Today, we will be looking at verse 6 from our passage, 1 Samuel 2:1-10. I will begin with summarizing verses 6-10 and then verse 6. Please join me in meditating on God’s Word.
III. God gives and takes away all life, wealth, honor, and power; declaring those against Him destroyed, those with Him protected, and the Messiah King exalted (verses 6-10).
A. God directly kills and brings to Sheol (the grave), and He directly gives life and takes people up (verse 6).
6 “Yahweh kills and He gives life; He takes down to Sheol and takes up.”
I will begin explaining this verse with some important points about God’s sovereignty that are made very clear in the Hebrew text. In verse six, it is important to note that God’s actions (verbs) are in the Hiphil (“kills,” “takes down,” “takes up”) or Piel (“gives life”). What does this mean? The Hiphil form of the Hebrew verb shows that God is directly and causally related to killing, bringing people to the grave, and raising them up. God’s action is also emphasized in the Piel, where He, actively and directly, “gives life.” In the Piel, it is clear that His giving of life is not only done by Him (as if it is done vicariously or in some other way from Him), it is explicitly done by Him in accordance with His desire to do so. (This sharp, directly-causative, language is contrasted with the passive language in the latter half of verse three to the end of verse five, where God’s sovereignty is happening to His objects). Thus, Hannah—through divine revelation—is simply stating factually that Yahweh, her God, is the one who directly wills and causes the deaths and life of all His creatures; He Himself brings people to Sheol (the grave) and raises them up to life (resurrection). He does not do so as if He needs to rely on vicarious means or as if He has to take other factors into consideration that are outside of His control. Rather, God is entirely unhindered by any external factors. He determines the natures and times of all death and life. Rather than stopping there, verse 6 teaches that He also determines where people go after their deaths, and the manner in which He brings people up from the grave (we know from further revelation that some are resurrected unto second death, and others to eternal life). God, then, is sovereign not only over what happens to all human life on earth, but also over all human life after death, even second death. There is no escape from God, even in death, making Him the God of every state of affairs, whether before, during, or after death.
The application of this principle is evident all over the Bible. God, for example, declares the immanent death of David’s son from Bathsheba because of David’s adultery and killing of her husband (2 Sam. 12:14). Isaiah also prophesied to king Hezekiah saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover’” (2 Kings 20:1 ESV). God was pronouncing His sovereignty over life and death, and, in the situation with Hezekiah, Hezekiah entreated Him and had his life extended fifteen years (2 Kings 20:6). God even stipulated the means through which He was going to recover in verse seven. Hezekiah, like David, knew that God is the author of all life, and death. Both examples show God’s sovereignty over life and death. Likewise, in 1 Samuel 12:19, the men of Israel were also fearing for their lives because they rejected God as their king. They all knew that God had the power to take their lives or to spare them. God then commanded them through Samuel to follow the Lord with their whole heart in the following verse and spared them (see 1 Sam. 12:19-25).
The way in which God’s sovereignty also extends to what happens after death should be explained to help the reader have a fuller breadth of this verse. As in the five verses preceding this sixth verse, there is a direct correlation between (1) the obedience and heeding of God’s Word and (2) the result. God is only a Rock to those who obey Him. Many people tend to think of death as an escape from God’s judgement (the enemies of God are often spoken of in Scripture as seeking to escape Him through their deaths). Yet, death is only the beginning. As verse six says, those who die He brings down to Sheol. Yet, their being in Sheol does not mean that God cannot bring them back to life again. (In fact, the NT expressly teaches a physical resurrection of His elect in 1 Corinthians 15). In the cases of the elect, God “takes them up” from the grave (Sheol) and “gives” to them “life” once more. Hannah’s prophecy, then, appears to foreshadow the resurrection of the dead. In fact, it must foreshadow the resurrection, or one would be able to claim that God does not actually have sovereignty over those who have died. They would not see Him as able to bring people back to life unless He did so. Part of His sovereignty over life and death, then, is for God to be able to bring those who have died and went to Sheol back to the fulness of bodily life. People are not left forever in a bodiless state, but will be given a body either fit for an eternity in hell or an eternity in heaven. The NT speaks of those who have died in their evil being prepared for a second death. While this is not expressly revealed in Hannah’s prophecy, it is nonetheless important to mention, especially as God’s dealings of those in Sheol are strongly implicated. He has full control of all aspects of one’s life and death, even beyond the grave.
It may initially seem shocking to many people to know that God chooses the very moment that every living thing will die, this can also be a source of great comfort for the saints. The God of all life and good carefully selected the means and times of our deaths, so that we can meet Him quickened for holiness; that we may shine before Him forever with God’s own glory. We may not understand everything related to our deaths, but we can know that they have been orchestrated for our good and for His glory. Furthermore, since our deaths can never come as a surprise to God, we can therefore wait on His perfect timing, not needing to be anxious about when we will leave our mortal bodies. Yes, God does not need for you to be living even one second after you pass, but carries out the fulness of His will even in your absence. I know that one of my greatest fears has been that, if I pass, then no one would be there to care for my wife and children as I have. Yet, this is an arrogant attitude that diminishes God’s goodness and loving sovereignty. Rather than seeing myself as needing to be the one who is in control, I can rest in the fact that God will take care of everything to His good pleasure. Ultimately, for us as saints, God’s own good pleasure is to be the only thing that matters to us. Even if I were able to live beyond my appointed time, it is not in my power to do anything that is rightfully up to God’s own divine will. He will do what is good, far beyond anything that I can ever will or desire. Life and death are well and good in His hands.
I will end with Hebrews 9:27-28, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” So, let us wait with patience, and not fret.
Next time we will be looking at verses 7-8.