Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Hear St. Bernard, epistle 118: “That,” he says, “is the true and only joy which is conceived not of the creature but of the Creator; and which, when you have it, no man shall take from you; compared with which every pleasure from elsewhere is a delay, every sweetness a delay, every sweet thing bitter, every beautiful thing foul, and, finally, whatever else could delight, burdensome.”
Origen adds, of Elcana: “As often as we rejoice in God, so often do we scourge the devil.”
2. NONE IS HOLY AS THE LORD IS.—Anna first celebrates the holiness of God, because this is the first and noblest attribute of God, on account of which He is most worthy of adoration and of all veneration, obedience, sacrifice and worship. Secondly, because God declared His holiness in this birth: both because He defended her innocence and probity against Phenenna the envious; both because He holily fulfilled the faith which all had tacitly given her concerning offspring to be born by miracle; and because He gave her Samuel, whom He was to make a most holy prophet and sanctifier of Israel; all of which flowed from the holiness of God, like rays from the sun, and were His gifts and benefits.
FOR THERE IS NO OTHER BESIDE THEE,—the true God, holy by essence, and uncreated and immense holiness itself, of which in the hymn of St. Augustine: “Thou only art holy.” The Septuagint render, There is none just as the Lord, where just may be taken as holy, or rather just, because He justly defends my innocence from slanderers.
AND THERE IS NONE STRONG LIKE OUR GOD.—For strong the Hebrew has tsur, that is, rock, on which we stand secure and safe against storms and hunters, according to Psalm 103, verse 18: “The rock is a refuge for the irchins.” From tsur is named Tyre, the most celebrated and best-fortified city of Phoenicia, because it was surrounded on every side by the sea, so that it was besieged by Nabuchodonosor for thirteen years, and taken by Alexander the Great only with difficulty. For Tyre is called tsur or sor, because it was built on a rock, and, like a promontory, stood opposed to the sea and the storms of the sea. Such a rock, such a tsur, such a Tyre to Anna and the pious is God, so that neither men, nor demons, nor lions, nor fires, nor torments, nor death are to be feared by them. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 61 on the Canticle: “The martyr stands exulting and triumphing, though his whole body be torn and the iron search his sides, not only bravely but gladly he beholds his sacred blood boiling forth from his flesh. Where then is the martyr’s soul? Surely in safety; surely in the rock; surely in the bowels of Jesus, whose wounds are open for entering. If it were in its own bowels, the iron searching them, it would surely feel it; but now, dwelling in the rock, what wonder if it has grown hard in the manner of the rock? and no wonder if, an exile from the body, it feels not the body’s pains. Nor is this done by stupor, but by love. For the sense is submitted, not lost.”
3. DO NOT MULTIPLY TO SPEAK LOFTY THINGS, BOASTING,—namely you, O Phenenna, and your sons and kinsfolk, who have proudly boasted of your fruitfulness and happiness, with scorn and contempt of me and mine. For lofty things the Hebrew has geboha geboha; the Chaldee, great things, great things; the Royal, high, high; Cajetan, loftiness, loftiness, that is, very high, lofty, great and sublime things, which surpass your powers. Whence others render: “Do not speak exalted eminent things”; Theodoret, “do not speak lofty things to the deed”; Origen, book 1 on Job: “Do not speak proud things in pride.”
LET (Hebrew, go out) OLD MATTERS DEPART FROM YOUR MOUTH,—namely the old proud speeches just mentioned, in which you were wont to boast and to insult me, a barren woman. The Chaldee for old things renders blasphemies; the Septuagint, big talk; others, a hard or proud word, according to Prudentius in the Psychomachia:
Cease to speak grandly; God breaks every proud thing. Lofty things fall, inflated things burst, swollen things are crushed.
And that of Nazianzen: “A wind distends empty bladders, a conceit of self distends fools.” She adds the cause, saying:
FOR THE LORD IS A GOD OF ALL KNOWLEDGE,—as if she said: Do not proudly vaunt yourselves and boast, because God knows and foresees all things, future as well as past and present, and connects them with one another; wherefore He knows that your glory is to be turned into ignominy, your happiness into unhappiness, your plenty into want, by His decree and punishment.
AND TO HIM ARE THOUGHTS PREPARED,—as if she said: To God are prepared, that is, open, known and present, your insolent and ambitious thoughts, that He may with His own contrary thoughts, that is, counsels, judgments and decrees, depress, overwhelm and chastise them. So God turned Nabuchodonosor, boasting in his Babylon, into a beast, Daniel chapter 4, and Baltasar his son, boasting at his feast, writing on the wall Mane, thecel, phares, the same night by Cyrus He slew, Daniel chapter 5.
“The Lord is therefore a God of all knowledge,” as if she said: God is most knowing, God knows all things, says the Chaldee; wherefore He knows the future as well as the present, namely that I, before barren, shall be fruitful, and Phenenna shall be barren; and therefore He is “the judge of consciences,” says St. Augustine, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4, so that He sees their proud thoughts, condemns, crushes and lays them low. God is the very sun of the sun, illuminating the sensible by the intelligible, says Philo, in the book On Offering Victims. Whence St. Augustine rightly warns, sermon 46 On the Words of the Lord: “He is to be feared in public, He in secret. Thou goest forth? thou art seen; the lamp burns? it sees thee; the lamp is put out? He sees thee. Thou enterest thy bedchamber? He sees thee. Fear Him whose care it is to see thee, and by fearing be chaste; or if thou wilt sin, seek where He does not see thee, and do it.” And Boethius, book 5 On the Consolation of Philosophy, Prose 6: “Turn away, then, from vices, cultivate virtues; a great necessity of uprightness is laid upon you, since you act before the eyes of a judge who beholds all things.”
Mystically St. Bernard, sermon 15 on the Canticle: “The origin,” he says, “of all springs and rivers is the sea; of virtues and knowledge, the Lord Jesus Christ. For who is the Lord of virtues, if not He who is the king of glory, yet also, according to the canticle of Anna, the same God is the Lord of knowledge. Continence of the flesh, industry of the heart, uprightness of the will flow from that fountain; and not only so, but if anyone is skilled in wit, if anyone shines in eloquence, if anyone pleases in morals, it is from thence; thence knowledge, thence the word of wisdom; for there are all the treasures of wisdom hidden.” Moreover God is called in Greek Theos from theasthai, because He sees all things; whence the Egyptians called God the eye of the world. Hear St. Augustine, epistle 37 to Fortunatus: “God is all eye, all hand, and all foot, because He sees all things, works all things and is everywhere.” See what was said on Ecclesiasticus chapter 16, verse 16 and following, and chapter 24, verse 19.
AND TO HIM ARE THOUGHTS PREPARED,—as if she said: To God all the thoughts of men and angels lie open, and by Him they are directed, tempered, fulfilled, or broken and crushed. It is God who directs and perfects the things we think, desire, vaunt, or scatters and overturns them, as He fulfilled my desires of fruitfulness, but dissipated and destroyed the envious and arrogant thoughts of Phenenna. For prepared the Hebrew has nitkenu, that is, are weighed, numbered, balanced, measured, as if she said: God measures our thoughts, and sees whether they are too great or too small, just or unjust, wise or foolish, that He may know whose thoughts, when and how He ought to fulfil, whose not to fulfil, for example to accomplish Anna’s desires, not Phenenna’s, as if she said: I praise God who accomplishes the things I thought and desired; in Him therefore I glory, not in myself, because the barrenness which I could not overcome by my own strength He by His divine power overcame and scattered. This is what Solomon says, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 2: “All the ways of a man are open to his eyes: the Lord is the weigher of spirits”; where I have said much on this subject.
Secondly, thoughts here can be taken to mean not only those of men but also of God Himself, as the Septuagint render. God, it says, preparing His devices; and the Chaldee, The Lord, it says, extending judgment over all His work, as if she said: It is God’s to accomplish not only what we think and desire, but also what He Himself thinks and desires about us; for often He thinks and wills otherwise than we think and will, and then He does what He Himself thinks and wills, not what we do; as here He thought to make Anna fruitful and exalt her, not Phenenna. Whence the Chaldee renders: He will repay you the vengeance of your faults; Theodotion, God preparing His exercises, that is, fulfilling His counsels; Symmachus, there are no pretexts and excuses with God; Vatablus, His endeavours are accomplished; Pagninus, by Him are works directed, that is, they attain the end to which they are directed by Him. For God measures His thoughts and wills by His omnipotence, which is as great as His will and intellect; wherefore all that He thinks and wills He can accomplish, and in fact does accomplish; whereas we will many things which we cannot accomplish. The sense, therefore, is as if she said: “He is a God of knowledge,” because He knows the future as well as the present, nay, He Himself orders and disposes all things rightly and justly; for He prepares thoughts, that is, so as to depress the insolent and puffed-up, such as Phenenna, and to console and exalt the humble and wretched, such as I was, as He exalted Sara, barren, while the insolent Agar was humbled; wherefore let no proud man trust in present prosperity, let no humble and wretched man despair in adversity; because God will exchange the lots and fortunes of both, making these happy and those unhappy.