Verse 2
None holy - Holiness is peculiar to the God of Israel; no false god ever pretended to holiness; it was no attribute of heathenism, nor of any religion ever professed in the world before or since the true revelation of the true God.
There is none beside thee - There can be but one unoriginated, infinite, and eternal Being; that Being is Jehovah.
Any rock like our God - Rabbi Maimon has observed that the word צור tsur, which we translate rock, signifies, when applied to Jehovah, fountain, source, spring. There is no source whence continual help and salvation can arise but our God.
Verse 3
A God of knowledge - He is the most wise, teaching all good, and knowing all things.
Actions are weighed - נתכנו nithkenu, they are directed; it is by his counsel alone that we can successfully begin, continue, or end, any work.
Verse 4
The bows of the mighty - The Targum considers the first verse as including a prophecy against the Philistines; the second verse, against Sennacherib and his army; the third, against Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans; the fourth, against the Greeks; the fifth, against Haman and his posterity; and the tenth, against Magog, and the enemies of the Messiah.
Verse 5
They that were full - All the things mentioned in these verses frequently happen in the course of the Divine providence; and indeed it is the particular providence of God that Hannah seems more especially to celebrate through the whole of this simple yet sublime ode.
Verse 6
The Lord killeth - God is the arbiter of life and death; he only can give life, and he only has a right to take it away.
He bringeth down to the grave - The Hebrew word שאול sheol, which we translate grave, seems to have the same meaning in the Old Testament with ἁδης, hades in the New, which is the word generally used by the Septuagint for the other. It means the grave, the state of the dead, and the invisible place, or place of separate spirits. Sometimes we translate it hell, which now means the state of perdition, or place of eternal torments; but as this comes from the Saxon, to cover or conceal, it means only the covered place. In some parts of England the word helling is used for the covers of a book, the slating of a house, etc. The Targum seems to understand it of death and the resurrection. "He kills and commands to give life; he causes to descend into Sheol, that in the time to come he may bring them into the lives of eternity," i.e., the life of shame and everlasting contempt, and the life of glory.
Verse 7
The Lord maketh poor - For many cannot bear affluence, and if God should continue to trust them with riches, they would be their ruin.
Maketh rich - Some he can trust, and therefore makes them stewards of his secular bounty.
Verse 8
To set them among princes - There have been many cases where, in the course of God's providence, a person has been raised from the lowest and most abject estate to the highest; from the plough to the imperial dignity: from the dungeon to the throne; from the dunghill to nobility. The story of Cincinnatus is well known; so is that of the patriarch Joseph; but there is one not less in point, that of Roushen Akhter, who was brought out of a dungeon, and exalted to the throne of Hindustan. On this circumstance the following elegant couplet was made: - "He was a bright star, but now is become a moon,
Joseph is taken from prison, and is become a king."
There is a play here on Roushen Akhter, which signifies a bright star; and there is an allusion to the history of the patriarch Joseph, because of the similarity of fortune between him and the Mohammedan prince.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's - He is almighty, and upholds all things by the word of his power.
Verse 9
He will keep the feet of his saints - He will order and direct all their goings, and keep them from every evil way.
The wicked shall be silent in darkness - The Targum understands this of their being sent to the darkness of hell; they shall be slain.
By strength shall no man prevail - Because God is omnipotent, and no power can be successfully exerted against him.
Verse 10
The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken - Those who contend with him, מריביו meribaiu, by sinning against his laws, opposing the progress of his word, or persecuting his people.
Shall judge the ends on the earth - His empire shall be extended over all mankind by the preaching of the everlasting Gospel, for to this the afterpart of the verse seems to apply: He shall give strength unto his king, and shall exalt the horn of his Christ, or, as the Targum says, וירבי מלכות משיחיה viribbey malcuth Meshicheyh, "he shall multiply the kingdom of the Messiah." Here the horn means spiritual as well as secular dominion.
After the clause, The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces, the Septuagint add the following words: Μη καυχασθω ὁ φρονιμος εν τῃ φρονησει αυτου, κ. τ. λ. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glorieth rather glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth the Lord; and that he executeth judgment and righteousness in the midst of the earth. This is a very long addition, and appears to be taken from [Jer 9:23], but on collating the two places the reader will find the words to be materially different. This clause is wanting in the Complutensian Polyglot, but it is in the edition of Aldus, in that of Cardinal Caroffa, and in the Codex Alexandrinus.
Verse 11
And Elkanah went to Ramah - Immediately after the 10th verse, the Septuagint add, Και κατελιπεν αυτον εκει ενωπιον Κυριου· και απηλθεν εις Αραματαια, And she left him there before the Lord, and went unto Arimathea. Thus the Septuagint suppose that the song of Hannah was composed when she brought Samuel to present him to the Lord; and as soon as she had completed this fine ode, she delivered him into the hands of Eli the high priest, and the child entered immediately on his ministration, under the direction and instructions of Eli.
Verse 12
The sons of Eli were sons of Belial - They were perverse, wicked, profligate men; devil's children. They knew not the Lord. "They know! nor would an angel show Him; They would not know, nor choose to know Him."
These men were the principal cause of all the ungodliness of Israel. Their most execrable conduct, described [1Sam 2:13-17], caused the people to abhor the Lord's offering. An impious priesthood is the grand cause of the transgressions and ruin of any nation; witness France, Germany, Spain, Ac., from 1792 to 1814.
Verse 13
When any man offered sacrifice - That is, when a peace-offering was brought, the right shoulder and the breast belonged to the priest, the fat was burnt upon the altar, and the blood was poured at the bottom of the altar; the rest of the flesh belonged to the offerer. Under pretense of taking only their own part, they took the best of all they chose, and as much as they chose.
Verse 14
Kettle - caldron, or pot - We know not what these were, nor of what capacity; nor is it of any consequence.
Verse 15
Before they burnt the fat - They would serve themselves before God was served! This was iniquity and arrogance of the first magnitude.
He will not have sodden flesh - He chooses roast meat, not boiled; and if they had it in the pot before the servant came, he took it out that it might be roasted.
Verse 17
Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great - That is, Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli.
Men abhorred the offering - As the people saw that the priests had no piety, and that they acted as if there was no God; they despised God's service, and became infidels.