, the language the NT was written in
we see that all these descriptions of the king in verse 10 apply to Jesus as well, and sometimes you have these kinds of meanings in the Bible when it comes to prophetic things
speaking of Christ, we have some very interesting parallels between to the Song of Mary, when Mary when pregnant
not only that, but Hannah and mary herself had many similarities
they both had miraculous children
they were both very close to God
they both had sons who would be completely in God’s service
let’s look at the song of Mary
46 And Mary said,
My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:
For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things;
And holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is on them that fear him
From generation to generation.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
And exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good things;
And the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath holpen his servant Israel,
In remembrance of his mercy;
55 As he spake to our fathers,
To Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
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Something interesting we see in all of this is how well-versed mary is in the Scripture, since her song was so similar
We see in these things that Christ was the ultimate fulfilment of this prophecy and the climax, what everything was building up to
we can also see that hannah is among the most blessed of the OT women, not many were given these miraculous births
we see that Samuel would usher in a new age, just like Christ ushered in a new age
11 And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest.
Here we see that Elkanah and presumably his family, went back to their home in Ramah
if we remember, Hannah had dedicated Samuel to the work of the Lord
so Samuel was left with the priests to be in the service of the Lord, and Hannah went back to Ramah with the family
we should all aspire to have the faith and dedication of Hannah
look at all she prayed for, praising the Lord in so many ways, and when God gave her the son she most wanted, then she gave Him up to God’s service
look what faith it takes to be able to do that, that’s almost on the level of Abraham when he almost sacrificed Isaac.
There is a reason we are given all of these examples in the Bible, lets value them, lets pay attention to them, let’s try to learn from them
we are given myriads of examples, people in many different situations, so we are not only given so much direct teachings, but we are given just as many real life examples to live by