1 Samuel 2:1 Commentary and Bible Study

This is really one of the most wonderful prayers in the Old Testament. The theme of this prayer forms part of Mary's prayer at the nativity of Christ, the Magnificat, Mary's song of worship. ‘Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord’ – not in what the Lord has done, but in the Lord himself. What a high level of praise this is! She rejoices in him because he is powerful, he is holy and good and kind, and I have found him and know him and proved him, so that he is everything to me. Her praise and worship is directed to him, and extolling him and his wonder and his attributes. To praise him for these attributes is to encourage herself before him.‘My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies.’ Some people say that she has a Peninnah in mind, the other wife who scorned her, but I don't think she has her in mind at all. In praising and worshipping the Lord is she suddenly going to say, Ah, I've been vindicated against this woman who scorned me’? No, she has not got that in mind. She is talking about the Lord who delivers his people constantly from all their enemies, earthly and spiritual. This is something much greater than her personal grievance against this woman – ‘because I rejoice in thy salvation.’ Some people interpret this in a very small way. ‘There is none holy as the Lord.’ The holiness of God is affirmed at the beginning of the prayer. ‘For there is none beside thee’ – there is one God; of course, three persons in one Godhead, but one God. So she renounces all idolatry and claims the one true God. ‘Neither is there any rock like our God’: she rehearses the unchangeability and the power of God. It is a wonderful prayer, which begins objectively with the great attributes of God. Then the exclusive divine being of God, one God, transcendent overall, ‘for there is none beside thee’ – the strength, the power, the omnipotence of God. The security we have in him: ‘Neither is there any rock like our God’ – his immovable invincible power is in mind.