A song of the Bible
The Song of Hannah
The prayer of a once barren woman who had wept for a son and now brought him to the house of God. Hannah's song leaves her private sorrow behind and rises into a sweeping vision of the God who reverses fortunes, lifts the poor, and will one day raise up and strengthen His anointed King.
“And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the LORD, mine horn is exalted in the LORD: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.”1 Samuel 2:1
The song
Hannah's song begins in personal joy but quickly widens into a hymn about the God who overturns the order of the world. She rejoices that her mouth is opened over her enemies, then declares that there is none holy like the Lord and no rock beside Him. From there she sings of great reversals, the proud silenced and the humble raised, the strong broken and the stumbling given strength, the hungry filled and the full sent to labor for bread, the barren woman given seven children. She confesses a God who kills and makes alive, who brings low and lifts up, who guards the feet of His faithful. The song closes reaching beyond her own day, praying that the Lord will judge the earth and exalt the horn of His anointed king.
Its occasion
It was sung at Shiloh, at the sanctuary, when Hannah brought her young son Samuel to leave him in the service of the priest. For years she had been childless and mocked by her husband's other wife, and she had prayed in the temple with such anguish that Eli thought her drunk. God remembered her, and Samuel was born. True to her vow, once the boy was weaned she gave him back to the Lord who gave him. This song is her thanksgiving in that moment of surrender, a mother's worship as she hands over the child she longed for, finding in her own reversal a window onto how God treats the whole world.
How it rises to Christ
Hannah's song is the acknowledged forerunner of Mary's Magnificat, which echoes its themes so closely that the two women seem to sing across the centuries in harmony. Both are mothers of unlikely sons, both magnify a God who scatters the proud and lifts the lowly, both sing before the birth of a deliverer. Hannah's final line reaches furthest of all, praying for the strengthening of the Lord's anointed king at a time when Israel had no king yet, a prophetic hunger that Samuel himself would begin to answer by anointing David, and that finds its fullness in great David's greater Son. Her God who kills and makes alive foreshadows the resurrection at the center of the Gospel.
Questions people ask
Why did Hannah sing this song?
Hannah sang it when she brought her young son Samuel to the sanctuary at Shiloh to dedicate him to God's lifelong service. Once barren and mocked, she had prayed in the temple with such anguish that the priest thought her drunk, and she had vowed to give the child back to the Lord. The song is her thanksgiving in the moment she surrenders the son she had longed for.
How is Hannah's song connected to Mary's Magnificat?
Mary's Magnificat closely echoes Hannah's song across the centuries. Both are sung by mothers of unlikely sons, both magnify a God who casts down the proud and lifts the humble, the hungry filled and the full sent away, and both anticipate a deliverer. Hannah's closing prayer for God's anointed king points ahead to the Messiah whom Mary would one day bear.