He hath scattered abroad those who were proud by reason of the thoughts of their hearts;
He hath cast princes down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly,
The hungry hath He filled with good things, and the rich hath He sent empty away.
In this, as all through the hymn, we have the flavor of Hebraistic forms of speech. In their poetical conceptions they did not think of God as an abstract being, but as having a mighty arm with which He swayed the nations and dashed their foolish plans in pieces, as one might break a potter’s vessel with a rod of iron. How little do men know the flimsiness of the schemes which they organize against the Lord and His anointed! The third and fourth lines of this stanza contain a double parallelism and a twofold antithesis. He casts down the kings and lifts up the lowly people; He fills to fullness the hungry, and sends the rich away empty.
In the fourth stanza we read:
He hath taken hold to help with Israel His servant,
In order that He might call to mind the mercy characteristic of His nature
(According as He hath spoken unto our fathers)
To Abraham and his seed for ever.
What a glorious conception this is of Israel, the hero of God, and who was not a servant, but a son, for that is the true meaning of the word rendered “servant.” The word is also one of endearment. And so we are reminded, in the second line, of His tender mercy. The only mercy of which He could have spoken to our fathers was His own, expressing itself in the whole scheme of salvation as revealed in the Bible. It was a peculiar plan of mercy revealed to Abraham and his spiritual descendants.