Resource Detail

Hannah’s Prayer

1 Samuel 2:1-11

Key Verse 1

“My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.”

Read verse 1. How does Hannah begin her prayer? (1a) How does she get strength? (1b) Why does she boast over her enemies? (1c) 

Read verses 2 and 3. What is Hannah’s confession about God? (2) What is her warning to those who speak proudly? (3)

Read verses 4 - 8. How does God change peoples’ lives? (4, 5,7, 8a) What is God’s sovereignty? (6, 8b) 

Read verses 9 - 11. What will God do? (9a, 10b) What happens to those who oppose God? (9b,10a) What did Samuel do before the Lord? (11) 

There is No One Holy like the Lord!

1 Samuel 2:1-11

Key Verse 2 

“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our
God.”

Today’s passage covers Hannah’s Prayer—also known as Hannah’s Song or Song of Thanksgiving.  Here Hannah prayed after giving her son, Samuel to the Lord. It is a prayer of victory; like Jesus’ words from the cross, “It is finished”. Hannah completed her mission before the Lord, and was full of praises for what God had done, and for who God is. We will take a look at this passage in two parts. 

Part I.  “My Heart Rejoices in the Lord” (1-2)

Last week, we learned how Hannah kept her vow and gave Samuel to the Lord.  But what about, after keeping her vow? After giving Samuel to the Lord, Hannah could have felt sorry. She could have entertained a sense of loss or even regret, and then complained to her husband. But what did Hannah do? She prayed to the Lord.  

Look at verse 1. Then Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.

Hannah’s prayer here came out of her great joy. She rejoiced from her heart!  But what was the source of her joy? The source of her joy was “the Lord!”  Hannah rejoiced “in the Lord”—in the relationship with the Lord. Of course Hannah was happy when God answered her prayer, and she greatly enjoyed the moments together with her son. But she knew that these joys alone could not sustain her.  In order to be truly joyful, Hannah needed the Lord himself. 

Only the Lord himself is the source of complete and lasting joy.  The joys that come from this world are good, but they are temporary in nature and superficial at best. Without a connection to the Lord himself, these joys are all destined to fade and in the end leave nothing but total emptiness.         

Then, the question to consider here is, “Where is my joy?”  “Is my joy in the Lord or in something else?”  Of course, God’s blessings are for us to enjoy, but we should never seek them as our source of joy. Only God himself is our true source of joy, and we must not put anything else in the place of God. 

Look at verse 1 again. “… in the LORD my horn is lifted high.  My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.” Here, the word “horn” symbolizes strength. Hannah not only found joy in the Lord, but she also strength in the Lord, especially in the power of salvation. This power of salvation makes way for the joy of the Lord by giving us deliverance over our enemies. 

In Hannah’s case, because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival, Peninnah kept provoking her, and this went on year after year. But the Lord delivered Hannah. As a result, Hannah could have boasted to her enemy, but she didn’t do that. She boasted to the Lord and she delighted in the Lord’s deliverance. She knew that the strength to win the victory came not from her, but from the Lord.  

What Hannah went through reminds us of our situation under the power of sin and Satan. Year after year we were provoked and accused because of our cursed condition and our sins. But God sent Jesus to deliver us from the enemies of sin and Satan and all the ill effects of the sinful nature and this fallen world! In the Lord Jesus we have the power of salvation and true joy. There’s a worship song used by CBF.   

I'm trading my sorrows
I'm trading my shame
I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord
I'm trading my sickness
I'm trading my pain
I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord
And we're singing

Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord
Yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord, Amen

How can we call it Hannah’s song, without any singing? 

OK, now look at verse 2. This is our key verse. And, it is Hannah’s personal confession of who God is to her! It reads, “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.”

How did Hannah know that there is no one holy like the Lord? Of course she met the Lord when she made her vow. But I believe that there was also a weaning process to go through in order to know the Lord more deeply. 

At first, Hannah wanted to find her everything in a son. She felt that a son could be her rock, to give her life a source of security and stability. And probably, such desires remained strong even after making a vow to give him to the Lord. It might have grown even stronger after little Samuel was born and began to nurse. As he nursed, a strong bond was formed, and Hannah must have realized that it would not be easy to keep her vow. So she made a clear decision that after the boy was weaned, she would bring him to the Lord. 

Then, as Hannah began the process of weaning Samuel, she also began to separate herself from her own desires and attached herself to the Lord. In this way, Hannah came more and more into the holy presence of God. 

Weaning is necessary in order to know that Holy God. David testified in Psalm 131:2, “But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Our soul should become like a weaned child in order to know the holy God. We should separate ourselves from our sin and ever selfish desire, even those that can appear noble, and we must attach ourselves to the Lord. But the weaning process is not easy. Don’t expect it to be easy! In some respects, making a vow is easy—meeting the Lord is relatively easy, but weaning off our sinful desires in order to know the holy God deeply is not easy. But if Hannah did it and many other saints throughout history did it, we also can do it!

We know through Hannah’s testimony that God alone is holy. This means that He is separate from all He has created and cannot be attached to anything and cannot sin. But still, it’s difficult to conceptualize God’s holiness. So I came up with a word play. I’m sure if I heard this somewhere else or not, but it goes like this: God alone is holy—so without God we have a hole—but with God we are whole. 

Part II. “The Lord brings death and makes alive” (3-11)

Look at verses 3-5. “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed. “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.

Maybe Penninah had spoken arrogantly about her many sons in order to provoke Hannah. But after coming to know the holy God, Hannah did not judge her. Instead, she entrusted judgment to God who judges justly. Only the Lord knows and able to properly judge men’s deeds.  

Furthermore, God is able to humble the proud and lift up the humble, and he is able to strengthen the weak and break the strong. The bows of warriors are considered a sign of human strength, but those that rely on them will stumble. And a full stomach is considered a sign of human satisfaction, but those that rely on that will go hungry. God does not want us to be self-reliant, but to trust in the Lord. Those that rely on the Lord will be strengthened and satisfied by the Lord.  In this way, God uses the week and foolish to shame the strong. He even used a barren woman like Hannah to glorify God, using her condition as an opportunity for her to come to know the Lord. 

Look at verses 7-8. “The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. 7 The Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 8 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. “For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s; upon them he has set the world. 

Here, we can learn Hannah’s resurrection faith. In a sense she tasted the pain of death through her barren condition and through weaning off her sin and selfish desires. But the Lord raised up Hannah and she experienced resurrection power, when she had a son and when she attached herself to the Lord. It all happened when Hannah prayed and made and kept her vow to the Lord. 

Through this Hannah was able to accept God’s sovereign power over life and death, that “… The Lord brings death and makes alive; that he brings down from the grave and raises up.” Just as in his creation power, the Lord God makes something out of nothing. He raises the poor from dust and ashes and seats them as princes. Ultimately, through this, we learn to have resurrection faith; that although we die, the Lord will rise us from he ashes of death.   

Look at  verses 9-10. He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails; 10 those who oppose the Lord will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth. “He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.”.

Here Hannah picked up God’s vision for Jesus’ second coming and world salvation. In that day, God will save his saints, but will punish the wicked. He will judge the ends of the earth and will establish Jesus as his anointed king over God’s eternal kingdom. 

Personally, through this passaage, I recognized my strong attachment to my children. Because of this I often tried to control or to micromanage their lives, only to give them a lot of unnessasary stress. Like Hannah, I need to entrust them to the Lord. But I learned that while a vow or at least a clear decision are important, I also need to make a daily struggle to separate myself from the thing of this world and come close to the Holy God. Rather, than thinking that I have already accomplished something in my spirtual life, I need to continually go through a weaning process in order to know God better.   

Look at verse 11. Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest 

In Hannah’s day, the priesthood became corrupt. God had a plan to remove Eli and his wicked son and to raise up Samuel in their place. This the significance of Hannah’s vow, that God used it to turn the nation back to God, through Samuel.  

In conclusion, Hannah confessed that the Lord alone is holy. There is no one else who give us true joy and though whom we can experience the power of salvation and resurrection. Therefore, we ought to put our hope fully in the Lord and seek him only. 

Through 1^st and 2^nd Samuel, we can learn how the Lord raised up Israel as great and spiritual nation, especially through establishing the Kingdom of David. And, it all began with one woman Hannah. May God bless us learn her faith and prayer continually. 

One word: No one holy like the Lord.   

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