"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding." Proverbs 3:13

I posted the words of Hannah awhile back which I believed demonstrated God's sovereignty over all things. I found this further note on her words that I wanted to include.

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"First of all, Hannah is joyous over the fact at who God is. Notice, how she says in verse, "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." Hannah is a pretty pumped up happy person, because of the things that have happened, about what the Lord has done for her, about the fact that the Lord has exalted Himself, and how He has provided salvation."

"Then in verse 2 and 3, she praises God for His attributes. I’ll just mention them very briefly. God is holy. There is no one like You- God is unique. There is no rock like You- nobody is immutable like God is. Nobody has knowledge like God has knowledge. Nobody is discerning, as it says here "by Him the actions are weighed", as God is discerning. So in these two verses, she focuses on five attributes of God; His holiness, uniqueness, immutability, knowledge, and discerning."

"We will skip down to verse 8, because we are trying to get the whole context. Notice how He raises the poor from the dust. He lifts up the needy and makes them sit with the nobles. You can see it is saying all the things God does for His people, because God [is] holy, unique, immutable, knowledgeable, and discerning based upon His attributes in verses 2 and 3."

"Let us now look at verses 6 and 7. Verse 6 is really our text. Notice how it says "The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to Sheol, and raises up. The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: He bringeth low, and lifteth up." This example of construction is called a parallel synonym. Now what does that mean? Well, the Hebrews used this often times in their poetry. What it would be is: Here is A and here is B. Here is secondary A and here is secondary B. Sometimes to get the idea of a verse you almost have to read A and secondary A, then B and secondary B to see how it correlates together. For example look at verse 7: "The LORD makes poor, He brings low. The LORD makes rich, He also exalts." See how the two go together. Now let’s look at verse 6: "The LORD kills, He brings down to Sheol. The LORD makes alive, He raises up."

"The question for us, the interpreter is, what is the meaning when she says, "The LORD makes alive" here? Is she talking about resurrection? Could this be a resurrection passage? What does this have to do with resurrection?"

"Well, interpreters have used two lines of evidences to say that this is a resurrection passage. The first is the order. It is: "The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to Sheol, and raises up." The word order suggests that it is talking about something in the future, some resurrection. The converse is the fact that God makes alive in the sense of birth, or God raises up in the sense of birth. But why put it in that order? It wouldn’t quite make sense. Secondly, it says in verse 6: "the LORD raises up." Certainly we may talk of a child being made alive by God, but it’s not often times that the phrase "raised up" is used in relation to a child. Again, it fits well with the context of the LORD bringing down to the grave that He would raise these same individuals up from the grave."

"So given the context, given the understanding of what these verses say (so as not to disappoint the text), let me tell you what I think this verse means. Based upon the fact that God is the ultimate, sovereign, holy being, who is intimately involved in the affairs of men: He is involved in their affairs, whether it has to do with poverty, success, the womb, social status, who is in control, who is judging, and other thing like that. God is ultimately sovereign over death, over life, over the grave, over the after-life. This is what Hannah’s song teaches us about resurrection."

"Let me go back to my question that I posed at the beginning of the message. How likely does this text teach about resurrection? I think it does. It doesn’t tell us much about how the resurrection occurs or how it happens, but it does seem to give us some glimpse into the after-life. What are the main points about resurrection? I think it shows us that resurrection is a work of God. It depends on God. God determines it..."

"It also teaches us that resurrection is possible. Up until now, unless you were to quote Exodus 3:14 - which talks about God being the God of the living - you would have no idea that resurrection was even possible. I would say that this is the first verse that shows resurrection is possible..."

"So, what is the nature of the resurrection? I don’t have a clue from this passage. It doesn’t tell me anything."

"When will the resurrection occur? Again, I don’t have a clue from this passage. I’m not trying to add anything in there; it’s just not there. Who will be resurrected? I don’t know, but I do know that it is God’s choice...How does this resurrection occur? By the power of God."



Richard Nemec
"Resurrection in the Old Testament", excerpts, 1998.
http://www.bereanbiblechurch.org/transcripts/eschatology/resurection.htm