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, and the thing with Uria was pretty disgraceful.
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.