Later text
1 Samuel 2:5BSB
The well-fed hire themselves out for food, but the starving hunger no more. The barren woman gives birth to seven, but she who has many sons pines away.
Intertextuality Pair
1 Samuel 2:5 → Genesis 29:31
Echo
Earlier text
When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.
Significance
Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2:5 declares that "the barren woman gives birth to seven" (עֲקָרָה יָלְדָה שִׁבְעָה, aqarah yaldah shiv'ah), echoing the theme established in Genesis 29:31 where "the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, so He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren" (עֲקָרָה, aqarah). Both texts demonstrate God's sovereign reversal of barrenness and His pattern of favoring the overlooked. Hannah, like Rachel, experienced the disgrace of barrenness before divine intervention; her song generalizes her personal experience into a theological principle: YHWH reverses human hierarchies, exalting the lowly and humbling the proud. This pattern of the barren woman bearing children becomes a canonical motif pointing to God's grace operating through human impossibility.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Echo
- Connection Method(s)
- Longitudinal Theme
Linked Mentions 1