Samuel said to all Israel, “Behold, I have listened to your voice in all that you said to me, and have made a king over you.
Parallel Translations
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Samuel said to all Israel, “Behold, I have listened to your voice in all that you said to me, and have made a king over you.
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And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you.
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And Samuel said unto all Israel: 'Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to 1 Samuel 12:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Samuel 10:24 Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom Yahweh has chosen, that there is no one like him among all the people?” All the people shouted, and said, “Long live the king!”
- 1 Samuel 11:14-15 Then Samuel said to the people, “Come! Let’s go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there.” All the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before Yahweh in Gilgal. There they offered sacrifices of peace offerings before Yahweh; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.
- 1 Samuel 10:1 Then Samuel took the vial of oil, and poured it on his head, and kissed him, and said, “Hasn’t Yahweh anointed you to be prince over his inheritance?
- 1 Samuel 8:5-8 They said to him, “Behold, you are old, and your sons don’t walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” Samuel prayed to Yahweh. Yahweh said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they tell you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, in that they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so they also do to you.
- 1 Samuel 8:19-22 But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No; but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of Yahweh. Yahweh said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice, and make them a king.” Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go to your own city.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain I have granted your petition.
I have granted your petition.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 1Sa 12:1 And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold,…
1Sa 12:1 And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you.
Ver. 1. And Samuel said unto all Israel] In this most excellent chapter the people giveth testimony to Samuel’s innocency, heareth his wisdom, seeth his patience, admireth his power with God.
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Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice.] Which was so violent and impetuous. Now you must hearken to my voice, and be told that after your peace offerings God hath still a quarrel with you, and you must be yet further humbled, or else your sin will find you out, your iniquity will be your ruin. Great sins must be greatly repented of: otherwise men shall find that God may be angry enough with them, though they outwardly prosper.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Samuel said this to all Israel, whilst they were…
Samuel said this to all Israel, whilst they were assembled together in Gilgal. And this is another instance of Samuel’s great wisdom and integrity. He would not reprove the people for their sin, in desiring a king, whilst Saul was raw, and weak, and unsettled in his kingdom, and in the people’s hearts, lest through their accustomed levity they should as hastily cast off their king as they had passionately desired him, and so add one sin to another; and therefore he chooseth this season for it; partly because Saul’s kingdom was now confirmed and illustrated by an eminent victory, and so the danger of rejecting him was out of doors; which circumstance was also considerable for Samuel’s vindication, that it might appear that his following reproof did not proceed from any selfish respects or desires, which he might be supposed to have of retaining the power in his own hands, but merely from the conscience of his duty, and a sincere desire of all their good: and partly because the people rejoiced greatly, as is said in the next foregoing verse; and upon this occasion applauded themselves for their desires of a king; and interpreted the success which God had now given them, as a Divine approbation of those desires; whereby they were like to be hardened in their impenitency, and might be drawn to many other inconveniencies. Samuel therefore thinks fit to temper their excessive joys, and to excite them to that repentance and holy fear which he saw wanting in them, and which he knew to be absolutely necessary, to prevent the curse of God upon their new king, and the whole kingdom.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here, I. Samuel gives them a short account of…
Here, I. Samuel gives them a short account of the late revolution, and of the present posture of their government, by way of preface to what he had further to say to them, Sa1 12:1, Sa1 12:2. 1. For his own part, he had spent his days in their service; he began betimes to be useful among them, and had continued long so: "I have walked before you, as a guide to direct you, as a shepherd that leads his flock (Psa 80:1), from my childhood unto this day." As soon as he was illuminated with the light of prophecy, in his early days, he began to be a burning and shining light to Israel; "and now my best days are done: I am old and gray-headed;" therefore they were the more unkind to cast him off, yet therefore he was the more willing to resign, finding the weight of government heavy upon his stooping shoulders. He was old, and therefore the more able to advise them, and the more observant they should have been of what he said, for days shall speak and the multitude of years shall teach wisdom; and there is a particular reverence due to the aged, especially aged magistrates and aged ministers. "I am old, and therefore not likely to live long, perhaps may never have an opportunity of speaking to you again, and therefore take notice of what I say." 2. As for his sons, "Behold" (says he), "they are with you, you may, if you please, call them to an account for any thing they have done amiss. They are present with you, and have not, upon this revolution, fled from their country. They are upon the level with you, subjects to the new king as well as you; if you can prove them guilty of any wrong, you may prosecute them now by a due course of law, punish them, and oblige them to make restitution." 3. As for their new king, Samuel had gratified them in setting him over them (Sa1 12:1): "I have hearkened to your voice in all that you said to me, being desirous to please you, if possible, and make you easy, though to the discarding of myself and family; and now will you hearken to me, and take my advice?" The change was now perfected: "Behold, the king walketh before you" (Sa1 12:2); he appears in public, ready to serve you in public business. Now that you have made yourselves like the nations in your civil government, and have cast off the divine administration in that, take heed lest you make yourselves like the nations in religion and cast off the worship of God.
II. He solemnly appeals to them concerning his own integrity in the administration of the government (Sa1 12:3): Witness against me, whose ox have I taken? Observe,
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1. His design in this appeal. By this he intended, (1.) To convince them of the injury they had done him in setting him aside, when they had nothing amiss to charge him with (his government had no fault but that it was too cheap, too easy, too gentle), and also of the injury they had done themselves in turning off one that did not so much as take an ox or an ass from them, to put themselves under the power of one that would take from them their fields and vineyards, nay, and their very sons and daughters (Sa1 8:11), so unlike would the manner of the king be from Samuel's manner. (2.) To preserve his own reputation. Those that heard of Samuel's being rejected as he was would be ready to suspect that certainly he had done some evil thing, or he would never have been so ill treated; so that it was necessary for him to make this challenge, that it might appear upon record that it was not for any iniquity in his hands that he was laid aside, but to gratify the humour of a giddy people, who owned they could not have a better man to rule them, only they desired a bigger man. There is a just debt which every man owes to his own good name, especially men in public stations, which is to guard it against unjust aspersions and suspicions, that we may finish our course with honour as well as joy. (3.) As he designed hereby to leave a good name behind him, so he designed to leave his successor a good example before him; let him write after his copy, and he will write fair. (4.) He designed, in the close of his discourse, to reprove the people, and therefore he begins with a vindication of himself; for he that will, with confidence, tell another of his sin, must see to it that he himself be clear.
2. In the appeal itself observe,
(1.) What it is that Samuel here acquits himself from. [1.] He had never, under any pretence whatsoever, taken that which was not his own, ox or ass, had never distrained their cattle for tribute, fines, or forfeitures, nor used their service without paying for it. [2.] He had never defrauded those with whom he dealt, nor oppressed those that were under his power. [3.] He had never taken bribes to pervert justice, nor was ever biassed by favour for affection to give judgment in a cause against his conscience.
(2.) How he calls upon those that had slighted him to bear witness concerning his conduct: "Here I am; witness against me. If you have any thing to lay to my charge, do it before the Lord and the king, the proper judges." He puts honour upon Saul, by owning himself accountable to him if guilty of any wrong.
III. Upon this appeal he is honourably acquitted. He did not expect that they would do him honour at parting, though he well deserved it, and therefore mentioned not any of the good services he had done them, for which they ought to have applauded him, and returned him the thanks of the house; all he desired was that they should do him justice, and that they did (Sa1 12:4) readily owning, 1. That he had not made his government oppressive to them, nor used his power to their wrong. 2. That he had not made it expensive to them: Neither hast thou taken aught of any man's hand for the support of thy dignity. Like Nehemiah, he did not require the bread of the governor (Neh 5:18), had not only been righteous, but generous, had coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel, Act 20:33.
IV. This honourable testimony borne to Samuel's integrity is left upon record to his honour (Sa1 12:5): "The Lord is witness, who searcheth the heart, and his anointed is witness, who trieth overt acts;" and the people agree to it: "He is witness." Note, The testimony of our neighbours, and especially the testimony of our own consciences for us, that we have in our places lived honestly, will be our comfort under the slights and contempts that are put upon us. Demetrius is a happy man, that has a good report of all men and of the truth itself, Jo3 1:12.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And Samuel said unto all Israel,.... When assembled at…
And Samuel said unto all Israel,.... When assembled at Gilgal, after they had recognized Saul as their king, and he was established in the kingdom, and while in the midst of their mirth and joy:
behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye have said unto me; respecting the affair of a king, to which it must be limited, as appears by what follows; otherwise it is possible, in some things they might apply to him about, he did not think fit to hearken to them, and grant their request, or speak for them:
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and have made a king over you; that is, had by the direction and appointment of God chosen one by lot, anointed and declared him king; for it was the Lord alone, that, properly speaking, made him a king.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Samuel clears himself from all imputation of abusing the…
Samuel clears himself from all imputation of abusing the power which he now resigns to Saul, ver. 1-5. He reminds them of the great things God had done, ver. 6-13. He sets before them the blessing and the curse, ver. 14, 15. He calls upon God for thunder, ver. 16-19. He encourages and exhorts them, ver. 20-25.
Said - While they were assembled together in Gilgal. And this is another instance of Samuel's great wisdom and integrity. He would not reprove the people for their sin, in desiring a king, whilst Saul was unsettled in his kingdom; lest through their accustomed levity, they should as hastily cast off their king, as they had passionately desired him, and therefore he chuseth this season for it; because Saul's kingdom was now confirmed by an eminent victory; and because the people rejoiced greatly, applauded themselves for their desires of a king; and interpreted the success which God had given them, as a divine approbation of those desires. Samuel therefore thinks fit to temper their joys, and to excite them to that repentance which he saw wanting in them, and which he knew to be necessary, to prevent the curse of God upon their new king, and the whole kingdom.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Samuel, grown old, testifies his integrity before the people,
CHAPTER XII
Samuel, grown old, testifies his integrity before the people,
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which they confirm, 1-5.
He reproves them for their ingratitude and disobedience; and
gives a summary of the history of their fathers, 6-12.
He exhorts them to future obedience, and calls for a sign from
heaven to confirm his authority, and to show them their
disobedience: God sends an extraordinary thunder and rain,
13-19.
He warns them against idolatry, and exhorts to obedience, and
promises to intercede for them, 20-23.
Sums up their duty, and concludes with a solemn warning, 24, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Verse 1. And Samuel said] It is very likely that it was at this public meeting Samuel delivered the following address; no other time seems to be given for it, and this is the most proper that could be chosen.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 1Sa 12:1. Samuel said unto all Israel — While…
1Sa 12:1. Samuel said unto all Israel — While they were assembled together in Gilgal. And this is another instance of Samuel’s great wisdom and integrity. He would not reprove the people for their sin, in desiring a king, while Saul was unsettled in his kingdom; lest, through their accustomed levity, they should as hastily cast off their king, as they had passionately desired him; and therefore he chooseth this season for it, because Saul’s kingdom was now confirmed by an eminent victory, and because the people rejoiced greatly, applauded themselves for their desires of a king, and interpreted the success which God had given them as a divine approbation of those desires. Samuel, therefore, thinks fit to temper their joys, and to excite them to that repentance which he saw wanting in them, and which he knew to be necessary to prevent the curse of God upon their new king and the whole kingdom.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain You. He speaks with the authority of a prophet,…
You. He speaks with the authority of a prophet, (Calmet) and takes this opportunity to draw from the whole people a confession of his integrity, that the kings might follow the pattern which he had set them. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain II. Samuel’s solemn concluding Transaction with the Assembly of…
II. Samuel’s solemn concluding Transaction with the Assembly of the People at Gilgal
1Sa_12:1-25
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1And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold I have hearkened unto your voice in 2all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you, and I am old and gray-headed,1 and behold, my sons [my sons, behold, they] are with you, and I have walked before you from my 3childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am. Witness against me before the Lord [Jehovah] and before his Anointed: whose ox have I taken? or, whose ass have I taken? or, whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or, of whose hand have I received any [a] bribe to blind mine eyes therewith?2 and I will 4restore it you. And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither 5hast thou taken aught of any man’s hand. And he said unto them, The Lord is [Jehovah be] witness against you, and his Anointed is [be] witness this day, that ye have not found aught in my hand. And they3 answered [said], He is witness 6[Witness be they]. And Samuel said unto the people, It is [om. it is] the Lord [Jehovah]4 that [who] advanced [appointed] Moses and Aaron, and that [who] brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt!
7Now, therefore, [And now] stand still [stand forth] that I may [and I will] reason with you before the Lord [Jehovah]5 of all the righteous acts of the Lord 8[Jehovah] which he did to you and to your fathers. When Jacob was come [came] into Egypt, and6 your fathers cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], then the Lord [Jehovah] sent Moses and Aaron, which [and they] brought forth [om. forth] 9your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. And when [om. when] they forgat the Lord [Jehovah] their God, [ins. and] he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor,7 and into the hand of the Philistines,10and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. And they cried unto the Lord [Jehovah] and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord [Jehovah], and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth; but [and] now 11deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee. And the Lord [Jehovah] sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan,8 and Jephthah, and Samuel,8 and delivered 12you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe. And when ye saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when the Lord [Jehovah] your God was your king.
13Now, therefore, [And now] behold the king whom ye have chosen, and [om. and] whom ye have desired [demanded];9 and behold, the Lord [Jehovah] hath set a 14king over you. If ye will fear the Lord [Jehovah], and serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord [Jehovah], then shall [om. then shall, ins. and] both ye and also [om. also] the king that reigneth over you [ins. will] continue following [follow] the Lord [Jehovah] your God, well.10 15But if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord [Jehovah], but rebel against the commandment of the Lord [Jehovah], then shall the hand of the Lord [Jehovah] 16be against you, as it was against your fathers.11 Now, therefore, [And now] stand 17and see this great thing, which the Lord [Jehovah] will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest to-day? I will call unto the Lord [Jehovah], and he shall [will] send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive [know] and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight [eyes] of the Lord [Jehovah] 18in asking you a king. So [And] Samuel called unto the Lord [Jehovah], and the Lord [Jehovah] sent thunder and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the Lord [Jehovah] and Samuel.
19And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord [Jehovah] thy God that we die not; for we have added unto all our sins this evil, 20to ask us a king. And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not. Ye have done all this wickedness; yet turn not aside from following the Lord [Jehovah], but serve 21the Lord [Jehovah] with all your heart; And turn ye not aside, for12 then should ye go [om. for then should ye go] after vain things, which cannot [do not] profit nor 22deliver, for they are vain. For the Lord [Jehovah] will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake; because it hath pleased the Lord [Jehovah] to make 23you his people. Moreover [om. moreover] as for me [ins. also], God forbid that I should [om. God forbid that I should, ins. far be it from me to] sin against the Lord [Jehovah] in ceasing to pray for you,13 but I will teach you the good and 24the [om. the] right way.14 Only fear the Lord [Jehovah] and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider [see] how great things [how greatly] he hath 25done [wrought] for you [towards you]. But if ye shall still [om. still] do wickedly, ye shall be consumed [destroyed] both ye and your king.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Sa_12:1. And Samuel said to all Israel. That the following words were really spoken by Samuel is put beyond doubt by the direct impression of historical truth which this narrative in chap. 12 makes, and by the homogeneity of the individual historical features of this picture with the historical picture given us in all that precedes. Ewald (Gesch. [History of Israel] I., 229, Rem. 2) calls this a narrative “which in its present form is inserted only for the sake of the exhortations to be put into Samuel’s mouth, and the occasional historical statements of which sound very discrepant,” against which we remark: 1) that the historical statements in this piece, as the exposition will show, do not at all contradict the foregoing historical account, and 2) that if a mere insertion had been intended here, in order to put exhortations into Samuel’s mouth, it would have been simpler to give it in the form of a monologue; that is, a continuous address of Samuel to the people.—We have here, namely, not one continuous address of Samuel, as this section is usually called, but a dialogue, a conversation or transaction with the people in the grandest style. Samuel speaks to all Israel, and they speak to him by the mouth of their elders (cf. 1Sa_12:3-6; 1Sa_12:19-20), and the longer connected declarations of the prophet (1Sa_12:7-17; 1Sa_12:20-25) are embraced by these colloquies and attached to them.—Incorrect also is the usual designation of this section as a parting-address, whereby its significance in relation to the preceding account of Saul’s public solemn presentation to the whole people as king of Israel is obscured or concealed. Samuel does not take leave of the people in order to withdraw from the scene of public life and action into the retirement of private life; he rather promises the continuance not only of his intercession for them, but also of his prophetic labors in respect to the whole people; he points expressly to the elevated position which he will assume, as “teacher of the good and right way,” hereafter, as now, towards king and people.—Further, when the whole procedure, as is common, is regarded as a solemn resignation of office by Samuel, we must call attention to the fact mentioned in 1Sa_7:15, that he “judged Israel all the days of his life,” and to the vigorous interference which he repeatedly found necessary during Saul’s government. Certainly with the incoming of the kingdom, which the people desired instead of the existing judgeship (1Sa_8:5; 1Sa_8:20) in order that the king might judge the people and lead them in war, the official position which Samuel had hitherto occupied as judge in Israel, must have had an end; and this end of his proper judicial office, sole and highest Governor of Israel as he had hitherto been, is the starting-point for what he has now still to say to the people. He remains in fact what he was, the highest judge of Israel according to the will of God, under whose oversight and guidance the kingdom also stands; officially the leadership for external and internal political affairs, for which the kingdom was established, is no longer in his hands. Of a resignation of office nothing is said, but (proceeding only from the fact that the government is now given into the hands of the king, and his official government as judge has now consequently come to an end) he passes in review his previous official life as judge of the people, in order, over against the fulfilment of their desire for a king, which was a factual rejection of his official judgeship externally occasioned by the evil conduct of his sons (1Sa_8:1-7), solemnly to testify and cause them to testify that he had filled his office blamelessly and righteously. On this follows (1Sa_12:7-12) the rebuking reference to the great deeds of the Lord, wherein in the history of His guidance of the people He had magnified Himself in them, and to the guilty relation of ingratitude and unfaithfulness in which they had placed themselves to this their God and king by the longing after an earthly king, which was a rejection of His authority over them. In 1Sa_12:13-18, after a solemn confirmation of the fact, that God the Lord in accordance with that desire had given them a king, in powerful words, which are accompanied and strengthened by an astounding miracle, he exhorts king and people together to the right relation, in which in faithful obedience they are to put themselves, to the will and word of the Lord. King and people are to be obedient subjects of the invisible king. Finally follows (1Sa_12:19-25) a word of consolation from Samuel to the people now, in consequence of this warning and hortatory address, repentantly confessing their sin in their demand for a king, in which he gently and in friendly fashion exhorts them to obedience and faithfulness towards the Lord (1Sa_12:20-21), promises them the Lord’s grace and faithfulness (1Sa_12:22), and assures them of his continuing active fellowship with them in intercession and in instruction in the way of truth (1Sa_12:23), and finally with repeated exhortation and warning sets before them the blessing and good pleasure of the Lord along with a threatening reference to the punishment to be expected in case of disobedience (1Sa_12:24-25).—With this fourfold division this whole dialoguic transaction of Samuel with the people connects itself immediately with what precedes, as the conclusion of the assembly of the people in Gilgal. On this connection see Thenius’ remarks. Berlenberger Bible: “Thus with this ends in solemn wise the general assembly of the people.” [Philippson (in Israel. Bib.): “This chapter is one of the finest in the book, and is a model of old-Hebrew eloquence. Words and tone speak for the high antiquity of this piece.”—Tr.]
The words: See, I have hearkened to your voice in all that ye said to me correspond exactly to the words in 1Sa_8:7; 1Sa_8:21. Samuel at the same time testifies indirectly to the fact that he had therein obeyed the command of God: “Hearken to the voice of the people” (1Sa_8:7; 1Sa_8:9; 1Sa_8:22). His listening to the voice of the people was based on the repeated divine command, and was an act of self-denying obedience to the will of the Lord.—“And I have made a king” points to 1Sa_12:15 a of the preceding chapter.
1Sa_12:2. Walketh is to be understood not merely of leading in war, but in general of the official guidance and government of the people. The “and I” introduces the contrast between the Hitherto and the Now. I am grown old and gray-headed points to the words of the elders, 1Sa_8:5. As the people by the mouth of their elders there take occasion from his age to ask a king for themselves, so Samuel here refers back to it, in order not only to point out that this their demand was fulfilled, since he in fact by reason of his age could no longer hold in his hands the internal and external control of the people, but at the same time, in view of the termination of his office and the beginning of the royal rule, to give account of the righteous character of his long career. The reference to his sons as occupying official positions is not to be regarded (Thenius, Keil, et al.) as a confirmation of his age, but looking to 1Sa_8:1 (where it is expressly said that Samuel on account of his age had made his sons judges over Israel, that is, his assistants in the judicial office) rather as a confirmation of the declaration that this change in the government must needs have taken place by reason of his age, which had already necessitated the substitution of his sons. [It is clearly wrong to suggest (Bib. Com. in loco) that “a tinge of mortified feeling at the rejection of himself and his family, mixed with a desire to recommend his sons to the favor and good-will of the nation, is at the bottom of this mention of them.” There is no trace here of mortification or favor-seeking. Samuel stands throughout above the people, and promises his continued friendship and watch-care, while he cordially accepts the change of the government.—Tr.]. What Samuel here affirms of his official career stands in direct contrast with what is said in 1Sa_8:3 of the blameworthy official conduct of these sons, since it is inconceivable that he did not know, and now have in mind the covetousness and perversion of judgment and the resulting discontent of the people, which was a cofactor in their desire for a royal government. The mode as well as the fact and content of the following self-justification naturally suggest the statement in 1Sa_8:3, and lead to the conclusion that this was the occasion of this (otherwise surprising) justification of his official career, on which in the eyes of the people a shadow had fallen in consequence of the opposite conduct of his sons. In order that, at this important turning-point of his life and of his people’s history, there may be perfect clearness and truth in respect to his judicial career and his unselfish official bearing towards the people, and that the lightest shadow of mistrust and misunderstanding may be dispelled, he in the first place refers to his official life which lay clear and open before the eyes of the people from his youth unto this moment when he had become old and gray; for the words “I have walked before you,” like the preceding “walketh,” indicate his public official intercourse and walk.
1Sa_12:3. Answer against me, that is, witness against me. A formal hearing of witnesses as a judicial act is here introduced. The judicial authorities are two, a heavenly, invisible, God the Lord, the All-knowing, before whom he walked, and an earthly-human, clothed, however, with divine authority, the Anointed of the Lord, who in the name and place of God executes the royal office, which includes the judicial. Here for the first time after the establishment of the kingdom the theocratic king is called the Anointed of the Lord. Here for the first time after his installation regard is had to Saul in his royal authority and position. Before him as before the Lord, the people, in reply to Samuel’s questions put in powerful lapidary style and with grand rhetoric, must bear witness to the following: 1) That he had not covetously appropriated the property of others,—“ox and ass” represent property in a social life based on agriculture and trade, and are expressly named in the Law with the things forbidden to covet (Exo_20:17); Samuel’s sons, on the contrary, “turned after gain,” that is, were covetous, 1Sa_8:5;—2) that he had violated no man’s right and freedom by oppression and violence,—רָצַץ “defraud” is stronger than עָשַׁק “oppress;” both often occur together, as in Deu_28:33, to express violence;—his sons “perverted judgment,” 1Sa_8:3;—3) that he had not been guilty of venality in the administration of justice by receiving bribes,—kopher (כֹּפֶר) “bribe” is here not to be regarded (with Keil) as simply a payment for release from capital punishment (Exo_21:30; Num_35:31), but means in general a gift of money designed to buy the favor of the judge and thus escape deserved punishment. The gift was to cover the punishment [the Heb. word means primarily “cover,”—Tr.], and thus as covering be an expiation: “that I might hide my eyes from him (or, with it).”15 The sons of Samuel took gifts, 1Sa_8:3. This was a transgression of the Law, Exo_23:6; Deu_27:5.—The answer of the people: that Samuel had done no wrong.
1Sa_12:5. Strengthening of this declaration by the participation of the people in Samuel’s invocation of the Lord and his Anointed as witness.16 Calvin: “In these words they confess their ingratitude and perfidy before Jehovah and the king, in that they had rejected the so praiseworthy government of Samuel.”
1Sa_12:6. Further strengthening of the testimony by repetition on Samuel’s part of the invocation of God’s witness. To “Jehovah” we must supply “witness;” there is no need to suppose that it fell out by clerical error.—Maurer: “Nothing has fallen out. Samuel repeats the name of Jehovah in order to make the transition to what follows.” “Appointed” [עשה “made,” Eng. A.V. “advanced”] refers to what they were in their God-appointed calling; they were just that for which the Lord had made them, as leaders of the people and their representatives before God.—Calvin: “The word ‘make’ is to be understood of those excellent gifts which God had bestowed on Moses and his brother Aaron, that he might use their ministry in leading the people out of Egypt.” Samuel also was made by the Lord into that which he was to be and was to the people. In taking part, now, in his invocation of God as witness to his impartiality and justice, the people gave confirmation that he had exercised his judicial authority before the Lord according to his divine calling, and that in this view therefore, there was no necessity for their demand for a king.
After (1Sa_12:1-6) having solemnly testified and before God and the king made them testify to the purity and spotlessness of his long official life among the people, he joins (1Sa_12:7-12) to the name of Jehovah, whom he has invoked as witness, the humbling reminder of the unfaithfulness of which they had been guilty in respect to this their God and Lord and His benefits by the demand for an earthly-human king. He here looks at the relation of the people to their God. The reference to Moses and Aaron as the first instruments of the Lord’s mighty deeds for His people, and His first deed, the deliverance from Egypt, forms the transition to the following enumeration of God’s might-revelations for the deliverance of His people from great dangers.
1Sa_12:7. Formally and solemnly the first words “and now stand forth that I may reason with you before the Lord” introduce as it were a judicial procedure (Cleric.: “I will conduct my cause, as it were, before a judge”), in which Samuel as the judge before the tribunal of the invisible king represents God’s cause over against the people, and holds up before the latter their guilt in this matter of the king.17 Eze_17:20. צְדָקָה [righteous deeds] never means merely “blessing, benefit, kindness,” but always contains the idea of righteousness. It indeed often actually means all that (as in Psalm 22:32; Psa_24:5; Jdg_5:11; Pro_10:2; Pro_11:4) but always from the stand-point of God’s faithfulness in covenant and promise; the acts of salvation are proof of the divine righteousness, so far as they are God’s reply to man’s right conduct towards Him, or, without this, an outflow of God’s faithfulness by which He grants man the thing promised as something falling to his share. The Plu. “righteous acts,” as in Mic_6:5, are God’s several deeds of power and grace performed for His people on the ground of His covenant-relation instituted in Abraham and through Moses. [Bib. Comm.: Samuel is here vindicating God, comp. Stephen’s speech, Acts 7].
1Sa_12:8. The first and greatest of the mighty deeds of the divine covenant-righteousness is the deliverance out of Egypt and introduction into the land of promise.18 In 1Sa_12:9 the: and they forgat the Lord their God is put as contrast to the “righteous acts” of the Lord; they answered God’s covenant-fidelity with unfaithfulness, defection. And so the oppressions of the people by foreign enemies are represented as punishments by the righteous God for their defection. He sold them into the hand, etc., indicates the just retribution of their forgetting Him. When His people abandon Him, He, by virtue of the same righteousness which blesses them if they are faithful, abandons them to their enemies, who enslave and oppress them. The “selling” refers to the right of the father to sell his children as slaves, here exercised by God as the extremest paternal right, as it were (Jdg_2:14; Jdg_3:8; Jdg_4:2; Jdg_4:9; Deu_32:10; Isa_50:1; Isa_52:3; Eze_30:12). [It is also the right of the king to sell his subjects, and of God to dispose of His creatures.—Tr.].—In proof of this punitive justice of God Samuel adduces individual facts from the time of the Judges on, but only “prominent events, as they occurred to him … neglecting the order of events and of times, which was here unessential” (Cleric). [Poole’s Synopsis: Notice here Samuel’s prudence in reproof: 1) by his reproof of their ancestors he prepares their minds to receive reproof; 2) he shows that their ingratitude is old and so worse, and they should take care that it grow no stronger; 3) he chooses a very mild word, “forget,” to express their offence.—Tr.].—Hazor was the capital city of the Canaanites, where dwelt king Jabin whom Joshua smote, Jos_11:1; Jos_11:10-13; Jos_12:19. In the time of the Judges Hazor again appears as the residence of a Canaanitish king Jabin (Jdg_4:2 sq.), instead of whom, however, the there-mentioned captain Sisera is here named, because he commanded the army which then oppressed Israel. The Sept. insertion of “Jabin king of” after “host of,” is evidently a mere explanation.—Into the hand of the Philistines, see Jdg_3:31, where the attacks of this people are first mentioned. [See also Jdg_13:1.—Tr.].—Into the hand of the king of Moab, that is, Eglon (Jdg_3:12).—These three nations represent, as the most prominent, all the heathen nations into whose hands God gave His people. Samuel mentions them, looking to the beginnings of the sufferings and wars of the Period of the Judges, in respect to which in the Book of Judges also (1 Samuel 3) the “he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about” (1Sa_12:14) and “they forgat the Lord” are introduced (as here by Samuel) as correlatives.
1Sa_12:10. The repentant conversion of the people. And they cried to the Lord (comp. Jdg_2:18; Jdg_3:9; Jdg_3:15; Jdg_4:3), that is, the lamentation over their misery directed to the Lord. The following: we have sinned is their self-accusation on account of their defection from God; the sin is twofold, forsaking the Lord and serving idols. The same accusation is found literally in Judg. 10:40, only that here, as in Jdg_2:13; Jdg_10:6, Ashtaroth is added to Baalim. Baal is the general designation of the divinity among the Phenicians and Carthaginians; with the Art. it is the male chief deity of the Phenicians; the Plu. refers to the numerous individualizations of this deity. P. Cassel [in Lange’s Biblework] on Jdg_2:13 : “The various cities and tribes had their special Baals, which were named not always from the cities, but from various natural qualities worshipped in them. This is like the various attributes from which Zeus received various names and worships in Greece.” On Baal-cultus among the Israelites see Winer, B. R.-W. s. v. I., 118. Ashtaroth is the designation of the Phenician and Carthaginian female chief deity (along with Baal) which was also worshipped by the Philistines (1Sa_31:10); the Plu. refers to the number of the stars, which she as queen of heaven represents (Jer_7:18; Jer_44:17 sq.); for the Sing. Ashtoreth=Astarte (Grk.) has the same root as star [Germ. stern], ἀστήρ, stella, in Pers. Astara (on the Upper Asiatic origin of this word see J. G. Müller s. v. in Herzog’s R.-E.); she was not merely the moon goddess alongside of Baal as sun-god, as her pictures with the moon-crescents on the head testify, but as light-giving night-goddess, also star-goddess, representative of the glittering host of heaven (Jer_7:18), like the later Artemis.19 Comp. P. Cassel on Jdg_2:13; Winer, s. v. On the renewed introduction of her worship by Solomon, in which is presented the fulfilment of Deu_4:19, see 1Ki_11:5; 1Ki_11:33.—On the accusation follows the prayer, “Deliver us” in contrast with the forsaking and forgetting, and the vow “we will serve thee” in contrast with “we have served” Baalim, etc. This repentance the Lord graciously answers (1Sa_12:11): 1) by sending deliverers. Again only a few are mentioned: Jerubbaal-Gideon; the name signifies “ let Baal strive,” that is, with him, and expresses scorn and contempt at the impotence of Baal, whose altar Gideon had with impunity destroyed, Jdg_6:28-32. Gideon is thence called Jerubbesheth. 2Sa_11:21.—The name Bedan is found elsewhere only in 1Ch_7:17 as name of a descendant of Manasseh, who is, however, of no historical importance. In the Book of Judges, to whose contents this part of Samuel’s address (especially 1Sa_12:10) unmistakably points, there is no judge of this name; but the connection shows that a judge is here meant. The name has been read Ben-Dan = “ the Danite,” as Samson was born in Dan, Jdg_13:2 (Kimchi), and at the same time a play of words on his corpulence [Arab, badana] has been also supposed (Böttch.). But against this last Thenius rightly remarks that a name resting on a word-play would by no means suit this serious discourse; against the first (apart from the form) is the fact that Samson is never so-called, as must have been the case if the people were here to understand the name. Gesenius (Halle Lit. Z. 1841, No. 41) regards the name as abbreviation of Abdon, and so Ewald, who understands the judge of that name (Jdg_12:13). But this judge does not occupy the important place in the history which the connection calls for. Similarly we must reject the supposition that Jair of Gilead Judges 10 assumed to be a descendant of Machir (whose great grandson, 1Ch_7:17, is Bedan) is here meant, since the connection of Jair and Machir is not proved; and the supposition that a judge omitted in the Book of Judges from his insignificance is intended, is untenable. The best expedient is to read (with Sept., Syr., Arab) Barak; for the letters of this name (ברק) might easily pass into the other (בדן) and the error be perpetuated by copyists. But Barak is one of the most prominent judges along with those here mentioned. The historical-chronological order is not strictly observed in 1Sa_12:9 also. Barak represents with Deborah that heroic Israelitish band that (Judges 4) broke the power of Sisera and delivered Israel out of the hand of the Canaanites.—The fact that, after Jeph., Sam. names himself as the fourth representative of the divine deliverance is not so surprising as it is thought by the Syr. and Arab, versions and a Greek manuscript (Kennicott in the Addend, to his dissert. gener.) which put Samson instead, and also by Thenius, who, though the Sept. and Vulg. have Samuel, accepts the former reading because Samuel does not speak of his own times till the next verse. Samuel could mention himself without exciting surprise, because he was conscious of his high mission as judge and deliverer, and the profound significance of his office for the history of Israel was universally recognized. By this mention of himself he honors not himself, but the Lord, who had made him (like Moses and Aaron before) what he was, comp. 1Sa_12:6-9. Besides, it was under him that the yoke of the forty years’ dominion of the Philistines was broken, which work of deliverance Samson was only able to begin. Samuel includes himself as an instrument of the divine deliverance, because over against him the demand for a king involved the rejection of the Lord (1Sa_8:5), and so the sin against the Lord in that demand appears in the clearest light; and this, after having pointed secondly to the repeated wonderful deliverances of Israel out of the hand of enemies by these messengers of God, and thirdly to the quiet and security which they were enabled to attain in the land, he sets before them in 1Sa_12:12. These words expressly declare that Ammonitish attacks on the territory of Israel were the first occasion of the demand for a king as leader in war, comp. 1Sa_8:20. Clericus well remarks: “ It hence appears not improbable that Nahash had made incursions into the Hebrew territory before the Israelites had demanded a king, and after his election had returned and begun the siege of Jabesh. It often happens in these books that circumstances omitted in their proper place are mentioned where they less properly belong.” And yet the Lord your God is your king.—By such deliverers He had shown Himself anew their king; this He was by the covenant, and this He remained by His covenant-faithfulness. With the same declaration Gideon (Jdg_8:23) exhibits the inadmissibility of His elevation as king, and Samuel the sinfulness and the unjustifiableness of their demand for a king.
1Sa_12:13-18. The third section of this transaction: in view of the fact that God has actually established a king in accordance with their demand, though it was a sinful and blameful one, Samuel declares a truth, which contains an earnest warning, namely, that, if the people with their king will maintain the right relation to God in fidelity and obedience to His will, the hand of the Lord will be with them both; in the contrary case, it will be against them both.
1Sa_12:13. And now. Here the discourse turns from the past and from the judgment of the people’s conduct to the present fact of the established kingdom, which, with the words: Behold the king is taken as starting-point for the following declaration and the attached serious warning and truth. In this declaration is set forth the origin of Saul’s kingly position—1) on its human side by the words: whom ye have chosen, whom ye have demanded—the discourse here goes regressively first to the election instituted by Samuel, and then to the demand made against him and God’s will, and there is just here a progression in the thought;20—2) on its divine side by the words: behold, the Lord hath set a king over you.—Your demand sprang from an evil root, yet hath the Lord granted it; this king—though chosen and demanded by you—is yet alone a work of God; his election and establishment rests on the divine will and command. By these words is confirmed the truth that the Lord is and remains king (1Sa_12:12). So far is that rejection (factually affirmed by the demand) from overthrowing Jehovah’s kingdom, that the universal authority of the latter is rather now for the first time rightly declared in the installation of the sought-for king, and in his obligation and the people’s to be subject to Jehovah and unconditionally obedient to His will. This point of view of the absolute theocracy comes out here the more clearly not only by the immediately preceding reference to the human side of the origin of the kingdom, but also by Samuel’s declaration in 1Sa_12:1 : “I have made a king over you,” to which stands opposed the declaration: “Behold, the Lord hath set a king over you.” From this fact, that the installed king is a gift of the Lord, granted to the people’s demand (comp. 1Sa_10:19), follows now, in view of the relation in which therefore people and king should stand to the Lord, the truth and the warning: The well-being of both depends on faithful obedience to the Lord’s will and word. The “if” introduces a protasis which includes all of 1Sa_12:14, and has no apodosis. The view that the latter has fallen out by similar endings, and read: “then he will save you out of the hand of your enemies” (Thenius) is not satisfactorily supported, and is not required to explain the aposiopesis, since the absence of the apodosis is easily explained by the length of the protasis, and its content apparent from the context= “well,” or “it will be well with you.” A similar failure of the apodosis to be supplied from the connection is found in Exo_32:32. The assumption of an apodosis with וִהְיִתֶם [as in Eng. A. V.] in the sense, “then ye will follow the Lord,” is untenable, partly from the tautology it makes in protasis and apodosis, partly from the expectation, awakened by the parallelism with the following sentence in 1Sa_12:15, of finding a promise set over against the threat. The voluntative sense of אַם =modo, “if only” (Keil) [=“O that ye would only”], cannot be taken here, since it would then have the Imperf.21 (Ew. §329 b). Nor can we (with S. Schmid) connect 1Sa_12:14 with the last words of 1Sa_12:13 : “The Lord hath set a king over you, if ye only will, etc.; but if not ….,” since the conditioned character of the former clause would then require in it the Imperf. If (with Kimchi, Maurer) we read וִחְיִתֶם, “ye shall live,” we cannot (with Maurer) translate: “who reigns over you after Jehovah” (that is, “next to Jehovah”), since this is an, expression foreign to the Old Testament; nor (with Tremellius) supply “sequentes” [that is, “ye will live following Jehovah”]. If an apodosis be insisted on here (changing the text to וחיתם), we might perhaps read: “then shall ye live… after Jehovah,” which answers to the view expressed in the preceding words, of following God in obedience to His commands. But, retaining the text and supposing the apodosis omitted, Samuel here, in keeping with the importance of the moment and the emotion of his own heart, heaps together in most eloquent fashion the demands which are to be made on religious-moral life in view of the conditions of true well-being for the people and their king in the new order of things: to fear the Lord, serve Him, hearken to His voice, not rebel against His word (comp. Deu_1:26, “rebel against the mouth [commandment] of the Lord”), and be after him, or, remain in His retinue true to Him. About the last words Keil rightly remarks (against Thenius) that היה אחר “to be after” is good Hebrew, and especially is often used in the sense, “to attach one’s self to the king, hold to him,” comp. 2Sa_2:10; 1Ki_12:20; 1Ki_16:21. This expression corresponds completely to the thought underlying this exhortation, namely, that the Lord, in spite of Israel’s rejection of Him by the demand for an earthly-human king, is and remains the King of His people (1Sa_12:12-13).
1Sa_12:15. The contrast: But if ye will not—(from the preceding are recapitulated only the two traits of obedience to the word of the Lord and not rebelling against His commandment)—then will the hand of the Lord be against you, as it was against your fathers.22—This comparative addition looks to the words from 1Sa_12:7 to 1Sa_12:12, wherein is pointed out how the fathers had brought on themselves by sin and defection the oppression of the enemy, in which the hand of the Lord was heavy on them, and from which the people now hoped to be delivered by the kings. At bottom the defection of the fathers and the demand for a king who was to deliver from oppressions sent by God for their sins, are one and the same wrong against the Lord. Therefore Samuel wishes by his earnest warning to lead them to repentance.
1Sa_12:16 gives the transition to a miraculous confirmation of that realness of the divine holiness and righteousness, with which Samuel, his gaze fixed on the future, has just directed his exhortation to the people in the form of the announcement of a sentence. “Even now” connects the following with the preceding, so that 1) the picture of a judicial scene, which was introduced in 1Sa_12:7, is continued in the following narration, and 2) the signification of the next related fact is closely connected with that of the previously spoken words. The “now also” or “even now” refers back to 1Sa_12:7, where the judidicial scene is introduced with the same words: “and now stand forth, that I may reason with you.” The reasoning continues thence through all the stages of the discourse, which the people have up to this moment heard, and is completed in the fact announced by Samuel [that is, the thunder-storm.—TR.], in which they are to behold the Lord’s judgment on their sin in the matter of the king.
1Sa_12:17. Is it not wheat-harvest to-day? This question signifies that at that season (in May or June) rain was unusual. So testifies Jerome on Am. iv. 7 [and Rob. I., 429–431.—TR.]. After the barley-harvest (2Sa_21:9; Rth_1:22; Rth_2:23) followed the wheat-harvest, 1Sa_6:13; Gen_30:14; Jdg_15:1–“To give voices,” said of Jehovah, = “ to thunder,” Psa_46:7; Psa_68:34; Psa_18:14; Exo_9:23. Thunder is called the voice of the Lord, Psa_29:3 sq. Samuel announces a storm with thunder and rain as a God-given sign, by which the Israelites should perceive that they had grievously sinned against God in asking a king. The “voices” = thunder answer to the “voice” and “mouth” in 1Sa_12:15.
1Sa_12:18. At Samuel’s request this sign of His anger and His punitive justice, as manifestation of His kingly glory, takes place.—The result is that the people are seized with great fear of the Lord and of Samuel; “of Samuel” is added because he, as before by his word, so by his introduction of this manifestation, wonderful and contrary to the ordinary course of nature, of God’s wrath, had displayed himself as instrument of the judicial power and glory of the God-king.
1Sa_12:19-25. Fourth section of Samuel’s dealing with the repentant people. Confession of sin, comfort and exhortation to the humbled people.
1Sa_12:19. Their overwhelming fright and terror of soul leads first to the prayer to Samuel to call on the Lord that He might mercifully spare them. That we die not,—the presence of the holy and just God has made itself known to the people. Before Him the sinner cannot stand, His judgment must reach him. The “for” supplies the basis to the thought contained in what precedes, that they had deserved the punishment of the angry God. Their penitent confession is not merely the admission that they had asked a king, but that they had added to all their sins this evil. 1Sa_12:20. The word of consolation: Fear not, in contrast with: “and all the people greatly feared” (1Sa_12:18). To his consoling word Samuel adds 1) the reference to their sin, which, in order to retain them in wholesome sorrowful repentance, he anew sets before them in its whole extent (“ye have done all this wickedness”), and 2) the exhortation, negative: only turn not aside from following the Lord (the “from after” points back to the “after” in 1Sa_12:15); positive: Serve the Lord with all your heart, the undivided, complete devotion of the heart, the innermost life to the Lord is inseparably connected with not turning aside from Him.
1Sa_12:21. Warning against apostasy to idol-worship. And turn ye not aside [after vanities which do not profit]. (Text-criticism.—The difficulties in the כִּי “for” after וְלֹא תָסוּרוּ are not set aside by supplying תָּסוּרוּ or תֵּלְכוּ, as many ancient and modern expositors do [so Eng. A. V.—TR.]. According to this view, the ground of the resumed warning would be here given: “ for ye go (if ye do that, namely, turn aside from the Lord) after vanities.” But then something is adduced as ground of the warning which is implicitly its object; besides, apart from the hardness of the insertion, the resumption of the “turn not aside” with וְ “and” is a difficulty. Looking at the following כִּי, it becomes probable that this one was by mistake inserted a line before. It is rendered in not one of the ancient versions (Then.). It is wanting in Luther’s version also. The omission of the כִּי gives a good, clear sense and an advance suitable to the lively character of the whole discourse. The “Turn not aside from the Lord” [1Sa_12:20] is continued in the “Turn not aside after vanities,” for apostasy to idolatry is the consequence of apostasy from the Lord. The former is introduced with אַֹךְ אַל (“only do not”) in the form of urgent request, hearty wish, the latter as a categorically-determined negative with לֹא, (“not.”). Idols are described as תֹּהוּ “naughty, vain” (= הֶבֶל), as in Isa_46:9 the idol-makers. They cannot help nor deliver, because they are simply, tohu, nothing, vanity.—[Comp. 1Co_8:4.—TR.]
1Sa_12:22 is factually the reason why they are not to fear (1Sa_12:20); but formally this verse is the ground of the preceding exhortation; they are not to forsake the Lord and turn aside from Him and serve idols, because the Lord will not forsake them as His people, which is said in contrast with the vain idols, which cannot help and deliver, because they are “naught,” while the Lord’s “great name” is to be the pledge that He will not forsake them. The words: for his name’s sake are explained by and based on the declaration: for it hath pleased the Lord (כִּי הוֹאִיל), not “the Lord hath begun,” but “he has by free determination taken the first step thereto, it pleased him” (comp. Jdg_17:11; Jos_7:7; Exo_2:21).—To make you his people.—This embraces all God’s deeds, by which He has established Israel in history as His people, the deeds of choice, deliverance out of Egypt, covenanting, introduction into the promised inheritance, preservation from enemies—by these deeds He has glorified His name, which is the expression of all God’s revelations of salvation and power to His people. The ground of this is found simply in the determination of the free, loving will of God—הוֹאִיל, comp. Deu_7:6-12, which furnishes a complete parallel to the train of thought here. Of the vain idols it is said in 1Sa_12:21 לֹא יוֹעִילוּ [lo yoilu, “they do not profit”], of the Lord here הוֹאִיל [hoil, “he did kindly, it pleased him”], a paronomasia of pregnant meaning. The name of the Lord, therefore, that by which He has made Himself this name in His relations to His people, and that which thence resulted, the dignity of the people as the Lord’s people and their appertainment to Him as His property is the pledge that He will not leave His people. “His people” and “make you His people” are corresponding expressions, they are His people because He has made them His people. Comp. Psa_100:3; Psa_95:7; Deu_7:6; Deu_7:9; Deu_7:18.
1Sa_12:23. Samuel promises the people his personal mediation and aid, partly through the priestly function of intercession for them, partly through the exercise of his prophetic office in showing them the right way. The “as for me too” refers to the “Jehovah” in the preceding verse, and to the close connection into which the people (1Sa_12:19) had brought his name with the name of the Lord. The assurance of his intercession follows on the request in 1Sa_12:19 : “Pray for thy servants.” Both passages put Samuel’s prayer-life anew in a clear light (comp. 7, 8). By the solemn asseveration “far be it,” he points to the importance which he himself attributes to his intercession for the people. The word “sin” indicates his obligation before the Lord to intercede; to neglect this would be a sin against the Lord; for, as mediator between God and the people, he must enter the Lord’s presence in whatever concerned them, for weal or for woe. Comp. his work of prayer in chs. 7, 8. The “not ceasing” indicates his persistency in intercession.—Along with this priestly mediation Samuel promises also his constant prophetic watch-care, which consists in “showing the good and right way,” that is, the way of God. The predicates “good and right” show that moral conduct is referred to, and that according to the will and law of the Lord (so Psa_25:4). The instruction is to be given to king as well as people.
1Sa_12:24. Samuel, having spoken of his person and his personal office, now directs the people’s look from his person and work to the Lord, and holds up anew before king and people the great Either—Or: either ye will fear the Lord and serve Him and ye will experience the salvation of your God,—or, ye will do evil and—both of you will be destroyed. The discourse culminates in a condensed statement of what is said in 1Sa_12:14-15. The “in truth, with all your heart,” exhibits the double character of the service of God, of truth and of innerness, in contrast with the service of outward appearance and dead works. Since this exhortation to fear and serve God relates to the general religious-moral life of the people, we cannot refer the confirmatory declaration: For ye see what great things he hath done for you to the extraordinary natural phenomenon narrated in 1Sa_12:18. The mighty deeds of the Lord here referred to are those mentioned in 1Sa_12:6-7 sqq., to which reference is repeatedly made in all these transactions relating to the king (1Sa_8:8; 1Sa_10:18), from which most frequently is drawn the motive for true fear of God and obedience to His will, because by them God established and confirmed His covenant relation with Israel as His people, and so the people owed Him covenant-fidelity and obedience as their God.
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. Review of the history of the introduction by Samuel of the Israelitish monarchy under Saul (chaps 8–12). The following are its principal stadia, in the general and special development of which the well-adjusted connection between the several sections becomes apparent. In chap. 8 Samuel confers with the people concerning their demand for a king, and receives in prayer the revelation from the Lord that he should listen to the people’s demand and give them a king. In 1Sa_9:1-17 is set forth the providence of the Lord, whereby in the person of Saul the divinely chosen and appointed king of Israel is led to Samuel, and is designated as such by a special revelation from the Lord. 1Sa_9:17 to 1Sa_10:16, Samuel as instrument of the divine call which came to Saul; Saul receives from Samuel first the announcement of his high calling by the Lord (1Sa_12:17-25), then the consecration to the royal office by anointing, and the assurance of his call by reference to appointed signs therefor (1Sa_10:1-8), and finally the confirmation and strengthening of his divine call together with qualification for it by the Spirit of the Lord (1Sa_12:9-16).—1Sa_10:18-27. Samuel and the people in the assembly at Mizpah for the public presentation of the God-chosen king, which is followed by a partial recognition only on the part of the people.—Chap. 11 Saul’s proclamation and general recognition as king of Israel in consequence of his heroic deed of deliverance from the Ammonites, and also his solemn installation at Gilgal.—Chap. 12 Samuel, in a solemn, affecting final conference at Gilgal, after a justificatory review of his official career, places people and monarchy under the government of the Lord, as their king, and obligates both to obey His will.
2. “Samuel yields to the desire of the people because he knows that now God’s time has come; but at the same time he makes every effort to bring the people to a consciousness of their sins. If it were true that Samuel considered the monarchy in itself incompatible with the theocracy, how very differently he must have acted! In that case, when the whole people, deeply moved by his discourse and by the confirmatory divine sign, said: “Pray for thy servants to the Lord thy God, for we have added to all our sins the evil of asking a king” (1Sa_12:19), he must have insisted that the old form be straightway re-established. But he is far from doing this. He rather exhorts the people to be from now on faithful to the Lord, who would glorify Himself in them and their king.” Hengstenberg, Beitr. 3, 258 sq. [Contributions, etc.].
3. At Gilgal [chap. 12] Samuel stands at the highest point of his work as instrument of the divine guidance and government of his people, and as mediator between the people and God as their king and lord. As prophet he leads king and people together into the presence of the Lord, calls forth in the people by a moving discourse the deep feeling of sin and the penitent confession of guilt, places king and people under God’s royal majesty and legal authority, and obligates them to inviolable obedience to the will of the Lord. As judge he, at God’s command, installs the asked-for king, makes the people solemnly confirm the self-justifying declaration which he with invocation of God and the king had made, conducts the Lord’s cause against the unfaithful people by reasoning with them and accusing them, exhibits in thunder and storm the majesty and the wrath of the despised invisible king, decrees weal and woe, salvation and destruction to king and people, according to the regard which they hereafter show to the exhortations and instructions which he had given them as prophet. In this sense, in spite of the termination now of his official functions as judge, he remains a judge over king and people. And there is, besides, his priestly position, in which he again presents himself between the Lord and His people, with the assurance and promise that he will ever intercede for them, and would sin by not interceding. The people so needed him as long as he lived.
4. The Lord’s mighty deeds towards and for His people, their apostasy to unfaithfulness and idolatry, punishment for their sins in oppression and misery, cry to the Lord for help in time of need, repentance and confession of sins, new exhibitions of the Lord’s grace, these are in constant sequence the chief features of the history of the kingdom of God in Israel, here briefly sketched (1Sa_12:7-12), and in the Book of Judges detailed at length.
5. The mention of the Lord’s manifestations of grace and revelations of power for His people, which is here heard from Samuel, and remains throughout all prophecy a standing element of prophetic preaching, has as its aim: 1) to glorify the name of God, to bring out clearly His covenant-faithfulness, and to exhibit the people’s high calling as chosen people and God’s property; 2) to show more strikingly the people’s sin in unfaithfulness, unthankfulness and disobedience, and thereby to bring them to acknowledgment of their sin; 3) to induce sincere repentance and penitent return to the Lord; 4) to show the penitent people the source of consolation and help, and to fix in their hearts the ground of hope for future salvation; 5) to make more effective admonitions and warnings respecting the maintenance and attestation of their covenant-faithfulness.
6. The truth and the fact: “The Lord your God is your King” (1Sa_12:12), notwithstanding its subjective obscuration in the consciousness of the people, whence proceeded the demand (sinful in its motives and moral presuppositions) for an earthly-human kingdom, has lost so little objectively in validity and importance that now, in the outset of the history of the kingdom granted by God in accordance with this desire, it rather comes out more clearly, since monarchy and people are placed under the immediate royal authority of God (1Sa_12:13-14), and both people and king (the two embraced as a unit in this point of view, 1Sa_12:14), exhorted to like obedience to His royal will, and threatened with like punishment from the Most High King as their Judge (1Sa_12:14-15; 1Sa_12:25). The rejection of the God-king by the demand for a man-king led to a higher stage of development of the theocracy, on which, over against and by means of the earthly kingdom, there was of necessity a so much the more glorious unfolding of the royal honor of God.
7. God’s manifestations of grace and salvation to Israel are often regarded in the Old Testament under the point of view of righteousness, and called by this name, as in 1Sa_12:7. But this “righteousness” is not then (as is often done) to be taken as =“goodness,” “benefit,” and the like, for these are different conceptions; nor as=“faithfulness,” “ trustworthiness,” so far as God fulfils to His people the promises which He gives as covenant-God. The ground of this designation of the divine gracious kindnesses is given in the relation in which God as covenant-God stands to His people; established by own free grace and His absolute loving will (1Sa_12:22), it is the norm, according to which the people over against him walk in the obedience due to His holy will (ethical righteousness), and on the other hand the Lord over against His people reveals to them the love and goodness which belong to them as His possession by virtue of the gracious rights established by Him, imparting to them gifts and benefits of grace partly as a promised blessing, partly as reward of faithful and obedient fulfilment of covenant-obligations (Psa_24:5; 22:32; Mic_6:5). In accordance with this, God in His deliverances exercises His righteousness (which gives each his own) as King of His people on the ground and according to the norm of the covenant-relation established by Himself in His own free grace (1Sa_12:14-15; 1Sa_12:24-25). Comp. 1Jn_1:9 : “God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.” After the completion of the economy of salvation in Christ, God’s righteousness is exhibited, along with His faithfulness, in the bestowment on the penitent sinner of the gracious gift of forgiveness of sins as something which belongs to him by the right accorded him by free grace, since God has ordained that he who penitently confesses his sins shall find pardon.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1Sa_12:1-6. How a servant of God should, after the example of Samuel, rightly perform the duty of maintaining his personal honor and innocence against unjust accusations: 1) By a clear and true statement of his own course of life and behaviour (1Sa_12:1-2); 2) By a bold appeal to the knowledge and conscience of others (1Sa_12:3-4); 3) By a solemn invocation of the all-knowing God as the best witness. [1Sa_12:2-3. Samuel a statesman and civil and military ruler, living in times of cruel warfare, political changes, social corruption, and general relaxation of morality; he can solemnly appeal to God and man for the absolute integrity of his official conduct through all the years (particularizing that—a) he has not seized their property, b) defrauded them, nor c) inflicted personal violence, and d) has not taken bribes); and all the people (1Sa_12:5-6), and God Himself (1Sa_12:18), fully confirm the claim. A notable example, often needed.—Hall: No doubt Samuel found Himself guilty before God of many private infirmities; but, for his public carriage, he appeals to men. A man’s heart can best judge of himself; others can best judge of his actions. Happy is that man that can be acquitted by himself in private, in public by others, by God in both.—Scott: The honor rendered to those who are concluding their course, differs widely from the applause and congratulation which many receive when they first step forth before the public eye. This, indeed, often terminates in disgrace and contempt.—TR.]
1Sa_12:7-12. Think of former times: 1) That we may with shame remember the Lord’s many manifestations of grace and benefits; 2) That we may be penitently conscious of the sins committed against the Lord; 3) That we may humbly acknowledge the ground of all evils and distresses in our own guilt; 4) That we may honestly turn to the obedience of faith towards the Lord. [1Sa_12:7-12. Hall: Samuel had dissuaded them before—he reproves them not until now.…. We must ever dislike sin—we may not ever show it. Discretion in the choice of seasons for reproving is not less commendable and necessary than zeal and faithfulness in reproving.—TR.]
1Sa_12:14-15. With whom or against whom is the hand of the Lord? The answer to this question depends on the following considerations: 1) Whether one has, or has not, given himself to be the Lord’s with his whole heart—a) in true fear of God, b) in true service of God; 2) Whether one is, or is not, in his will thoroughly obedient to the will of the Lord, a) hearkening unconditionally to His word, b) not resisting His commandments; 3) Whether one is, or is not, in his whole walk ready to follow the Lord in His guidance—a) keeping in the way pointed out by Him, b) keeping in view the goal set up by Him.
1Sa_12:13-15. True unity between king and people, authorities and subjects: 1) As being holy it is closely bound by the hand of the King of all kings in establishing the covenant between the two (1Sa_12:13; 1 Samuel 2) As being deeply grounded it is rooted in the common obligation of both alike to fear God, serve God, obey God (no true unity without right fear of God, humble service of God, faithful obedience to God) (1Sa_12:14); 3) As unshakable and abiding it is maintained in times of heavy assaults, when both are tempted to apostasy, unbelief and disobedience (1Sa_12:15 a); 4) It shows itself ever firmer in view of the Lord’s threatenings and promises to both.
1Sa_12:14-19. The hard speech of God against sinners: 1) Why it is necessary—because men are hard-hearted, hard of hearing, cross-grained; 2) How it makes itself heard—in the earnest exhortations of His holy love (1Sa_12:14), in the threatenings of His righteous wrath (1Sa_12:15), in alarming natural events (1Sa_12:16-18); 3) What is its aim—acknowledgment of sin (1Sa_12:17), fear of God (1Sa_12:18), seeking God’s grace (1Sa_12:19).
1Sa_12:19-21. To whom applies the divine word of consolation, Fear not: To those who—1) penitently confess their sins before God, 2) humbly acknowledge God’s punishments as well-merited, 3) eagerly seek God’s grace and mercy; 4) are willing to serve the Lord in faithful obedience.
1Sa_12:20-21. The exhortation to fidelity, Turn not aside from the Lord. Turn not aside—1) When experiencing His punitive justice, but have childlike confidence in His forgiving love; 2) When harassed by natural inclination to resist His will, but serve Him in faithful obedience through the power of His Spirit; 3) When tempted to fall away by the world which is sunk in the service of vanity, but bravely withstand the idolatry of the ungodly world.
1Sa_12:20-21. A threefold word of exhortation to penitent sinners: 1) A word reminding of past sin (“Ye have done all this wickedness”); 2) A word consolingly pointing to the divine grace (“Fear not”); 3) A word exhorting to fidelity (“Turn not aside from the Lord”), which, with the warning against the idolatry of the vain world contains a demand to serve the Lord alone with all the heart.
1Sa_12:22. The Lord forsakes not His people—for 1) He has made His people His possession—a) by choice out of free grace, b) by covenanting with them in faithful love; 2) He has made Himself a great name among His people, a) by His wonderful deeds in the past, b) by the promises of His word for the future.
1Sa_12:23. The highest service of love which men can do one another: 1) Intercession for each other before the Lord; 2) Pointing to the good and right way.—Ceasing to intercede for our brethren a sin against the Lord: 1) Because the souls of our brethren as members of His people are His possession; 2) Because the Lord demands intercession as a sign and fruit of love, which flows from the fountain of His paternal love, and in which men as His children are to keep themselves before Him; 3) Because the Lord, in that community of life in which He has placed us, often gives us special occasion and necessity to pray for our brethren. [Henry: Samuel promises more than they asked. (1) They asked it of him as a favor—he promised it as a duty. (2) They asked him to pray for them at this time, and upon this occasion, but he promises to continue his prayers for them, and not to cease as long as he lived. (3) They asked him only to pray for them, but he promises to do more, to teach them also “the good and the right way,” the way of duty, the way of pleasure and profit.—TR.]
1Sa_12:24-25. Fear the Lord: 1) What sort of fear the true fear of God Isaiah 2) On what it is grounded (“great things”). 3) Whereby it manifests itself (serving Him). 4) From what it preserves (from temporal and eternal destruction). [Henry: And two things he urges by way of motive: (1) Gratitude, considering “what great things he had done for them;” (2) Interest, considering what great things He would do against them, if they should still “do wickedly.”—TR.] 1Sa_12:22; 1Sa_12:25. Harless (On Hallowing the Sabbath, I., 113): The hope of genuine national prosperity. Where then is the ground for hope of genuine national prosperity? Where there Isaiah 1) Fear of God’s Name; 2) Confidence in God’s Name.
Footnotes:
[1][1Sa_12:2. Sept. wrongly καθήσομαί, as if from ישׁב.—Tr.]
[2][1Sa_12:3. Or, “in his account;” so Chald.: “I hid my eyes in judgment from him.” Sept. reads: “a ransom (proper rendering of כּפֶֹר, but here=“ bribe”) and a sandal (reading נַעֲלַיִם, instead of אַעְלִים), answer against me, and,” etc. So in Sir_46:19. Vulg.: “I will despise that to-day.” Syr. and Chald. support Heb. The insertion in the Sept. of the easy “answer” is suspicious, and the “sandal” is hard. It seems better to retain the abbreviated Heb. text.—Tr.]
[3][1Sa_12:5. Heb. is sing., but Sept. and several VSS. and Heb. MSS. plu.; the subject is “the people,” which may have been taken as a sing. collective.—Tr.]
[4][1Sa_12:6. Sept.: “Jehovah be witness, who,” etc., a natural and suspicious insertion, and not necessary. Syr. has “Jehovah is God alone.” Ch. and Vulg. as Heb.—Tr.]
[5][1Sa_12:7. Sept. inserts: “and I will tell you,” which makes the sentence easier, but is easily supplied in the pregnant Heb. construction.—Tr.]
[6][1Sa_12:8. Erdmann not so well makes the apodosis begin here. Here Sept. inserts: “and Egypt humbled them,” which has much to recommend it. But, if it had been in the original text, it would be hard to explain how it fell out. The addition of “and his sons” after “Jacob” in the Sept. is probably spurious.—Tr.]
[7][1Sa_12:9. Sept.: “host of Jabis king of Asor,” which agrees with the expression in Jdg_4:2; Jdg_4:7. So the Vulg.—Tr.]
[8][1Sa_12:11. Sept.: Barak. In the Syr. the list is: Deborah, Barak, Gideon, Nephtah, Samson. Probably we should read “Barak” for “Bedan;” the others as in the Heb. text. See Exegetical Notes.—Tr.]
[9][1Sa_12:13. Omitted in Sept. The order in the Heb. does not seem natural, but may refer to the two paths by which they obtained the king (chs. 10 and 11). Wellhausen suggests that there is here a duplet. De Rossi prefers, on the authority of many MSS. and three VSS. (Syr., Vulg., Arab.), the insertion of “and” before “whom ye have demanded.”—Tr.]
[10][1Sa_12:14. On the construction see Exeget. Notes. For Heb. הייתם, “be,” Chald. in Walton’s Polyg. has תחווּן, “live” (which does not help the matter), but P. de Lagarde’s ed. of Codex Reuchlinianus (Targ.) has תתנהוּן, “be gathered.”—Tr.]
[11][1Sa_12:15. Sept.: “and against your king,” which accords with 1Sa_12:14.—Tr.]
[12][1Sa_12:21. The כִּי is, with all the ancient vss., to be omitted. Syr. and Arab. and Chald. diverge slightly from the masor. text.—Tr.]
[13][1Sa_12:23. Sept. inserts: “and I will serve the Lord.”—Tr.]
[14][1Sa_12:23. The omission of the Art. in בּ is strange.—Tr.]
[15]Thenius, on the ground that הִעֱלִים in the sense of “hide” is always construed with מִן, changes the text וְאַעלִים עֵינַי בוֹ into וְנַעֲלַיִם עֲנוּ בּי, “and (if it were only) a pair of shoes; witness against me,” against which Keil rightly remarks that the supposed meaning “hide from” does not suit here; that the thought is not that the judge hides his eyes from the כֹּפֶר in order not to see the bribe, but that he covers his eyes with the bribe, in order not to see and punish the crime. The בּוֹ, however, might also be referred to מִי, and would then mean: that I might hide my eyes “on his account,’ ’ “towards him,” or “in respect to him.” The change after the Sept., requiring a large addendum for explanation, compels us to introduce a too special thing (shoes) in the most extraordinary way.
[16]We must read the Sing. וַיֹּאמֶר [“said”], not the Plu. (Qeri), since “the people ”is to he taken as subject.
[17]The Accus. sign [אֵת) is here: “concerning,” “in respect to.”—The verb judge usually has עַל with the object, as in Jer_2:35; Joel 3:27; but has also the Accus. as in Eze_17:20.
[18]We are not with the Sept. to insert וּבָנָיו after יַעֲֹקֹב and וַתַּכְנִיֵעם after מִצְרַיִם. If either had originally been there, it would not have been omitted. The breviloquent text speaks for its originality. The וַיִּשְׁלַח is the explanation of the עָשָׂה in 1Sa_12:6).
[19][This account of Ashtoreth is in several points incorrect. The word (the etymology of which is not known) has no connection with ἀστήρ, and the Plu. Ashtaroth refers (like Baalim) to various god-modifications. See Rawlinson’s “Five Great Mon.,” I. 138, and Schrader “Die Keil-Insch. u. d. Alt. Test.” on Jdg_2:11; Jdg_2:13.—Tr.]
[20]On the weakening of the a to e in שׁאלתּם, see Gesen. § 64, 3, Rem. 1.
[21][It has the Imperf. here, and might express a wish but that the construction in 1Sa_12:14 is clearly the same as that in 1Sa_12:15, which is conditional.—Tr.]
[22]Not “and against your kings,” “fathers” being taken=“kings” (D. Kimchi), nor (with Sept. and Thenius) “and your king,” but (with Chald., Syr., Arab., Cler., Maur., Keil) retaining the harder reading of the text, and taking the ו as comparative [=“as,” so Eng. A. V.], in support of which is the fact that it sometimes introduces and connects loosely with the preceding whole sentences, the thought in which is subordinate, explanatory, or comparative, Ew. 340 b. It is properly to be explained: “And it was against your fathers,”—which is shortened into: “and against your fathers,” whence is suggested a comparison. [Instead of this somewhat forced explanation it is better either to adopt the reading of the Sept., or to suppose the ו “and” to be an error for כ “as”. We might expect in 1Sa_12:15 the mention of the king.—Tr.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1, 2. I… have made a king over you…
1, 2. I… have made a king over you — This statement, together with that which follows — behold, the king walketh before you — indicates what we have already assumed, that this farewell address was made at Gilgal when they renewed the kingdom there.
My sons are with you — That is, are at your disposal, to be treated as may seem proper to you and to your king. They had heretofore assisted Samuel in the judgeship by attending to matters in remote parts of the country, (see on 1Sa_8:1,) but now they were superseded by the election of a king.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. I have hearkened unto your voice] Cp. 1Sa_8:7;…
1. I have hearkened unto your voice] Cp. 1Sa_8:7; 1Sa_8:9; 1Sa_8:22.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) And Samuel said unto all Israel.—We believe we…
(1) And Samuel said unto all Israel.—We believe we possess in this section of our history, in the report the compiler of these memoirs has given us of the dialogue between the judge Samuel and the elders of Israel at the solemn assembly of Gilgal, many of the very words spoken on this momentous occasion by the old man. It is doubtless a true and detailed account of all that took place on that day—the real inauguration of the earthly monarchy; that great change in the life of Israel which became of vast importance in the succeeding generations. In such a recital the words used by that grand old man, who belonged both to the old order of things and to the new, who was the link between the judges and the kings—the link which joined men like Eleazar, the grandson of Aaron, Gideon, and Jephthah, heroes half-veiled in the mists which so quickly gather round an unlettered past, with men like David and Solomon, round whose lives no mist will ever gather—the words used by that old man, who, according to the cherished tradition in Israel, was the accredited minister of the invisible King when the Eternal made over the sovereignty to Saul, would surely be treasured up with a jealous care. This gives an especial and peculiar interest to the present chapter, which contains the summary of the proceedings of the Gilgal assembly. The old judge Samuel, with the hero-king Saul standing by his side, presents the king to the people of the Lord under the title of the “Anointed of the Eternal,” and then in a few pathetic words speaks first of his own pure and upright past. The elders reply to his moving words. Then he rehearses the glorious acts of the Eternal King, and repeats how He, over and over again, delivered the people from the miseries into which their own sins had plunged them; and yet, in full memory of all this, says the indignant old man, “in the place of this invisible Ruler, so full of mercy and pity, you asked for an earthly king. The Lord has granted your petition now. Behold your king !” pointing to Saul at his side.—The old man continues: “Even after your ingratitude to the true King, still He will be with you and the man He has chosen for you, if only you and he are obedient to the old well-known Divine commandments.” At this juncture Samuel strengthens his argument by invoking a sign from heaven. Awe-struck and appalled, the assembled elders, confessing their sin, ask for Samuel’s prayers. The old prophet closes the solemn scene with a promise that his intercession for king and people shall never cease.
Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you.—This should be compared with 1Sa_8:7; 1Sa_8:19-20; 1Sa_8:22, where the proceedings of the deputation of the people to Samuel at Ramah are related at length. Their wishes expressed on that public occasion had been scrupulously carried out by him. He would now say a few words respecting the past, as regards his (Samuel’s) administration, would ask the assembled elders of the nation a few grave questions, and then would leave them with their king. The account, as we possess it, of these proceedings at Gilgal on the occasion of the national reception of Saul as king, is in the form of a dialogue between the prophet Samuel and the elders of the people.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain This speech of Samuel is not to be regarded…
SAMUEL"S EXHORTATION TO THE PEOPLE AT GILGAL.
This speech of Samuel is not to be regarded as a farewell address made upon his resignation of his office; for though a new power had been introduced, and Samuel"s sons excluded from the succession, yet it was only gradually that a change was made in his own position. He was still judge, (1Sa_7:15) and on extraordinary occasions came forward with decisive authority. (1Sa_15:33) But as Saul gathered men of war round, (1Sa_14:52) the moral power possessed by Samuel would be overshadowed by the physical force which was at Saul"s command. But no formal change was made. It had been the weakness of the office of the judges that their power was irregular, and exercised fitfully on special occasions. Such a power must fall into abeyance in the presence of the regular authority of a king surrounded by armed men. Without any direct deposition, therefore, or even still retaining the form of his office, Samuel would henceforward chiefly act as the prophet, and Saul as Jehovah"s king.
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The address divides itself into three parts:
1. The testimony to Samuel"s integrity as judge (vers. 1-5).
2. The reproof of the people for their disobedience and ingratitude (vers. 617).
3. The Divine testimony to Samuel"s uprightness and teaching (vers. 1825).
SAMUEL"S INTEGRITY (vers. 1-5).
I have hearkened unto your voice. See 1Sa_8:7, 1Sa_8:9, 1Sa_8:22.
Vers. 1-5.
Character a power.
The facts are
1. Samuel reminds the people that he
1. has carried out their wishes in setting a king over them,
2. is now a very old man, and
3. has spent the whole of his life among them.
4. He appeals to God in asserting that the whole of his official life has beenfree from self-seeking.
1. The people freely admit that his public conduct has been honest,considerate, and free from greed. The meaning of Samuel"s reference to himself is to be sought not in egotism, but in a desire to find a basis for his intended argument and appeal. The actual weight of counsel depends not on the abstract wisdom of the language used, but on the readiness of the hearers to give heed to the speaker and their conviction of his integrity of purpose. Samuel appeals to character in order to secure moral power in argument. He availed himself of the privilege of honoured age.
I CHARACTER IS A GROWTH. A human being is mutable in purpose and disposition, and time is requisite in order to insure fixity of either. Character lies in determinateness, permanent fixity. Morally it is the form, style, and expression the life eventually assumes. It remains a long unsettled question as to what determinateness some men"s nature is to come. In so far as instability itself is an undesirable quality, its presence is the sign of permanent badness. But even in the absence of instability, men suspend their judgment of their fellow men because all good qualities in them are regarded as only tentatively established in the soul. The true progress of a life is secured when holiness of disposition becomes so gradually master of every faculty as to be the distinctive, invariable mark of the man. Obviously, this character is a passing of an inner silent force into all the avenues of thought, feeling, and action, repeating its self-manifestations in these day by day, till those who know the individual are compelled to see that such is the natural, fixed, reliable style of his life.
II The CONDITIONS OF ITS POWER ARE TWOFOLD one in the individual himself, and the other in observers.
1. Constancy and steadiness of growth is one condition. It is this which creates a belief that the man is true. There is a strong belief that fluctuations in conduct and opinion are signs of either weakness or actual badness. Those who watch the steady, early growth of a doubtful plant, and observe how by the action of a powerful law it at length assumes a given type of leaf and bud, know then what they have in sight, and treat it accordingly. So a quiet advance in goodness is essential to the acquisition of power in character.
2. The existence in observers of a sense of right is another condition. The power which a holy, consistent character has over all grades of men implies that there is something in them which, in virtue of its own nature, pays homage to goodness. Men know and inwardly revere the right. In this moral necessity of judgment we have a clue to the deference often paid by bad men to the good; the uneasiness of the vile and unjust in presence of purity; and the strong hold which the holy gospel of Christ has secretly over even the most daring of its opponents.
III The POWER OF CHARACTER IS SOMETIMES DEVELOPED BY UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES. It may exist as the result of a growing, unconscious influence over observers. Neither party may be aware of its real force. Many a man exercises more power on society than either he or others contemplate. The degree to which the present condition of the world is owing to this silent, unconscious influence of holy, consistent characters is beyond all conception. The fact should be a comfort to those whose lives seem to be barren of usefulness because no great deeds are chronicled. But now and then events transpire which bring out the depth of reverence and respect cherished for, it may be, an ordinary quiet Christian man.
IV It is ALLOWABLE TO USE CHARACTER AS A MEANS OF URGING IMPORTANT CLAIMS. Samuel was right in referring to his long consistent life. He could honestly, and without self-glorying, speak of his having never enriched himself by his office. He was within the limits of modesty in claiming some credit for consistency, for his object was to enforce the claims of God. Thus the Apostle Paul referred to his manner of life, his self-denying labours, in order to win among Corinthians attention to the message he delivered, and counteract the insinuations of false brethren. (2Co 11) There are occasions when a pastor, a teacher, and parent may fitly refer to their general character as furnishing a reason for attention to their appeals.
Practical lessons:
1. It is of supreme importance to be well established in strong religious principles early in life; roots set in virgin soil strike deep and thrive steadily.
2. We should watch carefully against tendencies to instability, and at thesame time not think over much about what men think of us.
3. No man who is ambitious to obtain power of character will get it: itcomes to those who are concerned to be good rather than to have the power which goodness conifers.
4. We honour God when we pay honour to those who bear his image.
5. The quality of holy self-sacrifice is that in official persons which mostimpresses observers, and should, after the Saviour"s example, be cultivated by all persons in things small and great.
HOMILIES BY B. DALE Vers. 1-25. (GILGAL.)
Samuel"s admonitions to Israel.
1. The occasion of his admonitions was the full recognition of the first king of Israel -by the national assembly, and his retirement from the more active duties of his office as judge. He was not mortified at parting with power, nor did he wish to reverse the change which had been effected. He cheerfully acquiesced in the will of God, and cordially united with the people in giving honour to the" Lord"s anointed" (vers. 3, 5). Yet he might not allow them to suppose that there was nothing blameworthy in their desire for a king, as they were apt to do, or enter upon their new career in perilous self-complacency, without warning them of the rocks ahead. He spoke not merely as judge, but also as a prophet and "faithful priest" (ver. 19).
2. The form which they assumed is varied. They consist generally of a dialogue between him and the elders; partly of an apology, or defence of his official conduct; partly of a narration of the dealings of God with Israel; and partly of exhortations, warnings, and promises closely connected together. The whole may be conceived of as a judicial scene occurring before the invisible Judge, in which Samuel, having vindicated himself as against the people, sets forth their sin against God, who himself confirms his words in the thunderstorm, (Job_38:1) which leads them to confess their transgression and seek the intercession of the prophet, who consoles and admonishes them, and assures them of his continued help. The language is direct and rugged and full of force.
3. The main subject is the course of sinful perversity which Israel had pursued in desiring a king; the chief aim to produce a humble and penitent state of mind, and lead to the maintenance of a proper relation to the invisible King. His former words may be compared; (1Sa_3:11-14 1Sa_7:3-6 1Sa_8:10-18 1Sa_10:17-19) also the words of Moses, (Num_16:25-30 De 29) and of Joshua. (Jos 24) He speaks of their course as
I ADOPTED WITHOUT SUFFICIENT REASON (vers. 3-6) in the light of his just administration. He sets himself, as it were, before the tribunal of the invisible Judge, and before the king, himself, "old and grey headed," on the one hand, Israel on the other, and seeks an open vindication (as public men are often under the necessity of doing); not, however, so much from regard to his own dignity as to their welfare and the honour of God. We have here
1. A challenge, on the part of Samuel, to bear witness against him. "Behold, here I am," etc. (ver. 3). It is a common temptation for men in authority and power to use their position for selfish and unjust purposes, such as
(1) appropriating wrongfully what belongs to others,
(2) defrauding them of what is their due,
(3) oppressing the poor and weak, and
(4) perverting the proper course of justice, especially in the case of the rich and strong, for the sake of "a gift" or bribe.
How have these evils prevailed in every age! But Samuel had consciously wronged no one, and if any can show that he has done so, he stands ready to make restitution. (Luk_19:8) His conscience is "as the noontide clear." "No doubt he found himself guilty before God of many private infirmities; but for his public carriage he appeals to men. A man"s heart can best judge of himself; others can best judge of his actions. Happy is that man that can be acquitted by himself in private, in public by others, by God in both" (Hall).
1. A testimony, on the part of the elders, to his integrity (ver. 4); ready, explicit, and with one voice. It is almost impossible for men in public office to be faithful without making enemies. If Samuel had any, they now nowhere appear; and his character shines forth "as the sun when he goeth forth in his might". (Jud_1:5:31)
2. An invocation, on the part of both, to the Lord and his anointed to confirm the testimony (ver. 5); thereby making it more solemn and memorable. Why, then, seeing his government was so unblamable, did they wish to set it aside? Their testimony to him was a sentence of condemnation on themselves for their inconsideration, ingratitude, and discontent. The force of the testimony was increased by his further invocation of the Lord as he who had "appointed Moses and Aaron, and brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt" (ver. 6). As the appointed and faithful leader of Israel, even as they, no other was necessary, and his rejection was the rejection of the Lord. With this he passes on to speak of their course as
II MARKED BY AGGRAVATED TRANSGRESSION (vers. 7-12) in the light of the righteous dealings of God in past time. "Now therefore stand forth," etc. (ver. 7). He and they now change places; he becomes their accuser, and reasons or contends with them (in order to convict them of sin) "concerning the righteous acts of Jehovah," who had acted justly in his covenant relation with them throughout their whole history, faithfully fulfilled his promises, inflicted punishment only when it was deserved, and bestowed upon them the greatest benefits (Eze_33:17; Mic_6:2) These acts include
1. A wonderful deliverance (ver. 8) from a crushing oppression, in compassion to the cry of the needy, through the instrumentality of men raised up for the purpose, with "a mighty hand and an outstretched arm," and completed in their possession of the land of promise. This deliverance is always regarded as the foundation of their history. "History was born in that night in which Moses, with the law of God, moral and spiritual, in his heart, led the people of Israel out of Egypt" (Bunsen).
2. Repeated chastisements (ver. 9), rendered necessary by forgetfulness of God, varied (the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Moabites), and with a view to their moral improvement. "Notice here Samuel"s prudence in reproof.
(1) By his reproof of their ancestors he prepares their minds to receive reproof;
(2) he shows that their ingratitude is old, and so worse, and they should take care that it grow no stronger;
(3) he chooses a very mild word, "forget," to express their offence" (Pool).
3. Continued help (vers. 10, 11), through penitence and prayer, by means of successive "saviours, Jerubbaal (Gideon), Sedan (Barak), Jephthah, Samuel, (1Sa_7:10; referring to himself in the third person, because now speaking as the advocate of Jehovah) against their "enemies on every side," and in their safe preservation unto the present time. "And ye dwelled safe." But what return did they make for all his benefits? As soon as they saw the threatening attitude of Nahash (ver. 12), they forgot the lessons of the past, lost their confidence in God, trusted in an arm of flesh, and recklessly and persistently demanded a king, virtually rejecting the Lord as their king. Former experience of the goodness and severity of God greatly aggravates present transgression (ver. 19).
III INVOLVING PERILOUS RESPONSIBILITY (vers. 13-15) in the light of present circumstances. "Now therefore behold the king whom ye have chosen," etc. Although they had taken the initiative in the matter, he had reserved to himself the authority of appointing him, and abides the supreme Ruler over both people and king (ver. 12). In the new order of things
1. They are specially liable to forget this primary truth, and to trust in man, and hence he impresses upon them once and again the fact that "the Lord God is their king." No earthly monarch can release them from their responsibility to him, and no human help can save them apart from him. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes". (Psa_118:9)
2. They can prosper only by being faithful to him. "If ye will fear the Lord," etc., it will be well with you and your king. But
3. If unfaithful, they will expose themselves to heavy judgments, as their fathers had done before them. Wherein, then, have they improved their condition? What a perilous course have they entered upon! And how can they hope to avoid its consequences except by profound humiliation, and seeking the Lord "with full purpose of heart"?
IV NECESSITATING SINCERE REPENTANCE (vers. 16-18) in the light of approaching judgment. "Now therefore stand and see this great thing," etc. Hitherto the words of Samuel appear to have produced little effect; something further was necessary that they might not be spoken in vain; and, in response to his prayer, the thunder crashed above the heads of the great assembly, and the rain fell in torrents around them things "incomprehensible to a Hebrew" in time of harvest. The miraculous sign
1. Corroborates the word of truth as well as the Divine commission of him who uttered it, and confirms the testimony borne to his integrity. The voice of the supreme Judge answers the appeal which had been made to him (ver. 5), and there is "an end of all controversy". (Heb_6:16)
1. Is significant of the Divine displeasure at their sin, and of terrible judgments. (Exo_9:28) "Hereby the Lord showed his power, and the people their foolishness in not being contented to have such a mighty God for their protector, who could with thunder and rain fight for them against
2. their enemies, as he did for Israel against the host of Pharaoh, and not long before this against the Philistines. And, beside, it appeared with what small reason they should be weary of Samuel"s government, who by his prayer could fetch down rain and thunder from heaven" (Willet). "God had granted their desire; but upon them and their king"s bearing toward the Lord, not upon the fact that they had now a king, would the future of Israel depend; and this truth, so difficult for them to learn, God would, as it were, prove before them in a symbol. Did they think it unlikely, nay, well nigh impossible, to fail in their present circumstances? God would bring the unlikely and seemingly incredible to pass in a manner patent to all. Was it not the time of wheat harvest, when in the East not a cloud darkens the clear sky? God would send thunder and rain to convince them, by making the unlikely real, of the folly and sin of their thoughts in demanding a king" (Edersheim).
3. Is designed to effect a moral end, in filling them with salutary fear. "That ye may perceive that your wickedness is great" (ver. 17). And it is not in vain; for "all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel" (ver. 18), thus solemnly avouched to be his prophet. God is never at a loss for means to accomplish his purposes, and goes beyond his usual method of operations when the occasion demands it. The end of his dealings with men is to bring them to repentance and make them holy.
V NOT EXCLUDING CONSOLATION AND HOPE (vers. 19-25) in the light of the great name and merciful purposes of God. By means of repentance and faith men place themselves within the circle where the "consuming fire" of Divine wrath (Rom_1:18; Heb_12:29) is transformed into the genial beams of Divine grace; and "he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins". (1Jn_1:9) We have here
1. A description of a penitent people (ver. 19), overwhelmed with fear, freely and fully confessing their sin, rendering honour where they had formerly shown ingratitude and disrespect, and seeking Divine mercy in the way in which they had reason to believe it might be obtained.
2. An exhortation to an amended course of life (vers. 20, 21).
(1) A consoling word. "Fear not.
(2) A reminding and humbling word. "Ye have done all this wickedness.
(3) A restraining word. "Turn not aside from following the Lord" (as ye have done in your distrust and self-will).
(4) A directive word. "But serve the Lord with all your heart" (in faith, and love, and entire consecration).
(5) A warning word. "And turn ye not aside" (from God to any false object of trust, idols).
(6) An instructive word. For they are vain" (utterly empty and disappointing).
3. An assurance of mercy and grace (ver. 22), resting on
(1) His relationship. They are still "his people.
(2) His name his revelations of power and salvation to his people, and his honour and glory before all the nations.
(3) His good will. "Because" (he will not forsake his people, because) "it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people." Whatever benefits he has conferred have proceeded from his pure benevolence, and are a pledge of further benefits. (Jer_31:3) His free and unmerited love is the sinner"s chief hope.
1. A promise of continued aid, on the part of Samuel, in intercession and instruction (ver. 23). "In this he sets a glorious example to all rulers, showing them that they should not be led astray by the ingratitude of their subordinates or subjects, and give up on that account all interest in their welfare; but should further persevere all the more in their anxiety for them.
2. A final admonition to steadfast obedience (vers. 24, 25), without which both people and king will be overwhelmed in destruction. In keeping with the tone which pervades these admonitions, and as in foresight of coming evils, they end with a warning. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And Samuel said unto all Israel.
1Sa_12:1-5
And Samuel said unto all Israel.
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A statesmans retrospect
The closing years in the life of Samuel, the last and greatest of the judges, witnessed a transition in the method of governing the nation of Israel from the theocracy to the monarchy. By the wise, unselfish action of Samuel, this transition, which might have involved grave national controversy and bloodshed, was peaceably made. Samuels work was, therefore, as a ruler, transferred to Saul; and though he continued for some years to exercise the functions of prophet, administrative duties passed into other hands. This address is a fine example of ancient Hebrew eloquence, and it manifestly appealed to the conscience and heart of the audience addressed. It touched upon three important points.
I. Vindication of personal character and administration. In his splendid review what facts emerged that should commend the retiring leader to the gratitude and appreciation of the nation he had sought to serve?
1. His loyalty to the national request for a king. We know how acutely he had felt his supersession of himself, and how he had directed his prayer to God in respect of it; but he had waived his own strong objection, and had dutifully assisted in the appointment of the divinely selected monarch.
2. His long and blameless life. High position magnifies every human quality, heightens every excellency, and blackens every blot of human character. But Samuels long career furnished no fault on which the most acute enquiry could fasten, no deviation from the right path that the sternest rectitude could condemn. What a magnificent challenge.
3. His upright administration. Samuel challenged the people on the question of his official life, as well as on his personal character. His public duties had been as free from exaction and oppression as his private life from moral taint. Nothing is more common, it is said, in Eastern lands, even down to this day, than oppression and exaction on the part of rulers and public men having charge of the government and taxation of the people.
II. Defence of Gods previous government of Israel. Note:--
1. The principle of this government. The theocracy, under which Israel had so long lived and prospered, meant the supreme and recognised sovereignty of God. By the test of experience, the test of practical results on the national life, the theocracy had its amplest vindication. Under it the nation had enjoyed signal prosperity.
2. The agency by which administered. This unique method of national government was carried on by specially selected rulers, appointed as the exigencies of the times demanded. God raised up men--great men--to meet emergencies of national life as they arose.
3. The law by which controlled. This law was the nations loyalty to God. When the nation was true to its best traditions, true to the faith and worship of the living God, true to the sublime morality of the Ten Commandments, Gods benediction rested upon them, and national prosperity followed. In this memorable address Samuel referred also to:--
III. The conditions of continued national prosperity.
1. Changed political conditions do not change moral or religious obligations. King or no king, Gods claim on the worship and service of Israel could not be abrogated or diminished. Amid all the changes of their national life, that was the one thing that was changeless. A new king on the throne, or a new form of government of the realm, did not and could not alter that. What is morally wrong cannot be politically right. What is wrong in England is wrong in India. If it is wrong to break the Sabbath at home, it is wrong to break it abroad. Christianity knows no geographical limits in the scope of its message, or the authority of its claims. Public opinion may change and vary, but it ought not, and must not, override the higher and more authoritative law of God.
2. Righteousness exalteth a nation. John Ruskin, in the opening paragraph of his Stones of Venice, tells us that Since the first dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the first of these great powers only the memory remains; of the second, the ruin; the third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget their example, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied destruction. No lesson is more urgently needed in our time than this. Vice means weakness and decay; virtue, devotion, humanity--these mean strength and permanence. The conditions of national prosperity, then, are clear and uniform. They are reverence for sacred things, obedience to the law of God in personal, social, and national affairs alike, consideration for others, and unselfish service to promote their interests and welfare. (Thomas Mitchell.)
Sauls confirmation in the kingship
After the great victory over the Ammonites at Jabesh-Gilead, Samuel said to the people, Come, and let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there. The people were in a mood to listen to the advice. They were full of enthusiasm for Saul, and of gratitude to God on account of their splendid success. And Samuel wisely took advantage of the occasion to confirm the loyalty, not only of the people to the king, but also of the king and people to God.
1. After the feast, perhaps in the course of the afternoon, Samuel solemnly addressed the vast assembly. His aim, in the first part of his speech, was to show that they had nothing to justify their demand for a king in the character of his administration.
2. Samuels aim in the second part of his speech was to show that they had nothing to justify their demand for a king in the character of the Divine administration.
3. But, after convicting them of slighting God in asking for an earthly sovereign, Samuel now speaks to them about their present duty. (T. Kirk.)
Samuels vindication of himself
No doubt Samuel felt that, after the victory at Jabesh-Gilead, he had the people in a much more impressible condition than they had been in before; and while their minds were thus so open to impression, it was his duty to urge on them to the very uttermost the truths that bore on their most vital well-being. The reasons why Samuel makes such explicit reference to his past life and such a strong appeal to the people as to its blameless character is that he may establish a powerful claim for the favourable consideration of the advice which he is about to give them. If you have reason to suspect an adviser of a selfish purpose let him argue as he pleases, you do not allow yourselves to be moved by anything he may say. But if you have good cause to know that he is a disinterested man you feel that what such a man urges comes home to you with extraordinary weight.
1. The first consideration he urged was that he had listened to their voice in making them a king. He had not obstructed nor baulked them in their strong feeling, though he might reasonably enough have done so.
2. In the next place Samuel adverts to his age. What Samuel delicately points to here is the uniformity of his life. He had not begun on one line, then changed to another. Such steadiness and uniformity throughout a long life genders a wonderful weight of character. Happy the Church, happy the country, that abounds in such worthies!--men, as Thomas Carlyle said of his peasant Christian father, of whom one should be prouder in ones pedigree than of dukes or kings, for what is the glory of mere rank or accidental station compared to the glory of Godlike qualities, and of a character which reflects the image of God Himself?
3. The third point to which Samuel adverts is his freedom from all acts of unjust exaction or oppression, and from all those corrupt practices in the administration of justice which were so common in Eastern countries. Is there nothing here for us to ponder in these days of intense competition in business and questionable methods of securing gain? Surely the rule of unbending integrity, absolute honesty, and unswerving truth is as binding on the Christian merchant as it was on the Hebrew judge. No doubt Samuel was a poor man, though he might have been rich had he followed the example of heathen rulers. But who does not honour him in his poverty, with his incorruptible integrity and most scrupulous, truthfulness, as no man would or could have honoured him had he accumulated the wealth of a Cardinal Wolsey and lived in splendour rivalling royalty itself? It is right that we should very specially take note of the root of this remarkable integrity and truthfulness of his toward men. For we live in times when it is often alleged that religion and morality have no vital connection with each other, and that there may be found an independent morality altogether separate from religious profession. Let it be granted that this divorce from morality may be true of religions of an external character, where Divine service is supposed to consist of ritual observances and bodily attitudes and attendances, performed in strict accordance with a very rigid rule. Wherever such performances are looked on as the end of religion they may be utterly dissociated from morality, and one may be, at one and the same time, strictly religious and glaringly immoral. But wherever religion is spiritual and penetrating, wherever sin is seen in its true character, wherever men feel the curse and pollution of sin in their hearts and lives, another spirit rules. The will of God is a terrible rule of life to the natural man--a rule against which he rebels as unreasonable, impracticable, terrible. How then are men brought to pay supreme and constant regard to that will? How was Samuel brought to do this, and how are men led to do it now? In both cases, it is through the influence of gracious, Divine love. Samuel was a member of a nation that God had chosen as His own, that God had redeemed from bondage, that God dwelt among, protected, restored, guided, and blessed beyond all example. The heart of Samuel was moved by Gods goodness to the nation. More than that, Samuel personally had been the object of Gods redeeming love; and though the hundred-and-third Psalm was not yet written, he could doubtless say, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, etc. It is the same gracious, Divine action, the same experience of redeeming grace and mercy, that under the Christian dispensation draws mens hearts to the will of God; only a new light has been thrown on these Divine qualities by the Cross of Christ. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Samuel on his defence
The scene explains itself. In olden times, meetings of this kind were held in the open air. In earlier French history, the warriors used to meet in the month of May, and the king was carried round on a shield, to receive their homage. When our king Alfred divided the country into hundreds, he directed the heads of families to meet together at fixed seasons, the muster place being sometimes round a well-known tree, and there is in existence to this day such a tree, which gave its name to the hundred or wapen-take. And in the Isle of Man the farmers of the island meet once a year in the open air to transact business, to this very day. Israel in this chapter is met together in the same way. They are under a bright eastern sky, the young king stands before them--a fine figure to behold; perhaps the handsomest man of his time--and by his side stands an old man, hoary, and grey-headed. We must now leave all the rest, and think only of this grey-headed old man.
I. The public mans influence and temptations. Samuel spent about fifty years in a public life like this. Consider the influence he would necessarily acquire. If he has become known for being a sound thinker, competent to advise and willing to do so, men never mention his name without respect. They will go and ask him for opinions on matters that it seems almost impertinent to trouble him with. He seems only to live to assist others. Every house is open to him, and he carries many matters of importance without opposition. With such influence, consider what will be his temptations! If he has given a decision favourable to a man and that man, out of gratitude, sends him a handsome present, how tempting it will be to receive it. In going the round of his sessions he would probably receive hospitality from some of the richer men about; it would be his due. Now, suppose one of these richer men who had entertained him handsomely came into court, how tempting it would be to listen to him a little more favourably! What opportunities, too, he has to benefit his family. A man in such a position has sometimes disagreeable things to do. If he decides one way, he may make a powerful man his enemy. That enemy may annoy him much, may libel his character and torment him terribly. The temptation will then be to get rid of such a tormentor, by oppressing him and putting him down.
II. Fidelity to trust. We are all in some places of trust. No man lives for himself alone. It is a very great mistake for any man to suppose that he has no influence. Who is more respected by any right-minded man than an honourable servant of standing character? I dont know anyone more entitled to sympathy and kindness than those who have grown hoary and grey in service. Well, then, you that are men and women in the prime of life, whatever be your occupation, put this model before you, this speech of Samuels.
III. The joy of a pure conscience. Children and young people, in this life of Samuel there is nothing that you cannot do in your way. Say to yourselves every day as you begin, I am determined, God being my helper, to be so faithful in all that I do, that no man shall charge me with wronging him. You will fail sometimes, and be grieved at your failure. Yet be not discouraged, but persevere, and you may, if spared to be old and grey-headed, totter down the aisle of your church, or the streets of your village or town, with the consciousness of clean hands. There is no joy unmixed in this world. In his old age Samuel could have applied to himself the words of our great dramatist:--Tho I look old, Im lusty; For never in my youth did I woo the means of debility. Therefore mine age is as a lusty winter--Frosty, yet kindly. Let me be your servant. Ill do the service of a younger man. But no! the appeal had not its right effect. His countrymen were not grateful to him, as they ought to have been; they wanted this young king--something new--and the old man in his old age was to be forgotten. We must be prepared to be misunderstood--to find even a friend, who ought to know better, grow cool. But, firm in our upright course, we must fall back on the approbation of a pure conscience. A man need not skulk and hang his head if his conscience tells him that he has nothing to be ashamed of; rather will it whisper to him peace amidst the gloom that might dishearten him. (H. Hiley, D. D.)
Appointment of the first king in Israel
Israel was in the position of a boat which has been borne downs a swift stream into the very suction of the rapids. The best would be that she should be put back; but if it be too late for this, then the best is that there should be in her a strong arm and a steady eye to keep her head straight. And thus it was with Israel. She plunged down the fail madly, rashly, wickedly; but under Samuels control, steadily. This part of the chapter we arrange in two branches:--
I. Samuels conduct after the mortification of his own rejection. The people having accepted Saul as their king, had been dismissed, and Samuel was left alone, but his feelings were very different from those which he had in that other moment of solitude, when he had dismissed the delegates of the people. That struggle was past. He was now calm. The first moment was a terrible one. It was one of those periods in human life when the whole meaning of life is perplexed, its aims and hopes frustrated; when a man is down upon his face and gust after gust sweeps desolately over his spirit. Samuel was there to feel all the ideas that naturally suggest themselves in such hours--the instability of human affection--the nothingness of the highest earthly aims. But by degrees, two thoughts calmed him. The first was the feeling of identification with Gods cause. They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me. The other element of consolation was the Divine sympathy. If they had been rebellious to their ruler, they had also been disloyal to Jehovah. Atheism and revolution here, as elsewhere, went hand-in-hand. We do not know how this sentence was impressed by the Infinite Mind on Samuels mind; all we know is, he had a conviction that God was a fellow sufferer. The many-coloured phases of human feeling all find themselves reflected in the lights and shadows of ever-varying sensitiveness which the different sentences of His conversation exhibit. Be your tone of feeling what it may, whether you are poor or rich, gay or sad--in society or alone--adored, loved, betrayed, misunderstood, despised--weigh well His words first, by thinking what they mean, and you will become aware that one heart in space throbs in conscious harmony with yours. In its degree, that was Samuels support. Next, Samuels cheerful way of submitting to his fate is to be observed. Another prophet, when his prediction was nullified, built himself a booth and sat beneath it, fretting in sullen pride, to see the end of Nineveh. Samuel might have done this; he might have withdrawn himself in offended dignity from public life, watched the impotent attempts of the people to guide themselves, and seen dynasty after dynasty fall with secret pleasure. Very different is his conduct. He addresses himself like a man to the exigencies of the moment. Now remark in all this, the healthy, vigorous tone of Samuels religion. This man, the greatest and wisest then alive, thought this the great thing to live for--to establish a kingdom of God on earth--to transform his own country into a kingdom of God. It is worthwhile to see how he set about it. From first to last it was in a practical, real way--by activity in every department of life. Now he is deposed: but he has duties still. He has a king to look for, public festivals to superintend, a public feast to preside over; and later on we shall find him becoming the teacher of a school. All this was a religion for life. His spirituality was no fanciful, shadowy thing; the kingdom of God to him was to be in this world, and we know no surer sign of enfeebled religion than the disposition to separate religion from life and life duties. Listen: What is secularity or worldliness? Meddling with worldly things? or meddling with a worldly spirit? We brand political existence and thought with the name worldly--we stigmatise first one department of life and then another as secular; and so religion becomes a pale, unreal thing, which must end, if we are only true to our principles, in the cloister. Religion becomes feeble, and the world, deserted and proscribed, becomes infidel.
II. Samuels treatment of his successor, after his own rejection, is remarkable. It was characterised by two things--courtesy and generosity. When he saw the man who was to be his successor, he invited him to the entertainment. This is politeness; what we allude to is a very different thing, however, from that mere system of etiquette and conventionalisms in which small minds find their very being, to observe which accurately is life, and to transgress which is sin. Courtesy is not confined to the high bred; often theirs is but the artistic imitation of courtesy. The peasant who rises to put before you his only chair, while he sits upon the oaken chest, is a polite man. Motive determines everything. Something still more beautiful marks Samuels generosity. The man who stood before him was a Successful rival. One who had been his inferior now was to supersede him. And Samuel lends him a helping hand--gracefully assists him to rise above him, entertains him, recommends him to the people. It is very touching. Samuel and the people did the game thing--they made Saul king. But the people did it by drawing down Samuel nearer to themselves. Samuel did it by elevating Saul above himself. One was the spirit of revolution, the other was the spirit of the Gospel. In our own day it specially behoves us to try the spirits, whether they be of God. The reality and the counterfeit, as in this case, are singularly like each other. Three spirits make their voices heard, in a cry for Freedom, for Brotherhood, for human Equality. And we must not forget, these names are hallowed by the very Gospel itself. Unless we realise them we have no Gospel kingdom. Distinguish, however, well the reality from the baser alloy. The spirit, which longs for freedom puts forth a righteous claim; for it is written, If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Brotherhood--the Gospel promises brotherhood also--One is your master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. Equality--Yes. There is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free. This is the grand Federation, Brotherhood, Emancipation of the human raze. Now the worlds spirit aims at bringing all this about by drawing others down to the level on which each one stands. The Christian spirit secures equality by raising up. The man that is less wise, less good than I--I am to raise up to my level in these things. Yes, and in social position too, if he be fit for it. I am to be glad to see him rise above me, as generously as Samuel saw Saul. And if we could but all work in this generous rivalry, our rent and bleeding country, sick at heart, gangrened with an exclusiveness, which narrows our sympathies and corrupts our hearts, might be all that the most patriotic love would have her. Once more there is suggested to us the thought that Samuel was now growing old. They might forget Samuel--they might crowd round his successor--but Samuels work could not be forgotten; years after he was quiet and silent, under ground, his courts in Bethel and Mizpeh would form the precedents and the germs of the national jurisprudence. A very pregnant lesson. Life passes, work is permanent. It is all going--fleeting and withering. Youth goes. Mind decays. That which is done remains. Deeds never die. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Samuel, seer and statesman
The character of Samuel itself is one which surely sets before us a type of that class of character which we can see in all departments of public life. Will you allow me to ask you to notice not merely the greatness of Samuel, but those causes which seem to have contributed to the formation of that character which lay at the back of his greatness? First, I may remind you how great Samuel was in the history of Israel. He has been called the second Moses, and not without reason.
I. The greatness of Samuel is seen in the three-fold aspect of his life. He was great as a judge in an era of considerable political confusion; he was great in that he founded, or was considered to have founded, what was called the school of prophets; and he was great also in that, in an era of transition, he acted as a consummate statesman. We have only to recall the significance of those three statements to see how widespread and enduring was that quality of Samuels greatness. As a judge in an era of confusion he showed exactly those qualities which were so much needed. And you mark that he had seen some of the symptoms of moral deterioration in his early days. He had seen the loose habits which had crept in in all quarters, he had seen the immoral sons of Eli, and how far the immorality had crept into the people when in the very precincts of the sacred place there was such immorality! But that was not all. Where there is a moral deterioration there is always a deterioration of the religious conception. And that is what Samuel had perceived, and therefore he realised that alike in religious thought and in social manners there needed a great reformation. Now there are a great many ways in which you bring about reformation. You may do it by legislation, you may do it by sending broadcast through the world the pressure and persuasion of men. Samuel chose the latter. He knew the only valuable reformation was a reformation which would strike the heart of the people. Watch him now as the statesman. There comes a change; there is inevitably a change in all human life. The development of national life, like the development of individual life, must go on. And this development must mean the passing away of things which are very dear. He showed us the example which will always be the example of wise men in eras of change. When you see a movement has become movement of the peoples thought do not be so unwise as to endeavour to withstand it, unless it be a question of right and wrong, but be wise and direct what you cannot oppose. That is the attitude of Samuel. If you watch him you see him, a man possessed of singular gifts, of great vigour in action, practical, with great insight into the causes which underlie national greatness, and at the same time with that marvellous flexibility that even in his old age he was ready to adjust himself to the new conditions of the life in which he found himself.
II. Samuels training for service. If we take him as marked by these features of greatness, we ask, what was the source, what were the forces which came to the formation of a character so strong, so youthfully great. There are two things, surely, which make up the complete man in his later days. One is, of course, the surroundings of his early life, and the other is the character which was originally his. The dramatic interest of life surely lies in this, that you have the raw material of life exposed to certain influences in the home, in the early training of the school, and in the environment of the dawn of life. Watch the environing circumstances in the case of Samuel. No person who understands the influence of home life will, I think, be tempted to undervalue it. Do you not pity Samuel in the second stage of his life? The child who is suddenly withdrawn at a tender age from home and is planted down amidst surroundings which, I think, one may venture without disparagement to call unsympathetic. He could not find sympathy in the wild men who were leading the loose lives of Hophni and Phinehas, and Eli must have been but a grave companion for the young child, but as you watch him he somehow or other identifies himself with the quiet gravity of the old man. Watch him a step further. There comes a moment in which the third influence is seen. The first is home, the second is the general companionship, and the third is the silent influence of the unseen world come into his life. There comes a moment when he is aware that life does not consist merely in those factors of home life which he has known, nor in these various powers of official and national life of which he has had some youthful experience, but behind all activities of the human life there is the great presiding power of the unseen; and in the silent watches of the night there is disclosed to him a consciousness of the great power, the great formative spirit, the great influence of the Divine which is always at work in the hearts and lives of men. And now watch the character which is exposed to these influences. Is there any character in the Bible of which you may say, The quiet piety of his life was like a growing thing? There were no startling changes. There was the one solid change from the home into the sanctuary, but for the rest his days were bound each to each by natural piety. Quietly he ripened under the solemn and sweet influences of the sanctuary.
III. The ripened character. And now watch him in his later life, and see the other characteristics. One would have imagined that this child who ripened under these circumstances would have been a person deficient in practical activity, deficient in those stronger and manlier virtues which we think can only be gained in the rude struggle of the more active life. But the man who has been brought up in this fashion had the qualities within him of that dogged determination and that entire devotion to duty which never stumbled at any duty, however arduous, and never shudders or shrinks from any danger; and, therefore, when he takes the reins of power what promptitude and what decision there is in all that he does! This is the man who, in the climax of his life, can show the one great solid quality which was, after all, the true characteristic of his life--the most complete and absolute disinterestedness. What are the conditions which we desire to see established in national life? If Samuel is to be an expression, or a type, or a teaching to us, then surely we want men who are absolutely free from self-interest. The danger of nations lies in self-interest. May I venture to say it without being misinterpreted?--this danger of self-interest in national affairs becomes much more dangerous as the complexity of life grows, and therefore the opportunities of manipulating affairs for personal interest begin to multiply upon us. What is the secret of having a disinterested mind? Jesus Christ was the supreme teacher, remember, and remember those words which He said, which we ought to write forever in our hearts--I would emblazon them upon the walls of our Law Courts and our political assembly rooms--If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Is there any inspiration of single-mindedness, is there any way that we can get the power to rid ourselves of self-interest? The voice of God heard always, the voice of God in the still hours of the night. That which makes the difference between man and man lies in this: his relationship to God. And it was because Samuel had found God in his life so early that God was in his life all through, and wherever he stood it was God that he saw. How much may we not be warped by personal interests, by the desire of some gain, by the opportunities which so often in the hurly-burly of affairs come in temptations before us! What need there is that we in such hours should be, as Samuel would have the people, purged from our own offences, all our gods of covetousness and idolatry put far away, and standing once more as a people hearing the voice of God. (W. Boyd Carpenter, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain
CHAPTER X V I.
SAMUEL'S VINDICATION OF HIMSELF.
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1Sa_12:1-5.
IT was a different audience that Samuel had to address at Gilgal from either that which came to him to Ram ah to ask for a king, or that which assembled at Mizpeh to elect one. To both of these assemblies he had solemnly conveyed his warning against the act of distrust in God implied in their wishing for a king at all, and against any disposition they might feel, when they got a king, to pay less attention than before to God's will and covenant. The present audience represented the army, undoubtedly a great multitude, that had gone forth with Saul to relieve Jabesh-Gilead, and that now came with Samuel to Gilgai to renew the kingdom. As the audience now seems to have been larger, so it very probably represented more fully the whole of the twelve tribes of Israel. This may explain to us why Samuel not only returned to the subject on which he had spoken so earnestly before, but enlarged on it at greater length, and appealed with more fullness to his own past life as giving weight to the counsels which he pressed upon them. Besides this, the recognition of Saul as king at Gilgal was more formal, more hearty, and more unanimous than at Mizpeh, and the institution of royalty was now more an established and settled affair. No doubt, too, Samuel felt that, after the victory at Jabesh-Gilead, he had the people in a much more impressible condition than they had been in before; and while their minds were thus so open to impression, it was his duty to urge on them to the very uttermost the truths that bore on their most vital well-being.
The address of Samuel on this occasion bore on three things: 1. his own personal relations to them in the past (1Sa_12:1-5); 2. the mode of God's dealing with their fathers, and its bearing on the step now taken (1Sa_12:6-12); and 3. the way in which God's judgments might be averted and His favour and friendship secured to the nation in all time coming (1Sa_12:13-25).
1. The reason why Samuel makes such explicit reference to his past life and such a strong appeal to the people as to its blameless character is, that he may establish a powerful claim for the favourable consideration of the advice which he is about to give them. The value of an advice no doubt depends simply on its own intrinsic excellence, but the effect of an advice depends partly on other things; it depends, to a great extent, on the disposition of people to think favourably of the person by whom the advice is given. If you have reason to suspect an adviser of a selfish purpose, if you know him to be a man who can plausibly represent that the course which he urges will be a great benefit to you, while in reality he has no real regard for any interest but his own, then, let him argue as he pleases, you do not allow yourselves to be moved by anything he may say. But if you have good cause to know that he is a disinterested man, if he has never shown himself to be selfish, but uniformly devoted to the interests of others, and especially of yourselves, you feel that what such a man urges comes home to you with extraordinary weight. Now, the great object of Samuel in his reference to his past life was to bring the weight of this consideration to bear in favour of the advice he was to give to the people. For he could appeal to them with the greatest confidence as to his absolute disinterestedness. He could show that, with ever so many opportunities of acting a selfish part, no man could accuse him of having ever been guilty of crooked conduct in all his relations to the people. He could -establish from their own mouths the position that he was as thoroughly devoted to the interests of the nation as any man could be. And therefore he called on them to give their most favourable and their most earnest attention to the advice which he was about to press on them, the more so that he was most profoundly convinced that the very existence of the nation in days to come depended on its being complied with.
The first consideration he urged was, that he had listened to their voice in making them a king. He had not obstructed nor baulked them in their strong feeling, though he might reasonably enough have done so. He had felt the proposal keenly as a reflection on himself, but he had waived that objection and gone on. He had regarded it as a slur on the Almighty, but the Almighty Himself had been pleased to forgive it, and he had transacted with Him on their behalf in the same way as before. Nothing that he had done in this matter could have an unfriendly aspect put on it. He had made the best of an objectionable proposal; and now they had not only got their wish, but along with it, objectionable though it was, a measure of the sanction of God. ''And now, behold, the king walketh before you."
In the next place, Samuel adverts to his age. "I am old and grey-headed; and, behold, my sons are with you, and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day." You have had abundant opportunities to know me, and my manner of life. You know how I began, and you know how I have gone on, till now the circle of my years is nearly completed; a new generation has grown up; my sons are your contemporaries; I am old and grey-headed. You know how my childhood was spent in God's house in Shiloh, how God called me to be His prophet, and how I have gone on in that exalted office, trying ever to be faithful to Him that called me. What Samuel delicately points to here is the uniformity of his life. He had not begun on one line, then changed to another. He had not see- sawed nor zigzagged, one thing at one time, another at another; but from infancy to grey hairs he had kept steadfastly to the same course, he had ever served the same Master. Such steadiness and uniformity throughout a long life genders a wonderful weight of character. The man that has borne an honoured name through all the changes and temptations of life, through youth and middle age, and even to hoar hairs, that has served all that time under the same banner and never brought discredit on it, has earned a title to no ordinary esteem. It is this that forms the true glory of old age. Men instinctively pay honour to the hoary head when it represents a career of uniform and consistent integrity; and Christian men honour it all the more when it represents a lifetime of Christian activity and self- denial. Examine the ground of this reverence, and you will find it to be this: such a mature and consistent character could never have been attained but for many a struggle, in early life, of duty against inclination, and many a victory of the higher principle over the lower, till at length the habit of well-doing was so established, that further struggles were hardly ever needed. Men think of him as one who has silently but steadily yielded up the baser desires of his nature all through his life to give effect to the higher and the nobler. They think of him as one who has sought all through life to give that honour to the will of God in which possibly they have felt themselves sadly deficient, and to encourage among their fellow-men, at much cost of self-denial, those ways of life which inflict no damage on our nature and bring a serene peace and satisfaction. Of such a mode of life, Samuel was an admirable representative. Men of that stamp are the true nobles of a community. Loyal to God and faithful to man; denying themselves and labouring to diffuse the spirit of all true happiness and prosperity; visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and keeping themselves unspotted by the world - happy the community whose quiver is full of them! Happy the Church, happy the country, that abounds in such worthies! - men, as Thomas Carlyle said of his peasant Christian father, of whom one should be prouder in one's pedigree than of dukes or kings, for what is the glory of mere rank or accidental station compared to the glory of Godlike qualities, and of a character which reflects the image of God Himself?
The third point to which Samuel adverts is his freedom from all acts of unjust exaction or oppression, and from all those corrupt practices in the administration of justice which were so common in Eastern countries. "Behold; here I am; witness against me before the Lord and before His anointed; whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it to you." It was no small matter to be able to make this challenge, which is as fearless in tone as it is comprehensive in range, in the very midst of such a sea of corruption as the neighbouring kingdoms of the East presented. It would seem as if, down to this day, the people in most of these despotic countries had never known any other regime but one of unjust exaction and oppression. We have seen, in an earlier chapter of this book, how shamefully the very priests abused the privilege of their sacred office to appropriate to themselves the offerings of God. In the days of our Lord and John the Baptist, what was it that rendered ''the publicans" so odious but that their exactions went beyond the limits of justice and decency alike? Even to this day, the same system prevails as corrupt as ever. I have heard from an excellent American missionary a tale of a court of justice that came within his experience, even at a conspicuous place like Beirut, that shows that without bribery it is hardly possible to get a decision on the proper side. A claim had been made to a piece of land which he had purchased for his mission, and as he refused to pay what on the very face of it was obviously unjust, he was summoned before the magistrate. The delays that took place in dealing with the case were alike needless and vexatious, but the explanation came in a message from the authorities, slyly conveyed to him, that the wheels of justice would move much faster if they were duly oiled with a little American gold. To such a proposal he would not listen for a moment, and it was only by threatening an exposure before the higher powers that the decision was at last given where really there was not the shadow of a claim against him. From the same source I got an illustration of the exactions that are made to this day in the payment of taxes. The law provides that of the produce of the land one tenth shall belong to the Government for the public service. There is an officer whose duty it is to examine the produce of every farm, and carry off the share that the Government are entitled to. The farmer is not allowed to do anything with his produce till this officer has obtained the Government share. After harvest the farmers of a district will send word to the officer that their produce IS ready, and invite him to come and take his tenth. The officer will return word that he is very busy, and will not be able to come for a month. The delay of a month would entail incalculable loss and inconvenience on the farmers. They know the situation well; and they send a deputation of their number to say that if he will only come at once, they are willing to give him two tenths instead of one, the second tenth being for his own use. But this too they are assured that he cannot do. And there is nothing for them but to remain with him higgling and bargaining, till at last perhaps, in utter despair, they promise him a proportion which will leave no more than the half available for themselves.
And these are not exceptional instances - they are the common experiences of Eastern countries, at least in the Turkish empire. When such dishonest practices prevail on every side, it often happens that even good men are carried away with them, and seem to imagine that, being universal, it is necessary for them to fall in with them too. It was a rare thing that Samuel was able to do to look round on that vast assembly and demand whether one act of that kind had ever been committed by him, whether he had ever deviated even an hair-breadth from the rule of strict integrity and absolute honesty in all his dealings with them. Observe that Samuel was not like one of many, banded together to be true and upright, and supporting each other by mutual example and encouragement in that course. As far as appears, he was alone, like the seraph Abdiel, ''faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he." What a regard he must have had for the law and authority of God! How rigidly he must have trained himself in public as in private life to make the will of God the one rule of his actions! What was it to him that slight peccadilloes would be thought nothing of by the public? What was it to him that men would have counted it only natural that of the money that passed through his hands a little should stick to his fingers, provided he was faithful in the main? What was it to him that this good man and that good man were in the way of doing it, so that, after all, he would be no worse than they? All such considerations would have been absolutely tossed aside. "Get thee behind me, Satan," would have been his answer to all such proposals. Unbending integrity, absolute honesty, unswerving truth, was his rule on every occasion. "How can I do this wickedness," would have been his question - ''How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?''
Is there nothing here for us to ponder in these days of intense competition in business and questionable methods of securing gain? Surely the rule of unbending integrity, absolute honesty, and unswerving truth is as binding on the Christian merchant as it was on the Hebrew judge. Is the Christian merchant entitled to make use of the plea of general corruption around him in business any more than Samuel was? Some say, How else are we to make a living? We answer, No man is entitled even to make a living on terms which shut him out from using the Lord's Prayer, - from saying, "Give us this day our daily bread." Who would dare to say that bread obtained by dishonesty or deceit is God-given bread? Who could ask God to bless any enterprise or transaction which had not truth and honesty for its foundation? Better let bread perish than get it by unlawful means. For "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it." Instead of Christian men accepting the questionable ways of the world for pushing business, let them stand out as those who never can demean themselves by anything so unprincipled. No doubt Samuel was a poor man, though he might have been rich had he followed the example of heathen rulers. But who does not honour him in his poverty, with his incorruptible integrity and most scrupulous truthfulness, as no man would or could have honoured him had he accumulated the wealth of a Cardinal Wolsey and lived in splendour rivaling royalty itself? After all, it is the true rule, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
But ere we pass from the contemplation of Samuel's character, it is right that we should very specially take note of the root of this remarkable integrity and truthfulness of his toward men. For we live in times when it is often alleged that religion and morality have no vital connection with each other, and that there may be found an "independent morality" altogether separate from religious profession. Let it be granted that this divorce from morality may be true of religions of an external character, where Divine service is supposed to consist of ritual observances and bodily attitudes and attendances, performed in strict accordance with a very rigid rule. Wherever such performances are looked on as the end of religion, they may be utterly dissociated from morality, and one may be, at one and the same time, strictly religious and glaringly immoral. Nay, further, where religion is held to be in the main the acceptance of a system of doctrine, where the reception of the doctrines of grace is regarded as the distinguishing mark of the Christian, and fidelity to these doctrines the most important duty of discipleship; you may again have a religion dissociated from moral life. You may find men who glory in the doctrine of justification by faith and look with infinite pity on those who are vainly seeking to be accepted by their works, and who deem themselves very safe from punishment because of the doctrine they hold, but who have no right sense of the intrinsic evil of sin, and who are neither honest, nor truthful, nor worthy of trust in the common relations of life. But wherever religion is spiritual and penetrating, wherever sin is seen in its true character, wherever men feel the curse and pollution of sin in their hearts and lives, another spirit rules. The great desire now is to be delivered from sin, not merely in its punishment, but in its pollution and power. The end of religion is to establish a gracious relation through Jesus Christ between the sinner and God, whereby not only shall God's favour be restored, but the soul shall be renewed after God's image, and the rule of life shall be to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now we say. You cannot have such a religion without moral reformation. And, on the other hand, you cannot rely on moral reformation being accomplished without a religion like this. But alas! the love of sinful things is very deeply grained in the fallen nature of man.
Godlessness and selfishness are frightfully powerful in unregenerate hearts. The will of God is a terrible rule of life to the natural man - a rule against which he rebels as unreasonable, impracticable, terrible. How then are men brought to pay supreme and constant regard to that will? How was Samuel brought to do this, and how are men led to do it now? In both cases, it is through the influence of gracious, Divine love. Samuel was a member of a nation that God had chosen as His own, that God had redeemed from bondage, that God dwelt among, protected, restored, guided, and blessed beyond all example. The heart of Samuel was moved by God's goodness to the nation. More than that, Samuel personally had been the object of God's redeeming love; and though the hundred-and-third Psalm was not yet written, he could doubtless say, ''Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." It is the same gracious Divine action, the same experience of redeeming grace and mercy, that under the Christian dispensation draws men's hearts to the will of God; only a new light has been thrown on these Divine qualities by the Cross of Christ. The forgiving grace and love of God have been placed in a new setting, and when it is felt that God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, a new sense of His infinite kindness takes possession of the souk Little truly does anyone know of religion, in the true sense of the term, who has not got this view of God in Christ, and has not felt his obligations to the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him. And when this experience comes to be known, it becomes the delight of the soul to do the will of God. ''For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain 1Sa_12:1. “And Samuel said,” etc. “The time and place…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
1Sa_12:1. “And Samuel said,” etc. “The time and place of the following address are not given, but it is evident from the connection with the preceding chapter, and still more from the introduction and the entire contents of the address, that it was delivered on the renewal of the monarchy at Gilgal.”(Keil.) “I have hearkened.” etc. These words correspond exactly to the words in 1Sa_8:7; 1Sa_8:21. Samuel at the same time testifies indirectly to the fact that he had therein obeyed the command of God: “Hearken to the voice of the people.” (Erdmann.) “By appointing a great part of this chapter (viz. to 1Sa_12:22) to be read in the synagogues as a Haphtarah to Numbers 16; Numbers 17, 18, the ancient Hebrew Church suggests the parallel between this speech of Samuel and the address of Moses in reply to Korah and his rebellious associates.” (Wordsworth.)
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1Sa_12:2. “My sons are with you.” “They are reduced to the condition of private persons, and are subjects of the king, as ye are.” (Wordsworth.) “Perhaps only an amplification of the words ‘I am old and grey-headed.’ His grown-up sons were evidences of his age. Possibly, however, a tinge of mortified feeling at the rejection of himself and his family, mixed with a desire to recommend his sons to the good-will of the nation, is at the bottom of this mention of them.” (Biblical Commentary.)
1Sa_12:3. “Witness against me.” “The venerable judge, in resigning his magisterial authority, challenged the most minute inquiry into every act of his administration.… History scarcely anywhere presents a more striking example of the moral sublime. Grotius compares Samuel to Aristides.” (Jamieson.) “What Samuel here affirms of his official career stands in direct contrast with what is said in 1Sa_8:3, of the blameworthy conduct of his sons; since it is inconceivable that he did not know, and had not now in mind the covetousness and perversion of judgment and the resulting discontent of the people, which was a co-factor in their desire for a royal government. The mode, as well as the fact and contents of the following justification, naturally suggest the statement in 1Sa_8:3, and lead to the conclusion that this was the occasion of this (otherwise surprising) justification of his official career, on which in the eyes of the people a shadow had fallen in consequence of the opposite conduct of his sons.” (Erdmann.) “His anointed:” “i.e., of course, king Saul. The title Messiah, or anointed, had been given to the High Priests (Lev_4:3-5, etc.), and in Hannah’s prophetic song and in the prophecy of the man of God sent to Eli, prophetic mention had been made of God’s anointed; but this must be noted as the earliest instance of an actual king of Israel bearing the title of God’s Christ, and thus typifying the true Messiah or Christ of God. The application of the term anointed to Saul, makes it probable that he had been publicly anointed by Samuel at Gilgal. The secret anointing, mentioned at 1Sa_10:1, would not be notorious enough to explain the phrase to the whole people of Israel.” (Biblical Commentary.) “To blind mine eyes therewith,” rather “that I should hide mine eyes at him.” “The thought is not that the judge covers his eyes from the copher (or ransom) that he may not see the bribe, but that he covers his eyes with it, so as not to see and not to punish the crime committed.” (Keil.) “I will restore.” Compare Zaccheus’s saying, Luk_19:8. (Biblical Commentary.)
1Sa_12:6. “It is the Lord that advanced, etc.” Literally made, i.e., appointed them to their office. “The word make is to be understood of those excellent gifts which God had bestowed on Moses and his brother Aaron, that He might use their ministry in leading the people out of Egypt.” (Calvin.) “Observe the constant reference to the Exodus as the well-known turning point of their national life.” (Biblical Commentary.)
1Sa_12:7. “Stand still, that I may reason with you.” “Both verbs have a forensic sense. They would be better rendered stand up (as if in a court of justice) that I may contend with you before the Lord. Samuel is, as it were, the advocate of Jehovah, vindicating the righteousness of His dealings with Israel, and throwing all the blame of their calamities on themselves (compare Stephen’s speech, Acts 7).” (Biblical Commentary.)
1Sa_12:9. “Samuel here introduces individual facts from the times of the Judges, but only prominent events as they occurred to him, neglecting their order, which was in itself unessential.” (Erdmann.)
1Sa_12:11. “Bedan.” This name does not occur in the book of Judges, and only in one other place in the Bible (1Ch_7:17). As Samuel here places it between the names of two well-known Hebrew deliverers, many commentators agree with Kiel in believing that it is a copyist’s error for Barak, the Hebrew letters in both words being nearly identical in form. Samuel. Some commentators here substitute Samson, thinking it more natural than that the prophet should mention himself, and omit the greatest of the judges. But Erdmann remarks that “Samuel could mention himself without exciting surprise, because he was conscious of his high mission as judge and deliverer, and the profound significance of his office for the history of Israel was universally recognised. By this mention of himself he honours not himself but the Lord, who had made him (like Moses and Aaron before) what he was (comp. 1Sa_12:6-9). Besides, it was under him that the yoke of the forty years dominion of the Philistines was broken, which work of deliverance Samuel was only able to begin.”
1Sa_12:12. “And when ye saw that Nahash.” “It hence appears not improbable that Nahash had made incursions into the Hebrew territory before the Israelites had demanded a king, and after his election had returned, and begun the siege of Jabesh.” (Clericus).
1Sa_12:14. “Translate If ye will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and obey His voice, so as not to rebel against the mouth of the Lord, and will be (both you and your king that reigns over you) followers after the Lord your God.” (Biblical Commentary.)
1Sa_12:17. “Is it not wheat-harvest to-day?” The wheat-harvest occurs in Palestine between the middle of May and the middle of June. “In ordinary seasons, from the cessation of the showers in spring until their commencement in October and November, rain never falls, and the sky is usually serene.” (Robinson.) “Thunderings, as ‘the voices of God’ (Exo_9:28), are the harbingers of judgment.” (Keil.)
1Sa_12:18. “Feared the Lord and Samuel” “Compare the very similar phrase (Exo_14:31).” (Biblical Commentary.) “Samuel is added because he—as before by his word, so by his introduction of this manifestation, wonderful and contrary to the ordinary course of nature, of God’s wrath—had displayed himself as instrument of the judicial power and glory of the God-king.” (Erdmann.)
1Sa_12:21. “Vain things,” i.e., the idols, “because they are vain;” literally emptiness, i.e., worthless beings.
1Sa_12:22. “For His great name’s sake,” “i.e., for the great name which He had acquired in the sight of all the nations by the marvellous guidance of Israel thus far to preserve it against misapprehension and blasphemy.” (Keil.)
1Sa_12:24. “How great things,” etc. Some refer this to the miracle mentioned in 1Sa_12:18, but the immediate connection seems to refer it to the mighty deliverances of which Samuel has just been reminding them.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE CHAPTER
SAMUEL’S PUBLIC RESIGNATION OF HIS OFFICE
I. A change of relationship or position naturally suggests a review of the past. When, on a journey, we have for some time been travelling in one direction, and we suddenly come to a turn in the road, we very naturally stand for a moment and look at the path which we have trodden, and which we are now about to quit. If we are journeying in a country with which we are unacquainted, such a review will probably be useful to us—it will help us to a more definite conception of our whereabouts. So when a man is about to enter into new relationships, whether of a private or public character, it is natural that he should look back upon the path which he has trodden up to the present moment, and if he do this in a right spirit it will be helpful to him in the future. It is good for a man to do this when he is about to undertake a position of responsibility, whether public or private; and it is good for him to do it also when he is about to resign any office of trust, whether to a single master or to his country. Happy will he be if at such a time he can, with Samuel, call God to witness that he has performed his duties faithfully. Samuel had, during a long life, been God’s vicegerent in Israel; his public work was now about to cease, and consequently his relationship to the nation would be changed. It is not in egotism or boastfulness that he recalls the manner in which he has discharged his trust, or reminds them that by him (1Sa_12:11) God had delivered them out of the hand of their enemies—such a review of the past was natural and right. But Samuel not only looks back upon the road by which he has arrived at the present turning-point in his life, he also bids the people whom he is addressing recall the steps by which they, as a nation, had arrived at the position in which they now stood. His relationship to them was about to undergo a change, which was in some respects the natural result of his advancing years, although it was partly due to the late national movement. But they had by their own choice taken an entirely new position, and assumed entirely new responsibilities; and although their sinful self-willed action in the past could not be recalled, yet many sins and much misery might be avoided in the future if they now gratefully and humbly remembered all the way by which the Lord their God had led them.
II. Whenever a nation rejects God, such rejection will be followed by signs of God’s displeasure. The miracle which followed Samuel’s words was a confirmation of their truth. It was a token that he was expressing the feelings of the Divine mind regarding Israel’s conduct. The conception which Israel now had of a king was not God’s conception, and their desire to have a king like the nations was a rejection of their Divine and invisible King. Hence this token of His displeasure. In later days this same nation rejected this Divine King when He came to them in human flesh, and they themselves then became what they have ever since remained—a sign to the entire human race of the danger of not improving national privileges. Nations who do not find a God and King after their own heart in Him who is their rightful sovereign will make one after their own likeness (Psa_50:21); but signs will not be wanting of His displeasure.
III. The servants of God sin against Him when they neglect to pray for their fellow countrymen.
1. They ought to pray for them because they are their fellow creatures. Paul, speaking by inspiration, desires that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men … for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1Ti_2:1; 1Ti_2:3-4.)
2. Because national love ought to be an element in the character of every godly man. The best men are ever deeply interested in the welfare of the nation to which they belong. Paul’s love to “his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh,” notwithstanding all that he had suffered at their hands, was intense (Rom_9:1-3). And he who is a true patriot cannot serve his country so effectually in any other way as by praying for the godliness of the people, for a nation’s greatness depends upon the relation of its individual members to the Living God.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
1Sa_12:2. I have hearkened to your voice, which was so violent and impetuous. Now you must hearken to my voice, and be told that after your peace-offerings God hath still a quarrel with you.—Trapp.
God will not let his people run away with the arrearages of their sins, but, when they least think of it, calls them to account. All this while was God angry with their rejection of Samuel; yet, as if there had been nothing but peace, He gives them a victory over their enemies, He gives way to their joy in their election.… God may be angry enough with us, while we outwardly prosper: it is the wisdom of God to take His best advantages; He suffers us to go on till we should come to enjoy the fruit of our sin, till we seem past the danger either of conscience or of punishment; then, even when we begin to be past the feeling of our sin, we shall begin to feel His displeasure for our sins. This is only where He loves, where He would both forgive and reclaim: He hath now to do with His Israel; but where He means utter vengeance, He lets men harden themselves to a reprobate senselessness, and make up their own measure without contradiction as purposing to reckon with them but once for ever.—Bp. Hall.
1Sa_12:2-3. Samuel’s life is both an example and a rebuke.
1. An example. To stand forth and make so successful an appeal must have presented to Saul an illustrious example of personal excellence and of public probity. He thus saw that it was possible to live in high places and be a righteous man; to administer the state, and retain integrity; to direct the concerns of millions, and receive their spontaneous and unanimous approval—truths which few governors have ever found.… He was also an example to the whole people; for the same goodness that made him faithful, with his many talents and his many trusts, could supply them with ability to use theirs with fidelity.
2. A rebuke. The unimpeachable life of Samuel was a great rebuke to Israel. They had not improved his ministry, and had grown weary of so godly a regime as his.… Every good man’s life condemns the world that refuses to follow his way.—Steel.
1Sa_12:9. When God’s people abandon Him, He, by virtue of the same righteousness which blesses them if they are faithful, abandons them to their enemies, who enslave and oppress them. The “selling” refers to the right of the father to sell his children as slaves, here exercised by God as the extremest paternal right, as it were. (Jdg_2:14; Jdg_3:8; Jdg_4:2; Jdg_4:9; Deu_32:10; Isa_50:1; Isa_52:3; Eze_30:12.)—Lange’s Commentary.
1Sa_12:13. In this declaration is set forth the origin of Saul’s kingly position—
(1) on its human side, by the words: Whom ye have chosen;
(2) on its divine side, by the words: Behold, the Lord hath set a king over you—your demand sprang from an evil root, yet hath the Lord granted it; this king, though chosen and demanded by you, is yet alone the work of God. By these words is confirmed the truth, that the Lord is and remains king.—Erdmann.
1Sa_12:14-15. With whom or against whom is the hand of the Lord? The answer to this question depends on the following considerations:—
1. whether one has, or has not, given himself to be the Lord’s with his whole heart—(a) in true fear of God, (b) in true service of God.
2. Whether one is, or is not, in his will thoroughly obedient to the will of the Lord—(a) hearkening unconditionally to His word, (b) not resisting His commandments.
3. Whether one is, or is not, in his whole walk ready to follow the Lord in His guidance—(a) keeping in the way pointed out by Him, (b) keeping in view the goal set up by Him.—Lange’s Commentary.
Here is a precedent for preachers, who must one while chide their people, another while comfort them, and always pray for them. They must turn themselves into all shapes and fashions of speech and of spirit to bring men home to God. This is an excellent way of preaching, to mingle promises with threatenings. Sour and sweet makes the best sauce.—Trapp.
1Sa_12:16-19.
I. Unseasonable weather is one of God’s punishments. We suffer sometimes from lack of rain to moisten the earth and prevent the miseries of drought. Such a calamity was inflicted upon Israel on account of sin in the days of Elijah (1Ki_17:1). At other times rain is unseasonable and injurious, as was the case in the present instance. It comes at the call of the prophet, to mar the fruits of the earth, and to injure the harvest, that the people “might perceive their wickedness to be great.”
II. We must ask for fair and seasonable weather upon no other condition than that of repentance. We must bring forth fruits meet for repentance, if we expect that the earth should bring forth fruits meet for our sustenance; for God sometimes sees fit to withhold these blessings, to make us know their worth by the want of them. He is sometimes pleased to send us an abundance of good things to see how we will use them, and whether we will grow better by them. But if we consume them upon our lusts, as Israel did here, instead of having more, that which we have shall be taken away.—Matthew Hole.
Men have so many ways of shifting off their own guilt that unless they be taken in the act they will hardly confess it, and when convicted of the fact they will deny the fault or the measure. To cut off all excuses, therefore, Samuel appeals to God, the highest judge, for His sentence, and dares trust to a miraculous conviction. Had not Samuel before consulted with his Maker, and received warrant for this act, that would have been presumption which was now a noble improvement of faith.… Rather than Israel shall go clear away with a sin, God will accuse and arraign them from heaven. No sooner hath Samuel’s voice ceased than God’s voice begins. Every crack of thunder spake vengeance against the rebellious Israelites, and every drop of rain was a witness of their sin. Now they found that they had displeased Him who rules in heaven by rejecting the man who ruled for Him on earth.—Bishop Hall.
The elements are exclusively under the control of the Creator, and He alone can say what shall be in relation to the clouds; yet for special ends—generally moral ends—they have occasionally been placed for a season at the service of men. This instance is a parallel to that which occurred in Egypt (Exo_9:23).
The revelation of the Lord’s power through Samuel has for its aim—I. To glorify the name of God, and to exhibit the people’s high calling as chosen people and God’s property. II. To show more strikingly the people’s sin and thereby induce sincere repentance. III. To show the penitent people the source of consolation and help, and fix in their hearts the ground of hope for future salvation.—Lange’s Commentary.
1Sa_12:20-21. A threefold word of exhortation to penitent sinners.
1. A word reminding of past sin. “Ye have done all this wickedness.”
2. A word consolingly pointing to Divine grace. “Fear not.”
3. A word exhorting to fidelity. “Turn not aside from the Lord.”—Lange’s Commentary.
1Sa_12:23. In this Samuel sets a glorious example to all rulers, showing them that they should not be led astray by the ingratitude of their subordinates or subjects, and give up on that account all interest in their welfare, but should rather persevere all the more in their anxiety for them.—Berlenberger Bible.
Moses and Samuel are specified by God as having extraordinary power with Him (Jer_15:1); and why? Because they prayed for their enemies.—Wordsworth.
1Sa_12:24. I. Fear and service go together. Serve the Lord in fear, saith David (Psa_2:11); Fear the Lord and serve Him, saith Joshua (Jos_24:14); and, fear ever before service; for that, unless our service proceed from fear, it is hollow and worthless.… Behold the same tongue that bade them not fear (1Sa_12:20), now bids them fear; and the same Spirit that tells us they feared exceedingly (1Sa_12:18), now enjoins them to fear more. What shall we make of this? Their other fear was at the best initial; for now they began to repent: and, as one says of this kind of fear, that it hath two eyes fixed upon two divers objects, so had this of theirs: one eye looked upon the rain and thunder, the other looked up to the God that sent it. The one of these is borrowed of the slavish or hostile fear, as Basil calls it, the other of the filial; for the slavish fear casts both eyes upon the punishment; the filial looks with both eyes upon the party offended. Samuel would rectify and perfect this affection, and would bring them from the fear of slaves, through the fear of penitents, to the fear of sons: and indeed one of these makes way for another. It is true that perfect love thrusts out fear; but it is as true that fear brings in that perfect love which is joined with the reverence of sons: like the needle or bristle, as one compares it, draws in the thread after it. The compunction of fear, saith Gregory, fits the mind for the compunction of love. We shall never rejoice truly in God except it be with trembling; except we have quaked at His thunder, we shall never joy in His sunshine.… II. As our service must be grounded on fear, so our fear must be reduced to service. Indeed, the worst kind of fear is that we call servile; but the best fear is the fear of servants; for there is no servant of God but fears filially. And God hath no son but he serves.… We all know what service means; for we all are, or were, I imagine, either servants or masters, or servants of the public, or masters of servants, or all these. We cannot, therefore, be ignorant either of what we require of ours, or what our superiors require of us. If service consisted only in wearing of liveries, in taking of wages, in making of courtesies, and kissing of hands, there were nothing more easy or more common.… But be not deceived: the life of service is work: the work of a Christian is obedience to the law of God.—Bp. Hall.
1Sa_12:25. I. If there be a moral governor of the universe, sin must provoke him. II. If sin provoke God, He is able to punish it. III. Bodies of men are punishable in this world only; in eternity there are no families, churches, nations. If, therefore, a country is to be destroyed, it is tried, and condemned, and executed here. IV. There is a tendency in the very nature of sin to injure and ruin a country. It violates all the duties of relative life; it destroys subordination; it relaxes the ties which bind mankind together, and makes them selfish and mean; it renders men enemies to each other. Social welfare cannot survive the death of morals and virtue.—Jay.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain 1Sa 12:20
1Sa 12:20
It is the special and most perilous curse of sin that it obscures, or blots out altogether, or terribly distorts the vision of God in our hearts; it gradually reduces us to that most desolate of all conditions "having no hope and without God in the world."
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I. Those who need friends most are those who have fallen most and are in the most sore condition; but if even man despises, and finds no forgiveness for our faults, is there any hope that He in whose sight the very heavens are not clean—that He will pity us, and take us to His breast, and suffer us to live in the glory of His presence? Will He, who is the Friend of the innocent, be a Friend of the guilty too?
II. God loathes our sins, but knowing that we are but dust, He loves our souls. He sent His Son to seek and save the lost. When that blessed Son had taken our nature upon Him, He lived with the aged and the withered, the homeless and the diseased, with the palsied and the demoniac, with the ignorant and the blind.
III. Each new day is to you a new chance. Return to God and use it rightly, letting the time past of your life suffice you to have walked in the hard ways of sin and shame. The mistakes, the follies, the sins, the calamities, of the past may, if you use them rightly, be the pitying angels to guide you through the future. If you put off the present time for repentance, the convenient season may never come. As yet the door stands open before you; very soon it will be too late, and the door be shut.
F. W. Farrar, The Fall of Man, p. 364.
Notice four things:—
I. We have sinned some sins which we cannot repair. God, in His great love, takes us still as we are; takes us back to His bosom; only asks one thing: that at least we will go on in simplicity and sincerity now.
II. Though the temporal punishment may remain, it yet may be no sign that the sin is unforgiven. It is a difficulty in our way raised by ourselves. God takes us back though we are fallen. Let us serve Him still, though the vigour of the old days is gone.
III. This punishment is a sign, a sure sign, of destruction following unforgiven sin. If God so punish those whom He receives as repentant, what will befall us if we repent not? Surely nothing else than that "we shall be consumed."
IV. What an argument with us ought His longsuffering to be! What peace is in the thought of forgiveness so large, so full, so free, as God has promised! Not friends, nor repose, nor confession, nor resolution avails anything without the very presence of God; but each of these things in Him may work us weal, and He in them can bring us absolution and perfect peace.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 227.
References: 1Sa 12:20.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 105; E. H. Plumptre, King’s College Sermons, p. 60.
1Sa 12:23
Notice: (1) Some of the reasons for intercessory prayer, and (2) some of its encouragements.
I. Why is intercessory prayer a great thing? (1) St. Paul lays it down as a positive command, and makes it the primary obligation of every Christian. (2) We are never walking so exactly and so closely in the footsteps of Jesus Christ as when we are praying for any one. (3) We never more effectually benefit ourselves than when we pray for others. (4) We nave no talent of greater usefulness than the talent of intercessory prayer. Every other channel of good is circumscribed, and illness and absence take their place. But this has no limit. Wherever we are, under whatever circumstances, we can do it; and in doing it, we can reach those otherwise perfectly inaccessible to us—the guiltiest and the farthest off from God.
II. The encouragements to intercessory prayer are also four. (1) The first lies in the character of God, that all we bring in are dear to Him, that "He willeth not that any should perish, but that all should be saved," and that it must be a thing very dear to God when one of His children brings another of His children and lays that child at their common Father’s feet. (2) The second great encouragement is in the fact that there is never a commandment in which there is not rolled up a promise. We have seen that it is commanded, "Pray for one another;" we safely argue that it would never have been commanded if it were not in God’s mind to grant the thing which we are told to ask. (3) Thirdly, the general promise of prayer is exceedingly large. Whatsoever is of faith is sure. The success of that prayer is covenanted. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive." (4) Fourthly, almost all our Lord’s miracles were done in answer to intercessory prayer. There is no positive promise to intercessory prayer, but, short of the actual undertaking of God, there is everything to give hope and all but certainty when we ask for any one of those things which we know are after the mind of God to give to His children, and which Christ has purchased with His own blood.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 333.
References: 1Sa 12:23.—J. Harrison, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 49; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1537; J. Keble, Sermons, Academical and Occasional, p. 127. 1Sa 12:23-25.—G. B. Ryley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 253. 1Sam 12—Parker, vol. vi., p. 315. 1Sa 13:1.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 164. 1Sa 13:3.—J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. i., p. 269. 1Sa 13:7.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 67.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain 1 Samuel
1 Samuel
SAMUEL’S CHALLENGE AND CHARGE
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1Sa 12:1 - 1Sa 12:15.
The portion of Samuel’s address included in this passage has three main sections: his noble and dignified assertion of his official purity, his summary of the past history, and his solemn declaration of the conditions of future wellbeing for the nation with its new king.
I. Probably the war with the Ammonite king Nahash, which had postponed the formal inauguration of the king, had been carried on in the neighbourhood of the Jordan valley; and thus Gilgal would be a convenient rendezvous. But it was chosen for other reasons also, and, as appears from 1Sa 10:8, had been fixed on by Samuel at his first interview with Saul. There the Covenant had been renewed, after the wanderers had crossed the river, with Joshua at their head, and it was fitting that the beginnings of the new form of the national life should be consecrated by worship on the same site as had witnessed the beginnings of the national life on the soil of the promised land. Perhaps the silent stones, which Joshua reared, stood there yet. At all events, sacred memories could scarcely fail, as the rejoicing crowd, standing where their fathers had renewed the Covenant, saw the blackened ruins of Jericho, and the foaming river, now, as then, filling all its banks in the time of harvest, which their fathers had crossed with the ark, that was now hidden at Kirjath-jearim, for their guide. The very place spoke the same lessons from the past which Samuel was about to teach them.
There is just a faint trace of Samuel’s disapproval of the new order in his first words. He takes care to throw the whole responsibility on the people; but, at the same time, he assumes the authoritative tone which becomes him, and quietly takes the position of superiority to the king whom he has made. 1Sa 11:15 seems to imply that he took no part in the rejoicings. It was ‘Saul and all the men of Israel’ who were so glad. He was still hesitant as to the issue, and obeyed the divine command with clearer insight into its purpose than the shouting crowd and the proud young king had. There is something very pathetic in the contrast he draws between Saul and himself. ‘The king walketh before you,’ in all the vigour of his young activity, and delighting all your eyes, and ‘I am old and gray-headed,’ feeble, and fit for little more work, and therefore, as happens to such worn-out public servants, cast aside for a new man. Samuel was not a monster of perfection without human feelings. His sense of Israel’s ingratitude to himself and practical revolt from God lay together in his mind, and colour this whole speech, which has a certain tone of severity, and an absence of all congratulation. Probably that accounts for the mention of his sons. The elders’ frank statement of their low opinion of them had been a sore point with Samuel, and he cannot help alluding to it. It was not for want of possible successors in his own house that they had cried out for a king. If this be not the bearing of the allusion to his sons, it is difficult to explain; and this obvious explanation would never have been overlooked if Samuel had not been idealised into a faultless saint. The dash of human infirmity and fatherly blindness gives reality to the picture. ‘I have walked before you from my youth unto this day.’ Note the recurrence of the same expression as is applied to Saul in the former part of the verse. It is as if he had said, ‘Once I was as he is now,-young and active in your sight, and for your service. Remember these past years. May your new fancy’s record be as stainless as mine is, when he is old and grayheaded!’ The words bring into view the characteristic of Samuel’s life which is often insisted on in the earlier chapters,-its calm, unbroken continuity and uniformity of direction, from the long-past days when he wore ‘the little coat’ his mother made him, with so many tears dropped on it, till this closing hour. While everything was rushing down to destruction in Eli’s time, and his sons were rioting at the Tabernacle door, the child was growing up in the stillness; and from then till now, amid all changes, his course had been steady, and pointed to one aim. Blessed they whose age is but the fruitage of the promise of their youth! Blessed they who begin as ‘little children,’ with the forgiveness of sin and the knowledge of the Father, and who go on, as ‘young men,’ to overcome the Evil One, and end, as ‘fathers,’ with the deeper knowledge of Him who is ‘from the beginning,’ which is the reward of childhood’s trust and manhood’s struggles!
Samuel is still a prophet, but he is ceasing to be the sole authority, and, in his conscious integrity, calls for a public, full discharge, in the presence of the king. Note that 1Sa 12:3 gives the first instance of the use of the name ‘Messiah,’ and think of the contrast between Saul and Jesus. Observe, too, the simple manners of these times, when ‘ox and ass’ were the wealth. They would be poor plunder nowadays. Note also the various forms of injustice of which he challenges any one to convict him. Forcible seizure of live stock, fraud, harsh oppression, and letting suitors put gold on his eyes that he might not see, are the vices of the Eastern ruler to-day, and rampant in that unhappy land, as they have been ever since Samuel’s time. I think I have heard of politicians in some other countries further west than Gilgal, who have axes to grind and logs to roll, and of the wonderful effects, in many places of business, of certain circular gold discs applied to the eyes. This man went away a poor man. He does not seem to have had salary, or retiring pension; but he carried away a pair of clean hands, as the voice of a nation witnessed.
II. Having cleared himself, Samuel recounts the outlines of the past, in order to emphasise the law that cleaving to God had ever brought deliverance; departure, disaster; and penitence, restoration. It is history with a purpose, and less careful about chronology than principles. Facts are good, if illuminated by the clear recognition of the law which they obey; but, without that, they are lumber. The ‘philosophy of history’ is not reached without the plain recognition of the working of the divine will. No doubt the principles which Samuel discerned written as with a sunbeam on the past of Israel were illustrated there with a certainty and directness which belonged to it alone; but we shall make a bad use of the history of Israel, if we say, ‘It is all miraculous, and therefore inapplicable to modern national life.’ It would be much nearer the mark to say, ‘It is all miraculous, and therefore meant as an exhibition for blind eyes of the eternal principles which govern the history of all nations.’ It is as true in Britain to-day as ever it was in Judea, that righteousness and the fear of God are the sure foundations of real national as of individual prosperity. The kingdoms of this world are not the devil’s, though diplomatists and soldiers seem to think so. If any nation were to live universally by the laws of God, it might not have what the world calls national success; it would have no story of wholesale robbery, called military glory, but it would have peace within its borders, and life would go nobly and sweetly there. ‘Happy is the people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is the people, whose God is the Lord.’
The details of Samuel’s resume need not occupy much time. Note the word in 1Sa 12:7, ‘reason,’ or, as the Revised Version renders, ‘plead.’ He takes the position of God’s advocate in the suit, and what he will prove for his client is the ‘righteousness’ of his dealings in the past. The story, says he, can be brought down to very simple elements,-a cry to God, an answer of deliverance, a relapse, punishment, a renewed cry to God, and all the rest of the series as before. It is like a repeating decimal, over and over again, each figure drawing the next after it. The list of oppressors in 1Sa 12:9, and that of deliverers in 1Sa 12:11, do not follow the same order, but that matters nothing. Clearly the facts are assumed as well known, and needing only summary reference. The new-fashioned way of treating Biblical history, of course, takes that as an irrefutable proof of the late date and spuriousness of this manufactured speech put into Samuel’s mouth. Less omniscient students will be content with accepting the witness to the history. Nobody knows anything of a judge named Bedan, and the conjectural emendation ‘Barak’ is probable, especially remembering the roll-call in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where Gideon, Barak, and Jephthah appear in the same order, with the addition of Samson. The supposition that ‘Samuel,’ in this verse, is an error for ‘Samson,’ is unnecessary; for the prophet’s mention of himself thus is not unnatural, in the circumstances, and is less obtrusive than to have said ‘me.’
The retrospect here given points the lesson of the sin and folly of the demand for a king. The old way had been to cry to God in their distresses, and the old experience had been that the answer came swift and sufficient; but this generation had tried a new method, and fear of ‘Nahash the Ammonite’ had driven them to look for a man to help them. The experience of God’s responses to prayer does not always wean even those who receive them from casting about for visible helpers. Still less does the experience of our predecessors keep us from it. Strange that after a hundred plain instances of His aid, the hundred and first distress should find us almost as slow to turn to Him, and as eager to secure earthly stays, as if there were no past of our own, or of many generations, all crowded and bright with tokens of His care! We are always disposed to doubt whether the power that delivered from Sisera, Philistines, and Moab, will be able to deliver us from Nahash. The new danger looks the very worst of all, and this time we must have a king. All the while Israel had God for its king. Our dim eyes cannot see the realities of the invisible world, and so we cleave to the illusions of the visible, which, at their best, are but shadows of the real, and are often made, by our weak hearts, its rival and substitute. What does the soldier, who has an impenetrable armour to wear, want with pasteboard imitations, like those worn in a play? It is doubtful wisdom to fling away the substance in grasping at the shadow. Saul was brave, and a head and shoulders above the people, and he had beaten Nahash for them; but Saul for God is a poor exchange. Do we do better, when we hanker after something more tangible than an unseen Guide, Helper, Stay, Joy, and Peace-bringer for our hearts, and declare plainly, by our eager race after created good, that we do not reckon God by Himself enough for us?
III. The part of Samuel’s address with which we are concerned here closes with the application of the history to the present time. The great point of the last three verses is that the new order of things has not changed the old law, which bound up well-being inseparably with obedience. They have got their king, and there he stands; but if they think that that is to secure their prosperity, they are much mistaken. There is a touch of rebuke, and possibly of sarcasm, in pointing to Saul, and making so emphatic, as in 1Sa 12:13, the vehemence of their anxiety to get him. It is almost as if Samuel had said, ‘Look at him, and say whether he is worth all that eagerness. Do you like him as well, now that you have him, as you did before?’ There are not many of this world’s goods which stand that test. The shell that looked silvery and iridescent when in the sea is but a poor, pale reminder of its former self, when we hold it dry in our hands. One object of desire, and only one, brings no disappointment in possessing it. He, and only he, who sets his hope on God, will never have to feel that he is not so satisfied with the fulfilment as with the dream.
Israel had rejected God in demanding a king; but the giver of their demand had been God, and their rejection had not abolished the divine government, nor altered one jot of the old law. They and their king were equally its subjects. There is great emphasis in the special mention of ‘your king’ as bound to obedience as much as they; and, if we follow the Septuagint reading of 1Sa 12:15, the mention is repeated there in the threatening of punishment. No abundance of earthly supports or objects of our love or trust in the least alters the unalterable conditions of well-being. Whether surrounded with these or stripped of all, to fear and serve the Lord and to hearken to His voice is equally the requisite for all true blessedness, and is so equally to the helper and the helped, the lover and the loved. We are ever tempted to think that, when our wishes are granted, and some dear or strong hand is stretched out for aid, all will be well; and we are terribly apt to forget that we need God as much as before, and that the way of being blessed has not changed. Those whose hearts and homes are bright with loved faces, and whose lives are guarded by strong and wise hands, have need to remember that they and their dear ones are under the same conditions of well-being as are the loneliest and saddest; and they who ‘have none other that fighteth for’ them have no less need to remember that, if God be their companion, they cannot be utterly solitary, nor altogether helpless if He be their aid.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Samuel resigns his Judgeship
Samuel resigns his Judgeship
This chapter is a continuation of 1Sa_10:17-24, and the scene of the events recorded is the great national assembly at Mizpeh. Notice, however, the reference to Nahash (1 Samuel 11) in 1Sa_10:12.
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2. My sons] cp. 1Sa_8:1-5.
3. His anointed] i.e. Saul the anointed king. This becomes the regular title of the king: cp. 1Sa_24:6-10; 1Sa_26:9-11, etc. The word is identical with 'Messiah' or (in its Gk. form) 'Christ.'
6. It is the Lord] LXX reads' the Lord is witness.' Advanced] RV 'appointed,' i.e. made them the leaders of Israel.
9. Into the hand of Sisera] see Judges 4.
Into the hand of the king of Moab] see Judges 3.
11. Jerubbaal] see Judges 6. Bedan] LXX reads 'Barak.' Jephthah] see Judges 11. Samuel] must be a later insertion either by the editor or by a scribe.
12. When the Lord your God was your king] cp. 1Sa_8:7; Jdg_8:23. This is not quite in accord with the narrative of 1 Samuel 11 as it stands, where Saul has already been chosen king (1Sa_12:12), and where the attack on Nahash results from his own vigorous initiative.
14. RV 'If ye will fear.. and serve him, and hearken.. and be.. followers.. well.'
15. Against your fathers] i.e. in the times of the Judges.
17. Wheat harvest] This shows that this occurred between the middle of May and the middle of June. In Palestine a summer thunderstorm is very unusual: cp. Pro_21:1. Prof. G. A. Smith writes: 'In May showers are very rare, and from then till October, not only is there no rain, but a cloud seldom passes over the sky, and a thunderstorm is a miracle.'
21. For] The first 'for' in this v. is rightly omitted by LXX. 'And turn ye not aside after vain things which,' etc. Vain things'] i.e. idols.
22. For his great name's sake] The idea is explained in Exo_32:12
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 5. Samuel’s Witness and Warning
5. Samuel’s Witness and Warning
CHAPTER 12
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1. His witness to his own integrity (1Sa 12:1-5)
2. His warning (1Sa 12:6-15)
3. Heaven’s answer (1Sa 12:16-19)
4. His words of comfort (1Sa 12:20-25)
What a scene! The man of God, the man of prayer, now advanced in years, stands before them. “I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day.” Here was not a Nazarite who had failed like Samson, but one who had lived out his Nazariteship in the fullest sense of the word. What unselfish service he had rendered and how he loved his own people! In all this he is a type of that greatest servant who came in the fulness of time not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. His witness to his own integrity reminds us also of Paul’s words in the Epistle to the Corinthians (2Co 11:6-9; 2Co 12:14-17). The whole nation acknowledged Samuel’s integrity. A brief historical retrospect follows in which Samuel points out their sin of forgetting Jehovah. (“Bedan” in verse 11 should be “Barak.”) Their present condition was like that of their fathers, unbelief and disobedience.
It was the time of the wheat harvest. Samuel prayed for a witness from heaven upon his words. Then it thundered and rained. It never thunders and rains in Palestine at that time of the year (May and June). A guilty fear seized upon them and they requested intercession. This reminds us of that coming harvest, the end of the age (Mat 13:39). Then Jehovah will thunder in judgment and the repentance of the people of Israel will follow. However true repentance did not take place here when Samuel prayed. Beautiful are his words of comfort. How he manifests the work and character of a true prophet! Here is also the assurance for Israel. “For Jehovah for His great name’s sake will not forsake His people, because it hath pleased Jehovah to make you His people.” His gifts and calling are without repentance.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Samuel Protests his Integrity
Samuel Protests his Integrity
v. 1. And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. "His listening to the voice of the people was based on the repeated divine command and was an act of self-denying obedience to the will of God. " (Lange. ) These words introduced the farewell speech of Samuel, the climax of the joyful meeting at Gilgal.
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v. 2. And now, behold, the king walketh before you, having charge of the entire government of the people in peace and in war; and I am old and gray-headed, Cf 1Sa 8:5; and, behold, my sons are with you, and the present change in government was evidently necessary, since he himself had felt the need of placing some of his burdens upon the shoulders of his sons; and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day, he had been in public office, and therefore in the eye of the people since his infancy.
v. 3. Behold, here I am; witness against me before the Lord and before His anointed, the newly-elected king Saul: Whose ox have I taken, or whose ass have I taken, or whom have I defrauded, namely, by using his power in a ruthless manner? Whom have I Oppressed, by any form of violence, or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith, by taking ransom money in order to sell his favor and keep some criminal from the well-deserved punishment? And I will restore it you. In case any injustice, any mismanagement of office could be charged against him, he was willing to make public amends. His open challenge showed the serenity of his conscience, his consciousness of being innocent of any flagrant wrong-doing.
v. 4. And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man’s hand. It was a splendid testimonial of the entire people to the honesty and integrity of Samuel.
v. 5. And he said unto them, his intention being to give to their testimonial the support of a solemn declaration before the Lord, The Lord is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found ought in my hand. And they answered, He is witness. They accepted the solemn adjuration and supported their declaration by a statement having the force and weight of an oath.
v. 6. And Samuel, in order to have the people realize still more deeply their ingratitude in rejecting a government which they themselves acknowledged as having been so praiseworthy, said unto the people, It is the Lord, He is witness, that advanced Moses and Aaron, made them what they were, gave them their place in history, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. He had heard their declaration. which implied that they had, in the person of Samuel, who represented this covenant God, rejected Jehovah Himself, as Samuel now proceeds to show from their history.
v. 7. Now, therefore, stand still that I may reason with you, as though he were conducting his own cause before a judge, before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, God’s blessings by reason of His covenant faithfulness, in fulfilment of His solemn promises, which He did to you and to your fathers.
v. 8. When Jacob was come into Egypt and your fathers cried unto the Lord, at the time of the great oppression by the Egyptians, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. That was the first great act of God’s covenant faithfulness, the deliverance out of the land of Egypt and the introduction into the Land of Promise.
v. 9. And when they forgat the Lord, their God, in deliberate unfaithfulness and defection to the covenant, He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, Jdg 4:2, and into the hand of the Philistines, Jdg 10:7; Jdg 13:1, and into the hand of the king of Moab, Jdg 3:12, and they fought against them.
v. 10. And they cried unto the Lord and said, We have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth, this had been their confession whenever they had come to the full realization of their helpless plight, as being due to their unfaithfulness, Jdg 10:10; but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve Thee.
v. 11. And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, Jdg 6:14-32, and Bedan, or Barak, Jdg 4:6, and Jephthah, Jdg 11:1, and Samuel, for the speaker could well mention his own name, since he was conscious of his high mission as Judge and deliverer of his people, this fact being generally recognized in Israel, 1Sa 3:20, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe, they were living in quiet and security.
v. 12. And when ye saw that Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon, came against you, who thus had evidently made several raids against the territory of Israel before his bolder campaign against Jabesh, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us; when the Lord, your God, was your king, who had, by awaking Judges and saviors, always delivered them out of the hands of their enemies. So their demand for a king had really been a bit of foolish caprice, of sinful rejection of the Lord.
v. 13. Now, therefore, behold the king whom ye have chosen, in public, popular assembly, and whom ye have desired! And, behold, the Lord hath set a king over you. Although their demand was not in accordance with God’s plans at this time, Jehovah had granted them the king whom they wanted, who was a gracious gift from His hand.
v. 14. If ye will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, for He was still the highest Ruler in the nation and intended to have His government acknowledged without question, then shall both ye and also the king that reigneth over you continue following after the Lord, your God. This is really in the nature of a most emphatic wish and prayer, that they might never cease holding to the Lord with all their hearts.
v. 15. But if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you as it was against your fathers, in spite of the king in whom they were placing so overmuch confidence. The mere fact that they now had a king did not guarantee them freedom from the oppressions with which they had battled in the past, for this could be attained only by an unwavering clinging to Jehovah. The congregation of the Lord is always in need of admonitions to repentance and obedience, If faithful preachers would not continue with rebuking, admonishing, warning, and pleading, disobedience and defection would soon be prevalent everywhere.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 the king walking before you ... I have walked…
the king walking before you ... I have walked before you
These expressions mean that people can actually see the kind of lives Saul and Samuel are living. AT: "the king's life was seen ... My life was seen" (See: Idiom)
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translationWords
Samuel
Israel
king
walk
son
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 12:1-25 The reaffirmation of Saul’s kingship at Gilgal (11:12-15)…
12:1-25 The reaffirmation of Saul’s kingship at Gilgal (11:12-15) was the final step in his installation as king. The event was a fitting occasion for Samuel’s farewell address as leader of Israel.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.