to totter or waver (through weakness of the legs · conjunction + verb, niphal active participle, masculine plural absolute
girded
אָ֥זְרוּ'A.ze.ru
H247
to belt · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
strength
חָֽיִלCha.yil
H2428
probably a force · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 37:15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
Psalms 76:3 There brake he the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle. Selah.
Psalms 46:9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Psalms 37:17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.
Isaiah 10:4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his…
2 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory…
Hebrews 11:34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 2:1-10
We have here Hannah's thanksgiving, dictated, not only by the spirit of prayer, but by the spirit of prophecy. Her petition for the mercy she desired we had before (Sa1 1:11), and here we have her return of praise; in both out of the abundance of a heart deeply affected (in the former with her own wants, and in the latter with God's goodness) her mouth spoke. Observe in general, 1. When she had received mercy from God she owned it, with thankfulness to his praise. Not like the nine lepers, Luk 17:17. Praise is our rent, our tribute. We are unjust if we do not pay it. 2. The mercy she had received was an answer to prayer, and therefore she thought herself especially obliged to give thanks for…
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.
John Gill on 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 the dealings of God with men in providence and grace; bows are here put for all military arms, which men of might and war make use of, and which God can easily break in pieces, and so make war to cease in the earth, and hinder warlike men from doing what they design and attempt; they are enfeebled and weakened by him, and their hands cannot perform their enterprises: so the bows of Satan, and his principalities and powers, are broken, and his fiery darts are quenched, and the people of the Lord en…
Hannah's song of praise. - The prayer in which Hannah poured out the feelings of her heart, after the dedication of her son to the Lord, is a song of praise of a prophetic and Messianic character. After giving utterance in the introduction to the rejoicing and exulting of her soul at the salvation that had reached her (Sa1 2:1), she praises the Lord as the only holy One, the only rock of the righteous, who rules on earth with omniscience and righteousness, brings down the proud and lofty, kills and makes alive, maketh poor and maketh rich (Sa1 2:2-8). She then closes with the confident assurance that He will keep His saints, and cast down the rebellious, and will judge the ends of the earth,…
The Church Fathers
What is the bow of the strong, if not the fraudulent savagery of the Jews? For from concealment, as if from a bow, they had inflicted a wound upon the Redeemer, whom they were killing by the hands of the Gentiles. But the bow of the strong was overcome, because he who died by their wound rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent the promised Holy Spirit to the disciples.
The bow of the mighty has been broken, etc. The proud intention of the Jews, by which they always presumed to be saved by the works of the law, has failed; the exercise of dialectical skill, and the loquacity of secular philosophy, as if bent to ridicule the simplicity of faith, has been weakened; finally, all the fiery darts of malignant spirits have been blunted by the weapons of invincible truth; because God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty (I Cor. II).
"And the weak were girded with strength." If we see how "God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might confound the wise, and the weak things of the world, that he might confound the strong," thou understandest how the weak were girded with strength. Weak was the gentile people, inasmuch as it was a stranger to the covenant of God: this obtained strength. What strength? "My strength and my praise is the Lord, and he is become to me for salvation." My strength, therefore, is Christ the Lord himself, with whom we were girded, we who were once strangers to the covenant of God, and without God in this world.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Fast — The sole fast required by the law of Moses was that of the great Day of Atonement (q.v.), Lev. 23:26-32. It is called “the fast” (Acts 27:9). The only other mention of a periodical fast in the Old…
Hannah — Favour, grace, one of the wives of Elkanah the Levite, and the mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 1; 2). Her home was at Ramathaim-zophim, whence she was wont every year to go to Shiloh, where the tabernacle…
Mary — Hebrew Miriam. (1.) The wife of Joseph, the mother of Jesus, called the “Virgin Mary,” though never so designated in Scripture (Matt. 2:11; Acts 1:14). Little is known of her personal history. Her…
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Songs — Of Moses (Ex. 15; Num. 21:17; Deut. 32; Rev. 15:3), Deborah (Judg. 5), Hannah (1 Sam. 2), David (2 Sam. 22, and Psalms), Mary (Luke 1:46-55), Zacharias (Luke 1:68-79), the angels (Luke 2:13), Simeon…
Barrenness · A reproach — A reproach
Blessing · SPIRITUAL, FROM GOD — SPIRITUAL, FROM GOD
Bow, The · Illustrative: (When broken,) of the overthrow of power — Illustrative: (When broken,) of the overthrow of power
Hannah · Her hymn of praise — Her hymn of praise
Missionaries, All Christians Should Be As · Exemplified: Hannah — Exemplified: Hannah
Hannah celebrated God’s sovereign ability to radically reverse human circumstances.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 2:4
The bows of the mighty are broken… This is the custom of the Holy One, Blessed is He. He weakens the mighty and strengthens the weak, He sates the hungry and starves the sated.
Pride · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Psalms · Of Hannah, in thankfulness for a — Of Hannah, in thankfulness for a
Samuel · His mother’ s — His mother’ s
Satire · Hannah’ s — Hannah’ s
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
