1 Samuel 2:4

The bows of the mighty men are broken,.... Hannah, from relating gracious experiences, and celebrating, the divine perfections of holiness, omniscience, and sovereignty, passes on to take notice of

There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God. No JFB commentary on these verses.

This notes either, 1. The strength of which they boasted. See 46:9. Or, 2. Their malicious or mischievous designs. See 11:2 37:14. Or, 3. Their virulent tongues, which are compared to bows that shoot their arrows, even bitter words; as it is said : compare . Or, 4. Their procreating virtue, which may well be compared to a bow, both because it is called a man’ s strength, , and because children, which are the effects of it, and are as it were shot from that bow, are compared to arrows, ,5. And this seems best to agree with the following verse. They that stumbled; or, were weak, or feeble, in body and spirit, that had no strength to conceive, which was once Sarah’ s case, ; or to bring forth, which was Israel’ s condition under Hezekiah, . Are girt with strength; are enabled both to conceive and to bring forth, as the church was, .

1 Samuel 2:4 The bows of the mighty men [are] broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.Ver. 4. The bows of the mighty men are broken,] i.e., The bows of Peninnah and her children, who did shoot reproachful words at Hannah. Some gather hence that Peninnah bore no more children, but lost those she had, as 1 Samuel 2:5. They that stumbled.] To the same sense singeth the holy Virgin in Luke 1:46-55

(4) The bows of the mighty men are broken.—God reverses human conditions, bringing low the wicked, and raising up the righteous. Von Gerlach writes of these verses that “Every power which will be something in itself is destroyed by the Lord: every weakness which despairs of itself is transformed into power.” “The bows of the heroes,” that is to say, the heroes of the bow, the symbol of human power being poetically put first instead of the bearer of the symbol. The next line contains the antithesis: while the heroes rejoicing in their strength are shattered, the tottering, powerless ones are by Him made strong for battle.

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.

Ch. 1 Samuel 2:1-11. The Song of Hannah Hannah’s song is a true prophecy. She is inspired “to discern in her own individual experience the universal laws of the divine economy, and to recognise its significance for the whole course of the Kingdom of God.” The deliverance from her proud adversary which had just been vouchsafed to her was but one instance of the great principles of Jehovah’s moral government of the world, principles which receive their fullest illustration in the exaltation of the Lord’s Christ through humiliation to victory, and which will only he fully realised when “the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” Hence it is that her own peculiar circumstances are so soon lost sight of in the wider view of the dealings of God’s Providence. The failure to recognise this has led critics to deny the authenticity of the song, and to conjecture that some ancient triumphal war-pæan has been erroneously placed in Hannah’s month by the compiler of the book. A brief analysis will help to explain the connexion of thought. “Jehovah is the sole author of my deliverance. He shall be the theme of my song. There is none to be compared with Him for holiness, power, faithfulness: be silent before him, all ye proud boasters! He knows your thoughts and weighs your actions. Observe the vicissitudes of human fortune: the haughty are humbled, the humble exalted: this is Jehovah’s doing: for He is the Almighty Governor of the universe. He guides and guards His saints, and destroys the wicked. May He finally discomfit his adversaries, judge the world, and establish the kingdom of His Anointed One!” The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) should be carefully compared with Hannah’s song, of which it is an echo rather than an imitation. The resemblance lies in thought and tone more than in actual language, and supplies a most delicate and valuable testimony to the appropriateness of this hymn to Hannah’s circumstances. The 113th Psalm forms a connecting link between the two.

4. Bow-heroes — Heroes armed with the bow. Hebrew, χωׁ ?ϊβαψινηϊιν, bow of heroes dismayed, the participle dismayed (ηϊιν) agreeing (by attraction) with heroes, not bow.