---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible -  1 Samuel 2"
description: "CHAPTER 2   :-. HANNAH"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/1-samuel/2"
---

CHAPTER 2

. HANNAH'S SONG
IN THANKFULNESS TO
GOD.

**1. Hannah prayed, and said**—Praise
and prayer are inseparably conjoined in Scripture ([Colossians 4:2](../../../kjv/colossians/4/2);
[1 Timothy 2:1](../../../kjv/1-timothy/2/1)). This beautiful song was
her tribute of thanks for the divine goodness in answering her
petition.
**mine horn is exalted in the
Lord**—Allusion is here made to a peculiarity in the dress of
Eastern women about Lebanon, which seems to have obtained anciently
among the Israelite women, that of wearing a tin or silver horn on
the forehead, on which their veil is suspended. Wives, who have no
children, wear it projecting in an oblique direction, while those who
become mothers forthwith raise it a few inches higher, inclining
towards the perpendicular, and by this slight but observable change
in their headdress, make known, wherever they go, the maternal
character which they now bear.

**5. they that were hungry ceased**—that
is, to hunger.
**the barren hath born
seven**—that is, many children.

**6. he bringeth down to the grave,
and bringeth up**—that is, He reduces to the lowest state of
degradation and misery, and restores to prosperity and happiness.

**8. He raiseth up the poor out of the
dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill**—The dunghill,
a pile of horse, cow, or camel offal, heaped up to dry in the sun,
and used as fuel, was, and is, one of the common haunts of the
poorest mendicants; and the change that had been made in the social
position of Hannah, appeared to her grateful heart as auspicious and
as great as the elevation of a poor despised beggar to the highest
and most dignified rank.
**inherit the throne of
glory**—that is, possesses seats of honor.

**10. the Lord shall judge the ends of
the earth . . . exalt the horn of his anointed**—This is the
first place in Scripture where the word "anointed," or
Messiah, occurs; and as there was no king in Israel at the time, it
seems the best interpretation to refer it to Christ. There is,
indeed, a remarkable resemblance between the song of Hannah and that
of Mary ([Luke 1:46](../../../kjv/luke/1/46)).

**11. the child did minister unto the
Lord before Eli the priest**—He must have been engaged in some
occupation suited to his tender age, as in playing upon the cymbals,
or other instruments of music; in lighting the lamps, or similar easy
and interesting services.
. THE SIN
OF ELl'S SONS.

**12. Now the sons of Eli were sons of
Belial**—not only careless and irreligious, but men loose in
their actions, and vicious and scandalous in their habits. Though
professionally engaged in sacred duties, they were not only strangers
to the power of religion in the heart, but they had thrown off its
restraints, and even ran, as is sometimes done in similar cases by
the sons of eminent ministers, to the opposite extreme of reckless
and open profligacy.

**13-17. the priests' custom with the
people**—When persons wished to present a sacrifice of peace
offering on the altar, the offering was brought in the first instance
to the priest, and as the Lord's part was burnt, the parts
appropriated respectively to the priests and offerers were to be
sodden. But Eli's sons, unsatisfied with the breast and shoulder,
which were the perquisites appointed to them by the divine law
([Exodus 29:27](../../../kjv/exodus/29/27); [Leviticus 7:31](../../../kjv/leviticus/7/31);
[Leviticus 7:32](../../../kjv/leviticus/7/32)), not only claimed part
of the offerer's share, but rapaciously seized them previous to the
sacred ceremony of heaving or waving (see on [Leviticus 7:32](../../../kjv/leviticus/7/32)); and moreover they committed the additional injustice of
taking up with their fork those portions which they preferred, while
still raw. Pious people revolted at such rapacious and profane
encroachments on the dues of the altar, as well as what should have
gone to constitute the family and social feast of the offerer. The
truth is, the priests having become haughty and unwilling in many
instances to accept invitations to those feasts, presents of meat
were sent to them; and this, though done in courtesy at first, being,
in course of time, established into a right, gave rise to all the
rapacious keenness of Eli's sons.
[Leviticus 7:32](../../../kjv/leviticus/7/32). SAMUEL'S
MINISTRY.

**18. But Samuel ministered before the
Lord, being a child**—This notice of his early services in the
outer courts of the tabernacle was made to pave the way for the
remarkable prophecy regarding the high priest's family.
**girded with a linen ephod**—A
small shoulder-garment or apron, used in the sacred service by the
inferior priests and Levites; sometimes also by judges or eminent
persons, and hence allowed to Samuel, who, though not a Levite, was
devoted to God from his birth.

**19. his mother made him a little
coat, and brought it to him from year to year**—Aware that he
could not yet render any useful service to the tabernacle, she
undertook the expense of supplying him with wearing apparel. All
weaving stuffs, manufacture of cloth, and making of suits were
anciently the employment of women.

**20. Eli blessed Elkanah and his
wife**—This blessing, like that which he had formerly pronounced,
had a prophetic virtue; which, before long, appeared in the increase
of Hannah's family ([1 Samuel 2:21](../../../kjv/1-samuel/2/21)),
and the growing qualifications of Samuel for the service of the
sanctuary.

**22-24. the women that assembled at
the door of the tabernacle**—This was an institution of holy
women of a strictly ascetic order, who had relinquished worldly cares
and devoted themselves to the Lord; an institution which continued
down to the time of Christ (). Eli was, on the whole, a good man, but lacking in the
moral and religious training of his family. He erred on the side of
parental indulgence; and though he reprimanded them (see on ), yet, from fear or indolence, he shrank from laying on
them the restraints, or subjecting them to the discipline, their
gross delinquencies called for. In his judicial capacity, he winked
at their flagrant acts of maladministration and suffered them to make
reckless encroachments on the constitution, by which the most serious
injuries were inflicted both on the rights of the people and the laws
of God.

**25. they hearkened not unto the
voice of their father,*****because*******—it should
be *therefore.*
**the Lord would slay them**—It
was not God's preordination, but their own wilful and impenitent
disobedience which was the cause of their destruction.
. A PROPHECY AGAINST
ELI'S HOUSE.

**27. there came a man of God unto
Eli, and said . . . that there shall not be an old man in thine
house**—So much importance has always, in the East, been attached
to old age, that it would be felt to be a great calamity, and
sensibly to lower the respectability of any family which could boast
of few or no old men. The prediction of this prophet was fully
confirmed by the afflictions, degradation, poverty, and many untimely
deaths with which the house of Eli was visited after its announcement
(see [1 Samuel 4:11](../../../kjv/1-samuel/4/11); [1 Samuel 14:3](../../../kjv/1-samuel/14/3);
[1 Samuel 22:18-23](../../../kjv/1-samuel/22/18-23); [1 Kings 2:27](../../../kjv/1-kings/2/27)).

**31. I will cut off thine arm, and
the arm of thy father's house**—By the withdrawal of the high
priesthood from Eleazar, the elder of Aaron's two sons (after Nadab
and Abihu were destroyed, [[Numbers 3:4](../../../kjv/numbers/3/4)]),
that dignity had been conferred on the family of Ithamar, to which
Eli belonged, and now that his descendants had forfeited the honor,
it was to be taken from them and restored to the elder branch.

**32. thou shalt see an enemy in my
habitation**—A successful rival for the office of high priest
shall rise out of another family ([2 Samuel 15:35](../../../kjv/2-samuel/15/35);
[1 Chronicles 24:3](../../../kjv/1-chronicles/24/3); [1 Chronicles 29:22](../../../kjv/1-chronicles/29/22)).
But the marginal reading, "thou shalt see the affliction of the
tabernacle," seems to be a preferable translation.

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