1 Samuel 2:7 Meaning Yahweh Makes Poor and Makes Rich

Aṭṭha Lokadhammā: The Eight Worldly Winds Eight conditions that swing the world back and forth, gain and loss among them. Poor and rich, low and lifted are two of those pairs, spoken here as one motion with a single hand doing both ends of it. Hannah, who came to Shiloh with her lips moving and no child, has stood at both ends and sings from that footing.

Anicca: Impermanence Every condition arises and passes. Poor and rich are stations on a wheel, not places to live; the full granary empties and the empty one fills. Peninnah's many children bought her a high seat for a season, and the season ended.

Kamma: Action and Its Fruit Deeds ripen into the conditions a life meets. Putting the lowering and the lifting under one law means neither arrives by accident: a fall is caused, and so is a rise. Hannah asked, received, and carried the boy back to Eli, and the giving belongs to the same account as the getting.

Māna: Conceit, the Habit of Measuring The reflex of ranking yourself above, level with, or beneath someone. Being poor stings mainly when another is standing beside you rich, and Peninnah stood beside Hannah year after year and provoked her with it. Once rise and fall come from the same source, the rungs stop working as a scorecard.

Anattā: Not-Self No station is owned by a self. Height, when it comes, is borrowed, and low ground is borrowed too; what stands on either is a bundle of changing conditions with nobody inside holding the deed. Hannah's fruitfulness came to her from outside and went out of her hands again on the temple steps.

Upekkhā: Equanimity Steadiness that holds while conditions move. Knowing that one hand makes poor and makes rich, you can take either without clamping down on it, the way a sailor keeps his footing while the deck rises and drops. Hannah sings this at the top of the swing, with the son in her arms and the vow being paid, which is the harder end at which to remember it.