for
there is no one besides you,
nor
is there any rock like our God.
The
bows of the mighty men are broken.
Those
who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those
who were full have hired themselves out for bread.
Those
who were hungry are satisfied.
Yes,
the barren has borne seven.
She
who has many children languishes.
Yahweh
makes poor and makes rich.
He
brings low, he also lifts up.
He
raises up the poor out of the dust.
He
lifts up the needy from the dunghill
to
make them sit with princes
and
inherit the throne of glory.
For
the pillars of the earth are Yahweh’s.
He
has set the world on them.
He
will keep the feet of his holy ones,
and
no man will prevail by strength.
1 Samuel 2:2,
3-5,7-10
One
of the most prominent themes in Scripture is that God is with those who suffer.
It manifests itself in every book of the Bible in one way or another.
Heroes
are always the smallest, the morally compromised, the second born: Moses, chosen by God to be His chief
negotiator with Pharaoh, is a stutterer. Jacob, later to be renamed Israel and father
of the twelve tribes, was the second born and obtained his older brother’s birthright
and blessing by fraud. David, chosen to
be king of Israel, was out in a field shepherding sheep when the promising candidates
were lined up for selection.
Also,
God always concerns Himself with those the widows and the orphans. Jesus concerns himself with the sinners and
tax collectors, the prodigal sons, the lost sheep, the poor and the sick.
We’ve
heard this so often, the existential shock of it has worn off. Historically, God’s competition was Ba’al. According to the Canaanite mythology that Judaism
replaced, Ba’al was a fertility god and demanded the execution and immolation
of first born children to appease him. It
is said that the valley outside Jerusalem, Gehenna, stank from the smoking
pyres of human sacrifice. Ba’al, like
every pagan god before him, clearly favored the strong, the wealthy, and the powerful.
When,
in the fullness of time, God revealed himself, he announced that He was different. God favored those who could not defend themselves
and found themselves brought low.
This
is our God.