9. He seats the barren woman in a house,
Joyous mother of children.1
Introduction
It is not unusual to encounter infertility. Perhaps you have walked through this yourself, or alongside friends and family who have. It may be a common prayer item at church, or in your daily prayers. It may be tempting to see this as a modern phenomenon, but the Bible attests in multiple places that it is not. For those Christians who have experienced infertility, names like Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth probably spring to mind. Each in their own time experienced infertility, and the psalm here addresses the topic. The psalmist at least intends to draw attention to one specific instance.
In part two of this series, we saw that God’s hand is not restrained from reaching the poor and needy in the dust and the dung, even though God is the transcendent God whom we saw in part one. But the psalmist does not end his consideration of the transcendent God reaching his people with the poor and needy. God’s hand also extends to the barren: “He seats the barren woman in a house, joyous mother of children” (v. 9).
What Does the Psalmist Mean? (Psalm 113 and 1 Samuel 2)
This may seem like an unexpected turn, but here the psalmist is likely reflecting on his own Bible. Verses 7–8 of the psalm, which we examined in part two of this series, are in fact taken from Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2:1–10. The psalmist draws upon these words of the barren woman praying to God. Thus verse 9 is likely alluding to or even summarizing the Hannah story.
Hannah, for those who may not recall, is the mother of Samuel. The books of Samuel begin with Hannah’s story. Though her husband has another wife with many children (1 Sam 1:2), Hannah has none because “YHWH had shut her womb” (v. 5). At the time of yearly pilgrimage to worship the Lord at Shiloh, she would weep over her barrenness, even intensely (vv. 7–8, 10). She brings this weeping to the Lord in prayer (v. 10), and she vows to give a potential son back to the Lord (v. 11). The Lord remembers her, and she conceives (vv. 19–20).
On the other side of this story Hannah prays again, and it is from this prayer that the psalmist draws (1 Sam 2:8). The psalmist evokes the story of Hannah when he writes verse 9: God is the one who “seats the barren in a house, joyous mother of children.” God’s work for his people does not overlook the barren. God did not overlook Hannah.
God sees. He sees the poor, the needy, and also the barren. The poor are often ignored, but the barren are only noticed by their lack. They might only be noticed by the silence and emptiness of their house.
But God saw Hannah, Rachel, and Elizabeth. And he sees you if you are struggling with infertility. But God does not just see, he provides. Here in this psalm, he is the one who “seats the barren in the house, joyous mother of children.”
Hannah herself speaks words about God’s work on behalf of the barren:
The full hired themselves out for bread,
and the hungry are fat forever.2
The barren bears seven,
And the woman of many children withers. (1 Sam 2:5)
Hannah points to God’s eschatological work of reversal. God works through unexpected means. In Genesis his promises come unexpectedly and through strife. The older serves the younger, the promised seed is delayed, and the barren Rachel gives birth.
These realities, however, are not exhausted or even fully accounted for by looking only to their immediate horizon. Hannah has the last day in view. Recall that Hannah is the mother of Samuel, the final judge of Israel. And yet she closes her prayer with,
YHWH, those who reproach him will be dismayed.
YHWH will thunder in the heavens for them.
He will judge the ends of the Earth
He will give strength to his king,
And he will exalt the horn of his messiah. (1 Sam 2:10)
Hannah anticipates the time of the King and Messiah and the time of the judgment of God. For Hannah, her answer to prayer is but a glimpse of the coming king. And when he comes, all will be made right.
Psalm 113, 1 Samuel 2, and the Messiah (Luke 1)
This may explain why Psalm 113 is not the only biblical song that draws on Hannah’s prayer. The Magnificat, or the song of Mary, also draws on it (Luke 1:46–55). While not identical, Mary praises God for seeing her humble estate, doing great things for her, scattering the proud, bringing down the mighty, exalting the humble, filling the hungry, and sending away the rich.
Mary sees the reversal that Hannah had glimpsed beginning to take place. The consummation of the Abrahamic promise was at hand (Luke 1:55). The raising of the poor and needy in Psalm 113, as well as the reversal of the fortune of the barren woman, both find their fulfillment in Jesus the coming king.
Jesus is the one who flips the script. He turns the page on barrenness. Elizabeth and Mary were both unlikely mothers, as Elizabeth was old and Mary not yet married. Elizabeth says of her pregnancy: “In this way the Lord has done for me, when he took notice of me to take away my reproach among men” (Luke 1:25). Jesus in his first advent begins to change the story of barren women.
The coming of Christ was accompanied by a breaking in of the world to come. Even the herald of Christ’s coming, John the Baptist, was born of a woman struggling with infertility. Jesus’ arrival reshaped the world that is passing away. What God has in store for the barren is the same thing he gave to Hannah and to Elizabeth, “to seat them in a home, a joyous mother of children.”
One example of the way God does this is Naomi in the book of Ruth. She was not barren, but she suffered the loss of sons. She was left with Ruth alone as she returned to her homeland. She even says, “YHWH brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:21), and that she should be called Mara, that is, “bitter.” She was empty, she had suffered the loss of children and husband, and she was bitter.
Yet, at the end of the book just before Naomi takes up Ruth’s child, the women say to her that the child “will become one who brings back your life, who sustains your gray hair. For your daughter-in-law who loves you, birthed him, he is better for you than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15). And when the neighborhood women give him a name they say, “A son is born for Naomi” (v. 17). God provided for Naomi through Ruth. God provided for Naomi in the baby Obed. And therein he provided for his people because Obed is the grandfather of David.
Barrenness Today
Infertility, as we know, is not just an Old Testament issue. The Bible does not give a pat answer to it either. You may pray, weep, and be bitter like Naomi. You may grieve. But the promise of Jesus remains sure:
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who left house, or brothers, or sisters, or mothers, or fathers, or children, or farms for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and farms with persecutions, and in the coming age, eternal life. And the many who will be first, last—and the last first.” (Mark 10:29–31)
What can our Savior mean, that the families, households, and farms will be replaced a hundredfold in this time? Certainly, the answer for the follower of Jesus is in the family of God, the church.3 Today those who struggle with infertility and who follow after Jesus have a joyous family in the church. Times untold have I heard young people wish for godly older Christians in their lives to disciple them. Perhaps your calling is to welcome the young in your church into your home. You might be surprised how many young Christians need you, your hospitality, your guidance, and your love.
There are literal orphans in need. We are a people who truly believe that “adoption is an act of God’s free grace whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of, the sons of God” (Westminster Confession of Faith 34). Ought we also not be a people who welcome orphans into our families and the family of God as we have been welcomed? We can, as those who have been adopted by God, extend that to orphans.
Conclusion
To close, the picture in Psalm 113 of God seating “the barren in a home, joyous mother of children” has a deep biblical theology behind it. It is part of the curse of this old fading world. But in the world to come, there is eternal life and the household of faith. We have the promise that the Lord Jesus will wipe away our tears (Isa 25:6, Rev 21:4). We know that when he comes, we will be with the family of God, praising God with the young we helped disciple and the children we adopted, and reunited with those we lost.
Our God is certainly a God who takes notice of the barren, who seats her in his house, who provides for her. The griefs we face will be wiped away. We will be seated in God’s house, and we will be joyous. And this is but another reason to say with the psalmist, “Hallelujah.”
Notes
- Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are the author’s translation.
- The Hebrew of this text is ambiguous. Many reconstructions have been suggested in place of “fat forever.”
- Even critical commentator Joel Markus follows this interpretation. Mark 8–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 27A, ABC. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 737–40.
©Luke Gossett. All Rights Reserved.
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Luke Gossett
Rev. Luke Gossett (MA Westminster Seminary California; MA and PhD Candidate, Catholic University of America) is the pastor of Ascension Presbyterian Church (a mission of the OPC Presbytery of the South) in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. His dissertation focuses on the linguistic functions of the Hebrew word for “now.” Luke has been married to his wife, Jennifer, since 2014, and they have three wonderful children.
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