Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
UNTIL THE BARREN HATH BORNE MANY.—This sentence depends on verse 4; for she now celebrates the power of God weakening the strong and strengthening the weak, and assigns to it something eminent and as it were supreme. And this is what “until” signifies; for in its place the Hebrew has ad, for which the Septuagint render, because; the Chaldee, even; Vatablus, so that. The sense is therefore as if she said: God, most powerful, often weakens the strong and strengthens the weak, until, that is, to such a degree that He makes a barren woman, such as I was, bear seven, that is, many sons; and to a fruitful woman abounding in sons, such as Phenenna was, let bearing thenceforth cease, so that she become barren, nay gradually take away the offspring already begotten, or make them poor, wretched and weak. So St. Jerome in the Questions, Abulensis, Vatablus, Jansenius. The Hebrews relate that as many sons of Phenenna died as were born to Anna, so that when Samuel, Anna’s firstborn, was born, Phenenna’s firstborn died, and so on thereafter; but St. Jerome and others refute this. The word until signifies the extreme and highest degree of a thing, 1 Kings chapter 30, 4: “They wept until tears failed them.” And 2 Kings 23, 10, of Eleazar: “He smote the Philistines until his hand failed.” And 3 Kings chapter 18, verse 28, of the priests of Baal: “They cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till they were all covered with blood.” Wisdom 10, 13, of Joseph: “She forsook him not, till she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom.”
For many the Hebrew has seven. Whence Josephus says that Anna bore seven sons; but in verse 21 only five are numbered, so that, with Samuel added, they are six. Some Rabbis substitute for Samuel his two sons, that Anna’s offspring may be seven. Again Rabbi Solomon assigns two of Phenenna’s sons to Anna, that she may have seven, and that because as often as Anna bore, two sons of Phenenna always died. And since only two remained, these she preserved at Anna’s request by her prayers: but these are their fables, as Origen calls them in the homily.
I say, therefore, according to the letter: Anna bore seven, that is, many sons. For the number seven is the symbol of multitude. Anna, inspired by the Holy Spirit, prophesies of the sons whom she was to bear, verse 21.
Allegorically, Phenenna signifies the Synagogue of the Jews, which has now ceased to bear sons to God; Anna the Church of Christians, which brings forth very many sons to God from all nations. Whence the Chaldee renders, the barren shall be filled with offspring, namely very many.
So Origen, Theodoret, Procopius and St. Augustine, book 17 On the City of God, chapter 4. Symbolically, the Cabalists say: Anna bore seven, because Samuel and sheba, that is, seven, express by their letters the same number, namely 311. More sublimely Philo, in the book That God is Unchangeable: The number seven, he says, is the symbol of most perfect rest and of the sabbath; whence it signifies a man resting and quiet in God, such as Samuel was: “For Samuel,” he says, “enrolled in the order of the ministers of God alone, serving no one else, is honoured by the one who is; because this is the state of the sevenfold soul resting in God, and occupied with no mortal business.”
Tropologically Eucherius: “Samuel,” he says, “was such a holy man, he is the equal of many, because he is of more weight with God, and obtains more from Him than many others,” according to Ecclesiasticus 16, 3: “Better is one that feareth God, than a thousand impious children.” See what is said there. Hear St. Chrysostom, homily 40 to the People: “Elias,” he says, “was one; but the whole world was not worthy to be weighed against him. And the world, indeed, is countless thousands, but they are not thousands, since they do not come up to the measure of one.”
And Philo, in the book On the Decalogue, asking why God says in the singular: “Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery,” answers: “Because whoever obeys God and His laws is equal to a very numerous people, or rather to all nations, nay to the whole world.” Again: “Among men,” he says, “an unjust multitude is valued more than one just man; but with God rare goodness is preferred to countless wicked.”
Moreover the sinful soul, and therefore barren of good works, bears very many when, repenting, it produces many acts of faith, hope, penance, almsgiving, charity and other virtues: and conversely the holy soul, which abounded in good works, when it falls into mortal sin, becomes so barren that it not only bears no good works and merits, but also scatters and destroys the past ones. Hear St. Basil on chapter 1 of Isaias, on the words: Strangers devour your land. “See,” he says, “some young man brought up from boyhood within the house; going forth eagerly and zealously to prayer, passing over no office of beneficence, mindful of that eternal judgment, constantly resting in the word of doctrine: such a one, then, consider for me fallen into fornication. How wretched he is, in what manner! A complete change of his former labours follows him close. The conscience of the crime committed no longer accompanies him to bring him to the place of prayer: he does not stand in the assembly of those who weep in secret retirement. He becomes more hesitant to prayer. At last meditation gradually insinuates itself into his mind that he fall away from his purpose. At last he is led by various windings of errors to complete perdition.” To this Origen, homily On Elcana: “Barren,” he says, “was my soul in me, it bore not the fruit of justice; but now, when through faith of Christ it has merited the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord has filled it, it is certain that the barren soul has borne. Fruitful, he says, in offspring was my flesh, having very many fruits of the flesh: fornication, uncleanness, impudicity, idolatry, etc. This was the numerous progeny of our flesh: but when we came to the faith of the cross of Christ, and began to bear about the mortification of Jesus in our body, and to mortify our members which are upon the earth, and to present them to serve justice and sobriety; then the fruitfulness of this shameful generation was shut out, and in this way she who was fruitful in children was weakened.”
Finally, “The barren woman,” says St. Francis, “is the poor little humble and holy religious, who has not the office of begetting sons in the Church. He shall bear many in the judgment, because those whom he now converts to Christ by private prayers and the example of a good life, the judge will then ascribe to the glory of that man. She that hath many children shall be weakened; because the vain and talkative preacher, who now rejoices in many begotten as if by his own power, will then know that he has nothing of his own in them.” So the Annals of Wadding, in the year of Christ.
6. THE LORD KILLETH AND MAKETH ALIVE, HE BRINGETH DOWN TO HELL AND BRINGETH BACK AGAIN.—First, when He raises the dead to life: likewise when the souls of the fathers from the nether regions ... the laver, we are regenerated to life by the spirit.” And a little after: “We are in a manner slain,” he says, “when we cease to be what we were; for by a new kind of piety in one and the same man the impious man and adulterer is slain, that the merciful and chaste may be born again. Idolatry is destroyed, that religion may be propagated. The fornicator and drunkard is extinguished, that the continent and sober may be begotten. So then the Lord mortifies that He may make alive: so He slays that He may profit: so He scourges that He may amend. This is therefore all His severity toward His own, that in them sins may be punished, the soul preserved, detestable vices taken away, and the best virtues nourished.”
Hear St. Gregory here: “To lead down to hell,” he says, “is to terrify the hearts of sinners by the consideration of eternal torments; to bring back is to lift up the terrified minds of the penitent with the hope of unfailing life. For we then cease to sin when we dread the torments to come.”
7. THE LORD MAKETH POOR AND MAKETH RICH, HE HUMBLETH AND EXALTETH.—For God makes this man poor, that one rich; this man humble and abject, that one lofty and exalted; nay, one and the same God ... the nether regions, that is, out of limbo through Christ rising—poor and abject, soon rich and sublime He led out, says Theodoret, and when He translates souls purged from purgatory to heaven; whence—He makes, especially when He humbles the proud and exalts the humbled.
the Chaldee renders, He leads down from the nether regions to the lives of eternity.
8. HE RAISETH UP THE NEEDY FROM THE DUST, AND FROM THE DUNGHILL.—Again, when He sends a deadly sickness upon the healthy, and then restores health and life to them when penitent and supplicating, as He did to king Ezechias, Isaias chapter 38. Secondly, when He permits one to be afflicted with so many troubles that he is almost forced to die, and afterwards, having been humbled, delivers him from them and prospers him. Thirdly, when He makes a barren woman, as Anna was, fruitful, and as it were quickens her in children. For the barren woman is like a dry and dead tree, according to Isaias 56, 3: “Let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree.” And the Apostle, Romans 4, 19, speaking of Abraham, old, and Sara, barren: “And he was not weak in faith; neither did he consider his own body now dead, whereas he was almost an hundred years old, nor the dead womb of Sara.” And Ezechiel chapter 17, verse 24: “I have dried up the green tree, and have caused the dry tree to flourish.” So God, by stripping trees of leaves in winter and drying them, seems to mortify them, and in spring by making them leaf again to quicken them.
Allegorically, God mortifies the Synagogue of the Jews, and quickens the Church of Christians, says St. Gregory, Bede, Angelomus.
TO RAISE UP THE POOR.—Pagninus: He exalteth the beggar, that he may sit with princes and hold the throne of glory. So Job, stripped of all goods and of health itself, and sitting on a dunghill, He raised up, and restored to the former glory of his kingdom, nay doubled it. So Saul He raised from the asses to the sceptre; so David from the sheep and their dung He lifted to the glory of the kingdom of Israel. So Joseph from prison He raised to the principate of Egypt. Mystically St. Gregory: God raises the sinner from the dust, when from venial fault, from the dunghill, when from mortal fault, he raises him by penance to grace.