Hannah was barren, so she prayed for a miracle. When her prayers were answered she praised God and her mostly beautiful prayer is recorded in 1 Samuel 2. In the middle of her prayer, Hannah says this: “The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.” (1 Sam 2:6-7). Hannah is declaring that death and poverty come from God. In other words, this godly lady seems to believe that God is, at least sometimes, the author of evil. Does God give us sickness, poverty...? Should earthquakes, tsunamis and acts of terrorism be interpreted as his divine judgment on a sinful world? Does God kill babies? This is a classic problem of perspective. Hannah saw God from a distance. She related to Him under the temporary, and now-obsolete death-dealing covenant of the law. That covenant linked human performance with both blessings and curses and so I guess it made some kind of sense for Hannah to speak of a sovereign God who brings death and sends poverty to his people – even if it isn’t true-God is not a killer
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:15:02 +0000