Read Time: 8 minutes1 Samuel 2
Hannah’s song is the doorway into the whole book of Samuel, and it is a prophecy disguised as a thanksgiving. A woman who asked for one son sings of the overturning of the whole order of strength — “the bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.” She has moved from her own womb to the government of the nations in a single breath, because she has seen the principle: the God who opens the barren womb is the God who casts down the proud and lifts the poor out of the dust. Her private mercy is a window onto Yahweh’s universal way.
The song’s reversals run in pairs, and every pair is the gospel pattern. “They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased.” “The barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.” “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes.” The count in that middle line is not idle: the barren bears seven, the covenant-number, rooted in the Hebrew sheba — to “seven oneself” is to be bound by oath. The empty womb is filled to covenant-fulness, while the fruitful one is left feeble. And Mary sings this same song again in Luke 1 — “he hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree” — two mothers of promised sons, a thousand years apart, singing the same overturning, because the same Spirit gave both songs.
The song closes on a word that had never to that point been true and so must be prophecy: “he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.” There is no king in Israel; Saul will not be anointed for years. Yet Hannah, the first voice in the book, sings of Yahweh’s Messiah — his anointed, his mashiach. The whole line from here to David, and from David to the greater Son of David, is announced in the first chapter where it could be. The barren woman’s song names the King before the King exists.
Against this rises the dark counter-theme: the sons of Eli, “sons of Belial” — Belial meaning worthlessness, without profit — who “knew not Yahweh.” The worthless sons stand over against the asked-for son; the priesthood that should mediate between Yahweh and Israel is corrupt at the altar — they take the flesh raw before the fat is burned, they seize the offering by force, they lie with the women at the door of the tabernacle. “Men abhorred the offering of Yahweh.” The contrast with the child Samuel could not be sharper: while Eli’s sons defile the sanctuary, the borrowed child “grew on, and was in favour both with Yahweh, and also with men” — the very words later written of the Lord Jesus (Luke 2:52). The faithful child set beside the corrupt priests is the pattern of the true Priest set beside a failed order.
The chapter ends with the sentence on the house of Eli and the promise that answers it. The man of God comes with the doom — “the two sons… in one day they shall die both of them” — and then the great messianic promise that reaches far past Samuel: “I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart… and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever.” The failed priesthood is set aside for a faithful Priest who does the heart of Yahweh and walks before the Anointed for ever. Samuel is the first instalment; the final fulfilment is the Priest after the order of Melchizedek who never dies.
The God who broke the bow and filled the womb gives strength to his Anointed. Sing the overturning before you see it — the horn of his Messiah will be exalted.
Isaiah 48
Chapter 48 is Yahweh’s case against a stubborn people, and the charge is that they trust the prophecy without trusting the One who gives it. “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel… which swear by the name of Yahweh, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.” They wear the covenant name like a garment and hold the form without the substance — the Sardis problem in Old Testament dress, a name that lives while the heart is dead. The whole chapter presses the difference between knowing about Yahweh and knowing him.
Yahweh’s answer is to insist that he told them beforehand precisely so they could not credit their idols. “I have declared the former things from the beginning… I did them suddenly, and they came to pass… lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them.” Foreknowledge is given as the proof of deity and the cure for idolatry — the God who announces the end before the beginning leaves no room for the carved image to claim the outcome. This is the same argument as Isaiah 46; prophecy is not decoration but evidence, the signature of the only One who can write history before it happens.
Then the furnace: “I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” The captivity in Babylon is not abandonment but refining — for mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? Yahweh purifies his people for the sake of his own name, not because they have earned it. The exile that looks like wrath is the crucible of mercy, and the saint reads his own afflictions in the same light: chosen in the furnace, refined for the Name’s sake, not consumed.
The chapter turns on a sudden, half-hidden glimpse of how Yahweh works through his Spirit and his Sent One: “Come ye near unto me, hear ye this… and now the Lord Yahweh, and his Spirit, hath sent me.” A speaker is sent by the Lord Yahweh and his Spirit — the Servant who will be unfolded in the chapters just ahead, the One in whom Yahweh manifests himself. The voice that has been thundering I am he, I am the first and the last now resolves into a Sent One, and the reader is being prepared for the Servant Songs that dominate this whole stretch of Isaiah.
The chapter closes with the call out of Babylon: “Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans… say ye, Yahweh hath redeemed his servant Jacob.” It is the same cry that will sound in Revelation 18 — “Come out of her, my people.” The redeemed are a people called out, separated from the city of confusion, led through the wilderness with water from the rock as in the first exodus. And the sober refrain that ends it: “There is no peace, saith Yahweh, unto the wicked.” Refining is for the chosen; for those who cling to Babylon there is no rest.
You bear the Name — bear it in truth. The furnace is mercy, not wrath; come out of Babylon, and walk in the peace the wicked never find.
Revelation 5–6
Chapter 5 turns on a book and a crisis. In the right hand of the One on the throne is a scroll sealed with seven seals, written within and on the back, and a strong angel cries, “Who is worthy to open the book?” No one in heaven or earth is found worthy, and John weeps much — the purpose of God sealed shut, history stalled, no one able to set it in motion. The grief is real: if the book cannot be opened, the whole drama of redemption cannot proceed. Everything waits on a worthy one.
The answer comes in two images held in tension. John is told, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah… hath prevailed to open the book” — and he turns to see, in the midst of the throne, “a Lamb as it had been slain.” The Lion is the Lamb; the conquering King of Judah prevails by being slain. This is the deepest reversal in the book: victory through sacrifice, the throne reached through death. The seven seals mark it as a covenant document — seven being the covenant-number, the oath-bound seal — and the seven horns and seven eyes are covenant-perfect power and discernment, the Spirit of Yahweh sent into all the earth. The slain Lamb takes the book that the strong angel and all creation could not touch.
The new song of the four living creatures and the elders names exactly who the redeemed are and what they become: “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” Here is the multitudinous Christ in full — redeemed out of every nation, made kings and priests, destined to reign on the earth, not in some disembodied heaven. The hope is earthly, royal, and corporate. Then the circle of worship widens outward: ten thousand times ten thousand angels take up their own cry, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,” and at last every creature in heaven and earth ascribes blessing to the Lamb.
Chapter 6 opens the seals, and the first four send out the horsemen. A white horse with a crowned rider going forth conquering; a red horse taking peace from the earth; a black horse with the balances of scarcity, “a measure of wheat for a penny”; and a pale horse whose rider is Death, with Hell following, given power over a fourth of the earth by sword, hunger, death, and the beasts. The pattern is plain: the Lamb who was slain now governs the unrolling of history, and conquest, war, famine, and death move only as the seals are opened. The one who suffered holds the reins of judgment.
The fifth seal answers Hannah and Isaiah both. Under the altar are “the souls of them that were slain for the word of God,” crying “How long, O Lord… dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?” They are the martyrs at rest, the slain who wait — and they are told to rest yet for a little season until the number of their fellow-servants is complete. This is the saints sleeping in death under the altar of sacrifice, their cause not forgotten but held until the full number is gathered, the same patience the fifth seal asks that Hannah’s song already sang: the avenging belongs to Yahweh, and it will come. The sixth seal then tears the heavens — sun black, moon as blood, stars falling, the mighty hiding in the rocks, crying for the mountains to fall on them and hide them “from the wrath of the Lamb.” The Lamb’s wrath: the gentlest title in Scripture becomes the most terrible. The day of reckoning has come, “and who shall be able to stand?”
Only the slain Lamb could open the book — and he opens it still. The martyrs rest under the altar; their blood is not forgotten. Stand in him, and you will stand in that day.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The three readings converge on one figure seen from three angles: the Anointed whom Yahweh raises up, refines a people for, and finally reveals as a slain Lamb who is also the conquering Lion. Hannah’s song ends on the horn of his anointed before any king exists; Isaiah’s chapter resolves the great I AM into a Sent One whom the Lord Yahweh and his Spirit hath sent; and Revelation shows the Sent One at last — the Lamb in the midst of the throne, the only one worthy to open the book of God’s purpose. The whole movement of redemption was sealed shut until the One who was slain prevailed to open it. Everything Hannah sang and Isaiah foretold waits on him.
The pattern of reversal runs through all three. Hannah sings that Yahweh breaks the bows of the mighty and sets the beggar among princes; Isaiah declares that the furnace of affliction is the place of choosing, not casting off; Revelation crowns the reversal by making the slain Lamb the Lion, victory itself reached through death. This is the apostolic shape of the kingdom — the way up is down, the throne is reached through the altar, the crown through the furnace. The redeemed become kings and priests who will reign on the earth, but they become so by being redeemed by blood, refined in affliction, and gathered out of every nation. Strength is given to the Anointed; the saints share it only in him.
And the hope held out across the readings is patient, future, and earthly. Hannah waits for a king not yet born; Isaiah’s people wait in the furnace for redemption; the souls under the altar wait, told to rest yet for a little season until the number is full. None of them grasps the reward in advance. The dead in Christ sleep under the altar; their blood cries but is not yet answered; the reign on the earth is we shall reign, not we reign now. The saint lives in the same patience — refined, sealed, kept — leaning on the promise that the Lamb who opened the book will finish what he began.
So the exhortation gathers to this: bear the Name in truth, not in form only; let the furnace do its refining work without complaint; come out of Babylon and walk in the peace the wicked never find; and stand under the altar with the martyrs in the confidence that the blood is not forgotten. The Lamb who was slain holds the reins of all history. He will come, and the ones whom he will accept are those found in him — redeemed by his blood, refined for his Name, waiting for the kingdom he will bring to the earth.
The book is opened by the One who was slain. Sing the overturning, endure the furnace, and rest under the altar — the horn of the Anointed will be exalted, and you will reign with him on the earth.