When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned away after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.
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When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned away after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel to Ramah. 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.
Parallel Translations
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When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel.
Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba.
His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned away after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.
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And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.
Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abiah: they were judges in Beer-sheba.
And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.
Show all 3 translations
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And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.
Now the name of his first-born was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba.
And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted justice.
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Contradictions (1)
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Cross-references (26)
- Deuteronomy 16:19 (v3) You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and…
- Deuteronomy 16:18-19 (v1) You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the…
- Psalms 15:5 (v3) he who doesn’t lend out his money for usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be shaken.
- 1 Timothy 6:10 (v3) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves…
- Exodus 18:21 (v3) Moreover you shall provide out of all the people able men which fear God: men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be…
Show all 26 cross-references
- Exodus 23:8 (v3) “You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.
- 2 Samuel 15:4 (v3) Absalom said moreover, “Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man who has any suit or cause might come to me, and I would do…
- Isaiah 33:15 (v3) He who walks righteously and speaks blamelessly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a…
- 1 Timothy 3:3 (v3) not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;
- 1 Timothy 5:21 (v1) I command you in the sight of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the chosen angels, that you observe these things without prejudice, doing…
- Judges 8:22-23 (v1) Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you, your son, and your son’s son also; for you have saved us out of the hand of…
- Judges 12:14 (v1) He had forty sons and thirty sons’ sons who rode on seventy donkey colts. He judged Israel eight years.
- 2 Chronicles 19:5-6 (v1) He set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, “Consider what you do, for…
- Nehemiah 7:2 (v1) I put my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the governor of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem; for he was a faithful man, and feared God above…
- Ecclesiastes 2:19 (v3) Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have…
- Jeremiah 22:15-17 (v3) “Should you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn’t your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was…
- Judges 5:10 (v1) “Speak, you who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets, and you who walk by the way.
- Judges 10:4 (v1) He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkey colts. They had thirty cities, which are called Havvoth Jair to this day, which are in the…
- 1 Kings 12:6-11 (v3) King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying, “What counsel do you give…
- Genesis 22:19 (v2) So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. Abraham lived at Beersheba.
- 1 Kings 19:3 (v2) When he saw that, he arose, and ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
- 2 Kings 21:1-3 (v3) Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did…
- 1 Chronicles 6:28 (v2) The sons of Samuel: the firstborn, Joel, and the second, Abijah.
- 1 Chronicles 6:38 (v2) the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.
- Psalms 26:10 (v3) in whose hands is wickedness, their right hand is full of bribes.
- Amos 5:5 (v2) but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (24 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Because he was not able to bear the charge.
Because he was not able to bear the charge.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1Sa 8:1 And it came to pass, when Samuel…
1Sa 8:1 And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.
Ver. 1. And it came to pass, when Samuel was old.] Sixty at least, say interpreters; and so less able to do all himself. Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque … fert, i.e., aufert. Age disableth for duty many times.
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That he made his sons judges over Israel.] Substitutes to himself, not without God’s permission and consent likely, being so holy a man. It may well be thought that he had given them good breeding, and had great hopes of their good behaviour in executing their office. It is probable also that at first they carried the matter well, till puffed up with their new dignity, and corrupted by gifts. Nero’s first five years were such that Trajan was wont to say, that none ever attained to the perfection of them. Be it that Samuel was some way faulty in setting up his sons, as there is no pomegranate but hath one or more rotten kernels in it, yet it is no way likely that he was guilty of that indulgence for which his own month had denounced God’s judgments against Eli: yet he succeeded him in his cross as well as his place, though not in his sin.
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 On vv1–3 when Samuel was old, and so unable for his…
when Samuel was old, and so unable for his former travels and labours, he made his sons judges; not supreme judges, for such there was to be but one, and that of God’s choosing, and Samuel still kept that office in his own hands, 1Sa 7:15; but his vicegerents or deputies, who might go about and determine matters, but with reservation of a right of appeals to himself. He advanceth his sons to this place, not so much out of paternal indulgence, the sad effects whereof he had seen in Eli; but because he had doubtless instructed them in a singular manner, and fitted them for the highest employments; and he hoped that the example he had set them, and the inspection and authority he still had over them, would have obliged them to diligence and faithfulness in the execution of their trust.
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 On v1 Two sad things we find here, but not strange…
Two sad things we find here, but not strange things: - 1. A good and useful man growing old and unfit for service (Sa1 8:1): Samuel was old, and could not judge Israel, as he had done. He is not reckoned to be past sixty years of age now, perhaps not so much; but he was a man betimes, was full of thoughts and cared when he was a child, which perhaps hastened the infirmities of age upon him. The fruits that are the first ripe keep the worst. He had spent his strength and spirits in the fatigue of public business, and now, if he think to shake himself as at other times, he finds he is mistaken: old age has cut his hair. Those that are in the prime of their time ought to be busy in doing the work of life: for, as they go into years, they will find themselves less disposed to it and less able for it. 2. The children of a good man turning aside, and not treading in his steps. Samuel had given his sons so good an education, and they had given him such good hopes of their doing well, and gained such a reputation in Israel, that he made them judges, assistants to him awhile, and afterwards deputies under him at Beersheeba, which lay remote from Ramah, Sa1 8:2. Probably the southern countries petitioned for their residence there, that they might not be necessitated to travel far with their causes. We have reason to think that Samuel gave them their commissions, not because they were his sons (he had no ambition to entail the government upon his family, any more than Gideon had), but because, for aught that yet appeared, they were men very fit for the trust; and none so proper to ease the aged judge, and take some of the burden off him, as (coeteris paribus - other things being equal) his own sons, who no doubt were respected for their good father's sake, and, having such an advantage at setting out, might soon have been great if they had but been good. But, alas! his sons walked not in his ways (Sa1 8:3), and, when their character was the reverse of his, their relation to so good a man, which otherwise would have been their honour, was really their disgrace. Degeneranti genus opprobrium - A good extraction is a reproach to him that degenerates from it. Note, Those that have the most grace themselves cannot give grace to their children. It has often been the grief of good men to see their posterity, instead of treading in their steps, trampling upon them, and, as Job speaks, marring their path. Nay, many that have begun well, promised fair, and set out in the right path, so that their parents and friends have had great hopes of them, yet afterwards have turned aside to by-paths, and been the grief of those of whom they should have been the joy. When Samuel's sons were made judges, and settled at a distance form him, then they discovered themselves. Thus, (1.) Many that have been well educated, and have conducted themselves well while they were under their parents' eye, when they have gone abroad into the world and set up for themselves have proved bad. Let none therefore be secure either of themselves or theirs, but depend on divine grace. (2.) Many that have done well in a state of meanness and subjection have been spoiled by preferment and power. Honours change men's minds, and too often for the worse. It does not appear that Samuel's sons were so profane and vicious as Eli's sons; but, whatever they were in other respects, they were corrupt judges, they turned aside after lucre, after the mammon of unrighteousness, so the Chaldee reads it. Note, The love of money is the root of all evil. It is pernicious in any, but especially in judges. Samuel had taken no bribes (Job 12:3), but his sons had, though, no doubt, he warned them against it when he made them judges; and then they perverted judgment. In determining controversies, they had an eye to the bribe, not to the law, and enquired who bid highest, not who had right on his side. It is sad with a people when the public justice that should do them right, being perverted, does them the greatest wrong.
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 On vv1–3 And it came to pass, when Samuel was old,....…
And it came to pass, when Samuel was old,.... The common notion of the Jews is, that he lived but fifty two years (t); when a man is not usually called an old man, unless the infirmities of old age came upon him sooner than they commonly do, through his indefatigable labours from his childhood, and the cares and burdens of government he had long bore; though some think he was about sixty years of age; and Abarbinel is of opinion that he was more than seventy. It is a rule with the Jews (u), that a man is called an old man at sixty, and a grey headed man at seventy:
that he made his sons judges over Israel; under himself, not being able through old age to go the circuits he used; he sent them, and appointed them to hear and try causes in his stead, or settled them in some particular places in the land, and, as it seems by what follows, at Beersheba; though whether that was under his direction, or was their own choice, is not certain.
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(t) Seder Olam Rabba, ut supra. (c. 13. p. 35.) (u) Pirke Abot, c. 5. sect. 21.
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 On vv1–3 Samuel's decay and the degeneracy of his sons, ver.…
Samuel's decay and the degeneracy of his sons, ver. 1-3. The people petition him for a king, who refers it to God, ver. 4-6. God directs him what answer to give, ver. 7-18. They insist upon their petition, ver. 19, 20. Which he promises, shall be granted, ver. 21, 22.
Old - And so unfit for his former travels and labours. He is not supposed to have been now above sixty years of age. But he had spent his strength and spirits in the fatigue of public business: and now if he thinks to shake himself as at other times, he finds he is mistaken: age has cut his hair. They that are in the prime of their years, ought to be busy in doing the work of life: for as they go into years, they will find themselves less disposed to it, and less capable of it. Judges - Not supreme Judges, for such there was to be but one, and that of God's chusing; and Samuel still kept that office in his own hands, chap. vii, 15, but his deputies, to go about and determine matters, but with reservation of a right of appeals to himself. He had doubtless instructed them in a singular manner, and fitted them for the highest employments; and he hoped that the example he had sent them, and the authority he still had over them, would oblige them to diligence and faithfulness in their trust.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Samuel, grown old, makes his sons judges in Beer-sheba,…
CHAPTER VIII
Samuel, grown old, makes his sons judges in Beer-sheba, 1, 2.
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They pervert judgment; and the people complain, and desire a
king, 3-5.
Samuel is displeased, and inquires of the Lord, 6.
The Lord is also displeased; but directs Samuel to appoint them
a king, and to show them solemnly the consequences of their
choice, 7-9.
Samuel does so; and shows them what they may expect from an
absolute monarch, and how afflicted they should be under his
administration, 10-18.
The people refuse to recede from their demand; and Samuel lays
the matter before the Lord, and dismisses them, 19-22.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
Verse 1. When Samuel was old] Supposed to be about sixty.
He made his sons judges] He appointed them as his lieutenants to superintend certain affairs in Beer-sheba, which he could not conveniently attend to himself. But they were never judges in the proper sense of the word; Samuel was the last judge in Israel, and he judged it to the day of his death. See 1Sa 7:16.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1Sa 8:1. Samuel was old — And so unfit…
1Sa 8:1. Samuel was old — And so unfit for his former travels and labours. He is not supposed to have been now above sixty years of age; but he had spent his strength and spirits in the fatigue of public business; and now if he thinks to shake himself as at other times, he finds he is mistaken; age has cut his hair. They that are in the prime of their years, ought to be busy in doing the work of life; for as they go into years, they will find themselves less disposed to it, and less capable of it. He made his sons judges — Not supreme judges, for of such there was to be but one, and that of God’s choosing; and Samuel still kept that office in his own hands, (1Sa 7:15;) but his deputies, to go about and determine matters, with reservation, however, of a right of appeal to himself. He had doubtless instructed them in a singular manner, and fitted them for the highest employments; and he hoped that the example he had set them, and the authority he still had over them, would oblige them to diligence and faithfulness in their trust.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–2 This verse implies a long period, probably not less…
This verse implies a long period, probably not less than 20 years, of which we have no account except what is contained in the brief notice in 1Sa 7:13-17. The general idea conveyed is of a time of peace and prosperity, analogous to that under other Judges.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Old. Houbigant would translate, "when he ws growing old,"…
Old. Houbigant would translate, "when he ws growing old," senesceret, as he supposes he was now nearly sixty, having judged about twenty-five years, and living another twenty as partner with Saul. (Prol. lxii.) See chap. vii. 15. (Haydock) --- Judges, as his delegates in the southern parts of the country. (Calmet) --- Josephus says one of them was stationed at Bethel. (Antiquities vi. 3.)
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 On v1 1 Samuel 8-31
SECOND PART. SAUL
1 Samuel 8-31
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________________
FIRST DIVISION
Establishment By Samuel Of The Israelitish Kingdom Under The Rule Of Saul. 1 Samuel 8-12
______________
FIRST SECTION
The Preparations. Chapters 8–9
I. The Persistent Desire of the People after a King conveyed through their Elders to Samuel
1Sa_8:1-22
1And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over 2Israel. Now [And] the name of his first-born was Joel , 1 and the name of his [the] 3second Abiah2; they were judges in Beersheba. And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre,3 and took bribes, and perverted judgment.
4Then [And] all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to 5Samuel to Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk 6not in thy ways; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But [And] the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel 7prayed unto the Lord [Jehovah]. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee,4 but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.8According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken [forsaking]5 me and served [serving] other gods, so do they also [om. also] unto thee [ins. also]. 9Now therefore [And now] hearken unto their voice; howbeit [om. howbeit] yet protest solemnly unto [solemnly warn]6 them, and show them the manner7 of the king that shall reign over them.
10And Samuel told all the words of the Lord [Jehovah] to the people that asked 11of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen [put them in his chariot and on his horses8], and some [they] 12shall run before his chariots [chariot]. And he will appoint9 him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them [some he will set] to ear [plough] his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war and [ins. 13the] instruments [equipment] of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries [perfumers],10 and to be [om. to be] cooks, and to be [om. to be] 14bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, 15even [om. even] the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his 16servants. And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your 17goodliest young men [oxen],11 and your asses, and put them to his work. He will 18take the tenth of your sheep; and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which [whom] ye shall have chosen you, and the Lord [Jehovah] will not hear you in that day.
19Nevertheless [And] the people refused to obey [hearken to] the voice of Samuel. 20And they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us; That [And] we also may [will] be like all the nations, and that [om. that] our king may [shall] judge us, 21and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord [Jehovah]. And the 22Lord [Jehovah] said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Sa_8:1-3. Samuel’s sons, Joel and Abiah, associated with him as judges over Israel.—The reason here given, why Samuel made his two sons judges, is his age, for which his work, as sketched in 1Sa_7:15-17, had become too hard. The two sons, Joel and Abiah, are also mentioned in 1Ch_6:13 [Eng. A. V. 1 Samuel 8:28], where, however, in the masoretic text, the name of the first has fallen out.12 [These names may be taken as indications of the father’s pious feeling. The first, Joel, “Jehovah is God,” was, not improbably, a protest against the idolatry of the Israelites. Hebrew names thus frequently serve as historical finger-signs, pointing out prevailing tendencies or modes of feeling at certain times. Comp. Ichabod (1Sa_4:21-22), Saul’s ’sons Meribbaal (Mephibosheth) and Ishbaal (Ishbosheth), David’s sons (2Sa_3:2-5), Manasseh the King, Malachi. The name of Samuel’s second son, Abiah, “Jehovah is father,” expresses trust in the fatherhood of God, an idea which hardly appears in O. T. except in proper names. “It records, doubtless, the fervent aspiration of him who first devised it as a name, and, we may hope, of many who subsequently adopted it, after that endearing and intimate relationship between God and the soul of man, which is truly expressed by the words ‘father’ and ‘child.’ It may be accepted as proof that believers in ancient days, though they had not possession of the perfect knowledge of ‘the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ,’ or of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless ‘received the Spirit of adoption,’ that God ‘sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, whereby they cried, Abba, Father’ ” (Wilkinson, Personal Names in the Bible, page 169 sq.).—Tr.].—They acted as judges in Beersheba, “Well of the seven (that is, lambs), or of the oath” (Gen_21:28-33), the spot consecrated by the Patriarchal history (Gen_22:19; Gen_26:23; Gen_28:10), in the extreme south of the country, on the border of Edom, now Bir-es-seba [“Well of the seven, or of the lion”] (Robins. I. 337 [Amer. Ed. L., 204 sq.]).13 Josephus (Ant. VI., 3, 2) adds, “in Bethel” after “judges,” thus intimating that one son acted in the North, the other in the South, both together comprising the whole country in their judicial work, according to which Samuel had wholly retired; but against this is the previous statement that Samuel exercised his office “all the days of his life,” and therefore his sons could only have been appointed by him assistants in the performance of duties which his old age rendered too arduous for him. Ewald’s opinion that this addition of Josephus “suits so well,” that “he must have gotten it from a still better account in the histories of the Kings,” is a mere surmise, over against which we may put with equal right the opinion that Josephus was indebted for this addition (Nägelsb.) to his “very lively fancy” (Then.), and that the Masoretic text fits in so well with the whole historical situation, that the integrity of the passage cannot be assailed. Since, on the one hand, our attention is directed to Samuel’s age,14 which compelled him to make his sons judges, while yet he did not lay down his office, and, on the other hand, the desire after a firm and energetic royal power was based on the dangerous condition of the country by reason of foreign enemies, it appears that Samuel, in order to lighten the burden, set his sons as judges in a part of the land, and in the part which occasioned the greatest difficulties and exertions, that is, the southern. 1Sa_8:3 affirms that this measure was a failure. In consequence of the division of the judicial power between the father and the sons, the authority of the office was so debased in the eyes of the people by the crimes of the latter, as the sacerdotal dignity was by the sons of Eli, that the desire for a higher authority to guide the people found utterance.—They took bribes and perverted judgment.—They thus transgressed the law of the Lord (Exo_23:6; Exo_23:8; comp. Deu_16:19), and destroyed the foundation of the judicial office as the office for the administration of right and justice. Their official unfaithfulness is contrasted with their father’s walk: they walked not in his ways.—This fact or judgment alone is given, and Samuel is not, like Eli, charged with the blame of his sons’ misconduct. The words: they inclined or turned aside (namely, from the ways of their father15) after lucre, exhibit the roots of their wicked official procedure in a mind directed to gain. Luther gives the correct sense: “they turned aside to covetousness.”
1Sa_8:4-9.The demand for a king
1Sa_8:4-5, how it was made, 1Sa_8:6, how it was received by Samuel and carried before the Lord, 1Sa_8:7-9, how he, and through him the people, was instructed concerning it by the Lord.
1Sa_8:4-5. “All the elders of Israel” assemble in Ramah, Samuel’s judicial seat. Thus the whole nation is in motion against the existing condition of things; it appears before Samuel officially and formally in the body of its representatives. Two things they adduce as ground of the demand which they wish to make: 1) Samuel’s age, that is, the lack of vigor and energy in the government, which, with his advancing age, made itself perceptible to the whole nation, and was not supplied by the assistance of his sons, which he had for that reason (1Sa_8:1) called in; 2) the evil walk, the misgovernment of his sons, the moral and legal depravation which they produced. The demand is: Make us a king (Act_13:21); and two things are added: 1) in reference to his judicial work: he was to judge; the royal office was to take the place of the judicial, and so the meaning of the demand is a complete abrogation of the hitherto existing form of government under Judges 2) in reference to the royal-monarchical constitution of the surrounding nations: the Israelitish constitution is to be like that (כְּ). After the words “as all the nations,” we must supply “have such a one.” Israel will not be behind other nations in respect to the splendor and power of royal rule. The accordance of the last words: “like all the nations” with Deu_17:14 is to be noted.—In 1Sa_8:6 two things are said of Samuel’s conduct in reference to this demand. First, that he received it with displeasure (וַיֵרַע, properly: “the thing was evil in the eyes of Samuel”). But the cause of his displeasure is expressly said to be, that they made the demand: “Give us a king to judge us.” He did not, therefore, take it amiss that they blamed the wrong-doing of his sons, nor that they referred to his age, and thus intimated that he was no longer able to bear the whole burden of the office, while his sons did evilly. What displeased him was the expression of desire for a king as ruler. How far and why this demand was the occasion of his displeasure appears from the connection. From the words of Samuel (1Sa_12:12) we see 1) that the people, pressed anew by the Ammonites, demanded a king who should give them the protection against enemies, which was not expected from the aging Samuel; 2) that, in this demand, they left out of view the kingdom of God in their midst, turned away their heart from the God who had hitherto as their almighty king so often saved them from the power of the enemy, and put their trust in an external, visible kingdom as means of safety and protection against their enemies, over against the invisible royal rule of their God, whose instrument, Samuel, they rejected. The same thing is expressed in the words of Samuel, 1Sa_10:18-19. In both passages, however, Samuel’s discourse is an echo of the word of God Himself, imparted to him in answer to the question which he had asked God in prayer. This, namely, is the second important factor in Samuel’s procedure: He prayed to the Lord. Deeply moved by the sin which, in this demand, the people committed against the Lord as their king (and this was the real occasion of his displeasure and unwillingness in reference to the desired revolution in the political constitution, which was connected with the rejection of himself as representative and instrument of the divine government), he carried the whole matter before the Lord in prayer, and, in this important crisis also of the history of his people, who would no longer be guided by him, showed himself the humble, consecrated man and hero of prayer.—In 1Sa_8:7-9 we have the declaration, in which the Lord instructs Samuel as to the question of his prayer, and at the same time decides on the demand of the people. Prayer was the best means by which Samuel could learn the purpose and will of God in reference to this demand of the nation. The words: Hearken to the voice of the people, express the divine fulfillment of the people’s request. Here a discrepancy might be supposed to exist between this statement and Samuel’s reception of the request in 1Sa_8:6. But the appearance of such a discrepancy vanishes before the following considerations. An earthly-human kingdom could not at all, merely as such, stand in opposition with the revealed theocratic relation of the covenant-God with His people, in which the latter (Exo_19:5 sq.) were to be His property and a “kingdom” of priests, and He was to be their king (comp. Exo_15:18 : “Jehovah is king forever,” with Psa_44:5; Psa_68:25; Psa_74:12; Psa_10:16). For, if hitherto under the Theocracy chosen instruments of the Lord, like Moses, Joshua and the Judges, were the leaders of the people, governing them by His law, in His name and according to His will, then also a leader and governor of the people, depending solely on God’s will, governing solely in His name, and devoted to His law, intended and desiring to be nothing but the instrument of the invisible king in respect to His people, might rule over them with the power and dignity of a king. A king, as God’s instrument, chosen by God the royal ruler of His people out of their midst, could no more stand opposed to the fundamental idea of the theocracy, than all the former great leaders and guides of the people, who were chosen by Him for the realization of His will. This conception of the absolute dependence of an earthly-human kingdom in Israel on the invisible King of the nation is expressed in the so-called law of the king in Deu_17:14-20. As to the theocratical idea of a king, comp. Gen_17:6; Gen_17:16; Gen_35:11; Num_24:17. There is little occasion to suppose a contradiction between this idea of a theocratically-conditioned Israelitish kingdom and the Theocracy in Israel, when we consider the need of a unifying power for the whole national life within and without, as in Gideon’s time against the Midianites (Jdg_8:22-23), and now, in the time of the aged Samuel, both against the arbitrary rule and legal disorder of his sons, and against the Ammonites (1Sa_12:12) and the Philistines (1Sa_9:16). If Israel’s desire for a king had been in itself opposed to the theocratic principle, Samuel would not have carried the matter to the Lord in prayer, but would have given a decided refusal to the Elders, and the divine decision would not have been: “ Hearken to the voice of the people, make them a king” (1Sa_8:22). But the reason of Samuel’s necessary displeasure at this desire clearly appears from the judgment passed on it in the divine response: they have not rejected thee; but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.—In their request for a king, they did not assume the attitude of heart and of mind to the Lord, which was proper for them as His people, towards Him as their sole and exclusive ruler. They put out of sight the divine rule, to which, in view of its mighty deeds in their history, they ought to have trusted implicitly, that it would extend to them the oft-verified protection against external enemies and maladministration of the office of Judge; this protection they expect from the earthly-human kingly rule, instead of from God; instead of crying to God to give them a ruler according to His will, they demand from Samuel that a king be made according to their will and pleasure; instead of their holy civil constitution under the royal rule of their covenant-God, they desire a constitution under a visible kingdom, as they see it in the heathen nations. This was a denial of that highest truth which Gideon once (Jdg_8:23), in declining the royal authority offered him, held up before the people: “The Lord is your king.” In rejecting Samuel’s government, they rejected the rule of God, and, straying from the foundation of covenant-revelation to the stand-point of the heathen nations,, they put themselves in opposition to the royal majesty of God revealed among them, and to the high calling which they had to maintain and fulfil in fidelity and obedience towards the holy and almighty God as their king and ruler. In 1Sa_8:8 is shown how this disposition and conduct had been exhibited in the history of the people from God’s first great royal deed, the deliverance out of Egypt, till now, and how this new demand addressed to Samuel was only the old sin showing itself, the faithless and apostate disposition which had exhibited itself again and again up to this time. “With such a disposition the desire for a kingdom was a despising and rejecting of Jehovah’s kingdom, and no better than forsaking Jehovah to serve other gods” (Keil, in loco). (It is not necessary to insert a Pron. “to me” after “they have done” (Thenius), since this is involved in the following words: “they have forsaken me”). In 1Sa_8:9 Samuel is again expressly instructed to yield to the desire of the people; but there is added the twofold injunction: 1) bear witness against them, that is, attest and set before them their sin and guilt against me, and 2) announce to them what kind of right the king, who according to their desire shall rule over them like the kings of the heathen nations, will claim, in the exercise of unlimited and arbitrary power, after the manner of those rulers. By the first the people are to be made to see how, in the disposition of heart in which they demand a king, they stand in opposition to the absolute, holy royal rule of their God, and to their own theocratic calling. The fulfilment of the people’s desire after a king which had its root in an apostate and carnally proud temper, is in accordance with the same fundamental law of the Old Covenant, by which the holy God, on the one hand, judges Israel’s sin as a contradiction of His holy will, but at the same time, on the other hand, uses it as a means for the realization of the ends of His kingdom, as an occasion for a new development of His revealed glory. The other injunction, to set before the people the right [or, manner] of the king they demanded, is intended to exhibit to them the human kingdom apart from the divine rule, as it exists among the other nations, with all its usual and established despotism, as the source of great misfortune and shameful servitude, in contrast with the freedom and happiness offered to the people under the despised Theocracy. Comp. 1Sa_8:18.
1Sa_8:10-18. The right of the king.
1Sa_8:10. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people.—This declaration of Samuel was therefore essentially an exhortation to repentance, which set before the people that, by their desire for a king, they had principially rejected God’s sole rule over them. Clericus: ‘ Therefore God declares that He was despised by the Israelites, inasmuch as they were not content with the theocracy, which had heretofore existed.”—The mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט, “right,” “manner”) is here what pertains to the king in the maintenance of courtly state, and what he claims from his subjects, according to the custom of heathen rulers and to kingly usage; for it was with their eyes on the kings of other nations that the people had demanded a king. Joseph.: τὰ παρὰ τοῦ βασιλέως ἐσόμενα, morem regis et agendi rationem [“the manner of the king”]. Maurer: id quod rex suo arbitrio vivens impune faciet [“what the king, following his own will, would do with impunity”]. Clericus: “It signifies the manner of his life (1Sa_2:13; Gen_40:13; Jdg_13:12),—not legal right (jus), for several unjust things are afterwards mentioned, such as were practiced by the neighboring kings, whom in fact the Hebrew kings afterwards imitated.” Sept. δικαίωμα [“legal right or ordinance”]. The words: he will take your sons… his chariot, present a single comprehensive statement of the employment of the young men of the people in the royal court. The first sing. of the text “in his chariot” is to be retained (against Then., who, after Sept., Chald., and Syr., reads the Plu., and refers it to war-chariots), and the chariot is in both cases to be understood as the court and state-chariot, the service of which is described in accordance with the actual manner of oriental courts. In this there were 1) Chariot-drivers, who are referred to in the words “he will put them in his chariot;” 2) Riders, indicated by the phrase “on his horses” (פָּרָשׁ is here “saddle-horse,” as in 1Ki_5:6 [Eng. A. V. 1Sa 4:2616])—“he will put them on his saddle-horses,” and 3) Runners—“and they will run before his chariot.” It is a description of the usual royal equipage of chariots and horses. Comp. 1Ki_5:6 [1Sa 4:26], 2Sa_15:1.
1Sa_8:12 refers partly to military service, partly to agricultural service. “And to set”17 depends on “he will take;” the twice-used לוֹ [“for himself”] indicates his purely selfish aim. The “captains over thousands and fifties”18 represent the whole army in all its grades between these highest and lowest positions. For the charge of the “captain over fifty” comp. 2Ki_1:9-14.—All the tillage of the royal possessions must be performed by them; it is described by its beginning and end (ploughing and reaping). To this is added the work of the royal artificers for war and peace.
1Sa_8:13. The daughters of the people will be employed in the service of the royal household. [Women were, in ancient times, cooks, bakers, and preparers of ointments and spices. This last work embraced the preparation of highly-seasoned food, meats and drinks, and of perfumed oils for anointing the body. The household of oriental princes is even now organized on a gigantic scale, and there are indications that a similar luxury was practiced by the nations who lived about the Israelites. All this, as well as the use of horses and chariots, though not absolutely forbidden in the Law, was contrary to its spirit.—Tr.]. 1Sa_8:14 sqq. describe the arbitrary dealing of the king with the property of the people in order to enrich his courtiers. סַרִים is properly “a eunuch,” then any court-officer.
1Sa_8:16 sqq. The king will use the serving-classes also, men-servants, maid-servants, and cattle, for himself, and will take the tenth of the small cattle [sheep, etc.]. For “young men” (בחר) we must read “cattle” (בקר) with Sept. (τὰ βουκόλια), since the young men are already included in the sons in 1Sa_8:11 [and the menservants in 1Sa_8:16.—Tr.], and here both the juxtaposition of servants and animals and the correspondence between the two clauses, men, maids—oxen, asses (comp. Exo_20:17) would be destroyed by this inappropriate word. Small cattle are here named in addition to large cattle, to show how completely the king would claim their property for his own uses.—And you shall be his servants. These words include all that is said before; the loss of political and social freedom is connected with the kingdom which the people demand “as among the heathen nations.” Thus the folly of their reference to the example of other nations is held up before them in contrast with the freedom and blessing, which they enjoyed under the rule of their invisible king, the living God.
1Sa_8:18. Their painful condition under such a government will be matter of unavailing lamentation before the Lord. מִלִּפְנֵי מ׳ is not “because of your king,” but properly “from your king,” that is, to the Lord. It is herein hinted that they will wish to be delivered from the oppressive royal government. But the Lord will continue to shut His ears. Clericus: “God will not for your sake change the government of a master into the free commonwealth which you have hitherto enjoyed. The yoke once assumed you must hear forever.” The evil which their own sin has brought on them they must bear—so divine justice ordains.
1Sa_8:19-22. The result of the transactions between Samuel and the people.
1Sa_8:19-20. The reply of the people (through the elders). They “refused to hearken to Samuel’s voice.” The voice or address of Samuel contained enough to detach the people from their desire. Instead of this there follows, with a decided “no,19 the repetition of the demand: “There shall be a king over us.” The dehortatory description of the royal privilege and custom among the surrounding nations is met with the declaration: “And we also will be as all the nations.” In this there is an ignoring and denying the lofty position which God the Lord had given His people above all nations by choosing them as His people, and establishing His royal rule among them. The demand for a kingdom like that of other nations was an act of sin against the Lord, who wished to be sole king over His people, and had sufficiently revealed Himself as such in their former history. “Judging” and “leading in war” are summarily mentioned as representing the duties of the king to be chosen. Without and within, in war and in peace, he was to be leader and governor of the people.
1Sa_8:21 sqq. Samuel’s intermediation. As mediator between God and the people he had hitherto striven with God in prayer, and with the elders of the people in earnest dealings and warnings concerning this important and eventful question. We see him wrestling anew with God in prayer; again he carries before the Lord in prayer the whole matter, as it now stands after the unsuccessful dealing with the people. God’s answer is: Make them a king. The demand, made in sin, from a disposition not well-pleasing to God, is fulfilled. The element of sin and error must, in the history of the kingdom of God, aid in the preparation and realization of the divine plans and ends. Samuel dismisses the men of Israel to their homes. We must here read between the lines, that Samuel communicated the divine decision to the people, and, dismissing the elders of the people, took into consideration, in accordance with the Lord’s command, the necessary steps for the election of a king. Following the sense, Josephus adds to the words of dismissal the following: “And I will send for you at the proper time, when I learn from the Lord whom he will give you as king” [Ant. VI. 3, 6].
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. The demand for a human kingdom like the kingdom in other nations, and its fulfilment, is one of the most important turning-points in the development of the Kingdom of God under the Old Covenant. Historically occasioned by constant danger from without, against which there was no one sufficient leader, and by the arbitrary and illegal procedure of the judges, it was more deeply grounded in the need (felt by the people and supported by public opinion) of a sole, continuous, and externally and internally firm and energetic rule. And this rule, even if it took the shape of royalty, needed not to be in conflict with the monarchical rule of God over His people (Exo_19:5 sq.; Jdg_8:23; 1Sa_12:12); for 1) the human king, if his relation to God’s kingdom were rightly apprehended, need be nothing more than the instrument and representative of the theocratic kingdom; 2) from the Patriarchal time on, through the Mosaic period and that of the Judges till now, there had been defined hopes of and allusions to the rise of a mighty and glorious kingdom within the nation under the lead of the Divine Spirit Himself (Gen_17:6; Gen_17:16; Gen_35:11; Num_24:17; comp. Deu_17:14-20; Jdg_8:23; Jdg_9:22; 1Sa_2:10, 3:35); and 3) the existing government was no longer able to perform the duties incumbent on it. Ew. Gesch. [History of Israel, 2, 606 sq.]: “As, then, even under Samuel, in his latter years, the judicial office showed itself without and within too weak and unable to give permanent security, the time was at last come when the people must either submit to a more perfect human government, or perish irretrievably. “The unfavorable decision on the demand given nevertheless by Samuel and in the divine declaration, refers to the sinful disposition of mind out of which the demand sprang—a disposition not trusting unconditionally in God’s power, anticipating the plans of His wisdom and His chosen time, controlled by vain and proud desire to imitate the royal magnificences of the heathen peoples. “In this there was a two-fold ungodly element. 1) They desired a king instead of the God-established and nobly attested Judge Samuel …… The scheme is characterized as an injustice against Samuel, and therefore a sin against the Lord, who sent him, 1Sa_8:7; 1Sa_8:2) At the bottom of the people’s desire for a king lay the delusion, that God was powerless to help them, that the reason of their subjection was not their sin, but a fault in the constitution, that the kingdom would be an aid in addition to God. This point of view appears oftener in the narrative than the first. Isa_10:18-19; Isaiah 12. The kingdom desired in such a mind was not a form of God’s kingdom in accordance with revelation, but opposed to His kingdom.” (Hengst. Beit. 3, p. 256 sq.) Calvin: “They ought to have waited patiently for the time predetermined by God, and not have given place to their own designs and methods apart from God’s word. They ought not, therefore, to have anticipated God’s purpose, but ought to have waited till the Lord Himself should show by indubitable signs that the foreordained time had come, and should direct their counsels. Moreover, though they recognized Samuel as a prophet, they not only did not inquire of him whether they were to have a king or not, but wanted him to aid in carrying out their design. They do not think of invoking God; they demand that a king be given them; they adduce the customs and institutions of other nations.” Nevertheless, Samuel yields to the desire of the people, “because he knows that now God’s time has come; but, at the same time, he does all that he can to bring the people to a consciousness of their sin.” (Hengst. ib. 258.) The fulfilment of the demand for a human kingdom is distinctly granted by God, because, though as a human factor in the movement it is rooted in sin, yet, foreseen by God, it fits into His plan, and is to be the means of elevating and confirming the Theocracy in His people, and of laying the foundation for the further development of the nation’s history, till the preparation should be complete for salvation in the person of Him, of whom the kingdom of Israel in David was to be the prefiguration and type. Herein the law, which runs through the whole history of the development of revelation, repeats itself: by the guilt of the covenant-people God’s arrangements for salvation reach a point where they no longer serve; then their guilt is revealed most strongly in open disobedience to God; but, in permitting what the people sinfully wish, God grasps the reins and directs events to a point, of which the people in their sinful blindness had thought nothing, so that He only the more glorifies Himself by the elevation of His revelation to a higher place.” (O. v. Gerlach.)
2. We are not to think of the relation between the theocracy and the kingdom established through Samuel, as if the latter were an addition to the former “to aid it in accomplishing its task, and to supply what was lacking to the times,” as if a “mixed constitution and rule” had arisen, and “out of a divine government” had come a “royal-divine government,” a Basileo-Theocracy. Ew. Gesch. [Hist.] 3, 8. This conception of a co-ordinate relation does not agree with the governing principle of the theocracy, that God is and remains king of His people, that God’s law and truth is the authority to which the kingdom must unconditionally submit, in dependence on which it is to govern as visible instrument of the theocracy in the name and place of the invisible king. The rejection of Saul, who would not pay unconditional obedience to God’s rule, and the divine recognition of David’s government as one which was thoroughly in unison with the rule of Israel’s true king, their God and Lord, and which continued to prepare the way for its realization in the people, laying the historical basis for the future manifestation of the Messianic kingdom, confirm the view that the relation of the Israelitish kingdom to the Theocracy (as Samuel, under God’s direction, founded it) was one of unconditional subordination; it was to be the instrument of the latter. The statement that there was an encroachment on the pure Theocracy in the fact “that Jehovah could no longer be the sole Lawgiver, that the earthly king must execute his will with unrestrained authority” (Diestel, Jahrb. für deutsche Theol., 1863, p. 554) rests on an incorrect presupposition, since, according to the principle of the Theocracy, even the established monarchy was expressly subject to the legislative authority of the covenant-God, and both king and people must unconditionally conform their will to the will and law of God.
3. This history of the people’s desire for a king and its fulfilment by God exhibits the relation of the divine will to the human will, when the latter stands sinfully opposed to the former. God never destroys the freedom of the human will. He leaves it to its free self-determination, but when it has turned away from His will, seeks to bring it back by the revelation in His word. If this does not succeed, human perversity must nevertheless minister to the realization of the plans of His kingdom and salvation, and also, in its evil consequences, bring punishment, according to His righteous law, on the sin which man thus freely commits.
4. Samuel appears, in this crisis of Old Testament history, among the men of God whom the Bible represents as heroes in prayer, as Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah. Speaking to the people, he represented God as his prophet; praying to God, he represented the people as their priestly mediator. Comp. Schröring, Samuel als Beter (“Samuel as a praying man”), in the Zeitschr. für luth. Theol. ü Krit., 1856, p. 414 sq.
5. [The relation between this narrative of the demand for a king and the “law of the king,” Deu_17:14-20, requires a brief notice. It seems strange that Samuel, if he was acquainted with this law, makes no mention of it. There is no difficulty in his characterization of the demand as a rejection of the divine rule over them (Jehovah Himself (1Sa_8:7-8) does the same thing), for the sin was in their feeling and purpose, not in the demand per se, as Dr. Erdmann well brings out; and Samuel might have so spoken, if he had known that the Law contemplated the possibility of a regal government. The real difficulty lies in the fact that the narrative in 1 Samuel 8-12 seems to be unconscious of the law in Deuteronomy. Allowing much, it might be said, for the simple, unscientific, historical method of the times, in which quotations are rare, and things omitted which are commonly known, it would yet seem that there should be in the addresses of the people, of Samuel, and of Jehovah, some recognition of the fact that this was a thing which did not make its first appearance now, and some reference to the obligations imposed on the king in the Mosaic Law. But, is there no recognition in the later transaction of the earlier law? If we compare the two, we shall find the relation between them to be the following: the form of demand in Deu_17:14 is given almost verbatim in 1Sa_8:5, but the former adds “about me,” while the latter adds the ground of the desire, “that he may be judicial and military head;” for choice by Jehovah in Deut. (1Sa_8:15), we have choice by the people in 1 Sam. (1Sa_8:18); and by Jehovah (1Sa_10:24); the reference to horses is nearly the same in form in both, but in tone quite different, Deut. 1Sa_8:16; 1Sa_8:11; on the other hand, the mention of returning to Egypt, of wives, silver and gold, and the study of the law (Deut. 1Sa_8:17-20) is not found in Samuel. It will be seen from this comparison, and still more from a comparison of the whole tone and drift in the two, that the act described here was probably performed without reference to the statute in Deut.; that the desire of the people was a natural, historical growth, and the course of events was determined by the circumstances of the time. So in the history of Gideon we see a similar unconsciousness of the Deuteronomic statute (though there is recognition of the theocracy), and a similar determination of action by existing circumstances. Where, then, was the Mosaic law all this time? and was Samuel ignorant of it? The answer to these questions seems to be suggested by the statement in 1Sa_10:25, in which there are three distinct affirmations: 1) “that Sa muel told the people the law or manner of the kingdom, which is plainly different from the law of the king in chap. 8, and is most naturally to be identified with Deu_17:14-17; Deuteronomy 2) that he wrote this law in a book; and 3) that he put it somewhere in safe keeping. It seems probable, therefore, that we have here the political adoption of the essence of the Mosaic “law of the king” (which, in its prohibition of a return to Egypt, for example, has the stamp of Mosaic times). The law had been announced by Moses, transmitted through the priests, and was known to Samuel (though perhaps not generally known among the people). But it was a permission of royalty merely, not an injunction, and its existence did not diminish the people’s sin of superficial, unspiritual longing for outward guidance, nor prove at first to Samuel that the time for its application had come. He therefore says nothing about it. But when the transaction is concluded, the king actually chosen, then he announces the law, and with obvious propriety commits it in its constitutional form to writing, and deposits it before Jehovah as a part of the theocratic constitution. Thus the history seems to become natural and intelligible when regarded as exhibiting Samuel’s doubts as to whether the proper time had come for the historical realization of what Moses puts merely as a possibility. Apparently Samuel was not in sympathy with the movement, and seems to have felt after this that he had outlived his time.—Tr.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1Sa_8:1-3. Starke: Even good intentions do not always turn out well, but often fall through.—Upright parents cannot always be blamed for it, if their children turn out badly.—Avarice is a root of all evils, 1Ti_6:9-10; earnestly to avoid it is a great part of the wisdom of the righteous.—Calvin: Parents should feel the duty laid upon them, amid great anxiety and sorrow, to pray to God for the prosperity of their children, and with earnest admonitions diligently to hold them to the task of making their life holy. They should earnestly beg God to lead and govern, by His Holy Spirit the children whom He has given them, and to let the mercy which has been their own portion pass over to their children also, and to grant them the gift of perseverance and constancy. For if so holy and exalted a prophet was not spared the having such wicked and corrupt sons, how will it be with those who are far removed from his piety.
1Sa_8:4-6. Starke: Even good things may sometimes be ill desired. A pious government is greatly pained when it traces among its subjects nothing but mere ingratitude.—Cramer: When something disagreeable and repugnant befalls us, we can better bring it home to no one than to God; for He consoles the lowly, 2Co_7:6.—Calvin: We ought, when anything is done or said against the honor of God, to be aroused and zealous, but not to suffer ourselves to be provoked when in regard to ourselves or ours an injustice is done us.
1Sa_8:7-9. Starke: What is done to servants of God, God accepts as done to Himself, Act_19:5.—Berleb. Bible: God hears in manifold ways when we cry to Him for human guidance, and then we imagine we have obtained a great favor. But what a great misfortune it is when one draws himself off from the richly instructive guidance of the Lord, to allow Himself to be led by creatures which withdraw us from the guidance of God! Then from freemen, which we formerly were, we become mere bondmen, and can also rightly say, if only we are so happy as to forsake the human guidance: “O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us; but by thee only will we make mention of thy name” (Isa_26:13). An upright guide like Samuel does not appropriate to himself the souls of men, but guides them to God, and serves only the purpose of bringing them to Him.—Wuertemb. Bible: Old sins are not forgotten with God, if they are all the time kept up, and not repented of (Exo_32:34).—Schmid: The fountain of all sins is in not fearing God; and he who fears not to sin against God, also fears not to sin against men.
1Sa_8:9. Schmid: If God has cause enough to punish, yet out of His long-suffering He will also have cause enough merely to chide and admonish (Hos_11:8-9).
1Sa_8:15-16. Berleb. Bible: If we owe so much to the earthly king, what do we not owe to the heavenly king? O Thou King of Glory, do but come and reign over us! Let Thy kingdom come to us! Lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.—[1Sa_8:18. Cries that will not be heard: 1) Self-will often brings us into distress. 2) This distress makes us cry to the Lord. 3) Such cries the Lord does not promise to hear.—Tr.]
1Sa_8:19. Schmid: Among wretched men there is no constancy save in wickedness (Isa_5:18).—Calvin: We learn here how God, according to His righteous judgment, blinds men and gives them up to error, when they persistently go after their foolish and perverse desires. Therefore we ought to learn from this example to be wise, that when we are entangled in sore temptations, we may not give too much room to our own plans and thoughts, as if they rested on a firm foundation and were wholesome. We will beg God to rule us by His Spirit, and not to give us over to ourselves, and not even in the least to suffer us to depart from His Word, but rather work in us that that Word may maintain its dominion over us, and we may rejoice in its guidance.
1Sa_8:21. Starke: A Christian should bewail and tell his need to no one rather than to the faithful God, and learn from Him how he shall rightly behave himself.
1Sa_8:22. S. Schmid: God’s forbearance should not confirm men in wickedness, as if it were well done, but should lead them to repentance, that they may at last recognize their unrighteousness (Psa_50:21).
Footnotes:
[1][1Sa_8:2. That is “Jehovah is God”—the only God (יַהְוְ = יְהַו = יְהוֹ = יוֹ for יַהְוֶה Jahveh), a name borne by several persons in O. T., and said by Schrader to occur on the Assyr. inscriptions as name of a king of Hamath, Jalu, borrowed, no doubt, from the Israelites.—Tr.]
[2][1Sa_8:2. That is, “my father (or, simply, father) is Jah, Jahu, Jahveh, Jehovah.” The word מִשְׁנֵהוּ means the “second,” not of Samuel, but of Joel.—Tr.]
[3][1Sa_8:3. בצע is sometimes “profit” in general, as in Gen_37:26, but usually “unjust gain,” as here. The Targ. renders “mamon (mammon) of deceit,” see Luk_16:9. In Talmud and Targ. mammon moans “money,” “riches.” and Augustine (Quœst. Evan. 34) says that it was the Punic word for “money.” It is not found in Heb., and its origin is obscure.—Tr.]
[4][1Sa_8:7. Better: “not thee have they rejected, but me have, etc.”—Tr.]
[5][1Sa_8:8. Literally: “according to all … they have done … and have forsaken me and served, etc.” The ו consec., according to Heb. usage, introduces an appositional explanatory phrase, properly rendered by Eng. particip. On the Sept. insertion of “to me” after “have done,” see Exeg. Notes in loco.—Tr.]
[6][1Sa_8:9. אַךְ is restrictive-adversative, “yet,” “nevertheless;” כִּי is the subst. conjunct. “that,” introducing the following affirmation. The verb means literally “testify to them,” the word “solemnly” well expresses the force of the Inf. Abs.—Tr.]
[7][1Sa_8:9. מִשְׁפָט is “judgment,” then “law,” then “right, privilege,” but also “manner,” and this last is preferable here, because Samuel states what the king will do, not what he will have the right to do. His “manner” will be the “law” as determined by himself—Tr.]
[8][1Sa_8:11. The word signifies either “horses” or “horsemen;” the former better suits construction and context.—Tr.]
[9][1Sa_8:12. Lit. “and to appoint,” Inf. dependent on the verb “take” in 1Sa_8:11. The vss. vary greatly in the designation of the officers here mentioned, and some critics would read (with Sept.) “hundreds” instead of “fifties,” as being the more usual and natural. This is, however, a ground of objection to the change (from the harder to the easier), and there is no sufficient reason for abandoning the Heb. text.—Tr.]
[10][1Sa_8:13. The word רקח is used to express the preparing of fragrant ointments (Exo_30:22-35), and the noun is here best rendered “ointment-makers,” so Sept., Vulg., Erdmann, Philippson, and others. The Syriac renders “weavers” (websters) as if it read רקם, and the Chald. has the general designation “servants” (comp. Arab. raqaha, “provide for”). The Heb. text is to be maintained. The Eng. word “confectionary” (=confectioner) formerly included the making of ointments and spiced preparations, see Exo_30:35, Eng. A. V., but would now convey an incorrect idea here.—Tr.]
[11][1Sa_8:16. The reading “oxen” instead of “young men” (בקר for בחר) seems required by context, and is given by Sept., and adopted by Erdmann and others. Maurer admits the bearing of the context, but keeps the text on the ground of the טוֹבים; but טוֹב is applied to oxen in Gen_41:26, and to flesh of beasts in Eze_24:4 (in 1Sa_8:5 Ezek. uses בחר of the flock), and may be here understood of oxen.—Tr.]
[12][The Vashni in 1Ch_6:13 (28) is the same word as that rendered “second” in this passage.—Tr.]
[13][Beersheba (a mere watering-place in the Patriarchal time) was probably at this time a place of some importance from the trade between Egypt and Asia. It was re-settled after the exile, was a large village with a Roman garrison in Jerome’s time, and now exhibits only scattered ruins. Two large, and five small wells are still to be seen. The name does not occur in the New Test. See Robins. ubi sup., Smith’s Bib. Dict., s. v.—Tr.]
[14][If Samuel was born B. C. 1146, he would be sixty years old at the third battle of Ebenezer, 1086, and now, say ten years later, seventy years old. This would leave twenty years for Saul’s reign up to B. C. 1056, when David was made king in Hebron.—But it is possible that these dates may have to be put forward some years.—Tr.]
[15][Or, from the ways of truth.—Tr.]
[16][Eng. A. V. has here, not so well, “horsemen.”—Tr.]
[17][This is the literal translation. Eng. A. V. gives the sense more freely.—Tr.]
[18][On the variations in the vss. as to these numbers, see “Text. and Gram.” in loco.—Tr.]
[19]On the doubling of the ל in לֹא see Ew. Gr., § 91 d.
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 On vv1–3 1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority…
1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1Sa_12:2.
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 On vv1–3 Ch. 1Sa_8:1-5. Request of the people for a king
Ch. 1Sa_8:1-5. Request of the people for a king
1. when Samuel was old] A considerable time, probably not much less than 20 years, must have elapsed since the victory of Ebenezer, before Samuel required the help of his sons on the ground of old age, and some years more before their misgovernment became so flagrant as to give occasion for the request of the elders. On the chronology see Introd. p. 22 ff.
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 On vv1, 3 (1) When Samuel was old.—We are not able with…
(1) When Samuel was old.—We are not able with any precision to fix the dates of Samuel’s life. When the great disaster happened which resulted in the capture of the Ark of God and Eli’s death. the young prophet was barely thirty years old. For the next twenty years we have seen how unweariedly he laboured to awaken in the people a sense of their deep degradation and of the real causes of their fallen state. Thus, when the great revolt and the Israelite victory at Eben-ezer took place, Samuel the judge was probably nearly fifty years of age. Another considerable apse of time must be assumed between the day of the uprising of the people and the throwing off the Philistine yoke and the events related at such length in the present chapter—the request of the people for an earthly king; for we must allow a sufficient lapse of time for the Philistines to have recovered the effects of their defeat at Eben-ezer, and again to have established themselves in power, at least in the southern districts of Canaan. A famous Hebrew commentator suggests seventy years of age as the most likely time of life. This supposition is, likely enough, a correct one.
The following little table, showing the events in the life of Samuel, will assist the student of the Bible story:—
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1st period, 12 years 2 period about 15 to 20 years.The child life in the Tabernacle service, under the guardianship of Eli. The boy is called by the holy Voice to be a prophet; Josephus states that this happened in his twelfth year. The boy-prophet remains in Shiloh The people gradually come to the knowledge that a new prophet had risen up among them. He stays with Eli until his death, after the disastrous battle of Aphek and the capture of the Ark. Shiloh was probably destroyed by the Philistines after the battle of Aphek.3rd period, 20 year. He works unweariedly up and down among the people, and rouses them to renounce idolatry, and under the Eternal’s protection to win their freedom.4th period, probably nearly 20 years. 5th period. Samuel judges Israel, now a free nation, again. The Eternal God-Friend acknowledged by the people as King. Samuel the seer and judge and Saul the king govern Israel.(2) They were judges in Beer-sheba.—It was natural that the father, as the infirmities of old age were beginning to make his toilsome life more burden some, should turn to his sons, and endeavour to train them up to share in his high duties, but beyond the natural regret of a father that the honours and dignities he had himself so hardly won should pass from his house for ever, no murmur seems to have escaped Samuel’s lips when the will of the Eternal was made known to him; and the aged prophet, forgetting he had sons and a house which bore his name, was the principal agent in the establishment of the king, in whom all the powers of the judge were to be merged. It is probable that at the time when old age was beginning to enfeeble the strength of Samuel, and many of the duties devolved upon his worthless sons, the Philistines recovered much of their lost power over the southern districts of Israel. The names of these sons are especially significant of the holy atmosphere their father lived in. Joel signifies Jehovah is God; and Abiah, Jehovah a Father. But the glorious traditions of Samuel were quickly forgotten by these unworthy men who called him father. Josephus supplements the Biblical record by stating that while one of these sons remained in Beer-sheba, the other “judged” in the north of the land.
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 On vv1–3 THE great interest of the First Book of Samuel…
SAUL (CHS. 8-31).
THE great interest of the First Book of Samuel lies in the fact that we have in it the orderly consolidation of two of the main factors in the preparation for the manifestation of our Lord, namely, prophecy and the kingdom. The first seven chapters give us the history of Samuel"s birth, and of the gradual development in him of those spiritual powers which finally made him not merely a prophet, but the founder of prophecy as a permanent and regularly organised institution of the Jewish Church. The whole of the rest of the book, while adding many interesting particulars about Samuel, is occupied with the establishment of the kingdom and with Saul. We have in him, both in his uprise and his fall, one of the most remarkable personages of the Old Testament. But his character for good and for evil will develop itself as we proceed. Before, however, we can appreciate his history, it is necessary for us to understand something of the vast issues that depended upon the change of government effected in his person. With Samuel, then, and Saul we have come to the time when the prophet and the king take their due place in the development of Israel. They were both essential to its progress, and the accomplishment of its Divine mission, and in Deu_17:14-20, and again Deu_28:36, the establishment of the monarchy is spoken of as a virtual necessity. It was not Israel"s highest ideal, far from it. Had religion been as far advanced as in the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah, the theocracy might have existed in such a form as would have insured the national safety. But such as the people were in the centuries which followed the conquest of Canaan, it was rather a high and glorious idea than a fact capable of being realised. It was one of those magnificent thoughts which raised the Israelites so high above the level of ordinary nations, and gave such grandeur and nobleness to the long struggle of their history; but it was a thought, the value of which lay in its giving them a future, towards which their faces were ever turned, and which, by the sublimity of its conception, ever drew them onwards and upwards to all that was best and most Divine.
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To be then Jehovah"s own subjects, ruled directly by him, a republic with Jehovah for its chief, and its officers speaking at his command, and under his direct influence and control this was Israel"s grand ideal. As a matter of fact, it did not give them peace at home nor security from foreign invasion. It did not even enable them to advance in the path of culture or morality, nor did it so work as to bind the twelve tribes together into a harmonious whole. Throughout the Book of Judges we find the record of a desperate struggle in which Israel again and again is in danger of being utterly destroyed from among the nations, and at the end of this period the Philistines are the dominant power, and Israel is disarmed and virtually at their mercy. The cause of this was that somehow or other the priests and Levites were unable to prevent the people from lapsing into idolatry, and though upon their repentance Jehovah, as their King, aid on every emergency raise men to be their saviours, yet the system was too cumbrous and exceptional for ordinary times. It was only in times of trouble that the nation roused itself to the conviction that it was Jehovah"s realm, and fought with the heroism which so grand a thought must give it; at other times it sank down each day to a lower level, till all that the last judge, Samson, could do was to arouse the national spirit to a prolonged resistance and a last effort against the dangers and difficulties that were threatening Israel with gradual extinction (see on 1Sa_1:3)
This powerlessness in war was the inevitable result of having no settled ordinary ruler, whose business it was to convoke the national forces, and provide for the general safety; but it was by no means the worst evil attendant in practice upon the theocracy. In the three last chapters of the Book of Judges we have the history of a fearful crime, punished with equally fearful cruelty. What makes it the more remarkable is that it took place in the days of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, at a time when the public morality still stood high, and religion had great influence over the people. Now, had there been a king he would have punished the malefactors, as a matter of course; but when it had to be done by an extraordinary gathering of the people in arms, the Benjamites, always a high-spirited tribe, imagined themselves bound in honour to resist an invasion of their territory, and a violent civil war was the result. So embittered did the feelings of the Israelites become at the brave defence of the Benjamites, that when at last they had overpowered them, they burned their cities with fire, and put men, women, children, and cattle to an indiscriminate slaughter. Repenting soon afterwards of their revolting cruelty, they treated the men of Jabesh-Gilead with almost equal violence, on the pretence of their not having taken part in the war, but really to provide the remaining Benjamites with wives. Now, both at the beginning and end of this narrative, it is carefully pointed out that all this crime and cruelty was the result of the state of anarchy which everywhere prevailed. "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes". (Jud_1:21:25) There was no regular administration of justice, no person whose business it was to maintain law and order, no one whose authority kept malefactors in awe, and who, when a crime had been committed, would punish it in a regular manner, and with the general approval of all parties; and so every species of villainy could be practised with impunity, until the patience of the community was exhausted, and it visited the offenders with a violence so summary as to make it repent afterwards of its own cruelty.
The position of these three chapters, immediately preceding in the Hebrew the Books of Samuel (for the insertion of the Book of Ruth is a modern attempt at a chronological arrangement), seems intended to point out that the king was as absolutely necessary for the well being of the Hebrew commonwealth as he was essential for the perfecting of the Messianic idea. It is in Christ"s kingdom that the theocracy becomes a realised fact, and Christ is above all things a King. Now in Israel the King was emphatically the Anointed One, i.e. the Messiah or Christ. (1Sa_2:10, 35 10:1 12:3, etc.) True it is that in Christ all offices must be united, and he must be a Priest to make atonement and a Prophet to teach as well as a King to rule; yet we find in Israel, as the type of Christ"s kingdom, that priest and prophet stood at the king"s beck. In Solomon we have the delineation of Israel"s king in his full power and glory; and we find him thrusting out Abiathar from being high priest, (1Ki_2:27) appointing the order of service for the priests and Levites, (2Ch_8:14) and having the prophets in attendance upon him to record his noble deeds. (2Ch_9:29) To Solomon"s reign the Israelites ever looked back as giving the ideal of what their "anointed one" should be, and onward they looked to the coming of One who should perfect this ideal, and instead of staining it with sin, as Solomon did, should raise it to the full and vast dimensions of Israelite thought. Most painful must it have been to the nation that each one of its first three king, though rising every one far above the level of ordinary men, yet fell so very far short of their ideal. And then came the rent in the kingdom, and an ideal king was possible no longer.
But the prophets kept the thought ever alive in the hearts of the people, and in the fulness of time the Messiah came. Meanwhile the establishment of the earthly monarchy was an essential condition for the security, the continuance, and the development of Israel. Without a king Israel could never have performed its work of preparing for Christ. Even the organisation of prophecy was delayed till there was a king, because when a nation has to fight for its very existence there is no room for a literary and educated order of men. Learning would have died out in the middle ages had there not been cloisters into which men who loved mental culture might retire. Still it was not this which made the people cling so tenaciously to the hope held out to them by Moses, but the daily vexation of Philistine misrule. And what the Philistines were to them now all the neighbouring nations had previously been in turn. Throughout the Book of Judges we find a state of things described from which all thoughtful men must have desired deliverance, and the few exceptions, as when they flourished for a time under the strong hand of Gideon, only served to bring out the contrast more clearly between times when they had a ruler and times when they had none. We need not wonder, therefore, at the persistency with which the people urged their demand, even after the dark pictures which Samuel had drawn of what a king might become if he degenerated into a tyrant. But our admiration is due to the patriotism and generosity which made this noble-minded man grant their request, though he knew that he thereby limited his own powers, and gave his sons an inferior place. So also had Moses done before. While he gave Aaron high and perpetual office, he let his own family fall back into the position of ordinary Israelites. And, moreover, the king whom Samuel chose was a grand hero, though, like so many men gifted with great powers of command, he fell through that self-will which is the besetting sin of ruling natures. Few men can endure the trial of the possession of absolute power, and least of all those endowed with an energetic and resolute temperament. It is a noble testimony that David bears to Saul and his heroic son in the "Song of the Bow": (2Sa_1:19-27) "mighty" they were, and "the beauty of Israel," though Saul marred his glory by great and ruinous faults. With Saul, then, the rest of the book is occupied, and it divides itself into two parts
(1) the founding and establishment of Saul"s kingdom (chs. 8-15); and
(2) its gradual decay and final fall (chs. 16-31.).
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SAUL"S KINGDOM (CHS. VIII-XV).
REJECTION OF SAMUEL"S SONS (vers. 1-5).
When Samuel was old. As Samuel lived for very many years after this time, till towards the close of Saul"s reign, he was probably not more than sixty when this happened. The dates are all very uncertain, but he was probably between twenty and thirty when Shiloh was captured, and no doubt, according to Israelite custom, had married as soon as he arrived at manhood. Then came the most important and active period of his life, during which the ark rested for twenty years in the house of Abinadab, and Samuel was traversing every part of the country, preaching repentance, and preparing the people for a revolt from the tyranny of the Philistines. Upon this followed the victory at Mizpah, and the establishment of Samuel as judge. Now some considerable time would elapse before Samuel so felt the weight of increasing years as to delegate a part of his authority to his sons, and more again before the national discontent at their covetousness became general. The Talmud, however, represents Samuel as being at this time only fifty-two years of age, while Abravanel says seventy, and the latter number is by no means impossible; for as a Nazarite Samuel would lead a life of perfect temperance, and his predecessor Eli lived to be ninety-eight, and died then by an accident. Still, probably, Abravanel"s calculation is too high, and we must remember that besides the misconduct of Samuel"s sons, there was the growing danger of the re-establishment of the domination of the Philistines to quicken the people"s movements. They had garrisons again in Israel when Saul was chosen king, and it was this which made the nation long for a change, but. their choice would probably have fallen upon one of Samuel"s sons had either of them been worthy. A king they had long wished for; it is only when they saw that none of Samuel"s race would give them internal peace and security that they took public action for the appointment of some one else.
Vers. 1-9.
Discontent with God"s methods.
The facts are
1. In Samuel"s old age his sons, being judges over Israel, abuse their officeby accepting bribes.
2. This fact is adduced by the people as a reason for asking Samuel tomake them a king.
3. Samuel in his grief seeks counsel of God.
4. Samuel is instructed to yield to their request, while protesting against it.
5. The conduct of the people is declared to be an expression of theperverse tendency characteristic of their history. The order of government under which Israel was living had received the special sanction of God, and had, also, grown naturally out of their circumstances. Though often sinful and foolish, it had never before entered into their minds to seek, apart from God, a change in the political settlement inherited from the times of Moses. The deputation which waited on Samuel, asking for a king, was not the expression of a sagacious patriotism, or of profound concern for the spiritual interests of the commonwealth, and ultimately of the world; but of a restless desire for what God would give in his own time, mingled with a dissatisfaction with the system which God then was sanctioning. (1Sa 5:20, 1Sa 5:21) Practically, to Samuel; it meant, We can suggest and we demand now a course more agreeable to our views of life and our aspirations than that you represent. Samuel"s pain was acute and natural, and the concession made to the discontented, though apparently a breach in the Divine order, was in keeping with God"s usual treatment of men.
I DISCONTENT WITH GOD"S METHODS AND TIMES IS VARIOUSLY SHOWN. Men can detect and condemn faults in others which they either do not see or condone in themselves. It is possible for us, in the light of history, to dilate on the sin and folly of Israel while the same temper may be manifested by us in other forms. Discontent with God"s methods and times may appear in various relations.
1. The general government of the world. It is not often said that God has made a mistake in constituting the moral and material universe in such a way that so much sin and suffering should be possible; but the feeling is often entertained that it would have been well if some other course had been instituted. There is more of this feeling lurking in some hearts than is supposed. Men dare not face certain of their mental operations. How far the feeling affects theology, philosophical theories, personal rest in God, and fitness for doing the best Christian work, demands serious consideration.
2. The manner and form in which revelation has been conveyed to man. Many attacks on the Bible proceed from a discontent with what is conceived to be inadequate to the wants of the world; and in some this feeling has generated the supposed discovery of reasons for discarding the book as a revelation from God at all. The very primitive biographical notices; outlines of tribal history interblended with singular personal experiences; genealogies of uninteresting names; crude ideas and antique customs of strange people all this in connection with a favoured people, and relieved by streaks of light suited to men of later times, does not seem to be a mode of revelation most likely to survive the advancing intelligence of the world. It is also not the most satisfactory thing for so precious a boon as a revelation to be given in detached portions, to be conveyed originally to men of one country, and to be characterised by a series of supernatural events. Men feel that God has imposed a hard task on them to have to defend and justify what seems open to assault from so many sides. They wish it had been his will to have given his light so unmixed with an ancient human history that the most keen antagonist would be compelled to recognise its presence. To some it really seems as though the form and origin of the contents of the Bible were a misfortune. Of course this discontent, silent or expressed, springs from an imperfect consideration of the real nature and purport of the revelation given, as well as of the inevitable conditions of any revelation that has to be coextensive with the wants of both the first and last ages of the world; and that, moreover, has to be concentrated and verified in a Divine person duly attested by a contemporary evidence harmonious with a chain of antecedent proof. It would be useful to the Church if some one, dissatisfied with the way in which God is affirmed to have made known his will to succeeding ages, would prescribe the right way.
1. The method of saving men by atonement. That God does save souls by means of an atonement bearing, in some way, an objective relation to his government, as well as a moral relation to men"s lives, is so clearly the natural teaching of the Bible that it can only be eliminated by the adoption of a forced, non-natural interpretation of fact and statement. The discontent which some feel with the atonement is the reason for what is manifestly a forced interpretation of language. Entertaining the crude notion that the atonement is a transaction affecting three distinct beings, forgetful of the pregnant fact that it was God in Christ who, by sacrifice, effects redemption, and not considering well that all the pain and suffering, supposed to be imposed for the benefit of another, abide on any theory for the benefit of some one, they prefer a system in which pardon is based on the merits of a moral change brought on by a display of love in the shame and agonies of the cross!
2. The means of perfecting holiness in character. The long and tedious process by which often the soul advances from one degree of purity to another awakens dissatisfaction and fretfulness. Why should so blessed an issue as sanctification be insured by sometimes loss of property, friends, and health? Is it not possible to secure elevation of character apart from tribulation?
3. The means used for the conversion of the world. There is not a more common form of discontent than this. The Apostle Peter had to contend with it when he reminded his readers of the thousand years being with God as one day. That a religion demonstrably Divine, destined to be supreme, so entirely conducive to the temporal as also spiritual interests of all men, should be slow in progress and skill is a puzzle to many. Indolence, wild interpretations of prophecy, and latent scepticism are often but indications of a wish that God had not so ordained the constitution of things.
II The PLEA FOR DISCONTENT IS PLAUSIBLE. The plea of the Israelites was that Samuel"s sons were untrustworthy the sources of justice were corrupt. The argument urged seemed to indicate a love of purity, concern for the moral welfare of the state, a fine sense of national honour, a real advance from the degradation which had acquiesced in the vices of Eli"s sons, and an appreciation of Samuel"s own character. But men often pay homage to conscience by creating delusive arguments Wherewith to set aside the behests of conscience. This reference to the sons of Samuel was only a pretext; for the evil could have been remedied by demanding their removal. It is clear that the plea was only a cover for a deep aversion, a predetermined plan to get rid of the present system, whether the prophet of God approved or not. Nor is the discontent of men with other of the methods of God without apparent reason. As in Samuel"s time, so now, men who cherish or express uneasiness with respect to God"s ways in the government of the world and revelation seize hold of some incident, some human aspect, some partial truth that really does not touch the main issue, and make it the cover for an aversion of deeper moral origin. An everlasting universal government has only had time to exhibit its first principles, and yet some transitory phenomenal inequalities are seized on as grounds of dissatisfaction with what must be of immeasurable range and ceaseless development. From scattered incidents of which the circumstances are not fully known, and from forms of representation suited to men not blessed with full gospel light, the discontented draw a plea for a revelation to the individual man apart from Scripture. To a plain, unbiassed mind an objective revelation and an objective atonement are as truly facts as was God"s government by judges, and as is his present government of the world in spite of apparent inequalities; but earnest desire to see the world blessed with "true ideas" and "beneficent influences" are pleas for explaining away what is very clear. The plea sounds well; but if men will look deeper it may be found to cover a settled aversion to submit to a ruling not chosen by self. No revealed truth is in moral antagonism with our true nature.
III The EFFECT OF THIS DISCONTENT ON THE LOYAL IS TO AWAKEN THEIR DEEP SYMPATHY WITH GOD. Samuel was deeply wounded, not by the allusion to his sons, but by the people"s evident aversion to God"s ways and time. That any one should dare to suggest a variation from what God had approved was to him incomprehensible. He felt that God"s method and time must be wisest, best, safest, because they were his. As a true man of God, he naturally seeks counsel from on high. In Samuel"s displeasure there was an element of surprise, but his dominant feeling was sympathy with all that was of God. Sympathy with God is one of the natural fruits of piety. It was seen in Caleb and Joshua when the people were averse to the Divine procedure. Jeremiah knew it when wishing that his head were waters and his eyes a fountain of tears. In Not my will, but thine be done" received its highest expression. In proportion as it is strong does the resistance of men to the ways of God cause wonder, shame, and anguish. To such a soul all the works of God are excellent; they shine with supernal glory. Providences dark and painful are even welcomed as parts of the Father"s blessed discipline. What men call imperfections are felt to be only dim intimations of some glorious, loving purpose. "Whatever is is right," comes from the heart when the intellect is baffled. This blessed sympathy with God! This belief which no argument can shake! This glorious optimism resting on the fact that the all-wise and loving One cannot but do right! It is not any so called Christian that attains to it. Yet it is the truest philosophy; for it is rest in God, content with his will. "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
IV The DIVINE TREATMENT OF DISCONTENT IS CHARACTERISED BY WONDERFUL PATIENCE. No sudden vengeance came on the rejecters of God. Consolation is poured into the heart of the sorrowing prophet; a reference of their conduct to their ineradicable perversity is made, and they are to have their way under protest (vers. 7-9). This patience is in keeping with the record of God"s treatment of Israel in the seventy-eighth Psalm. "He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again". (Psa_78:39) The same is seen still. As Christ once "endured the contradiction of sinners," so does God constantly suffer men to raise their voice against his appointments. He is "slow to anger." Calmly he allows men even to deny his existence, to criticise his government, to reject the light of his revelation, to invent ways of their own for securing future blessedness, and to murmur at his means of subduing the curse of sin. In their folly men interpret this patience of God as evidence of the correctness of their position, forgetting that "the day of the Lord" is coming, when men shall reap the fruit of their ways. To the successors of the prophet there is still consolation in the assurance that their prayer is heard, and their honour covered by the honour of their God. Hence the calmness, "the patience of the saints." They often can do little more than "protest" against the unbelief and waywardness of the world. A whole nation on one side and a Samuel on the other does not convert error into truth and folly into wisdom. But none of these things shake the confidence of the few who, in critical seasons, are in deep sympathy with God; for they know, by a varied experience, his vast patience, and are assured that some day feeble men will learn the lesson, perhaps bitterly, that his ways are best.
General lessons:
1. The inconsistencies of men in office furnish occasion for developing the latent evils of their fellows (vers. 3, 4).
2. The deceitfulness of the heart is seen in the eagerness with which menendeavour to justify what dare not be plainly avowed (ver. 5).
3. Human history shows how utterly incompetent man is to form a correctestimate of the ways of God (vers. 5, 8).
4. It is possible for our theologies to be framed more after what we preferthan after what is actually the fact.
5. When the Church of God is distressed because of the aversion to what isrevealed, patience and prayer should be combined.
6. The most sore trial to those in deep sympathy with what Christ hasapproved is to witness, on the part of his professed people, a desire to escape his appointments for something more congenial to unsanctified ambition.
7. Every heresy and departure from God"s ways is plausible to many, andmay seem to be unchecked, but God never vacates his seat of authority.
HOMILIES BY B DALE. Vers. 1-3. (BEERSHEBA.)
Ignoble sons of an honoured father.
Nearly all that is known of Samuel"s household is here stated. He had at least two sons, Joel (Jehovah is God) and Abiah (my father is Jah), whose names were indicative of the devout spirit in which they were given (1Ch_6:28: "And the sons of Samuel, the firstborn, and the second Abiah;" ver. 33: "Heman a singer, the son of Joel;" 1Sa_15:17 1Sa_25:5: "Heman, the king"s seer"). During the period of his judgeship they grew to maturity, and toward its close he made them judges over Israel, and sent them to administer justice in Beersheba, in the southern limit of the land. His influence as judge as well as prophet extended "from Dan even to Beersheba", (1Sa_3:20) and with advancing age he needed assistance in his labours. "It may be doubted whether Samuel acted wisely in making this appointment, especially if, as seems to have been understood, the nomination in his lifetime of his sons to fulfil the functions he had hitherto discharged alone was an intimation that he meant them to be regarded as his successors in such government as he exercised. Nothing of this kind had been done before. And thus, almost unconsciously, perhaps, he was led to give a kind of sanction to the hereditary principle of government which was soon to be turned against himself" (Kitto). He acted according to his judgment of what was best, and doubtless with disinterestedness. There is no reason to suppose that he failed to train his sons in the right way, or that he was aware of their conduct at Beersheba "and restrained them not." He is not, therefore, to be blamed. No man is infallible. The plans of the wisest men are often marred by the misconduct of others. And this appointment was, in its result, disastrous.
I THEIR ADVANTAGES WERE GREAT. They were sons of one of the most faithful and eminent servants of God, had the benefit of his instruction and example in private and public, studied perhaps in a school of the prophets, were well acquainted with the law, held in honour for their father"s sake, placed in responsible positions. All these things, we might have expected, would have made them circumspect, just, and devout; and they should have done so. How, then, can we account for their defection?
1. Goodness is not hereditary. "The sinner begets a sinner, but a saint dothnot beget a saint" (M. Henry). Hereditary relationship exerts a powerful influence on the mind and disposition, but nothing but Divine grace can change the heart.
Rarely into the branches of the tree Doth human worth mount up: and so ordains He who bestows it, that as his free gift It may be called (Dante, "Purg." 7.).
1. Education is not omnipotent. When children of a good man turn out badly, it may generally be traced to some defect of training, through attention to other duties, absence from home, inconsistency at home, unwise methods, excessive strictness, unjust partiality, undue indulgence, maternal carelessness, intimate association with evil companions (in some cases unknown and unpreventable). We do not know enough of Samuel"s household to say that it was wholly free from such influences. But the most perfect education is limited in its power over character.
2. Power is a perilous trust. It presents temptations which are sometimestoo strong for men who under other circumstances might not have fallen. It is a severe test, and a sure revealer, of character. (Luk_12:45) Power shows the man.
3. Each man is responsible for his own conduct. He is endowed with thepower of choosing or refusing good and evil, and no external circumstances can fully account for the choice he makes. "Every man shall bear his own burden". (Gal_6:5) "As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son," etc.. (Eze_18:4)
II THEIR CONDUCT WAS BASE. "His sons walked not in his ways" of truth, integrity, self-denial, and true godliness; but "turned aside" from them to
1. Covetousness, or the undue love of earthly possessions. "The love ofmoney is a root of all kinds of evil". (1Ti_6:17-19) "Covetousness is idolatry" (Luk_12:15; Col_3:5) "It is the idolatry of the heart, where, as in a temple, a miserable wretch excludes God, sets up gold instead of him, and places that confidence in it which belongs to the great Supreme alone." It was one of the necessary qualifications of judges that they should be "men of truth, hating covetousness". (Exo_18:21) Nothing is more corrupting than "the narrowing lust of gold.
2. Bribery (Exo_23:6, Exo_23:8; Deu_16:18, Deu_16:19)
3. Perversion of justice. (Pro_17:15)
4. Their conduct in all these things was so persistent and flagrant that itwas known to "all the elders of Israel." They openly abused their power for selfish ends, trampled on the law which they were appointed to "magnify and make honourable," and wrought against the purpose which Samuel spent his life in effecting.
III THEM INFLUENCE WAS PERNICIOUS. Not only did they bring misery upon themselves, and occasion bitter sorrow to their aged father; but they also
1. Inflicted grievous injury on those with reference to whom they "tookbribes and perverted judgment.
2. Set a bad example to all men. (Psa_12:8)
3. Brought their high office into contempt.
4. Contributed directly to a national revolution. How true it is that "onesinner destroyeth much good! 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 On v1 And it came to pass, when Samuel was old,…
1Sa_8:1-8
And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.
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Parental trials
The best sometimes meet with the bitterest disappointment, and their grey hairs are brought down with sorrow to the grave by the unprincipled conduct of their sons. The most exemplary home has become a place of weeping by the unexpected misconduct of those who were its brightest ornaments. Samuel was now growing old. Those in high positions are naturally wishful that their sons should sustain a fathers name and exercise a similar influence. Samuel had that laudable desire, and he made his sons judges over Israel. Nepotism has been one of the grossest scandals of most Roman pontiffs, and not a few high functionaries in every land. But there are honourable exceptions. It is not said that Samuel did wrong in appointing his sons to the judicial bench. The people never accused him of nepotism. Sons of such a sire would promise hopefully for the administration of justice. But the fairest sky may have a darkening cloud, the brightest buds may be early blighted, and a hopeful spring result in a scanty harvest; so the conduct of Samuels sons disappointed a fathers heart, and troubled the land of Israel.
1. They did not walk in their fathers ways. They misimproved the bright example they had before them at home, where they saw little that would tend to blind their minds or pervert their hearts. When we consider Elis softness and incapacity for command, we do not wonder at his sons going astray. But Samuel was so firm, yet generous withal, that it indicated great depravity in his sons to abuse the example of their fathers spotless life. Their conduct showed that they had sought no personal religion, but had trusted to what they joined in at the family altar. Hence, when they left the sacred enclosures of the domestic circle at Ramah, they had no principle of restraint. What must the eternal experience be but remorse, anguish, and despair, to those who, in time, daily beheld a Christian parent, yet never personally sought the Saviour?
2. They turned aside after lucre, and took bribes. The qualifications of a judge are thus specified by Jethro to Moses (Exo_18:21). Moses thus commanded the people in the name of the Lord (Deu_16:18-19). But the sons of Samuel did not fulfil these requirements. They were led astray by the love of money. It is amazing how speedily this sin of covetousness perverts the moral faculties. Gold, unlawfully got, sears the conscience. Perhaps there was not a greater man in his own age, or in any age, than Lord Bacon. He is the father of modern philosophy, and revolutionized the inquiries of the schools. To him more than to any man is the student of nature and of science indebted. He conferred a lasting benefit on mankind by opening up the true method of inquiry. Yet, strange to relate, Lord Bacon was one of the most unscrupulous lawyers, and one of the most disreputable judges that ever sat on the English bench. His place hunting was most dishonourable; and, after having become, by the most ignoble means, Lord High Chancellor, he degraded the highest legal office in the country by taking bribes. So glaring was the evil, and so notorious, that this philosopher, who had written so much in praise of learning, virtue, and religion, was impeached by the House of Commons, and found guilty of receiving bribes to the amount of £100,000! It must have been a most humiliating spectacle to see such a man as Bacon confessing to his peers that he had been guilty of corruption. This glimpse of the rise and fall of this great man proclaims aloud the insufficiency of all but the grace and truth of God to keep man morally erect. Not gigantic intellectual powers--had these sufficed, Bacon would have been steadfast as a rock; not worldly success--Bacon sat at the right hand of royalty, and kept the conscience of a king; not great trust--the Lord Hugh Chancellor of England was the foremost subject in that respect; not celebrity--with that Bacon might have been satiated; not greatness without goodness--that is a tinkling cymbal. What, then? The answer which experience, history, and the word of God combine to give is this--I am what I am, by the grace of God that is in me. The man who dims the light of that lamp which was kindled in heaven has already tottered to his fall. Thus acted the sons of Samuel.
3. They perverted judgment. This was the natural consequence of the course they pursued. It was not justice, but profit which they sought. Their decision was not what the law of God demanded, but what they were best rewarded to decree. Their conduct was most offensive to God: He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord (Pro_17:15). Samuel was a disappointed father. He had evidently hoped that his sons might fill his place when his days were ended. There is nothing that distresses a parent more than the misconduct of a son. It was the grief of Isaac when Esau associated with idolaters, and despised the patriarchal birthright. It made many of Jacobs years a perennial sorrow. It was Aarons trial soon after the priesthood had been settled on his house, when Nadab and Abihu went drunk to the altar, and offered strange fire to God. It was Elis calamity and punishment, as his reckless sons, whom he had never restrained, rushed on the ruin of his house, It was Davids sorest wounding, when one of his sons after another wrought folly and wickedness in Israel. Sons should consider the necessity of a personal religion, by means of which the best wishes of a parent may be realised, and the individual happiness of a soul secured. Without this you may be drifted by every wind, like a boat without a rudder; you may be borne along a current of evil. (R. Steel.)
The ministers family
The ministers family should be an example to all his congregation. It cannot fail to give high value to his exhortations. It did so in the case of the devoted Alleine, of whom this testimony is given, that, as he walked about the house, he would make some spiritual use of everything that did occur; and his lips did drop as an honeycomb to all that were about him. Cotton Mather is renowned for his admirably managed family, and his children rose up to call him blessed, while his ministry was largely owned of God Philip Henrys domestic life is well known; and his son Matthew, the commentator, ascribes with gratitude his own Christian character to godly parental training. Nor are these solitary examples. Many more might easily be adduced in illustration of pious training. Eli neglected this, disobeyed the Lord, and injured his sons. (R. Steel.)
But turned aside after lucre and took bribes.
Political corruption
From the earliest periods of the worlds history corruption among public men has brought on political troubles and national ruin It is wide-spread--it is everywhere. This deplorable state of things may be remedied:--
I. By filling the subordinate offices with men whose fitness has been proved by competitive examination.
II. The candidates for office should be chosen because of character and qualifications.
III. Monopolies, whether corporate or individual, should be regulated so as to protect fully public rights. (Homiletic Review.)
Bribery
My charge is to you, in all departments of life, steer clear of bribery, all of you. Every man and woman at some time will be tempted to do wrong for compensation. The bribe may not be offered in money. It may be offered in social position. Let us remember that there is a day coming when the most secret transaction of private life and of public life will come up for public reprehension. We cannot bribe death, cannot bribe sickness, we cannot bribe the grave, we cannot bribe the judgments of that God who thunders in my text, Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. Fire? said Cardinal Beaufort, fire? Cant Death be hired? Is money nothing? Must I die, and so rich? You can tell from what they say in their last hours that one of their chief sorrows is that they have to leave their money. I break that delusion. I tell that bribe-taker that he will take his money with him. God will wrap it up in your shroud, or put it into the palm of your hand in resurrection, and there it will lie, not the cool, bright, shining gold at it was on the day when you sold your vote and your moral principle; but there it will lie, a hot metal burning and consuming your hand foreverse Or, if there be enough of it for a chain, then it will fall from the wrist, clanking the fetters of an eternal captivity. The bribe is an everlasting possession; you take it for time, you take it for eternity. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
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 On v1
CHAPTER X.
THE PEOPLE DEMAND A KING.
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1Sa_8:1-22.
WHATEVER impression the "Ebenezer" of Samuel may have produced at the time, it passed away with the lapse of years. The feeling that, in sympathy with Samuel, had recognized so cordially at that time the unbroken help of Jehovah from the very beginning, waxed old and vanished away. The help of Jehovah was no longer regarded as the palladium of the nation. A new generation had risen up that had only heard from their fathers of the deliverance from the Philistines, and what men only hear from their fathers does not make the same impression as what they see with their own eyes. The privilege of having God for their king ceased to be felt, when the occasions passed away that made His interposition so pressing and so precious. Other things began to press upon them, other cravings began to be felt, that the theocracy did not meet. This double process went on - the evils from which God did deliver becoming more faint, and the benefits which God did not bestow becoming more conspicuous by their absence - till a climax was reached. Samuel was getting old, and his sons were not like himself; therefore they afforded no materials for continuing the system of judges. None of them could ever fill their father's place. The people forgot that God's policy had been to raise up judges from time to time as they were needed. But would it not be better to discontinue this hand-to-mouth system of government and have a regular succession of kings? Why should Israel contrast disadvantageously in this respect with the surrounding nations? This seems to have been the unanimous feeling of the nation. "All the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and said to Samuel, Make us a king to judge us like all the nations."
It seems to us very strange that they should have done such a thing. Why were they not satisfied with having God for their king? Was not the roll of past achievements under His guidance very glorious? What could have been more wonderful than the deliverance from Egypt, and the triumph over the greatest empire in the world? Had ever such victories been heard of as those over Sihon and Og? Was there ever a more triumphant campaign than that of Joshua, or a more comfortable settlement than that of the tribes? And if Canaanites, and Midianites, and Ammonites, and Philistines had vexed them, were not Barak and Deborah, Gideon and Jephthah, Samson and Samuel, more than a match for the strongest of them all? Then there was the moral glory of the theocracy. What nation had ever received direct from God, such ordinances, such a covenant, such promises? Where else were men to be found that had held such close fellowship with heaven as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Aaron, and Joshua? What other people had had such revelations of the fatherly character of God, so that it could be said of them, "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Instead of wishing to change the theocracy, we Flight have expected that every Israelite, capable of appreciating solid benefits, would have clung to it as his greatest privilege and his greatest honour.
But it was otherwise. Comparatively blind to its glories, they wished to be like other nations. It is too much a characteristic of our human nature that it is indifferent to God, and to the advantages which are conferred by His approval and His blessing. How utterly do some leave God out of their calculations! How absolutely unconcerned they are as to whether they can reckon on His approval of their mode of life, how little it seems to count! You that by false pretences sell your wares and prey upon the simple and unwary; you that heed not what disappointment or what pain and misery you inflict on those who believe you, provided you get their money; you that grow rich on the toil of underpaid women and children, whose life is turned to slavery to fulfill your hard demands, do you never think of God? Do you never take into your reckoning that He is against you, and that He will one day come to reckon with you? You that frequent the haunts of secret wickedness, you that help to send others to the devil, you that say, ''Am I my brother's keeper?" when you are doing your utmost to confirm others in debauchery and pollution, is it nothing to you that you have to reckon one day with an angry God? Be assured that God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; for he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, while he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
But the lesson of the text is rather for those who have the favour and blessing of God, but are not content, and still crave worldly things. You are in covenant with God. He has redeemed you, not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. You are now sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what you shall be. There is laid up for you an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Yet your heart hankers after the things of the world. Your acquaintances and friends are better off. Your bare house, your homely furnishings, your poor dress, your simple fare distress you, and you would fain be in a higher worldly sphere, enjoying more consideration, and participating more freely in worldly enjoyments. Be assured, my friends, you are not in a wholesome frame of mind. To be depreciating the surpassing gifts which God has given you, and to be exaggerating those which He has with-held, is far from being a wholesome condition. You wish to be like the nations. You forget that your very glory is not to be like them. Your glory is that ye are a chosen generation, an holy nation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, your bodies temples of the Holy Ghost, your souls united to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yet again, there are congregations, which though in humble circumstances, have enjoyed much spiritual blessing. Their songs have gone up, bearing the incense of much love and gratitude; their prayers have been humble and hearty, most real and true; and the Gospel has come to them not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. Yet a generation has grown up that thinks little of these inestimable blessings, and misses fine architecture, and elaborate music, and highly cultured services. They want to have a king like the nations. However they may endanger the spiritual blessing, it is all-important to have these surroundings It is a perilous position, all the more perhaps that many do not see the peril - that many have little or no regard for the high interests that are in such danger of being sacrificed.
This then, was the request of all the elders of Israel to Samuel - "Give us a king to judge us like all the nations." We have next to consider how it was received by the prophet.
"The thing displeased Samuel." On the very face of it, it was an affront to himself. It intimated dissatisfaction with the arrangement which had made him judge of the people under God. Evidently they were tired of him. He had given them the best energies of his youth and of his manhood. He had undoubtedly conferred on them many real benefits. For all this, his reward is to be turned off in his old age. They wish to get rid of him, and of his manner of instructing them in the ways of the Lord. And the kind of functionary they wish to get in his room is not of a very flattering order. The kings of the nations for the most part were a poor set of men. Despotic, cruel, vindictive, proud - they were not much to be admired. Yet Israel's eyes are turned enviously to them! Possibly Samuel was failing more than he was aware of, for old men are slow to recognize the progress of decay, and highly sensitive when it is bluntly intimated to them. Besides this, there was another sore point which the elders touched roughly. ''Thy sons walk not in thy ways." However this may have come about, it was a sad thought to their father. But fathers often have the feeling that while they may reprove their sons, they do not like to hear this done by others. Thus it was that the message of the elders came home to Samuel, first of all, in its personal bearings, and greatly hurt him. It was a personal affront, it was hard to bear. The whole business of his life seemed frustrated; everything he had tried to do had failed; his whole life had missed its aim. No wonder if Samuel was greatly troubled.
But in the exercise of that admirable habit which he had learned so thoroughly, Samuel took the matter straight to the Lord. And even if no articulate response had been made to his prayer, the effect of this could not but have been great and important. The very act of going into God's presence was fitted to change, in some measure, Samuel's estimate of the situation. It placed him at a new point of view - at God's point of view. When he reached that, the aspect of things must have undergone a change. The bearing of the transaction on God must have come out more prominently than its bearing on Samuel. And this was fully expressed in God's words. "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me." Samuel was but the servant, God was the lord and king. The servant was not greater than his lord, nor the disciple greater than his Master. The great sin of the people was their sin against God. He it was to whom the affront had been given; He, if any, it was that had cause to remonstrate and complain.
So prone are even the best of God's servants to put themselves before their Master. So prone are ministers of the Gospel, when any of their flock has acted badly, to think of the annoyance to themselves, rather than the sin committed in the holy eyes of God. So prone are we all, in our families, and in our Churches, and in society, to think of other aspects of sin, than its essential demerit in God's sight. Yet surely this should be the first consideration. That God should be dishonoured is surely a far more serious thing than that man should be offended. The sin against God is infinitely more heinous than the sin against man. He that has sinned against God has incurred a fearful penalty - what if this should lie on his conscience forever, unconfessed, unforgiven? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Yet, notwithstanding this very serious aspect of the people's offence, God instructs Samuel to ''hearken to their voice, yet protest solemnly to them, and show them the manner of the kingdom." There were good reasons why God should take this course. The people had shown themselves unworthy the high privilege of having God for their king. When men show themselves incapable of appreciating a high privilege, it is meet they should suffer the loss of it, or at least a diminution of it. They had shown a perpetual tendency to those idolatrous ways by which God was most grievously dishonoured. A theocracy, to work successfully, would need a very loyal people. Had Israel only been loyal, had it even been a point of conscience and a point of honour with them to obey God's voice, had they even had a holy recoil from every act offensive to Him, the theocracy would have worked most beautifully. But there had been such a habitual absence of this spirit, that God now suffered them to institute a form of government that interposed a human official between Him and them, and that subjected them likewise to many an inconvenience. Yet even in allowing this arrangement God did not utterly withdraw His loving-kindness from them. The theocracy did not wholly cease. Though they would find that their kings would make many an exaction of them, there would be among them some that would reign in righteousness, and princes that would rule in judgment. The king would so far be approved of God as to bear the name of "the Lord's anointed: "and would thus, in a sense, be a type of the great Anointed One, the true Messiah, whose kingdom, righteous, beneficent, holy, would be an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion from generation to generation.
The next scene in the chapter before us finds Samuel again met with the heads of the people. He is now showing them "the manner of the king" - the relation in which he and they will stand to one another. He is not to be a king that gives, but a king that takes. His exactions will be very multifarious. First of all, the most sacred treasures of their homes, their sons and their daughters, would be taken to do hard work in his army, and on his farms, and in his house. Then, their landed property would be taken on some pretext - the vineyards and olive-yards inherited from their fathers - and given to his favourites. The tenth part of the produce, too, of what remained would be claimed by him for his officers and his servants, and the tenth of their flocks. Any servant, or young man, or animal, that was particularly handsome and valuable would be sure to take his fancy, and to be attached for his service. This would be ordinarily the manner of their king. And the oppression and vexation connected with this system of arbitrary spoliation would be so great that they would cry out against him, as indeed they did in the days of Rehoboam, yet the Lord would not hear them. Such was Samuel's picture of what they desired so much, but it made no impression; the people were still determined to have their king.
What a contrast there was between this exacting king, and the true King, the King that in the fullness of the time was to come to His people, meek and having salvation, riding upon the foal of an ass! If there be anything more than another that makes this King glorious, it is His giving nature. ''The Son of God," says the Apostle, ''loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gave Himself! How comprehensive the word! All that He was as God, all that He became as man. As prophet He gave Himself to teach, as priest to atone and intercede, as king to rule and to defend. "The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep." "This is My body which is given for you." ''If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith unto thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water." With what kingly generosity, while He was on earth. He scattered the gifts of health and happiness among the stricken and the helpless! ''Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people." See Him, even as He hung helpless on the cross, exercising His royal prerogative by giving to the thief at His side a right to the Kingdom of God - "Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." See Him likewise, exalted on His throne "at God's right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." How different the attributes of this King from him whom Samuel delineated! The one exacting all that is ours; the other giving all that is His!
The last scene in the chapter shows us the people deliberately disregarding the protest of Samuel, and reiterating their willful resolution - "Nay, 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." Once more, Samuel brings the matter to the Lord - repeats all that he has heard; and once more the Lord says to Samuel, "Hearken unto their choice and make them a king." The matter is now decided on, and it only remains to find the person who is to wear the crown.
On the very surface of the narrative we see how much the people were influenced by the desire to be "like all the nations." This does not indicate a very exalted tone of feeling. To be like all the nations was surely in itself a poor and childish thing, unless the nations were in this respect in a better condition than Israel. Yet how common and almost irresistible is this feeling!
Singularity is certainly not to be affected for singularity's sake; but neither are we to conform to fashion simply because it is fashion. How cruel and horrible often are its behests! The Chinese girl has to submit to her feet being bandaged and confined till walking becomes a living torture, and even the hours of what should be rest and sleep, are often broken by bitter pain. The women of Lake Nyassa insert a piece of stone in their upper lip, enlarging it from time to time till speaking and eating become most awkward and painful operations, and the very lip sometimes is torn away. Our fathers had terrible experience of the tyranny of the drinking customs of their day; and spite of the greater freedom and the greater temperance of our time, there is no little tyranny still in the drinking laws of many a class among us. All this is just the outcome of the spirit that made the Hebrews so desire a king - the shrinking of men's hearts from being unlike others, the desire to be like the world. What men dread in such cases is not wrong-doing, not sin, not offending God; but incurring the reproof of men, being laughed at, boycotted by their fellows. But is not this a very unworthy course? Can any man truly respect himself who says, "I do this not because I think it right, not even because I deem it for my interest, but simply because it is done by the generality of people?" Can any man justify himself before God, if the honest utterance of his heart must be, "I take this course, not because I deem it well-pleasing in Thy sight, but because if I did otherwise, men would laugh at me and despise me?" The very statement of the case in explicit terms condemns it. Not less is it condemned by the noble conduct of those to whom grace has been given to withstand the voice of the multitude and stand up faithfully for truth and duty. Was there ever a nobler attitude than that of Caleb, when he withstood the clamour of the other spies, and followed the Lord fully? or that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when alone among myriads, they refused to bow down to the image of gold? or that of Luther when, alone against the world, he held unflinchingly by his convictions of truth?
Let the young especially ponder these things. To them it often seems a terrible thing to resist the general voice, and hold by conscience and duty. To confess Christ among a school of despisers, is often like martyrdom. But think! What is it to deny Christ? Can that bring any peace or satisfaction to those who know His worth? Must it not bring misery and self-contempt? If the duty of confessing Him be difficult, seek strength for the duty. Pray for the strength which is made perfect in your weakness. Cast your thoughts onward to the day of Christ's second coming, when the opinion and practice of the world shall all be reduced to their essential worthlessness, and the promises to the faithful, firm as the everlasting hills, shall be gloriously fulfilled. For in that day, Hannah's song shall have a new fulfillment: ''He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar out of the dunghill, to set them among princes, and make them inherit the throne of glory."
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 On v1 1Sa_8:1. “When Samuel was old.” Many expositors consider that…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1Sa_8:1. “When Samuel was old.” Many expositors consider that he was now about sixty years of age, others that he was not more than fifty-four. It is plain that he lived for some time after this, and continued to exercise his judgeship. “He made his sons judges,” etc. “The reason assigned for the appointment of Samuel’s sons as judges is his own advanced age. The inference which we might draw from this alone, namely, that they were simply to support their father in the administration of justice, and that Samuel had no intention of laying down his office, and still less of making the supreme office of judge hereditary in his family, is still more apparent from the fact that they were stationed as judges of the nation in Beersheba, which was on the southern border of Canaan” (Keil).
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1Sa_8:2. “The name of his firstborn was Joel,” etc. “These names may be taken as indications of the father’s pious feeling. The first, Joel, ‘Jehovah is God,’ was, not improbably, a protest against the idolatry of the Israelites. The name of the second son, Abiah, ‘Jehovah is father,’ expresses trust in the fatherhood of God, an idea which hardly appears in the Old Testament except in proper names” (Translator of Lange’s Commentary). “Abiah records doubtless the fervent aspiration of him who devised it as a name, and, we may hope, of many who subsequently adopted it after that endearing and intimate relationship between God and the soul of man, which is truly expressed by the words father and child. It may be accepted as a proof that believers in ancient days, though they had not possession of the perfect knowledge of ‘the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ,’ or of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless ‘received the spirit of adoption,’ that God ‘sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, whereby they cried Abba, Father’ ” (Wilkinson’s Personal Names in the Bible).
1Sa_8:3. “His sons walked not in his ways.” “The question may arise, why Samuel was not punished, as Eli, for the misconduct of his sons? But the answer is obvious. Not only was the offence of Samuel’s sons of a far less heinous criminality, but Samuel might not know, owing to this distance of Beersheba, anything of their delinquency” (Jamieson).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Sa_8:1-3
SAMUEL THE FATHER
Samuel has been called the second Moses of Hebrew history, but though their personal character and their life-work were very much alike, there are some striking contrasts in their individual history. Moses, for instance, was not called to begin his great life-work until he was older than Samuel was at the period of his history to which these verses refer, while this latter servant of God entered upon his special service while he was a child. But he who came last retained his bodily vigour much longer, for at the age of one hundred and twenty years “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deu_34:7), while Samuel, when not more than half so old, began to feel the infirmities of age. Moses continued physically fit for service, yet was forbidden by God to serve longer. Samuel became unfit for active service, and yet was permitted to continue it. Both were compelled, the one by Divine command, the other by bodily infirmity, to hand over their work to others, but Moses is happy in finding a suitable successor, while Samuel is obliged to delegate his authority to those who are very unfit to exercise it. Thus the life of the great law-giver and that of the first of the prophets remarkably illustrate the variety of God’s dealings with his servants, and lead us to exclaim, when we contemplate His providential leadings, “His ways are past finding out” (Rom_11:33). The verses teach us—
I. That time is no respecter of character. Samuel grew infirm although he was so good. Character is by far the most important thing on earth as well as in heaven, yet the greatest saint as much as the greatest sinner realises in his own experience that “the creature is made subject to vanity” (Rom_8:20). In this respect Samuel, the elect servant of God, was no more highly favoured than the most ungodly man in the kingdom of Israel. The “outer man” of one as well as of the other was “perishing day by day” (2Co_4:16).
II. But the fact that it is so shows the necessity for the full adoption of the body. (Rom_8:23). It must be shown that God is a respecter of persons. That the same destiny should await the body of a saint, which has been an instrument of righteousness, and that of a sinner, which has been altogether devoted to the service of sin, does not accord with our conception of the justice of God. There is that within us which demands that, at some time or other, there should be some difference made, and God in His revealed word tells us that there will be. The body of the saint will have an adoption-day—it will be redeemed from the curse of sin (Rom_8:23), and will be “fashioned like unto the glorious body” of the Son of God (Php_3:21).
III. Family life is consistent with the highest spiritual attainments and the most devoted spiritual service. Samuel the prophet of God was a husband and father. The highest ideal of man is not that of a solitary creature bound by no human ties, and fulfilling none of the social duties of life. But the most perfect manhood is that which is developed first of all in the head of a house-hold as the father of a family. When God first created man He did not consider him complete until he became a social head, and it is as true now as it was then that a man is not developed on all sides of his character until he takes the position for which God evidently intended him, and fulfils the duties which belong to that position. And this being so, it is obvious that such a life is no hindrance to a man’s spiritual growth and to his most entire devotion to the service of God. No man in Hebrew history stands before Samuel in purity of life or singleness of aim; no man, excepting perhaps Moses, was more honoured by God as an intercessor on behalf of others, or was more entirely devoted to the highest welfare of his people, yet he was the head of a household, he was a husband and a father. And if we look back upon the history of the Church of God, we shall find that the greater number of her most devoted servants have not been monks and nuns, but husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.
IV. The most godly men cannot transmit their godliness to their children. Samuel’s sons “walked not in his ways.” There were several reasons which we should have supposed would lead them to do so. From their earliest days they had been witnesses of their father’s godly life, and nothing is more powerful than a good example. Yet in this case it had no influence; all Samuel’s integrity was unable to win his sons to the practice of justice. Then there was the position of responsibility in which they were placed. That they held a position in the nation which was only second to that of their father was favourable to the transmission of the virtues which he had displayed as judge of Israel. But this was not the case. We cannot doubt that they also enjoyed the blessing of a father’s prayers and instruction. If Samuel was in the habit of bringing all Israel before God in prayer, it is certain that he did not omit to make special intercession for his own children; if he ceased not to instruct and warn the entire nation, it is most unlikely that he failed to acquaint his children with the law of God—with His dealings with the nation in the past—with the judgment that he had been called to foretell concerning the sons of Eli, and with the great promises which had been made to Israel if they were faithful to their privileges. But he finds himself confronted with the fact that a holy seed is born, not of the blood of prophets, nor of the will of man, but of God. Great as are the moral advantages of being born into a godly family, more than the mere fact of being so born, and of being surrounded by every holy influence, is needed to subdue the will of fallen man, and make him a servant of God.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
1Sa_8:1. Samuel began his acquaintance with God early, and continued it long; he began it in his long coats, and continued to his grey hairs: he judged Israel all the days of his life. God doth not use to put off His old servants, their age endeareth them to Him the more; if we be not unfaithful to Him, He cannot be unconstant to us.—Bishop Hall.
1Sa_8:3. It is amazing how this sin of covetousness perverts the moral faculties. Gold, unlawfully got, sears the conscience. Some of the loftiest minds have been degraded by this sin. Perhaps there was not a greater man in his own age, or in any age, than Lord Bacon. He is the father of modern philosophy, and revolutionised the inquiries of the schools.… His works must ever be read with profit, and they contain a vast store of wisdom expressed in the most felicitous language. Yet, strange to relate, Lord Bacon was one of the most unscrupulous lawyers, and one of the most disreputable judges that ever sat upon the English bench.… This philosopher, who had written so much in praise of virtue, was impeached by the House of Commons, and found guilty of receiving bribes to the amount of £100,100! “This glimpse of the rise and fall of a great man,” says Dr. Tweedie, “proclaims aloud the insufficiency of all but the grace and truth of God to keep a man morally erect.—Steel.
Perhaps Israel had never thought of a king, if Samuel’s sons had not been unlike their father. Who can promise himself holy children, when the loins of a Samuel and the education in the temple yielded monsters? It is not likely that good Samuel was faulty in that indulgence for which his own mouth had denounced God’s judgments against Eli; yet this holy man succeeds Eli in his cross, as well as in his place, though not in his sin; and is afflicted with a wicked succession. God will let us find that grace is by gift, not by inheritance. I fear Samuel was too partial to nature in the surrogation of his sons. I do not hear of God’s allowance to this act; if this had been God’s choice as well as his, it had been like to have received more blessing.… Even the best heart may be blinded by affection.—Bp. Hall.
I. The children of good men do not always walk in their parents’ ways. It was not the peculiar affliction of Samuel.… It was early seen that grace was not hereditary. In the family of Adam, there was a Cain, a murderer; in that of Noah, a Ham, who mocked his father; in that of Abraham, an Ishmael, a scoffer at religion; in that of Isaac, a profane Esau. An incestuous Reuben, and a bloody Simeon and Levi, distressed the heart of good old Jacob; two drunkards, Nadab and Abihu, were found in the family of Aaron, “the saint of God;” and Hophni and Phinehas brought disgrace and ruin upon the house of Eli.…
II. The frequent recurrence of this fact need excite no surprise in those who believe in the corruptions of human nature and the sovereignty of Divine Grace.… The children of the godly are “by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” … Something more is necessary than parents can confer, a change of heart, which God alone can accomplish.…
III. Causes why the children of godly parents do not often walk in their parents’ ways. Although this is to be accounted for by the corruption of human nature, there are certain subordinate causes.…
1. The untender and uncircumspect conversation of parents.… They will more readily copy what is bad in your example, than what is good and praiseworthy.… the bad example will be followed, the good advice neglected.
2. Faults in their education. Such as unjust partiality, as in that of Isaac for Esau, and of Rebekah for Jacob.… Or undue indulgence, which seems to have been the error of David, and the ruin of his son Adonijah.… Excessive severity is an error not less fatal, and perhaps as common.
3. The influence of bad company and bad example in others. The ruin of multitudes has proceeded from want of caution in this matter.—Peddie.
1Sa_8:4. The unanimity of the people, even as exemplified in their desire for a king, was a result of Samuel’s activity. His former activity was an excellent preparation for royalty. The consciousness of religious and civil union was powerfully re-awakened by his means. An able king had only to reap what he had sown.—Hengstenberg.
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 On v1 1Sa 8:4-8
1Sa 8:4-8
The Book of Kings is also the Book of Samuel, not merely because the individual man was the last of the judges and poured the anointing oil upon the first two of the kings, but because he represented in his own person a power and a position which were quite different from theirs, and yet which could not be rightly understood apart from theirs.
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I. Samuel was a witness that a hereditary priesthood derives all its worth from a Divine presence, which is not shut up in it or limited by it, and that without that presence it means nothing and is nothing, nay, becomes worse than nothing, a plague and cancer in the society, poisoning its very heart, spreading disease and death through it.
II. The signal downfall of the nation which took place in Samuel’s day, when the ark, the symbol of the people’s unity, was captured by the Philistines, prepared the way for great national changes. Samuel’s reformation awakened in the people a sense of order to which they had been strangers before. But Samuel’s sons did not walk in his ways. They were self-seekers; they were suspected of taking bribes. The effect of this distrust was just that which proceeds in all ages from the same cause—dissatisfaction, a cry for change, a feeling that the fault of the person who administers implies some evil or defect in that which he has to administer. The degeneracy of Samuel’s sons made the people long for a different sort of rule, for one which should be less irregular and fluctuating.
III. The request for a king displeased Samuel because he had a sense that there was something wrong in the wish of his countrymen. He may have felt their ingratitude to himself; he may have thought that his government was better than any they were likely to substitute for it.
IV. God’s answer to Samuel’s prayer was a very strange one. "Hearken unto them, for they have rejected Me. Let them have their way, seeing that they are not changing a mere form of government, but breaking loose from the principle upon which their nation has stood from its foundation." The Jews were asking for heavy punishments, which they needed, without which the evil that was in them could not have been brought to light or cured. But beneath their dark counterfeit image of a king was hidden the image of a true King reigning in righteousness, who would not judge after the sight of His eye nor reprove after the hearing of His ear, but would smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips would slay the wicked.
F. D. Maurice, The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, p. 1.
References: 1Sa 8:5.—Parker, vol. vi., p. 280. 1Sa 8:6.—Ibid., vol. vii., p. 62. 1Sa 8:6-9.—G. B. Ryley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 237. 1Sa 8:19.—J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 422. 1Sa 8:22.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 62. 1Sam 8—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 118. 1Sa 9:11-13.—Expositor, 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 245. 1Sa 9:20.—H. Hayman, Sermons Preached in Rugby School Chapel. p. 29. 1Sa 9:27.—J. Thain Davidson, Talks with Young Men, p. 17; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1547; Preacher’s Monthly. vol. v., p. 62. 1Sam 9—W. Hanna, Sunday Magazine, 1865, p. 21. 1Sa 10:6.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 63. 1Sa 10:9.—Ibid., vol. vi., p. 290. 1Sa 10:12.—Old Testament Outlines, p. 62; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 284. 1Sa 10:24.—Parker, vol. vi., p. 299. 1Sa 10:26.—J. Burns, Sketches of Sermons on Special Occasions, p. 153. 1Sam 10—R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth, p. 71; W. Hanna, Sunday Magazine, 1865, p. 105; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 167. 1Sa 11:14.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 64. 1Sam 11—Ibid., vol. vi., p. 305. 1Sa 12:1.—F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 4th series, p. 14. 1Sa 12:1, 1Sa 12:2.—S. W. Skeffington, Our Sins or Our Saviour, p. 214; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 28. 1Sa 12:1-25.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 336. 1Sa 12:2, 1Sa 12:3.—J. R. Macduff, Good Words, 1862, p. 524; Sermons for the Christian Seasons, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 681. 1Sa 12:7.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 65. 1Sa 12:10.—Ibid., p. 66. 1Sa 12:12.—Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the Old Testament, p. 66. 1Sa 12:14.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 125. 1Sa 12:16, 1Sa 12:19.—W. Spensley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 59. 1Sa 12:17.—R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 25.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Division 2. (1Sa 8:1-22; 1Sa 9:1-27; 1Sa 10:1-27; 1Sa…
Division 2. (1Sa 8:1-22; 1Sa 9:1-27; 1Sa 10:1-27; 1Sa 11:1-15; 1Sa 12:1-25; 1Sa 13:1-23; 1Sa 14:1-52; 1Sa 15:1-35.)
Saul, the People’s Saviour, but not the divine.
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We come now to the demand of the people for a king, and the history of Saul, the king given them according to their request. Though pointed out by God, in the recognized way of ascertaining His will, namely, by lot, yet he is exactly the king they have in mind, as even his height of stature shows. In this way alone could their desire be tested aright, to have a king, like all the nations. He is not after God’s heart, but after the people’s heart, and so He says: "I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath." (Hos 13:11.) The lesson was not for that generation only, however; otherwise, it would be of little importance. In all this proving of Israel, as we have again and again been called to realize, it is man as man that is proved, and the depths of his heart unveiled. As to the people, their choice here is really such as they displayed at a later day, when they cried, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" "They have rejected Me," says Jehovah.
It was not that God had not designed them to have a king. The express provision in Deuteronomy is at least proof that one was permissible (Deu 17:14-20). The song of Hannah has already anticipated it. God’s purpose in Christ could only be so fulfilled. Moreover, we have already seen that this was to be expressed in the history anticipatively. The king also, when in truth He shall come, will not only be in full accord with the divine throne over all, but will be the complete expression of it. The evil was in the evident unbelief on the part of the people; and, as naturally connecting itself with this, the total opposition to God in the king they wanted. Saul, the Benjamite, carries us back indeed to the book of Genesis, where we have seen in Benjamin the type (when separated from Joseph) of that Messiah to which Israel clings, a deliverer by power merely. As such they would have received Christ, yea, "taken him by force to make him a king," a manifest sign of the king of their choice. Barabbas, had he had the power, would really have suited them, as Barcochba afterwards* did suit them. God, and the whole relation of their souls to Him, they would gladly have left out.
{*An infidel Rabbi of this day owns fully that Barcochba, the leader of the Jewish insurrection under Hadrian, "had all the qualifications of a Messiah." He was, barring anointment, a Messiah who tallied, every inch of him, with the hopes which his nation harbored concerning such a man." -(Messianic Expectations, by Solomon Schindler.)}
This is the significance, then, of Saul, and it is wider than any merely Jewish one, while yet the Jew is necessarily in the fore-front.
1. (1) The occasion of the demand for a king is the misbehavior of Samuel’s sons whom in his old age he had made judges in Beersheba. Joel and Abiah, corrupted by opportunity, take bribes, and pervert justice; a thing which comes into view in the last days also, in connection with the coming of Christ as King, to exercise the judgment of God among the people (Psa 89:1-52). Their names stand for what they were responsible as judges to maintain, -Jehovah as the Mighty God (Joel), and the Father of the people (Abiah).* The people should have reasoned better: if so it were with Samuel’s sons, what hope of man at all? and should have fled to God as the only righteous One. But they do not: instead of this the whole nation, as represented by their elders, come to Samuel, seeking a king to judge them, like the nations round. Their peculiar privilege of direct leaning upon God alone they are more than ready to give up for an arm of flesh; and though their plea is "to judge us," they must have been well aware how far judgment was exercised among the nations by their kings. In fact, as comes out afterwards, there was another cause in the threatening attitude of the Ammonites again, as in Jephthah’s time (1Sa 12:12). In any case there was lack of faith in Him who had so constantly, whenever they had turned to Him, come in for them. As they looked back they could, indeed, see many reverses, and long captivities. The holiness of God had shown itself as Joshua had declared it would. Doubtless they would rather have something that they could cling to, other than this which involved the necessity of persistent obedience. This has been found again and again among the people of God. They could not stand before "this holy Lord God," and they unanimously preferred distance. The story is so old as to have become a trite and common thing; but it has not lost its significance, though it may its power to impress.
{* Joel, "Jehovah [is] the Mighty God"; Abiah, "the Father [is] Jah."}
There are prayers that have to be granted, but in judgment: so with this prayer for a king. But care is taken that even self-deception shall be hardly possible. They are to have testimony from the Lord Himself of what all that is around them bore patent Witness also -the manner of this king that they desired. Samuel is instructed to declare all this to them, that their decision may be in the plainest light that can be given.
(2) The testimony is, after all, simple enough. Man being what he is, honor cannot be given him but he will debase himself with it. Put him in a place of service, he will serve himself first of all. Combine these two, as in the case of a king, self will shine out in him in the fullest way. This is nothing strange, alas, but the commonest experience. But here a people with Jehovah Himself the King, deliberately accepts the yoke of another!
2. (1) The king in Israel, however, must be chosen of God, for he is to be the minister and viceroy of God. He must be pointed out to himself as the chosen of God, that he may realize aright his responsibility to Him, and be made to realize in quiet, before exaltation comes, the purpose of it. God will do everything possible to make untrue His own prophecy of the king that is to be: and to this end comes all this preparatory dealing with Saul.
Saul’s genealogy is carefully given us for six generations back, himself being the seventh, Shaul, the "asked," complete in all that makes man naturally to be desired of man. This genealogy is surely in its meaning, therefore, moral, and scarcely favorable in its significance. Its interpretation is somewhat difficult, and yet may be suggested, and its numerical character, which by this time we may assure ourselves of, will help and test the attempt to understand it. Meant to be understood it necessarily is, appealing with all Scripture to man as the rational creature of God, who needs yet continually to be taught of God.
The numbers read naturally backward, according to the actual descent, Kish being the sixth and not the first in the line given here. To understand it, therefore, it would seem that we should trace it in the same order.
We begin, then, with one who is simply given as "a man of Benjamin," leaving more than the "higher critics" to wonder if the name has not dropped out. For the moral purpose, the omission of a name may itself have meaning. We have been taught of the Spirit Himself so to think of the omissions in the account of Melchizedek, and have seen it to be so with the nameless servant of Abraham (Gen 24:1-67) and the nameless city in Reuben (Jos 13:16); and so it may well be here. The significance of Saul’s descent from Benjamin we have briefly glanced at; and at the outset Kish is set before us here as a "man of Benjamin": the repetition here we may conceive, therefore, to have another meaning; and from what has been said, not in any sense an evil one. We may well be carried back to him who was before any failure, to show us the better the failure itself, and how it came about. A "man of Benjamin," as that, conveys no suggestion of evil, and there being no name beside, forbids the thought of any departure from the character implied in the tribal name. How good a sign of integrity for a child of Benjamin to be known only as that, with no intrusion of self to destroy simplicity! Here, then, we have got back beyond any evil development, if afterwards we should find this; while even here, however, we may have what enters into the making of Saul the "asked": for those who can build the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers slew, can take pleasure in saintly lineage while far from saintliness.
The second name in descent is that of Aphiah; and if we have been right thus far in interpretation, then we may find the initial point of departure in this second name, the contrast with the first. For Aphiah means most legitimately (as the causative of puah), "I will utter," or "speak out" and if we think of that name unuttered which heads the genealogy, it is natural to put these things together. We have now in opposition to the lowliness forgetful of self, the self-importance which needs must find utterance. And is not this always the point of departure from God, the true fall of the creature, -which is, indeed, to take up the taunt of the enemy, ever a "fall upward," -the creature lifting itself out of its place, in obedience to the suggestion, "ye shall be as God"? The step here, in such a history as this, vindicates itself, therefore, as at least the image of truth.
The third name, under the number of manifestation, reveals the true character of all self-assumption in a child of God. It is Bechorath, "primogeniture," the claim of nature, not of grace, of first against new birth. The order is "first, that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." (1Co 15:46). In the book of Genesis we are familiar with the fact that the first-born constantly thus loses the birthright, -Ishmael to Isaac, Esau to Jacob, Reuben to Joseph, Manasseh to Ephraim. If the child of God betray self-confidence, it is always and of necessity "confidence in the flesh." The principle of the new nature is faith, and faith’s object never can be self. Even faith can, alas, be gloried in; but it cannot "glory," save in Christ.
Zeror, under the fourth number, which is that of the creature, means "tightly enclosed," or "pressed together." It is thus used for a "stone," because of the compression of its particles. It speaks here, therefore, as it would seem, of the narrow sphere and restricted limits of the old creation, shut in between birth and death, confined to the things seen and temporal. Yet men hug these chains, alas, and deliberately shut out heaven and eternity, and count themselves wise in doing so. Here is the sphere of their "primogeniture," however, and they cannot, if they would, transcend it.
But in this sphere still how much space is there for self to display itself in. As an acre of ground may be an ant’s world, so the contraction of man’s desires gives him scope enough for the petty being into which he has shriveled up. If, moreover, the surface of the ground is actually narrow, he can do as in our modern cities, -build into the air. Great he must be, though it were only in imagination; and here, under the fifth number, that of capacity, we have Abiel, -not, as the name might signify, "God [is] my Father," but rather "Father of might": one whose strength is in himself. Such are the contradictions, such the possibilities and actuality of this strange being, man! With all its contradictions, this is still the character of the Sauls of whatever day. Kish ends the list with the assurance implied in his name, "ensnaring," of the magic for deception that abides in all this for those for whom the light of the divine presence has not dispelled the illusion, and brought face to face with the holiness of truth. This Saul, this man of the people, has, beside all this, many rightly attractive qualities. We shall find him shortly tested under the hand of God, -surely not unmercifully, that were absolute impossibility from Him; yet so that he collapses utterly, and shows himself the poor lost creature that he is, -even so, not turning to Him, nor seeking the honor that is of God only. As he is the man of the people, so before the people he lives the sham life that men count really life; when the bubble breaks all is gone, out of the wreck nothing saved, the freightage of a soul precious to God, and worth Christ’s sacrifice to save it, gone irretrievably, and forever. "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
The overruling of God is clearly seen in the way Saul is led up to meet Samuel, ignorant of the hand that is guiding him, -ignorant of the very person of Samuel, as it would seem, and all his memorable history. Suited king for such a people, who were deliberately ignoring God’s mercies to them in the past, of which the prophet had been the divine instrument. Saul is seeking his father’s she-asses which have gone astray, and finds an intractable and rebellious nation, worse by far than these, put into his hand without seeking, to be brought back to God. In both cases he is unsuccessful: yet, had he sought the last with the same energy with which he had sought the first, he might have had the success which was now reserved for one to come after him.
A suggestion may be made as to the places of Saul’s vain search. There are four places in which he searches, but these are divided into three stages only, Mount Ephraim and the land of Shalisha being put together. In the land of Zuph, which comes significantly, therefore, as a fourth stage (the number of testing and failure), he does not search, but abandons his quest; and the name Zuph means "honeycomb," the type of the sweetness of natural things, which have overcome many more than Saul. Thus there is a gleam of light which should encourage us to look further. The first stage gives us, under the number of obedience, Mount Ephraim, the "fruitfulness" which God seeks in us, with the "land of Shalisha," ("third part," or "divided into three,") which I cannot interpret. Here "they found them not." The second stage may speak of "humiliation," where confessed failure in obedience would naturally bring the soul; and the name agrees with this, Shaalim, probably "hollows" or "deep valleys": but "there they were not." The third stage is the "land of Jemini," ("my right hand,") the place of dependent exaltation to which the "valley of humiliation" so often leads, through grace: but there, too, "they found them not." Israel was, indeed, astray; nor could he find them whom the sweetness of nature beguiled from the search.
But at this point the servant’s voice is heard, counseling, as the true servant will, to "ask of God." Saul does not think of this, nor know the man who can declare His mind. All this is characteristic; as it is that with the servant should be found the fitting present for the man of God: little enough, only the fourth part of a shekel, at still the "silver" of atonement, -current coin in the kingdom of God. So they are provided.
A parenthesis is introduced here to let us know the identity between the "prophet" and the "seer." The latter term simply implied the knowledge which the prophet had, not the source of it. The nahbi, the prophet, was the mouthpiece of God, whose word filled him and "bubbled forth" from him. The people of the time here indicated spoke but of the "seer." It was a day of decline, when carnal men thought at least much more of the effect than of the cause, and sought the one while they ignored the other. God had spoken long since of the "prophet"; the people eared but for the "seer." Saul, upon this low ground, approves what he could not initiate. He, too, seeks the seer"; while the prophet, taught of God, is seeking for Him this blind man, brought by a way he knows not.
(2) To meet the seer they have to go up to a higher level, and Saul finds himself an inquirer in a strange place. First of all, there meet them on the ascent young maidens going forth to draw water, and from them they obtain their first answer. By the wells all through we have communications of grace, simple enough when we know for what the well stands. Those who draw water are, of course, those who seek and use the living waters of the Spirit; and with these is the knowledge of the things of God. From these Saul learns not only of the seer, but of the sacrifice, and a feast upon the sacrifice, the great lesson of communion for a king to learn. We have long since looked at the peace-offering (Lev 3:1-17 and Lev 7:11, seq.) where God and men sit, so to speak, at a common table, brought together by the work of the cross, and with common delight in Him who has made peace by it. But this is the foundation of the reign of peace, the reign of God in righteousness and peace among men. When it really comes, the Lamb, the Victim, will be on the Throne; and upon this foundation only can there be the least anticipation of this blessed time. Of all this, therefore, Saul must learn, to be fitted for his kingdom. He must himself participate in this peace. The link that unites God and man is the only link that unites man and man.
God is speaking in His love, seeking to win for himself this goodly creature of His hand. He reveals to Samuel, the day before Saul comes, that He is sending him, and that He means through him to minister to His people’s need. The prince shall be the saviour. And that he may be fully such, God would bring him to have first to do with Himself, before he comes to stand in the presence of the people. Thus by degrees He breaks to him His purpose: a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and made so by dreadful penalty exacted for a dreadful crime, He will take him with all the littleness which should keep him lowly, and mindful -as what Benjamite could be unmindful? -of the discipline through which they had all passed, and set him at the head of all the people. Samuel salutes him thus with the surprising news that upon him is fixed the desire of Israel. This can only mean that what they sought in a king he was the very man to answer to. He was in this way really the man of the people’s choice, the very style and pattern of the king they craved. But being such, God would, if he met this desire, make him much more, -desired to have him for Himself and with Himself, and for this was meeting him after the manner here.
Now he is called to feast upon the sacrifice. To feast upon love’s provision for one’s need, freely partaking of what has cost so much to give, is the way of acquirement of the spirit of sacrifice -of service which is that. So the special part which has been reserved for him is the burden-bearing shoulder, the priest’s portion (Exo 29:27): for the priest’s heart must go with the kingly office; in Him whose representative Saul is to be, king and priest are united together.
(3) Saul abides with Samuel for the night, and early in the morning is sent away. Samuel anoints him, -at once the assurance of power which he shall have, and the character of it, and the dependence upon the Spirit which it implies. Then the first kiss of subjection is on the part of the man of God, just now the judge of Israel. He gives him also three "signs," which, when they come to pass, he is to do as his hand finds, in the full conviction that God is with him. These signs are, of course, to be more than mere foreseen occurrences. They are to have in themselves a voice, which will, however, depend upon himself for its significance: he must have in himself the understanding heart, or he will miss the meaning. "How often there is a meaning, a language, perfectly intelligible to one who has ears to hear, but which escapes us because our gross and hardened heart has no spiritual intelligence or discernment! And yet all our future hangs upon it. God has shown our incapacity for the blessing it involved. Nevertheless the means were not wanting." ("Synopsis.") From this necessity on our part, moreover, divine grace itself cannot release us. It would not be grace to do so. Yet how much of our lives are barren of meaning because we have not had capacity to read this language, or quickness to discern the voice that was speaking to us! Nor is this only true of the facts of the world around us, or of the events of our own lives: Scripture itself, with all its wealth of blessedness, is given "that the
man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Even its plainest parts need spiritual discernment; and how much of it is written in a way that is not plain, but which needs and calls for spiritual intelligence and diligent inquiry, in order to any proper apprehension.
Saul then is left to his ability to read these signs; not as if the Lord were not ready to endue him with all the ability needed; of that we require no assurance: but here is the mystery of that dependent, yet free and accountable being of which we are possessed. We share with Saul this nature, with all its privilege, and with all its responsibility; and the Lord’s ways are equal, let us remember, with us all.
The first sign, in accordance with its numerical meaning, carries him back to Benjamin’s origin. He was the son of his mother’s sorrow, -she had died to give him birth; and where her grave stood there his inheritance began,* -at Zelzah more strictly, which interprets the thought as "shadowed brightness." The world is shadowed when heaven stands revealed; and so in the Cross, the deepest shadow ever cast upon it. He also that will save his life shall lose it; but he that loses it in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. The self-renunciation Saul so needed is here enforced for him; and here two men meet him to let him know that, apart from his labor, the asses that he sought are found, and his father’s heart is yearning for his son. God can as easily work without us as He can with us; need of us He has not, but that heart of love to which our human affections, given of Him, truly, if feebly, testify. Many lessons, from different sides, concur here, evidently for one purpose -that Saul may be in the hand of God the free but devoted instrument He seeks.
{* This was not, of course, geographically exact, but near enough for the meaning which seems given to it here.}
The second sign yields its lesson in due order, that to the one so yielded up to God fellowship and help shall come from those who seek God. Here three men appeared instead of two, for they represent the whole Godhead, though seen in His people, acting in the strengthening of His servant; and they go up to God to Bethel, where Jacob learnt that God was -not simply his God, but the God of His own house, governing it for Himself. It is with those who seek God there that there will be found the apprehension of His mind; and with these, at the oak of Tabor, the living strength that unites with "purpose," the man of God will have recognition. These may be few indeed; they ordinarily are few: but they represent, as we have seen, the fellowship of God Himself. Their gifts -what they have for God -are to be noted: three goats, one for each man, for the sin-offering; the bread, which they can share with another; the drink-offering wine, which is to be poured out to God. Such a company speaks plainly of its faith, and may be recognized by those who have hearts for it.
The third sign shows the work of the Spirit of God, even in a scene in which the Philistine has his posts at the very hill of God itself.* The presence of the enemy at such a place is the sad evidence of the state of things in Israel; but the remedy therefor is not, in the first place, by power, but by return to God and subjection to Him. He must be exalted where He has been dishonored; and this is what the spirit of prophecy does. Saul meets here, therefore, a company of prophets, and their various instruments of music show the joy and boldness that accompany the return of heart to God. How small a thing is the enemy in the presence of God! And this joy in Him is the sure sign of the overthrow of all that opposes itself to Him. Jehoshaphat’s singers and trumpeters are in the forefront of the host, and it is to these that the Lord hearkens and gives victory. (2Ch 20:22.) What a lesson for the Benjamite warrior, Saul!
{*Why called so, we are not told, apparently; nor is it needed for the purpose of the lesson.}
At this point the Spirit of Jehovah would come upon him, and he would be changed into another man, gifted with needed ability for the occasion, according to the place in which God had put him for the blessing of the people. Then he was to act as his hand found opportunity, for God was with him.
But there follows a needed limiting of power, which might easily, in a time of such disorder, be carried too far. And here Samuel’s words look on to a time of special testing for Saul after he shall have been confirmed in the kingdom. In fact, he failed then, and his failure forfeited for him the continuance of the royal power in his house. He was to go down before Samuel to Gilgal, and there wait for him to offer the offerings needed. Seven days he would have to wait, and God would guide him through the prophet as to what to do. From this it is manifest that Samuel remained the representative of the kingdom over all, even when Saul took the lower kingdom: and this was the more necessary to be insisted on in view of the spirit of prophecy coming upon Saul also. But the men themselves were total contrasts; and here the two kingdoms show their possible opposition to each other, -a possibility to become actuality at an after time.
All these signs followed, as Samuel had foretold, and the same day. But "Saul among the prophets" became an ominous proverb in Israel, in spite of the prudent question of the bystander, who infers that God is the Source of the prophecy, thus the Father of the prophets. To his uncle,s questioning he replies, without divulging the secret of the kingdom.
3. The third subdivision gives the open manifestation of the king: first, by the lot, the way in which the divine choice was ascertained; then in the deliverance actually effected by him, -the work, in part, which he was needed and raised up to do. This confirms him in the place which God had given him.
(1) We have seen the lot used in the apportionment of their inheritance to the tribes of Israel, and to discover the guilty one in the case of the appropriation of that which was devoted to the Lord at Jericho. The account here is very brief: first, we hear of Benjamin being taken, then of the family of Matri (only mentioned here), and then of Saul, the son of Kish. Matri means, probably, "Jehovah is watching." The place of gathering being Mizpeh, the "watchtower," the significance of which we have seen as implying the people watching what Jehovah will say, here we may be reminded of the converse truth. Jehovah, in fact, was not speaking out His mind. He had done so, and they had given no heed. Now, even while He indicated Saul, it was as their choice, rather than His. He is forced to silence, and to await the result of their self-will. So Samuel once more warns them that in seeking a king they were rejecting the Lord. The lot has lost, therefore, its true meaning: it is not properly Jehovah’s choice; and little can be said about it.
When Saul is announced, he is not to be found, until the Lord answers their inquiry by letting them know that he is hidden among the baggage. In truth he was, -a mere "vessel" among the dead, inanimate "vessels," (as the word means), which He can use, who can make all things serve Him, but without the life and spirit of service. However, when he is brought out, for thews and sinews he is a man indeed, and towers over the heads of all the people. Samuel points out how well he answers the ideal that they seek, and the people shout in answer, "Live the King!" But it means as little as the king himself does. Just so far as Saul has risen above them they have shrunk. Their colossus is but a shadow over them. Could he be aught else, when they had put him between their souls and God!
But all is settled, and they must abide their choice. And indeed the godly can own God in it, and thus escape the shadow. Samuel tells them the manner of the kingdom, and writes it in a book, and it is laid up before the Lord. Then he sends them to their houses; and Saul returns to Gibeah, to his house. There is no exuberance of loyalty. What men set their hearts on, they often need only to have to find how little it is. God touches the hearts of some, that they follow Saul; else none would have done so! And the children of Belial ask now, what the men of piety would have asked before, "How shall this man save us?" Before, that question would have honored God; now it leaves Him out. With all "powers that be," faith recognizes, even in Saul, "a minister of God for good," and knows the omnipotent love that makes all things work for good. How could it "despise," as the men of Belial do, the "minister of God"?
Saul’s new-found greatness sits well upon him too, just now. He is as a deaf man to all their murmurings.
(2) The deliverance from the Ammonites it is that shows Saul to be the deliverer for whom the people are waiting, and which confirms the kingdom in his hand. With the Ammonites we have been already made familiar, especially in connection with a former deliverance by Jephthah, and their significance cannot now be doubtful. We find them here once again attacking Israel, under their king Nahash, whose name, almost identical with that of Nahshon, prince of Judah in the wilderness, means "divination, augury." Nahshon, however, as we have seen in the book of the wilderness, is to be understood in a good sense, as Nahash the Ammonite cannot be. The divination of the heathen was assertedly the interpretation of a divine answer, though given through material signs, and the character of this is indicated in the identity of this word with that which was the general term for "serpent." The spirit of all doctrinal heresy (of which the Ammonite speaks) is indeed Satanic. As the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of truth, and by the truth it is that men are sanctified, so on the other hand, Satan is the father of lies, and destroys men with the poison of falsehood. Scripture, in entire opposition to the natural thought, emphasizes more strongly by far the condemnation of doctrinal than of moral evil, closely connected as these are; and it is not hard to understand why, if by the word of truth we are new begotten and sanctified. The lusts of the flesh bring with them -at least wherever the light shines -their own condemnation; but Satan’s lie is the darkness which covers and shelters all the rest; or the false light that lures to shipwreck.
The attack of Nahash is naturally not upon the strongest part of Israel, but the weakest. Jabesh-gilead contributed no warriors to the Benjamite war, and was visited with ruthless destruction at the hands of united Israel at that time. Since then, it had recovered itself, but has here little strength of faith to oppose the enemy. Gilead, "the heap of witness," speaks of memory that should be fruitful; and in fact the country is so, even at the present day; but Jabesh, "dry," often "dried up, withered," speaks of the reverse of this, and it is there where the truth is not productive, -where decline has begun in the soul, -that the attacks of error are most easily effectual.
Jabesh will surrender, if that be all that is needed, and serve the king of Ammon; but the king will not agree, except they come to his terms, worthy as they are of an Ammonite. He must thrust out all their right eyes, and lay it as a reproach against Israel. Spiritually read, a reproach indeed, if we interpret, according to what we have had elsewhere (vol. 1. p. 389, n.), the right eye as the eye of faith. Reason and faith are in fact the double witness in man which, where the soul is right with God, like the vision of the two eyes, accord in one image. But the following of man, which all heresy in its essence is, puts out therefore necessarily the eye of faith: for this sees God and not man. Nahash in his requirement speaks, therefore, quite intelligibly here.
But even the men of Jabesh demand a seven days’ respite, to see if there be no deliverer in Israel yet; and this the arrogance of Nahash grants; for he has not a dream of any rescue. The messengers of the straitened city come, therefore, at once to Gibeah, Saul’s city, with the news of these conditions.
As he hears, the Spirit of God comes upon Saul, and he summons the people with a threat to follow himself and Samuel. We see clearly that there is no energy in the people, and the energy in Saul is not of the highest kind. He leans on Samuel, and puts his name forth, though after his own, to enforce obedience, appealing to their fear as the most successful argument, and indeed not without cause; and in fact the fear of Jehovah it is that falls upon the people, so that they come out in mass. They gather (significantly) in Bezek, the place of the "fetter," -under constraint, not willingly; and Saul sends word to the men of Jabesh that they shall have help.
(3) In result, the Ammonites are thoroughly beaten and scattered; and Saul becomes in this respect the people’s saviour, who therefore go off into a vehement enthusiasm for the man they had despised. But the Ammonites are but an incident in the history here. They do not give character to the condition of things in Israel, and do not test the king of their choice. We shall see in a little while what does so, and then how entirely Saul fails. Speaking according to the spiritual meaning, the deliverance of the people of God from heresy, however necessary, does not put them right with God; for this, much more is needed than orthodoxy, even of the strictest kind.
Yet this is a deliverance, and the people rightly may rejoice. Saul, too, uses his triumph wisely and with moderation. Samuel uses it to draw the people to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there. Gilgal is where the "reproach of Egypt" of the bondage of the people there, was rolled away. Circumcision, the renunciation of all confidence in the flesh, there enabled them to be the "Lord’s host," the free servants of His will in opposition to all the hosts of evil. Thus the Captain of the Lord’s host, -greater even than Joshua, how much greater than Saul! -could take His place at their head for the career of victory now opening before them. The application is easy enough here. What should hinder things coming into their place as then? Let there be only subjection, all would be as then. Let Saul be as Joshua, the lower kingdom be in truthful obedience to the higher, God still remained for them Jehovah, the Unchanged, Unchangeable. Such, surely, was the thought in Samuel’s heart, for people and king. Thus only could their "sacrifices of peace-offerings" have meaning. But alas! there were too plain indications of another spirit than this; and if "Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly," nothing is said of him whose joy would have been deepest had the material of it been there. If Samuel rejoiced, it must have been indeed with trembling. And so his words now show.
4. A new section opens here. For now the new king must abide the rule of the higher kingdom, and be tested as to his fitness to fulfill its requirements. So it has ever been. So, in regard to God’s governmental dealings with man in this life, it ever must be. Even the Church, though the witness of divine grace in its fullest character, yet as the responsible vessel of this on earth, has not escaped, nor could escape, this testing. "Unto thee goodness, if thou continue in His goodness," says the apostle of the Gentiles, the special "minister" of the Church (Col 1:25), otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." (Rom 11:22.) How she has answered to this test, let her history, in the light of the word of God, decide. Saul did not stand, we are called now, for our own profit, to consider the cause and manner o his fall. These things are written for our admonition: may we have open ears to receive the admonition!
(1) Samuel now stands forth before the people, rejoicing because of their deliverance, to use the opportunity to effect one much greater, namely, from the sin which is always the degradation and destruction of a people. Their own had never yet been realized, in asking for a king and now their rejoicing in the king they had got was likely to blind their eyes yet more, and God’s mercy toward them become only an occasion of worse departure from Him. Samuel for this, therefore, first of all, makes them own the uprightness of his own conduct in the place which God had given him among them. They were thus without excuse as to that which they had demanded, for although they had pleaded that the prophet’s sons walked not in his ways, such failure allowed of easy correction. Indeed, as he shows presently, without condescending to any direct notice of it, it was not the true ground for what they had sought at all, but their fear of the Ammonites, and their inability to trust Jehovah for protection. This cowardly unbelief would naturally be cowardly enough in self excuses, and he does not honor them by even noticing them.
(2) His integrity being allowed on all hands, he bids them stand forth while he reasons with them for his God. Jehovah’s deeds were known well enough. He does not need to speak of them in order or at length. That they had been brought out of Egypt, brought into the land they now possessed, he had but briefly to allude to. After all this, they had left their own victorious Jehovah for the dead idols of the defeated Canaanites. In the land which was His gift they had forgotten Him, and that again and again, after repeated deliverances. Their present sin was but a repetition of that of their fathers: its root was in insubjection of heart, and unbelief.
{*1Sa 12:11. Probably a textual error for Barak, which is the reading of the Septuagint.}
(3) He appeals to God Himself for confirmation of this. In Israel they, as a matter of course, gathered in their wheat in peace, but now the wrath of God would be manifest in sending thunder and rain. These signs come to pass the same day, and produce a transient effect upon the people. In a spasm of fear they own their guilt, and deprecate the death which they anticipate. Samuel reassures them, bidding them only fear Jehovah with a fruitful fear, productive of obedience, and lie would be with them; on the other hand, if still they did wickedly, they and their king alike would perish.
{*1Sa 13:1. One number is wanting here, and cannot be supplied from any known source; the other is questionable. The Septuagint omits the verse altogether, which on more accounts than this commends itself to me. But I have bracketed and left it. It seems an interruption in the course of the history, the second verse naturally connecting with the end of the last chapter.}
(4) Saul is now fully installed: he is accepted of the people and in the flush of a first victory. But the testing time has thus now come, and he must stand the test or be set aside. He does not stand the test, for he has no true faith in God, and is thus under the power of circumstances. He is slow and undecided when prompt action is called for, and then is forced into doing when he ought to have waited. Thus he openly disobeys God, and is of necessity set aside.
In natural courage he is not deficient, but natural courage without faith only begets self-confidence, and leads astray, while just where needed it is apt to break down and leave one in the lurch. Here, too, a man’s religion, which without faith is only superstition, becomes a hindrance, as we shall see in Saul.
His first act, after the victory over Nahash, judged by natural wisdom, is prudent enough. The rally in behalf of Jabesh-Gilead has brought together an ill-armed and undisciplined multitude, which, however effective under a sudden impulse, could not be trusted for a prolonged and regular war. To have kept so large a number together, had it been feasible, would have surely provoked a Philistine attack, and being unmanageable, the greater mass would have produced a worse defeat. Saul sends them all home, therefore, except three thousand men, too few to rouse the suspicion of those who had been rapidly assuming to be masters in Israel, and yet enough to occupy some central strong points, of which there were many in that mountainous land, and to be the nucleus of a trained and efficient army. The old days of Samuel had already passed away. The fruits of unbelief are not long in showing themselves. And in Saul’s action we see not a return to faith, but the wise caution of worldly prudence and astute generalship. Every thing has to be calculated and provided for. God is left out, for He is a force not calculable; but being left out, He is still at liberty to come in and spoil these arrangements, as we shall see: though He act in mercy toward His people, as now He does; but just on that account the human machinery must be set aside.
Two thousand men under Saul occupy the strong and important position of Michmash and Mount Bethel; a thousand are under Jonathan at Gibeah: and this introduces us to one in whom we have at this time -and Saul had also in close proximity to himself -the man of faith, through whom God works the deliverance which He has prepared for His people. Jonathan, or Jehonathan, means, "Jehovah hath given:" and he is truly the Lord’s gift to Israel for the emergency; but also this is the language of his own believing heart, a sort of blank check, which can be filled up for every occasion. We shall find how fully he makes use of it now, though the first effect seems only to upset all the prudential device, and threaten disaster. But he is really with God, and we find in him what Saul should have been and was not. With him there is no tardiness, no prudence: put arms in his hands and he will use them. With one bold act of defiance, he precipitates the unequal conflict with those whose strength the nation had so often proved, -at this time comparatively at the strongest. He smites the Philistine post at Geba, and the Philistines hear.
Saul cannot now lead: he must follow; but he follows in a path of which he has no knowledge, acting in the dark where he imagines he has full light. There is no caution now, no seeking wisdom from God. He has just dismissed the mass that had gathered against the Ammonites; now again he summons them in haste with the trumpet; but God has no use for them: a general fear falls upon the people; those that gather after Saul melt away again; he is left to his dismay; and the actual victory is gained by two people whose absence is only in this way discovered! What an object lesson of faith is given us here!
While faith triumphs, as it ever does, things have gone disastrously with Saul. He sees not God, sees only circumstances; and where he moves most freely and confidently, is in fact moved helplessly by them. He must have a rising of the people to meet the wave of hostile invasion. He summons them as "Hebrews," not as Israelites; for of Israel, the people of God, he knows really nothing. They hear that Saul has smitten the post of the Philistines, leaving God out of the matter as Saul had left Him out. Unbelief awakens only unbelief; and then in opposition to Saul they naturally see the Philistines. Israel has come to be in ill savor also with the Philistines. They are called together after Saul to Gilgal. Where is the glorious Captain of the Lord’s host that once met them there? Now they only realize the host of the Philistines, to their eyes innumerable, who presently take possession of the passes to the upper country. So seeing they are in a strait they scatter, hiding themselves in holes in the rocks and in the ground. And "Hebrews" make their escape altogether out of the threatened district, going over Jordan to Gad and Gilead. A company remain with Saul, but they follow him trembling. In this direction there is no hope.
{*1Sa 13:8. The word ’appointed’ or ’spoken’ is not in the Hebrew copies generally but several MSS. have it.}
A grand opportunity for a man of God! and so it proves for Jonathan. It might have seemed that even Saul would be now driven to Him. Our extremity is still His opportunity, and this is what He would assure us of The conviction of helplessness contains oftentimes in itself the seed of faith and the famine and a world where no man gives, have been to how many prodigals constraining influences to bring about the cry, "I will arise and go to my Father!" But with Saul it is far otherwise, and the failure now is nothing incidental to the circumstances in which he is found, but the real and full manifestation of the man himself.
He is now in the position of which Samuel had forewarned him before his anointing, (chap. 10: 8,) and in obedience to his injunction he waits till near the close of the seventh day, -till it has advanced so far, indeed, that it seems as if there was now no hope of Samuel’s coming. The people are being scattered from him. His mind, sensitive as to external ordinances just in proportion to his inability to see beneath them, can only realize the failure (which was not his) in the matter of the sacrifice. In open disobedience he offers (or causes to be offered) the burnt-offering; and he has hardly done this before Samuel comes.
(5) It was a plain breach of positive command. Saul might and does urge the scattering of the people, the failure of Samuel (too quickly assumed that), the gathered Philistines. With all this he had nothing at all to do. The king of Israel was but the representative of the heavenly King, whose people Israel really was, and whose will alone was absolute throughout all circumstances that might arise. How good, in fact, to have it so! How entirely at rest might a king be so governing! As to any lack of understanding of that will, there was given the utmost liberty of appeal to Him through known and readily available channels of communication. With consequences he had nothing whatever to do. Were ever any king’s shoulders so entirely relieved of strain as those of the obedient king of such a kingdom?
Saul had not the spirit of obedience, and there was no harshness, no undue severity in his rejection by God. As yet even it does not amount to present personal rejection. It is announced only that his kingdom should not continue, and that God had sought Him a king after His own heart, -manifestly one who would govern according to His will, which, in the main, was David’s character. The two kingdoms must be in harmony. But Saul is yet left to recover, if it may be, the ground he had lost. Such is the mercy of the divine government, which we may see afterwards, even with a king so exceptionally bad as Ahab. (1Ki 21:29.) Yet this mercy of God allows, too, the development of evil in the unrepentant and this we have to find in a striking manner in Saul. "Because judgment against an evil work is not speedily executed, therefore the heart of the sons of men is thoroughly set in them to do evil."
5. Side by side now, in contrasted development, we have in Saul the man without God, under the government of God, whose position as the ostensible, responsible head in Israel only emphasizes the lesson here. He is but the obstruction in the path of faith which we find in Jonathan, the man with God, whom Saul, though bound to him by every natural tie, would slay. Such is the essential opposition between what is natural and what is spiritual, even where, as here, it is not enmity, but a blind and superstitious zeal for God, -under which, however, all carnal and evil passions find ready lodgment. On the other hand, Saul’s strength, such as it is, is easily seen to be based upon Jonathan’s victories, which are crippled only by their connection with him, while Jonathan himself, though to the last attractive and interesting, soon ceases to have significance for the history at large, and at last expires under the shadow of a terrible humiliation upon the field of Gilboa. Impressive lessons, more than ever to be heeded today, when, through this very heedlessness, the history spiritually so often repeats itself.
(1) In the first place, here we are made to realize the circumstances in the midst of which faith finds its opportunity. The land is prostrate. Unbelief has speedily completed its work. The deliverance wrought by Samuel is undone, and the Philistine spoiler is abroad over the country. Saul has, indeed, his six hundred men; but they are spiritless, and armed but with rustic and blunted weapons. This barrenness of resources is, however, only God’s hand shutting them up to Himself. It is the prostration which makes Him their necessity; but, in general, there is no faith either to lay hold of Him. What would an army of such men accomplish? Nothing but their own defeat. Hence Jonathan, in whom faith is, will not burden himself with them: energized by God, he strikes with his own hand for deliverance, and strikes effectually.
(2) Jonathan knows well that "two cannot walk together except they are agreed," that faith can take no counsel with unbelief; and when he starts against the Philistine garrison at Geba, he tells not his own father. Saul and his six hundred are shown us for a moment as he turns his back on them, Saul lying under the pomegranate at Migron (the place of "overthrow"); and with the failed king, the head of the failed priesthood, Ahijah ("brother of Jah"), son of Ahitub ("brother of goodness"), but the brother of Ichabod ("where is the glory?"), the monument of the sad history of Eli and his sons. With him is the ephod, expressly for communication with Jehovah, but there is none; and none among the people even know that Jonathan is gone away. Victory may be gained for these, not by them. They may enter presently upon a path which others have opened: open it they cannot.
Jonathan therefore goes forth alone, with only his armor-bearer with him, in whom faith responds to his own faith. Two things, as we find by his words, animate him: that the Philistines are the "uncircumcised," the enemies of Israel, the people of God; and that "there is no restraint to Jehovah, to save by many or by few." He believes in an omnipotent God who loves His people, and upon whom to venture for their salvation can surely be no mistake. He has no express command, no open call to accomplish this: he reasons; but he reasons from premises which faith furnishes, and from the depths of his own self-sacrificing love to the people of God, which enables him sympathetically to realize the divine love. He does not at first speak with absolute assurance of success: he says, "it may be that Jehovah will work for us"; he knows God’s heart better than His mind, gaining assurance as he goes on, willing to risk where the risk is all his own. Such believing love can never be unfruitful.
He finally accepts the enemy’s own decision of the matter as the Lord’s judgment. If they say, "Wait till we come down to you," the energy implied will, at least, not show that He is opening the way before him. But if they say, "Come up to us," then, whether it be indolence, indifference, or self-security, he will take it as the assurance that God has given them up into his hands.
There are abundant difficulties in those steep cliffs which overhang the bold adventurers’ path. Two points, on opposite sides, are mentioned, -not surely as mere commemorative indications of the place for days to come, but with a deeper interest. One, Bozez, was named from its "shining" surface, which, on the north side, (that of the enemy’s post,) would have the sun full upon it. The other, on Israel’s, would be correspondingly in the dark, and was called Seneh, the "thorn," the sign of the curse. Israel was, indeed, in the shadow of God’s judgment then, as, on this account also, their enemies were in prosperity: and such things have been difficulties in the path of many a Jonathan from that day to this. But there is a faith which can surmount all, working through the love of a devoted heart; and we find it in this son of Saul, not, clearly, by any assistances of nature there.
The two discover themselves to the Philistine garrison in open day: for darkness does not favor the people of God, but the reverse. They are taunted with the cowardice that is not theirs, but is their brethren’s, as the sins of professors merely are hurled at all times at the true confessors; and are bidden, "Come up unto us, and we will show you a thing": for with Philistines there is a height and superiority of knowledge inaccessible, in their judgment, to the "Israelite indeed." They know not that this is the sign that Jehovah has delivered them up, and that the battle is gone against them.
Jonathan and his companion, therefore, climb on hands and knees to the attack: knees as well as hands are a grand necessity in climbing spiritual heights: and the Philistines fall before them. Fear and trembling fall upon the host; and the earth trembles and quakes; for God Himself is there: the victory is already accomplished.
(3) As yet but two men have wrought, even the little band with Saul unconscious of their departure from them; but now the Israelites around begin to be awakened and to follow in the track that has been opened to them. The watchmen of Saul begin to realize the commotion and disintegration in the enemy’s camp, and Saul imputes it to some human agency; but when the company is mustered, only Jonathan and another being absent, so slight a cause seems inadequate to the effect, and now he thinks of consulting God. But the noise increases in the camp, and the disorder among the Philistines being manifest, he abruptly stops the priest in the midst of his inquiry. He is pressed to God by great necessity; but he prefers much to do without Him. The matter is sufficiently plain for action. He gathers his company and goes out to battle, only to find that dissension has already precipitated disaster in the hostile ranks. The "Hebrews" recreant or captive among them turn against them; the Israelites who have been in hiding around swarm after the flying host. The broken wave of battle ebbs away toward the west. It is Jehovah who that day saves Israel.
(4) But the spirit of Saul is in entire independence. If Jehovah work, it is for him He works; and in his short-sighted desire for vengeance upon his enemies, he freely imprecates Jehovah’s curse upon the soul that does not obey his mandate to abstain from food until vengeance is executed. He thus makes the might of Jehovah’s name to work against the very thing he would accomplish; and limits, as far as he may, the effect of that which he had no part in producing. He can meddle and mar, if he cannot make. In his profanity he would have God curse where He means only blessing, heedless where the curse may fall. The people are faint, and the victory is incomplete. Jonathan, the instrument of the divine deliverance, is the one who falls under the futile curse. Too far away from the scene to have heard his father’s adjuration, he takes a little of the wild honey which offers itself by the way, and is refreshed. Told of his father’s curse he reprobates it, and shows its evil consequences. Honey is the sweetness of natural things, not to be ascetically interdicted to the people of God, though to be kept in due subordination. The world is, indeed, a place of warfare for the Christian, in which he may "not entangle himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who has chosen him to be a soldier." (2Ti 2:4.) We have need to watch lest we should be brought under the power of lawful things (1Co 6:12). But herein every one must judge for himself what is help, what hindrance, while it is grace alone that enables, and not law.
Saul’s prohibition leads to further evil. The famishing people, wild with hunger, fall at last upon the prey, and slaughtering sheep and oxen, eat them with the blood, in plain disobedience to the divine command. Thus an undue restriction leads to license, and the imposition of an arbitrary human enactment to a transgression of the divine: and these things occur not seldom in this way.
(5) Saul builds now an altar to Jehovah: he has need of Him, and formally acknowledges Him. He desires and proposes still to pursue the Philistines, and gains the consent of the people. It is the priest, who urges that God must be consulted first. Saul asks, accordingly, "Shall I go down after the Philistines?" and his proud spirit chafes at there being no answer to the question. He realizes that there has been sin somewhere, and evidently divines that it is in the transgression of his own rash prohibition; seems even to imagine (perhaps from Jonathan’s having been away when it was uttered) that it may be he: yet, instead of being smitten into the dust by the thought, or showing the least repentance for his reckless haste, boils over in a furious vow by Jehovah, that if it were in Jonathan himself, he should die. The people gaze upon him speechless. He brings it to a brief decision by putting himself and Jonathan over against the people for the lot to point out the guilty. He and Jonathan are taken: at the next casting Jonathan is taken: and Saul is face to face with the consequences of his deed.
But he is still unsubdued: stonily he questions the deliverer of Israel, What hast thou done? and hears his simple, straightforward account: "I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand, and lo, I must die," to answer with another imprecation upon the self, dearer loved than is his child, "God do so [to me] and more also, but thou shalt surely die, Jonathan!"
Then the people break out in a wave of astonishment and indignation, putting with emphatic decision their oath against the king’s oath. What! Jonathan, who has wrought, in the power of God, this deliverance of Israel? Jonathan die for the breach of a command he never knew, and by which Saul’s own madness had snatched the full fruits of the victory out of the deliverer’s hand? Nay, "as Jehovah liveth, there shall not a hair of his head fall to the ground!"
So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not; and Saul is left to his folly and shame. The whole matter, from beginning to end, has been one continued humiliation for the infatuated king. The man himself is unmistakably revealed; while on God’s part how great is the mercy shown, -how tender, if solemn, is the rebuke administered! And the divine patience is not exhausted yet.
6. Another test is to be permitted Saul; and as, in the former case he was under the pressure of circumstances which might plead, if not convincingly, for him, so now he is forborne with till he has gathered strength. One readily perceives, indeed, danger for him in this; but it is the only alternative. What he is, and whether Jehovah’s king for the people, must be proved; and nothing can prove so fully as when all constraint is taken off, and the will is allowed its fullest liberty. It is not meant, of course, but that lie is under the commandment of God: this is, of necessity, wherewith he is to be tried: the kingdom on earth is to be the true representative and executive of the kingdom in heaven: but obedience is to be made a question of pure will, with no hindrance to it from outside, no resistance except it be from the will itself.
The means of the ordained trial we have in Amalek; and here, as elsewhere to have the full lesson, the spiritual meaning of the people must be taken into account. In both Exodus and Numbers we have seen that as the offspring of Edom Amalek stands for the lusts of the flesh (Exo 17:1-16, Num 24:1-25, n.). In Balaam’s prophecy it is when the Scepter rises out of Israel, and out of Jacob comes one who hath dominion, -in other words, when Christ comes again -that "Amalek shall perish forever." Till then his hand is "against the throne of Jah," and "Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." Thus the destruction of Amalek is a sign of the true King having come to Israel.
The lusts of the flesh are indeed the very expression of the rebellious war against Jehovah’s throne; and he in whom these are found can never be Jehovah’s rightful king. There is but One, then, who can be this; and Saul is not even His typical picture -no, not for a moment. Of the issue of Saul’s trial here we shall have presently to speak.
(1) But first we are given to see his might. After the deliverance at Mich-mash he takes, indeed, the kingdom over Israel, and wars against all his enemies round about, and discomfits them, Philistines and Amalekites and all. "He did valiantly, and delivered Israel out of the hand of them that spoiled them." Externally he is thus a prosperous man; no enemy at this time prevails against him: but in all this prosperity we have no hint of any real dependence on the Lord, nor of the Lord’s hand being stretched out for him. His resources are in himself. We read presently of his sons, his daughters, his wife, his cousin Abner, the captain of his host. There the record stops. He gathers no mighty men around him, as David does: he wins no heart, for he shows no heart. He is self-contained, self-centred; and thus the very king whom the people seek, though having found him, it is true he does not satisfy them. There is nothing in him to do so; and yet he is the perfect picture of what men applaud: "for men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself." (Psa 49:18.) The Sauls make up the history of the world, though a few souls may cluster around David.
Saul is a representative man, and thus we may well be interested in him. Not in vain does he occupy so many pages of an inspired history. His wars and his family relations, as given here, should all have meaning. As king of Israel he is in conflict with all the natural enemies of Israel, and here he shows his might. He discomfits them, but he does not destroy or subjugate them: even Amalek is not an exception to this, as we shall see. He is very far from leaving, as his successor does, "neither adversary nor evil occurrent." (1Ki 5:4.) He dies in battle, defeated by the Philistines; an Amalekite claims to have given him his death-stroke; all the enemies have to be met afresh by the next king. He is under the law of nature simply, has his rise, culmination, and decline; but this with him, as with all under it, has a moral significance such as the psalmist attaches to it: "we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath we are troubled." (Psa 90:7.) The secret is as to Saul in his growing alienation from God, which is manifest, an awful hardening of heart terrible to contemplate, yet not so exceptional as to make it in any wise unsuited for an admonition to us. For here is the man that the multitude crowns with glory, while for the true king they have the cross and the crown of thorns.
And thus it is that we are in Saul’s reign still, and not in David’s; and the world occupies itself with laws and forms of government, while it knows not Christ, nor sees glory in God’s Beloved. A democracy under Satan would certainly have the suffrages of the mass today, rather than the sweet despotism of the Son of God. Yet men go frantic over wrongs that are only the twigs and branches from the root of this first great wrong. Saul, too, could lash at Israel’s enemies, but they survived him, pulled him from his seat, and conquered him at last; and so will the world’s efforts at self-government break down in hopeless anarchy and confusion before Christ comes to lay his right hand of power upon the strife, and still it into peace.
Saul’s sons, as given here, are three, though we learn elsewhere of a fourth, who does not come into this picture, Ish-bosheth, -acccording to the meaning of of his name, the "man of shame," the only one who survives his father. The three here are his strength, but they all fall with him upon the fatal field of Gilboa.
Of Jonathan alone do we hear anything; and of him, the hero of Michmash and the lover of David, more often as in conflict with his father than otherwise. Yet Saul, with such heart as he had, loved Jonathan, -though, as we have seen, he would have sacrificed him to his superstition and pride, and afterwards to his rage against David. Jonathan means "Jehovah hath given," the principle upon which, as we have seen, he acts at Michmash. Jonathan thus seems to represent the sovereignty of God, which, in fact, upholds as ordained of Him "the powers that be," which Saul represents, though in themselves as little according to His mind as Saul was. This ordination is, therefore, not that electing love which originates what He approves, but that which takes them up simply as existent, in that sense is the fruit of their existence, (for the "powers that be" are ordained of God as such), and so can be rightly imaged as a son of Saul, his firstborn, as Jacob says of Reuben, his "might, the beginning of excellence and of power." Yet it is clear that in this case Jonathan cannot be against David, even while he owns Saul, and why he expires with him upon the field where he expires. All this is simple. The victory over the Philistines at Michmash, due to him, is less so. Yet, if the Philistines represent the power of the ritualistic world-church, this has long, as we know, been in conflict with at first largely dominant over -what for the true people of God must be the rightful possessor of authority under God, even though as yet Saul, not David. The effort of the world-church, throughout the middle ages, was to put its yoke upon the kings of the earth; and the reformation was such a victory as that at Michmash, when the ordination of God of the secular power, realized in Israel among the people of God -beat off the Philistine oppressor. Yet, alas, there was no David on that throne: it could but restore a Saul! All is consistent, therefore, throughout.
Saul’s second son, Ishui, is much more scantily noticed in the history. In fact, even the name occurs only here, being replaced, where his death is spoken of by Abinadab (1Sa 31:2).
Ishui, or Ishvi, from shavah, "to be equal," means "equal, equitable," and this, under the number of service, ministry, speaks unmistakably of one of the very reasons for which the powers that be are ordained of God: "he is the minister of God to thee, for good." (Rom 13:3-4.) "Do that which is good," says the apostle, "and thou shalt have praise of the same." This is the general truth, whatever exception there may be; and in striking contrast with Philistine oppression. When the "church," as the superior, delivered up its victims into the hands of the obedient civil power, there was no equity! The second son of Saul confirms thus the meaning of the first.
Malchishua, "my king is saviour," is the third son. Though in an inferior sense, of course, in fact Saul was saviour-king. And, in fact, also for society, and for the church also, the secular magistrate is a necessity. This is evident from what has just been said, and need not be considered further. These are the sons of Saul which strengthen him in his kingdom. That there is another side is true also, and an Ishbosheth, "a man of shame," among them; but it is in striking accordance with the view presented here that Ishbosheth should be in this place omitted.
Saul’s daughters are but two, Merab and Michal. Their names have evident connection. Merab, from rabah, means "increase." Michal, though generally taken as "brook," seems properly to mean "who shall measure?" As daughters they naturally also speak of fertility, fruit. Do they imply the prosperity and wealth that are the result of established government? -as to which the Philistines are here also (as seen in their city, Ashdod) "spoilers" in every sense?
Next we have Saul’s wife. She is Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz. The repetition of the first element in these names demands attention. Ahi means "my brother," or "brother, kin." Noam is "pleasure, that which pleases"; maaz, though by Gesenius taken to mean "anger," is rather (from atzah) "strength." "Pleasure," as the consort of a king, and the outcome of "strength," is simple enough reading. Among those set in high places, how natural and sure the abuse of strength that thence results! But pleasure may be sought without abuse. All depends here upon what pleases, and in some sort also upon what the strength is. In the case of Saul, and such as he, the double ahi marks this. The "kin of pleasure" is not pleasure; the "kin of strength" is not that. A false power, not of God, the source of all that is true, may be perverted for the enjoyment of pleasure, which is not true because not of Him. And here, alas, the Sauls find their affinities and ally themselves: they walk in the vain show of the world, and disquiet themselves, too, in vain.
Thus we have Saul’s sons, daughters, and wife: we are now called to consider the captain of his host; and this is Abner, the son of Ner. The peculiarity of the name strikes one at once; for Abner means "the father of Ner," while he is his son: there is an inversion of fact. Ner means "lamp," the receptacle of light, the symbol of joy, prosperity, and all that we naturally connect with the thought of illumination. David is thus spoken of as "the light [or lamp] of Israel." (2Sa 21:17.) And though Ishbosheth were a poor representative of this, yet Abner’s support of him after Saul’s death may well illustrate the assumption of his name, in which are marked the pride and self-sufficiency that characterize Saul himself. He was the suited general of such a king, though we find nothing really great done by or attributed to him: and that is in keeping with the rest. Both Abner and Saul trace their descent from a certain Abiel, "the father of might," and thus heredity exhibits itself clearly in them. But with men assumption largely carries the day; and "the father [or sustainer] of light" may well be Saul’s ordinary commander-in-chief, if Jonathan or David do the real work. But here is the might of Saul.
(2) Saul being thus established in his kingdom, and having realized his power, he is now to be tested as to his fitness for the work of the kingdom, which is the expression of the heavenly one, on earth. With the mind of God so accessible as in Israel it was, all that is required for this is obedience; but this is absolutely necessary, and must be prompt, unhesitating. Samuel is therefore sent to Saul with the command to destroy Amalek. The reason of the command is given also, that he may intelligently enter into fellowship with God about it. "Thus saith Jehovah of hosts," -the King, as he is thus reminded, of the higher kingdom, -"I have marked that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way when he came up out of Egypt." The debt, long since contracted, had never been repented of, forgiveness had never been sought for it, the Amalek of that day remaining the same adversary of God and His people, and thus had only acquired interest in the lapse of time. Indeed, they had again and again appeared as enemies in the land since then. This is always the reason of divine delay in judgment, that there is yet opportunity of mercy, and "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." Now the debt was to be exacted. "Now go and smite Amalek, and execute the ban upon all they have, and spare them not." They are sentenced, as God alone has right to sentence, to complete extermination, with all that they have, even to the cattle. Such object-lessons of divine wrath upon sin the world at large needed, as Israel themselves did; and we may be sure, in effect, were mercy.
Saul gathers his host, a large one, and sets out to execute his commission; nor do we read of any difficulty attending it. No details are given; the Spirit of God passes to the one part of sorrowful interest here, that, in plain inexcusable disobedience to the command of God, "Saul and the people" spare Agag, the king of Amalek, with the best of all the sheep and oxen, executing the ban on what was bad and poor only, -wholesale rebellion against the Lord of hosts!
The lesson is a deeply solemn one, and wider in application than perhaps we would easily allow. If Amalek stand here as elsewhere for the lusts of the flesh, alas, is it not true that we measure our judgment of these often more by our own tastes than by the simple letter of the word of God? How easy it is to judge the multitude of things, and spare the worst of all, the Agag! And things which minister to the lusts of the flesh are unhesitatingly allowed, if only they are not what to common estimate would be considered vile. Our judgments, how apt are they to be those of the world at large rather than of God, -in the light of nature rather than of the sanctuary!
(3) The divine word announces to the prophet the failure of Saul once more. "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he is turned back from following me, and has not performed my words." God speaks as man that we may understand Him. He would rather have His wisdom called in question than His holiness. His repentance is one of act, founded on His reprobation of sin. The news "kindles" the fervent spirit of the prophet, and he cries to God all night.
The spirit of Saul advertises itself sufficiently. He sweeps in a circuit through the land from Carmel to Gilgal, setting up by the way a monument, literally a "hand," pointing to his own achievements. It is at Gilgal Samuel meets him, the place of national circumcision, the "putting away the body of the flesh," and where the captain of the Lord’s host comes to meet them. How great a change now as to both host and leader! Yet such is the deceitfulness of sin that Saul comes confidently forward with the assertion, "I have performed Jehovah’s word." But there are many noisy witnesses in contradiction of this, the bleating of sheep and the lowing of oxen that they had brought from the Amalekites. Even the plea of sacrificing them to God is vain; for that which was already devoted could not be offered. Yet Saul again affirms this; when Samuel answers that to give heed is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams. How low, indeed, was Saul’s conception of the God with whom he had to do! Rebellion was, indeed, the very beginning of the worship of false gods, to which in some way man ever turns when he gives up the true. With this word of Samuel the final sentence falls: "because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He also hath rejected thee from being king."
(4) The soul strong in rebellion against God may be toward man most pitifully weak indeed; and this is what Saul now exhibits. The fear of God destroys every other fear, and sets free from the most degrading bondage. Saul owns, while evidently he would excuse himself in measure by it, that he has put man in the place of God: "I have sinned, for I have transgressed against the voice of Jehovah and thy words, because I feared the people, and hearkened to their voice." Manifestly, therefore, he is unfit for the place of king over Jehovah’s people; and the sentence of displacement is the only possible one. Even now, while he pleads with Samuel yet to turn back with him, that he may worship Jehovah, the fear of the people is still upon him. Samuel refuses, repeating the judgment just pronounced; and when, Saul laying hold upon the skirt of his mantle, the garment tears, he uses this to illustrate and confirm the fact that Jehovah has similarly rent the kingdom from him, to give it into the hand of one better than himself. Nor will He in whom Israel confides repent: for He is not like him whom Saul has preferred before Him.
Again Saul owns his sin, and again he shows the power that is upon him. Will not Samuel at least honor him before the elders of the people, by turning with him, that he may worship Jehovah? And Samuel, thus appealed to, turns and does so.
(5) Samuel has yet another duty to perform. The judgment of God must be executed upon the king of Amalek, and he executes it: he hews Agag to pieces before Jehovah. With us, also, there must be the unsparing judgment of that which God has condemned. Faith must use resolutely "the sword of the Spirit, which is the saying of God," and hew down the fairest and most royal forms of flesh, which are on that account so often spared. The Sauls of every generation fail here. The powers that be may in some degree destroy what is vile and refuse; but they judge not as God judges: the sword upon Agag can be wielded by the prophet’s hand alone.
Saul is for this set aside; and the powers of earth are doomed. Yet "a king shall reign in righteousness and princes decree justice." God has sought and found Him a king after His own heart.
The Books of the Kings.
F. W. Grant.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 See on 1Sa_9:1. There are clearly two accounts of…
See on 1Sa_9:1. There are clearly two accounts of the institution of the kingship. In 1 Samuel 8, the wish for a king is regarded as a sign of disloyalty to the real King, Jehovah, and, as such, Samuel protests against it. In 1 Samuel 9 - 1Sa_10:16, Jehovah himself chooses Saul to deliver his people from the Philistines: cp. Intro. § 2.
The People demand a King
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1. Judges] They would be subordinate to their father. When the son of a Judge was influential and popular, he might easily succeed to his father's position: cp. A bimelech in Jdg_9:1.
5. Like all the nations] This was the sin of the people. God intended that they, unlike other nations, should be a peculiar people, governed directly by Himself.
6. Displeased Samuel] They had shown themselves forgetful of their relation to God and ungrateful to Samuel himself. But in spite of this, he simply leaves the decision with God.
7. For] Samuel was not to hesitate, for the matter was one which concerned God rather than himself.
8. Which they have done] LXX adds 'to me,' an addition which is required by the contrast with 'to thee.'
11. It does not follow that a Jewish king was actually like this description, but an Oriental despot was, and Israel had asked for a king like other nations. In later years, Hebrew monarchy sank very low, both in Judah and Israel: cp. the tone both of Hosea and of Ezekiel(Eze_45:9; Eze_46:18).
13. Confectionaries] RM 'perfumers': cp. Exo_30:25.
15. Officers] Heb. 'eunuchs.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Samuel Displeased at the Insistent DesiRev. 1. And it…
Samuel Displeased at the Insistent DesiRev. 1. And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel, the increasing infirmities of old age prompting him to take this step, whereby his sons became his assistants.
v. 2. Now, the name of his first-born was Joel (Jehovah is God), and the name of his second, Abiah (Jehovah is Father); they were judges in Beersheba, in the extreme southern part of Canaan, important in those days as a station on the trade-route between Asia and Egypt. The very names which Samuel gave his sons are an evidence of his piety even in the days of Israel’s misery and disgrace.
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v. 3. And his sons walked not in his ways, they did not follow the pious example of their father, but turned aside after lucre, they were covetous, avaricious, they desired money, and took bribes, and perverted judgment, thereby transgressing the Law of the Lord, Exo 23:6-8; Deu 16:19, and bringing the judicial office into disrepute in the eyes of the people, thus causing the latter to desire a higher authority to guide the affairs of the nation.
v. 4. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel unto Ramah, as a delegation representing the whole people,
v. 5. and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, his advancing age was robbing him of the vigor and energy needed in the government of the nation, and the misgovernment of his sons resulted in a general degeneration of all authority; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. All the heathen nations round about had kings to rule over them, and this the petition of the elders, which undoubtedly had in mind Deu 17:14, emphasized, especially since Moses virtually had such a contingency in view.
v. 6. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. It was not the reference to the mismanagement of his sons nor to his own advancing age which hurt Samuel, but the fact that their faith was not grounded soundly enough upon Jehovah, who till now had directly managed the affairs of the nation. They wanted an external, visible kingdom as a means of safety and protection against their enemies, whereas the invisible, royal rule of Jehovah had till now been fully sufficient to protect them. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord, taking this difficult matter to Jehovah for solution. Instead of simply insisting upon his own wish, this humble, consecrated hero, in this important crisis in the history of his people, proved that his trust in God could not be shaken, that the Lord could be relied upon to give the right decision.
v. 7. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, the demand of the people agreed with the counsel of God, He was ready to have a temporal kingdom established in Israel; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them. While He was ready to grant their request, He nevertheless expressed His dissatisfaction with that attitude of mind and heart on their part which showed that they did not appreciate the divine-rule, but put themselves in opposition to the royal majesty of God.
v. 8. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken Me and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. So it was the disposition of their hearts and minds which displeased the Lord, the state of mind which had ever caused them to rebel against Jehovah’s rule, to forsake Jehovah for the purpose of serving other gods. In the person of Samuel they rejected the Lord and His kingdom, because they foolishly believed that their interests were not sufficiently safeguarded under the present arrangement.
v. 9. Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice, he was to accede to their demands; howbeit, yet protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. Samuel was to explain to the people in detail just what they were loading upon their own shoulders by asking for a king, what the rights of the king were, and what powers he might arrogate to himself; and he was to attest and set before them their sin against Jehovah that they might purify their hearts of their proud and distrustful temper. In the midst of the Christian Church also men are found time and again who object to the easy yoke of Christ and to the beneficent instruction of the divine Word, demanding, instead, that the honor and pride of this world be introduced into the Church. Such tendencies are a source of grief to the Lord and to all sincere Christians.
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 On v1 chased after dishonest gain
chased after dishonest gain
The writer speaks of money that people would give Samuel's sons as if it were a person or animal running away from Samuel's sons, and he speaks of Samuel's sons as if they were physically chasing that person or animal. AT: "they worked hard to gain money by being dishonest" (See: Metaphor)
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perverted justice
"judged in favor of those who did evil"
translationWords
Samuel
judge, judges
Israel
name
firstborn
Joel
Abijah
Beersheba
walk
bribe
just
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 On vv1–3 8:1–12:25 During Israel’s transition to a monarchy, neither God…
8:1–12:25 During Israel’s transition to a monarchy, neither God (8:7-9) nor Samuel (12:1-25) was pleased by the people’s demand for a king. Saul, the first king (chs 9–11), failed in his role (chs 13–31) and fulfilled Samuel’s warnings (see 8:10-18; cp. 16:1-13).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.