1 Samuel 2:8

He—lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, &c.— The author of the Observations remarks, that dried dung being usually burnt in the East, heaps of this sort of turf were commonly laid up in their cottages. Hence he thinks the present expression is elucidated; "He raiseth a beggar from a dunghill, out of a cottage, that is, in which heaps of dried dung are piled up for fuel, as some of the worst accommodated of the poor practise with respect to the turf of this country: or rather, he raiseth up a poor exile, forced to beg his bread in his wanderings, and to lodge in some out-house where dung is laid up, out of the city, in order to set him on the throne of a royal palace, built in the midst of it." When Hannah says, that the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, she urges a strong reason in proof of all she had advanced; namely, that GOD, being the founder, supporter, and upholder of the earth itself, could certainly do with the inhabitants of it as he pleased. The true meaning of the word rendered pillars, מצקי metzukei, is somewhat doubtful. It seems to express those grand instruments, whatever they be, of supporting and retaining in its orbit the globe of the earth. But did it signify pillars, as we have rendered it, every one sees that the word must be understood in a figurative sense.