question for 1 Sam.

1 Samuel

There are twelve books of history in the Bible, beginning with 1 Samuel and ending with Esther.

The name of Samuel was probably given to these first two books of history because his story occurs first, and he figures prominently as the one who poured the anointing oil on both Saul and David. Samuel is considered the writer of 1 Samuel up to the twenty-fifth chapter, which records his death. Apparently, Nathan and Gad completed the writing of these books. We learn this from 1 Samuel 10:25 and 1 Chronicles 29:29.

1. According to 1 Samuel 9:9, what was a seer?

2. Samuel is a type of Christ in that he is a prophet, priest, and judge. The name, Samuel can be translated as: “The name of God,” “His name is God,” “Heard of God,” and “Asked of God.” According to 1 Samuel 1:20 which title would you pick?

3. What was Saul’s occupation before he became king?

4. What was David’s occupation before he became king?

5. What kind of life lessons can we get from the characters in 1 Samuel such as: Hannah, Samuel, Eli, Saul, David and Goliath, and David and Jonathan?

Genesis – the book of beginnings, Exodus – the book of exit out of slavery, Leviticus – The book of God’s standards or God’s law, Numbers – the book of God numbering the people and organizing them into each tribe, Deuteronomy – the rehearsing of the Law but this time with experience,  Joshua – the book telling how the people crossed the Jordan river and took the land God promised them, Judges – the book where God ruled the people at least 450 years and raised up men called judges to deliver His people out of the mess they got their selves into. God was their king and sent men to take of the problems as they accrued.  Some don’t look at it this way but look at 1 Sa 8:6-9

6But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.
7And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
No, during the time of Judges God took this nation and ruled it like a King and the people didn’t know how good they had it. Today God want to be king of each person heart, He wants to be Lord of all. Just like he lived in Samuel’s heart he lives in a born again Christian’s heart with the exception that because of the power of the Cross He will never leave us.

The last book we studied was the book of Ruth, a story taken out of the time of Judges.  It told about Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer, is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ who paid the price to redeem us and make us His bride.

And didn’t forget,

Without this little book, we could not connect the house of David with the tribe of Judah. It is an important link in the chain of Scripture that begins with Genesis and goes right down to that stable in Bethlehem and to the cross, to the crown, and to the throne of David on which our Lord will someday be seated. This is a very definite reason Ruth is included in the Scriptures.

Answers

1 Samuel

There are twelve books of history in the Bible, beginning with 1 Samuel and ending with Esther.

Actually Samuel and Eli were the last two Judges but they were also called Seers. Which mean what? (Prophet)

So we end the period of Judges which was about 450 year since they came out of Egypt.

The name of Samuel was probably given to these first two books of history because his story occurs first, and he figures prominently as the one who poured the anointing oil on both Saul and David. Samuel is considered the writer of 1 Samuel up to the twenty-fifth chapter, which records his death. Apparently, Nathan and Gad completed the writing of these books. We learn this from 1 Samuel 10:25 and 1 Chronicles 29:29. 1 Sa 10:25Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the LORD. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house.

1 Ch 29:29Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer,

Ø   According to 1 Samuel 9:9, what was a seer? (Prophet)

Ø      2. Samuel is a type of Christ in that he is a prophet, priest, and judge. The name, Samuel can be translated as: “The name of God,” “His name is God,” “Heard of God,” and “Asked of God.” According to 1 Samuel 1:20 which title would you pick? Most commentaries agree that “Samuel” means  (the Name of God). To me it looks like it could be (Asked of God) 1 Sa 1:20Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.

 Samuel is a type of Christ in that he is a prophet, priest, and judge. Jesus was prophet, priest, and judge and King. No man has ever held the position. When Saul offered the sacrifice instead of waiting for Samuel, he put himself in that position and that cost him his kingdomship.

3. What was Saul’s occupation before he became king? 1 Sa 9:1-51Now there was a man of Benjamin, whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power.
2And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.
3And the asses of Kish Saul’s father were lost. And Kish said to Saul his son, Take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek the asses.
4And he passed through mount Ephraim, and passed through the land of Shalisha, but they found them not: then they passed through the land of Shalim, and there they were not: and he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they found them not.
5And when they were come to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant that was with him, Come, and let us return; lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for us.

Ø      4. What was David’s occupation before he became king?  1 Sa 16:10-1110Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The LORD hath not chosen these.
11And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

Ø   5. What kind of life lessons can we get from the characters in 1 Samuel such as: Hannah, Eli, Samuel, Saul, David and Goliath, and David and Jonathan?

Ø    

Again God show us how he can take little folks and make a special blessing out of them for us to learn from.

Hannah

In the beginning of 1 Samuel we see Hannah who was married to a man that worship God and was good to her. These were Samuel’s parents. It is important for our children to see we love God and willing to serve Him with our all.

What can we learn from Hannah?

1 Sa 1:4-11And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:
5But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the LORD had shut up her womb.
6And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.
7And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the LORD, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.
8Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?
9So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.
10And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore.
11And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

Hannah in her bitterness went to the Lord in prayer. If we could only learn this! She knew how to get God’s ear. She made a commitment and held to it. She wanted a male child so bad but still she gave Samuel her first born to Eli to live for God. How often we see folks pray, if you will get me out of this I will surrender my life to you but when God delivers, they forget their promise.  

Eli, Samuel

Eli as well as Samuel was both good Judges and Prophets but their sons chose not to live for God. We can live that right example and show the power of God on our lives but it is up to them to choose who they will serve. At least they can say their blood was not on their hands. It would be a terrible thing to see our children in Hell because we were not all we should have been. Why did they go bad only in heaven will we know.

Samuel

Might have been sent by momma but he was called by God. 1 Sa 3:4-14That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.
5And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.
6And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again.
7Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him.
8And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.
9Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.
11And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.
12In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end.
13For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.
14And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.

It was Samuel that heard the voice of God and yet didn’t recognize it as God’s voice. Jn 6:44No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

We should all that have been saved know the voice of God. From that calling to salvation we are called into different ministries to serve God. It is important for our children to know the difference from convincing to conviction of the Holy Ghost.

Samuel was

Ø   Saul,

Ø   I thank we can sum up Saul life in 1 Samuel 15:16-23

1 Sa 15:16-23Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.
17And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
18And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
19Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
20And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
21But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.
22And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
23For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

If you had read this book of 1 Samuel you would have seen that out of jealousy, Saul spent most of his time trying to kill a brother in the service of God.  1 Sa 18:7-117And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
8And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?
9And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.
10And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand.
11And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.

With the Spirit of God on him he had power and success, but when the Spirit of God left him, he went crazy.

 How often we get caught up with church problems and spend most of our time fighting against brother and sister and forget our biggest enemy is the devil and our call is to get people saved.

Ø   David and Goliath

David did not look at the size of the man he was to kill. He remembers the greatness of the God he served.

Heb 13:5-9Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
6So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

David and Jonathan?

Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul [1 Sam. 18:3].

The covenant that these two men made was that they would stick together. It is difficult to find another friendship equal to what these men had. There is nothing quite like it.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle [1 Sam. 18:4].

David was a peasant boy, and he did not have the clothes befitting his new public life. Jonathan shared his wardrobe with David. It was a very generous thing to do.

Then said Jonathan unto David, Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee [1 Sam. 20:4].

Jonathan was a real friend to David. It is wonderful to have a friend like that. Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” A brother may sometime let you down, but a real friend never will. A friend, we are told, is one who is born for adversity. A man proves he is your friend when you are in trouble. When David was in trouble, Jonathan proved to be his friend. He would do anything to protect David.

There are three subjects that may be considered themes of the Books of 1 and 2 Samuel. Prayer is the first. First Samuel opens with prayer, and 2 Samuel closes with prayer. And there’s a great deal of prayer in between. A second theme is the rise of the kingdom. We have recorded in these books the change in the government of Israel from a theocracy to a kingdom. Of great significance is God’s covenant with David given to us in 2 Samuel 7. We will comment further on the kingdom in a moment. The third theme is the rise of the office of prophet. When Israel was a theocracy, God moved through the priesthood. However, when the priests failed and a king was anointed, God set the priests aside and raised up the prophets as His messengers. We will find that for the nation of Israel this resulted in deterioration rather than improvement.

The Books of Samuel contain many familiar features. We read of the rise of the kingdom of Israel. There is also the story of Hannah and her little boy Samuel. Recorded in these books is the story of David and Goliath and the unusual and touching friendship of David and Jonathan. We have the account of King Saul’s visit to the witch of En-dor, and 2 Samuel 7—one of the great chapters of the Word of God—gives us God’s covenant with David. Finally, we have the record of David’s great sin with Bathsheba and of the rebellion of his son Absalom.

In the Book of Judges we find that God used little people, many of whom had some serious fault or defect. Their stories are a great encouragement to those of us today who are little people. However, in 1 and 2 Samuel we meet some really outstanding folk: Hannah, Eli, Samuel, Saul, Jonathan, and David. We will become acquainted with each of them as we go through these books.

There are three subjects that may be considered themes of the Books of 1 and 2 Samuel. Prayer is the first. First Samuel opens with prayer, and 2 Samuel closes with prayer. And there’s a great deal of prayer in between. A second theme is the rise of the kingdom. We have recorded in these books the change in the government of Israel from a theocracy to a kingdom. Of great significance is God’s covenant with David given to us in 2 Samuel 7. We will comment further on the kingdom in a moment. The third theme is the rise of the office of prophet. When Israel was a theocracy, God moved through the priesthood. However, when the priests failed and a king was anointed, God set the priests aside and raised up the prophets as His messengers. We will find that for the nation of Israel this resulted in deterioration rather than improvement.

The rise of the kingdom is of particular importance. First and Second Samuel record the origin of this kingdom, which continues as a very important subject throughout both the Old and New Testaments. The first message of the New Testament was the message of John the Baptist: “… Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). The kingdom of which he spoke is the kingdom of the Old Testament, the kingdom that begins in the Books of Samuel. This kingdom we find has a very historical basis, an earthly origin, and geographical borders. This kingdom has a king, and its subjects are real people.

God’s chosen form of government is a kingdom ruled by a king. Yet to change the form of our government today would not solve our problems. It is not the form that is bad—it is the people connected with it. But a kingdom is God’s ideal, and He intends to put His King on the throne of this earth someday. When Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, rules this world it will be very unlike the job men are doing today. There will be no need for a poverty program, an ecological program, or for moral reforms. Rather, there will be righteousness and peace covering this earth like the waters cover the sea.

In these books the coming millennial kingdom is foreshadowed in several respects; and in the setting up of the kingdom of Israel we observe three things that our world needs: (1) a king with power who exercises that power in righteousness; (2) a king who will rule in full dependence upon God; and (3) a king who will rule in full obedience to God. The Lord Jesus Christ, the coming King of Kings, is the very One the world so desperately needs today.

[1]

These two books contain the history of the last two of the judges, Eli and Samuel, who were not, as the rest, men of war, but priests (and so much of them is an appendix to the book of Judges), and of the first two of the kings, Saul and David, and so much of them is an entrance upon the history of the kings. They contain a considerable part of the sacred history, are sometimes referred to in the New Testament, and often in the titles of David’s Psalms, which, if placed in their order, would fall in these books.[2]

The Books of Samuel are so called not because they were written by Samuel, though possibly some of the materials may claim him as their author, but because they describe his work for Israel; and it is not too much to say of him, that as Moses was the founder, so it was Samuel who reorganised and developed the political constitution of the Jewish nation, and enriched it with institutions which made it capable of taking the high place among the families of mankind to which the providence of God was calling it.

Its training was in every way remarkable. It had spent its childhood in Egypt, and owed a great deal to that progress in mental culture in which Egypt had outstripped the world.

STUDY GUIDE 28

1 Samuel 1–8

ISRAEL’S LAST JUDGE

Overview

Samuel, Israel’s last, greatest judge, was also a prophet (1 Sam. 3:20) and a priest (9:12–13). In his old age he served as God’s adviser to Israel’s first king, Saul. Samuel anointed Israel’s greatest king, David.

Together the two Books of Samuel cover the history of Israel from the last quarter of the 12th century b.c. to the first quarter of the 10th. They explain Israel’s transition from loosely associated tribes led by local judges to a unified nation led by kings.

The Book of 1 Samuel can be outlined as the story of two men, though the biblical focus soon shifts from the flawed Saul to his more godly successor.

Outline

First and 2 Samuel are rich sources of familiar stories. But even more important, they are a source of many lessons that can be directly applied to the lives of children, youth, and adults.

n     Excellent maps in the Bible Knowledge Commentary place the events reported in 1 and 2 Samuel.

Commentary
Samuel’s Early Life: 1 Samuel 1–3

The right to be bitter (1 Sam. 1:1–20). Like many of us, Hannah was sure that she had the right to be bitter.

Life hadn’t been fair to her. And every day, painful irritants reminded Hannah of her complaint.

Hannah was one of two wives of a man named Elkanah. The other wife, Peninnah, had children. But Hannah had none.

In ancient Israel, children were more than important: they were symbols of fulfillment. In Hannah’s case her childlessness was a double burden. “Her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her” (v. 6).

Year after year when Elkanah took his family to Shiloh to worship at the tabernacle there, Hannah met her family and friends—still childless. There her constant pain peaked, and she could hardly bear her fate. We can understand why Hannah felt bitter. She was denied something she wanted desperately.

Hannah’s childlessness had at least two tragic effects. First, it colored her whole outlook on life. The Bible says that she was bitter. She wept often, and would not eat. She was “downhearted.” And in her prayer to God, Hannah spoke of her condition as “misery.” How tragic when we are so burdened that we’re unable to experience the simple joys that enrich our lives.

Hannah’s depression was so great that she could not even recognize evidences of the grace of God. Hannah had no child. But she had a husband who loved her and who was sympathetic. We can sense Elkanah’s love in his words encouraging Hannah to eat: “Don’t I mean more to you than 10 sons?” So often when we feel bitter and downcast we too are unable to sense, in the good gifts God has given us, evidences of His love and grace.

Hannah’s perspective was so totally colored by her personal tragedy that she could not sense the beauty, the good, or grace with which God infuses every believer’s life.

Finally, in her bitterness, Hannah took two vital steps. First, she took her bitterness to God. And second, in prayer she began to reorder priorities. Hannah made a commitment to dedicate the son she prayed for to the Lord. She no longer wanted a child just for herself. She began to look beyond her own needs, and to envision the good that meeting her need might do for others.

Hannah’s prayer was a desperate one, so heartfelt that her lips moved, even though she was praying in her heart (v. 13). The high priest at the time, Eli, thought she was drunk and rebuked her. When she explained that she was praying out her anguish and grief, Eli blessed her and Hannah went away with a strange assurance. We read that she ate, and “her face was no longer downcast” (v. 18). That prayer of Hannah’s was answered: she conceived and bore a child whom she named Samuel. A child who would grow up to become one of the most significant of all Bible characters.

[3]

Usually children are not told Samuel’s message. For that message is a dark one. God told Samuel that the judgment of which He had warned Eli was coming soon. This was in fact a prediction of the future: a prediction which when announced by Samuel and fulfilled, marked him as a prophet, one who would speak God’s message to His people. The passage observes that God continued to reveal Himself to Samuel, and that as Samuel grew up He “let none of his words fall to the ground” (v. 19). This phrase simply means that everything that Samuel foretold came true. As a result, Samuel was recognized as a prophet of God.[4]

Defeat at Aphek: 1 Samuel 4–6

The Philistines were a sea people who settled along the Mediterranean coast around 1200 b.c. They established five major cities, from which they spread inland. These people maintained a military advantage from the time of Samson until the age of David. This was due to the fact that they alone in the area knew the secret of working iron. Their iron weapons were far superior to any weapons of the poverty-stricken Israelites.

Humanly speaking, war with the Philistines could only bring disaster. It’s no wonder that, in the first battle mentioned in this section, Israel was defeated with about 4,000 men killed on the battlefield.

Israel’s response was to bring the ark of the covenant into battle. This ark was to be kept in the tabernacle, the tent which served as Israel’s worship center.

The ark contained several special items. It contained manna, the special food given to the people of Israel in their wilderness wanderings. Manna spoke of divine provision. The ark also contained the Ten Commandments, etched on stone tablets. They spoke of the covenant to which Israel was committed, and the holy way of life God set down for them. Even more important, the ark usually rested in the inner chamber of the tabernacle, the holy of holies. There, once a year, the high priest was to come to offer a blood sacrifice that made atonement for all the sins of Israel (cf. Lev. 16). Thus the ark spoke of the absolute holiness of God and of the need to hold God in awe and approach Him respectfully.

But in sending for the ark, the Israelites lost sight of its true meaning. They wanted the ark to serve as a magical talisman. Somehow God’s presence was thought of as tied to the ark. If the ark were with them in battle, God must be with them as well. The ark, rather than symbolizing the holiness of God, was to manipulate God into sending a battlefield victory. For, if Israel lost, the ark would be lost! This was a blatant attempt to manipulate God!

Israel’s act also revealed a pagan view of God. When the Philistines heard Israel shouting gladly when the ark was brought into their camp, these pagan peoples said “a god [had] come into the camp.” How tragic that Israel had no more spiritual perception than the idolatrous Philistines. Neither saw beyond the symbol to realize that God is God of the whole earth, whose presence cannot be captured in any material object. And how revealing that Israel thought God could be manipulated by placing His ark in their vanguard.

In fact, the Israelites were again defeated. The two sons of Eli were killed. And the ark was taken captive.

The next events teach us that the God who cannot be manipulated will be honored as holy.

The ark was placed as a trophy in the house of the Philistine’s deity, an idol they called Dagon. The idol fell, its extremities broken off. And the people of the Philistine city, Ashdod, were stricken with a painful disease. The ark was moved to another Philistine city, but again there was an outbreak of disease. Finally the Philistines hitched two cows that had recently calved to a new cart, put the ark on the cart, and turned the animals loose. Rather than going to their calves, the cows went straight to Israelite territory, lowing all the way.

The Philistines were healed. And the people of Israel rejoiced. But some of the Israelite men peeked curiously into the ark. God struck them down, killing 70. The people of Israel still were not sensitive to the holiness of God. In fact, this three-chapter section of 1 Samuel records a painful lesson God taught to His people Israel, and through them teaches to us. Israel had failed to treat God with respect. Even Eli permitted his own sons to defile the priesthood. The people tried to manipulate God by bringing the ark to the battlefield “so that it may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies” (4:3). This basically pagan view of the ark failed to sense that it was a symbol, pointing to God, but with no magical or divine power in itself.

Yet the ark was associated with God. It had been set apart to God, and as such was a holy thing. The Philistines discovered that Israel’s God was supreme when He judged them and their god for treating the ark as a victory trophy. And when God’s own people failed to show respect for the holy, they too were struck down.

Why? Because Israel desperately needed to recover a sense of the holiness and the power of God. Only when the people of God honored Him again could He bring His people blessing.

The Wanderings of the Ark of the Covenant

Mizpah: 1 Samuel 7

During the next 20 years Samuel led a spiritual revival. The Bible says that “all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord” (v. 2). During this time the Israelites got rid of their idols, and confessed their sins to God.

When the revival was climaxed with a great assembly at Mizpah, the Philistines decided to attack. The terrified Israelites begged Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us” (v. 8). Now, with their sins purified, and with their trust in God Himself rather than in the ark that symbolized His presence, God acted. A terrible storm struck the Philistines. They fled in terror from this divine visitation, and the men of Israel pursued them, killing many. As a result of this decisive battle some of the land taken by the Philistines was recovered by Israel and the Philistines were unable to invade Israelite territory again during Samuel’s lifetime.

[5]

But it was in the wilderness, surrounded by the bracing desert, and under the command of one who had mastered all Egyptian learning, that Israel was formed into a high-souled people. And there Moses endowed it with a law, which, if valuable to us chiefly in its typical aspect, contains nevertheless so perfect a re-enactment of the fundamental principles of morality that its “Ten Words” still hold their place as the best summary of the rules that should guide and control human life. In its civil and administrative aspect confessedly there was much in the Mosaic law conceded because of “the hardness of the people’s hearts,” or, in other words, because of their imperfect state of civilisation; but even this was intended to lead them onwards. Confessedly preparatory and educational, the institutions of Moses were but as a stage or scaffolding to aid in the erection of a more perfect building. But they pointed out what that building was to be, and can equitably be judged only in their relation to it. For we must not suppose that the mass of the people had attained to that high level on which Moses stood. Great as was the impress made upon them by his master mind, and noble as were the qualities of the Israelites themselves, yet as soon as the generation had passed away which had personally known Moses, the nation hurried back into barbarism. Instead of developing and realising the grand ideal which their lawgiver had sketched for them, they perpetually sank lower and lower. In the narratives contained in the Book of Judges we find them wild, rough, lawless, generous often, but oftener cruel; disgraced by fearful crimes, and punishing them with atrocious barbarity. The priests and Levites appear powerless and apathetic; the judges are brave soldiers, but with little administrative capacity. Even with them Gideon, an early judge, is far superior in character to Samson. Who would have thought that a nation, which seemed fast degenerating into a loose aggregate of Bedouin tribes, contained in it the germ of all that is best and noblest in modern culture, and of that pure and spiritual religion which alone has been found capable of satisfying the wants and longings of the human heart! And it was Samuel who arrested Israel’s decay, and placed it upon the pathway which led it, though by an uphill and tangled route, to its high destiny of being the teacher of religion to mankind.

Never did time seem more hopeless than when Samuel arose. The Philistines, strengthened not merely by a constant influx of immigrants, but by the importation of arms from Greece, were fast reducing Israel to the condition of a subject race. It might contend on equal terms with Moab and Ammon, but the same superiority of weapons which had given Greece the victory at Marathonand Plat æa made the Philistines more than a match for the rude levies of Israel. Samson with a bone might slay of the enemy heaps upon heaps, but the nation which had helmets and shields, and coats of mail, and swords and spears, must in the long run prevail. When the Assyrians had broken up Egypt into a number of petty districts, Psammetichus united them together again by means of his “brazen men;” for the cuirass made its wearer practically invulnerable. And so the loss of the sea-coast, or the neglect to conquer and secure it in the days of Judah’s strength (Judges 1:18, 19), nearly lost Israel her independence, and made her forfeit her noble calling. Content with those rolling downs on which they found abundant pasture for their cattle, the princes of Judah forgot, or had never learned, that the empire of the sea carries with it the mastery of the land.

But just when it seemed that Israel must be crushed out from among the nations Samuel arose. There had been a gleam of comfort under his predecessor Eli. Of the early life of this remarkable man we know nothing. He was the head of the inferior house of Ithamar, the younger of Aaron’s sons; but as the chiefs of both the priestly houses held a high place in the commonwealth of Israel, it may not after all be so extraordinary that we should find him at the commencement of the Books of Samuel possessed not only of the supreme civil power, but also of the high priesthood. We so carry back our modern notions into ancient times that any deviation from succession by right of primogeniture seems to us to require explanation. In ancient times it was the family, and not the individual, to whom the succession belonged. The more powerful of the kin, or the father’s favourite, a Solomon, and not an Adonijah, took the father’s place. It was this probably which led to that wholesale slaughter of relatives which usually accompanied the accession of an Oriental king. What is really remarkable is that Eli should be Israel’s civil ruler. If he was strong enough to take this, no one would dispute with him the priesthood. And here Scripture is absolutely silent.

The whole tone, nevertheless, of the history sets Israel before us as enjoying under Eli a period of greater ease and prosperity than had been its lot under Samson. The hill land of Israel was so easy of defence, and the people so valiant, that under an able leader it repeatedly held its ground against the mail-clad Philistines, and in Eli’s days they had lost the supremacy which made even Judah during Samson’s judgeship obey their commands. It was only after a long period of slow decay, of which Eli’s worthless sons were the cause, that Israel lost its independence and had to submit to vassalage. It is an indication of the greatness of the reverse, that the minds of the people were so embittered against him that they have struck his name and the names of his race out of the genealogies, and have put the worst construction upon the prophecies to which the broken-spirited old man submitted with such touching humility. To this cause perhaps is also due the suppression of all account of his earlier doings. What we have is taken probably from “the Acts of Samuel;” for there is a curious humour and play upon words running through all Eli’s sayings such as none but a contemporary would record. Samuel, we may be sure, had a loving regard for Eli, but the people remembered him only in connection with the Philistine invasion and the cruelties which accompanied it, and of which the memory filled them with an intense horror. It was a calamity too great to be fully narrated in history, but the Psalmist speaks of it as the climax of Israel’s degradation (Ps. 78:59–64), when God “greatly abhorred” them, and the mention of it by Jeremiah (ch. 26.) roused all Jerusalem to fury. It was thus from its deepest fall that Samuel raised the nation to a new life, and from its shattered ruins built it up into an orderly and progressive kingdom.

The foundation of all his reforms was the restoration of the moral and religious life of the people. Without this nothing was possible. But in spite of all its faults, Israel was still sound at heart, simple-minded and primitive; backward indeed in culture, but free from those debasing and effeminate vices which too often make sensuality the companion of refinement. It was no sickly, sentimental people among whom Samuel preached; and when his words had brought conviction to them, with strong heart they followed him; and so he won for them an alleviation of the Philistine yoke, and prepared the way for its final destruction. In a year when the elements were greatly disturbed—for there was lightning during wheat-harvest—a violent thunder-storm enabled the Israelites, rushing down the steep hill of Mizpeh, to break the terrified ranks of the Philistines, and God by the great deliverance wrought that day set his seal to the prophet’s work.

But as long as a man’s work depends upon his personal energy it has no enduring existence. Many men who in life have been all powerful have left behind them nothing more lasting than a Jonah’s gourd. Samuel was too wise to trust to mere personal influence. If Israel was to be saved, it must be by institutions which would daily exercise their pressure, and push the people upward to a higher level. He seems to have studied the past history of his nation carefully, and to have clearly seen where its weakness lay. And so he set himself earnestly to the task of giving it mental culture and orderly government; externally security from danger, internally progressive development. The means he employed for the nation’s internal growth was the founding of schools, and here the honour of the initiative belongs to him, as well as of the wise development of his institutions. What Walter de Merton long afterwards did for Oxford and England, that Samuel effected for Israel. But as regards the kingdom he was rather the regulator than the initiator of the movement. Still his wise mind saw the ripeness of the times for it, and to him is due its greatness and success.

Thus then, in prophecy and the kingdom, Samuel gave to Israel first education, and secondly constitutional monarchy. Samuel was the first founder of schools, and as the great and primary object of his life had been the internal reformation of the Jewish people, we can well understand how his personal work had led onwards to this attempt to redeem his countrymen from ignorance. In those long years which he spent in perpetual wanderings up and down the land he must have constantly found that a chief obstacle to his work was the low mental state of the people. He had been brought up himself amidst whatever learning the nation had imported with it from Egypt; but Shiloh’s sun had set. Was learning to perish with it? Nowhere in Israel were men to be found fit to bear office or administer justice. The decisive failure of one so highly gifted by nature as Saul, and who started with so much in his favour, and under Samuel’s guidance, but who seems to have had no ideas beyond fighting, proves that Samuel was right in his hesitation about creating a king. The fitting man was nowhere to be found. Schools were the primary necessity. Through them the whole mental state of the people would be raised, and men be trained to serve God in Church and State. From these schools came forth a David. Without them the brave warrior, but fierce despot, Saul was all that was possible.

At the Naioth, or Students’ Lodgings, for so the word means, near Ramah, his own patrimonial inheritance, Samuel gathered the young men who were to lift up Israel from its debasement. He taught them reading, writing, and music; he also impressed their minds with solemn religious services, and apparently made history and psalmody their two chief studies. These schools were termed Schools of the Prophets not only because Samuel was a prophet, and the teachers bore the same honoured name, but because the young men were trained expressly for the service of Jehovah. Of course Samuel did not expect his students to receive the gift of inspiration. That was the most rare and precious of gifts, to be obtained by no education, but bestowed directly by God; from whom it might come to a herdman, with only such learning as could be picked up in a country town (Amos 7:14, 15), but was never given except for high purposes, and where there was a special internal fitness on the part of the receiver. But the word has a wide meaning in Holy Scripture. Any religious uninspired service, especially if musical, was called prophecy, David’s trained singers prophesied with harps and other instruments (1 Chron. 25:1–3). But all of them, inspired and uninspired, went forth to do work for Jehovah; not as priests, not necessarily as teachers, or as musicians, though they were Israel’s bards. The institution was essentially free, was open to all comers, and when educated the prophet might return to his farm, or to some avocation of town life. But he was first of all an educated man, and, secondly, he had been taught the nature of Jehovah, how he was to be worshipped, and what was the life which every member of a covenant nation ought to lead.

Thus Samuel’s schools not only raised Israel to a higher mental level, but were the great means for maintaining the worship of Jehovah, and teaching the people true and spiritual notions of the nature of God. As such we find future prophets earnest in maintaining them. Incidentally we learn that Elijah’s last earthly work was the visitation of the prophetic schools at Gilgal, at Bethel, and at Jericho. He must have restored these schools, for Jezebel had done her utmost to exterminate the prophets. He must also have laboured with masterly energy; for within ten years after Elijah’s great victory at Mount Carmel, Ahab, at Jehoshaphat’s request, was able to collect at Samaria no less than 400 men who claimed to be “prophets of Jehovah.” Of Elisha we have abundant evidence that the main business of his life was to foster these schools, and even personally teach in them (2 Kings 4:38). What we read of these two men was probably true of all the great prophets. At suitable places there were schools in which they gathered the young men of Israel, and the learning which at Shiloh had been confined within the sacred priestly enclosure was made by them general and national. It ceased to be a special prerogative, and became the inheritance of the whole race. Apparently it culminated in the time of Hezekiah, and then came the Assyrian invasions, and with them the destruction of a high and noble civilisation. But under Ezra and the men of the great synagogue it revived, and Israel became again, and continued to be, a learned and intellectual nation.

This then was one part of the labours of Samuel. He laid the foundation and fostered the rapid growth of a grand system of national education. At Ramah he trained men to be Israel’s teachers; but he did not confine himself to this. Most of the great ornaments of David’s court were his disciples, and it is probable that large numbers of the wealthy and more promising youth of the kingdom went to his schools simply to learn something of those wonderful arts of reading and writing, which opened so new a world to the youth of a race always distinguished for its intellectual aptitudes. And through them Samuel raised the whole people mentally and morally. Trained men henceforward were never wanting for high service both at court and throughout the land. Other results followed of which the whole world reaps the benefit. The gift of a series of inspired men would have been impossible had Israel continued in the state of barbarous ignorance into which it had sunk in the time of the Judges. Brave fighting men there might have been plenty; occasionally a man of witty jest and proverb like Samson; an Isaiah never. He and his compeers were educated men, speaking to an educated people, and themselves foremost in the rank of teachers. When inspired prophecy ceased, gradually the scribes took the prophets’ place; so much so that in the Chaldee Targum “prophet” is often translated “scribe;” and however inferior their work, yet they kept learning alive. The Old Testament was the fruit of Samuel’s schools, and so also was the New. The noble tree which he had planted was still vigorous when our Lord traversed the land of Israel; for none but an educated people could have understood his teaching, and retained it in their memories, and taught it to mankind. If St. Paul added to the teaching of Gamaliel the intellectual training of a Greek university, it was in order that he might give to Christian teaching that many-sidedness which was necessary for its reception by Greek and barbarian as well as by Jew. But side by side with him in equal perfectness stands the Jewish St. John. Who will say which of the two shall carry off the palm? And it was Samuel who laid the broad foundations of that culture which, carried on first by prophets and then by scribes, made the Jew capable of writing the Bible, of translating the Old Testament into Greek, teaching its principles in most of the cities of Greece, and finally of going for as missionaries, carrying with them the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The other great labour of Samuel was concerned with the establishment of the kingdom, as an external necessity for Israel’s orderly development. And here again we find a man far in advance of his age; for his great aim and purpose was to found a limited, or, as we might even call it, a constitutional, monarchy. To a certain extent he was an unwilling agent; for he saw that the times were not ripe. A limited monarchy is only possible among an educated people, and Samuel’s Book of the Kingdom (1 Sam. 10:25) could have had but little influence upon a Saul, who could neither read nor write. Perhaps anarchy is inevitably followed by despotism, and certainly Saul became too like what Samuel feared the king would be. It was only after he had trained David that there was a Jewish Alfred ready to sit upon the throne; and when we read so emphatically that he was a king after God’s own heart, we must bear in mind that, with all his private faults, David never attempted to set himself above God’s law, or even to pervert it to his own use. He strictly confined himself within the limits of a theocratic king, and his crimes were personal, and as such repented of, and the punishment humbly borne. But the term theocracy is ambiguous, or at least has two sides according to the nature of its administration. As administered by the high priest it was a failure. The appeal to Jehovah by Urim and Thummim was seldom made, and then only under exceptional circumstances, and there was no orderly method of carrying out its commands. Those commands themselves were of the most general kind, confined apparently to a simple affirmative or negative. It was thus irregular, fitful, in abeyance in all calm and peaceful epochs, and when called into exercise was liable to terrible abuse, which it even seemed to sanction. When Israel set itself to exterminate the tribe of Benjamin, the people may have supposed that they had a sort of religious approval of their extreme measures in the fact that the oracle had encouraged them to make the third attack (Judg. 20:28). Really the ferocity was their own, and the priest who had given an affirmative answer to their question may and ought to have been horrified at the cruelty which followed upon the victory, and which he was absolutely powerless to prevent. A theocracy has been tried again in the Papacy, with much the same result, of being actually one of the worst possible forms of government; and, like the theocracy of the time of the Judges, it must necessarily be a snare to the conscience, as claiming or appearing to give a religious sanction to deeds that offend the moral sense.

The theocracy which Samuel endeavoured to establish was that of kingly power in the hands of a layman, but acting in obedience to the written law of God, or to his will as declared from time to time by the living voice of prophecy. It was a monarchy limited by the priest and the prophet, the former taking his stand upon the Mosaic law, the latter with a more free and active force giving a direct command in God’s name, appealing to the king’s moral sense, and usually representing also the popular feeling. To the old theocracy there had practically been no check, and, what was almost as bad, no person responsible for carrying out its commands. But it seems soon to have fallen into abeyance, and the judges were men raised up irregularly under the pressure of some extreme peril. Usually they did well, chiefly in expelling invaders from the land, but the priest with the ephod took in their exploits little or no share. Under so irregular a form of government there was small chance for the orderly development of the powers that lay dormant within Israel, and which were to make it a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

Samuel’s object was to found a monarchy active and powerful for the maintenance at all times of order, but controlled by such checks as would prevent it from becoming a despotism. And here we have the key to his struggle with Saul. Samuel had a hearty detestation of mere arbitrary power, as we know from his own words to the elders (1 Sam. 8:11–18); but Saul with his body-guard of 3000 men had both the will and the means of making himself absolute. Perhaps all minds of great military ability have a natural tendency to arbitrariness. Unqualified obedience is a soldier’s duty, and a general knows that in discipline lies his strength. It is otherwise with a king. He is the best ruler who trains his people to habits of self-reliance, and to do what is right not because he orders it, but because they choose it. A nation drilled to obedience, a Church made orthodox by having its creed forced upon it, loses thereby all moral strength, because, alike in national and religious life, it is only by the exercise of a moral choice that human nature can advance upward. Samuel was labouring for Israel’s growth in all that was good, and the only king of whom he could approve was one under whom Israel would be free to work out its own destiny; and such a king would be no tyrant, but one who would rule in submission to the same law as that which governed the people. The two particulars in which Saul set his own will above the command of Samuel may have been matters of no great primary importance. But the one happened soon after Saul’s appointment, and thus showed a very early tendency on his part to make his own judgment supreme; the other was an express order, backed by Israel’s past history; and both were given by the man who had called Saul to the throne. But the real point at issue was that Saul was moving so quickly towards despotism, and that when a second trial of him was made he had advanced a long way towards it; and never was despot more thorough than Saul when he stained his hands with the blood of the priests at Nob, and of their innocent wives and children, on the mere supposition of their complicity with David’s escape. Possibly, if we knew the particulars, the slaughter of the Gibeonites was a crime of the came deep dye. It is at least significant that the cause of the famine was said to be “Saul and his bloody house.” People in those days were not so tenderhearted as to have troubled much about putting a few men of a subject race to death, unless the deed had been done barbarously. The manner of it must have shocked them, or it would not have remained imprinted so deeply upon the conscience of the nation.

In David, trained by Samuel from his youth, we have a noble example of a theocratic king, and that notable fact, which I have already pointed out, that David, in spite of his terrible personal crimes, never set himself above the law, was due we may feel sure to Samuel’s early teaching. He had in Joab the very man to be the willing tool of a despot. He would have delighted in playing a Doeg’s part. David valued his faithfulness, appreciated his bravery and skill, nay, even used him for his crimes, but he shrank from his lawlessness. God was always in David’s eyes greater than himself. His law, often violated in hours of lust, was nevertheless to be bowed before as supreme. And so as regards his subjects, there seems to have been no intentional oppression of them. The idea of law was ever a ruling one in David’s mind, and thus he approached Samuel’s ideal of “the anointed one,” though his fierce passions brought upon him personally deep and terrible stains.

It was thus Samuel’s lot to sketch out two of the main lines of thought which converge in Christ. The idea of the prophet and the idea of the king gain under him their shape and proportion. This is especially true as regards the latter. The king is ever in Samuel’s eyes “the Messiah,” Jehovah’s anointed one. Again and again the word occurs with marked prominence. And it was the pregnant germ of a great future with the Jew. He never lost the idea, but carried it onward and forward, with David’s portrait for its centre, as of one in whom Messiah’s lineaments were marked in outline, feebly indeed and imperfectly, but with the certainty that a Messiah would come who would fill up with glorious beauty that faint, blurred sketch.

Such then is a brief summary of Samuel’s work, and it justifies us in claiming especial importance for this portion of Jewish history, independently of the interest connected with the development of two such extraordinary characters as Saul and David, and with the many remarkable persons grouped around them, such as Eli and Jonathan, and the brave soldiers who formed the court of the two kings.

As regards the external history and description of the Books of Samuel, the following are the points most worthy of notice:—

§ 1. Name

In Hebrew manuscripts the two Books form but one; it is in the Septuagint that we find them divided, and called the First and Second Books of the Kingdoms. The Vulgate has followed the Septuagint in its division, but calls them the First and Second Books of Kings. Finally, Daniel Bomberg, in the great Hebrew Bible published by him at Venice early in the sixteenth century, adopted this arrangement, and most modern Hebrew Bibles follow his example. But the division is most awkward. Saul’s death is separated from David’s pathetic lamentation over the fallen monarch, and the break in the narrative prevents the reader from following easily the development of David’s character and history. In these days, when no matters of convenience require the disruption of the Book, a great advantage would be gained by once again arranging it as a whole, instead of following the Septuagint in its unphilosophical division. The name there, “Books of the Kingdoms,” refers to the two monarchies of Israel and Judah, and is carried on through the two following Books of Kings.

§ 2. Author

Who was the compiler of the Book of Samuel is absolutely unknown, and we are left also to gather our conclusions as to the date and character of its composition from incidental facts and allusions scattered through the history. One such conclusion forced upon us is that the Book is made up of a number of detached narratives, each of which is complete in itself, and carries the history down into its remoter consequences. Of these narratives we have five or six grouped together in 2 Sam. 21–24. without any attempt at arrangement. The execution of Saul’s seven sons or grandsons, the list of victories over the Philistines, David’s psalm of thanksgiving, his last words, the names of his heroes, and the numbering of the people seem placed thus at the end because the compiler had no means of knowing what was their proper place in the history. The “last words” might fitly form the conclusion of the whole, but the other narratives are entirely out of place, and conceal from the reader how little we know of David’s conduct after he had returned to Jerusalem, penitent and saddened by the death of his beloved but unfilial son. The question thus arises as to what were the materials at the disposal of the compiler of these Books.

§ 3. Materials

First then and foremost there were the Acts or Memoirs of Samuel himself. For the words of 1 Chron. 29:29 literally are, “And the Acts (or matters) of David the king, behold, they are written upon the Acts of Samuel the Roëh, and upon the Acts of Nathan the Nabi, and upon the Acts of Gad the Chozeh.” It is interesting to find in these words the archaic title of Roëh (see 1 Sam. 9:9) still clinging to Samuel, but still more so to find that records were kept apparently by himself. He had been educated at Shiloh among all the learning of the priesthood, and the place, protected by the powerful tribe of Ephraim, had remained unravaged by war, so that whatever records had been laid up with the ark, or written since the days of Joshua, himself no mean scribe, had accumulated there. We may well believe that a youth with such great natural abilities as Samuel had made no ordinary use of such opportunities, and whatever was saved for the use of future times from the wreck of Shiloh was most probably removed through his exertions and wise forethought.

In 1 Chron. 27:24 we also read of “the Chronicles of King David,” or, more literally, “the Acts of the Days of King David,” i. e. a digest of his acts at ranged in chronological order. But when we read in 2 Sam. 8:16, 17 of two officers of David’s court, of whom one, Jehoshaphat, was recorder, the other, Seraiah, was scribe, we must not rashly conclude that their duties were historical. The recorder, or, as the word means, remembrancer, was more probably a judge, whose business it was to enrol and publish royal decrees; while the scribe was a state secretary, concerned with the army and with the king’s exchequer. It seems to have fallen to the lot of the prophets to write histories, probably for the use of the prophetic schools, and certainly as the result of the bent given to their minds by their studies in those institutions.

Thus henceforward the prophets, and not the priests, became the custodians of Israel’s literature. In the Books of Chronicles a numerous list of authors is given, who almost to a man are expressly said to have been prophets or seers. At every prophetic college there would be gathered stores of such writings, and also of psalms and poems. David probably arranged the ritual of the temple after the fashion of Samuel’s services (1 Sam. 19:20), for which reason doubtless psalmody, as we have seen, was called prophesying, and consequently the temple would also have its library of hymns and musical compositions. Moreover, the prophet Gad is also supposed by many to have made the collection of songs and ballads called the Book of Jasher, i. e. the Upright, whence was taken David’s spirited elegy over Saul and Jonathan. As Gad was David’s companion in his wanderings from the time he took refuge in Moab (1 Sam. 22:5) till his death, his Acts must have contained full information of all the more important events of David’s life.

But it is easy to over-estimate the completeness and extent of these contemporary records. Literature depends very much upon the nature of the material. available for writing. Printing followed at once upon the discovery of paper. The copious materials now being brought to Europe illustrative of Assyrian history are the result of the use that people made of cheap tablets of clay. The materials most frequently referred to in the Bible are tablets of metal. With no cheaper or more convenient writing materials Gad’s records would be but scanty, and David’s psalms must have been for several years chiefly preserved by memory. The Canaanites had certainly known how to prepare skins for writing, and when Samuel’s schools had caused a revival of learning, the art was probably restored. Perhaps it had never been entirely lost, and Samuel may have obtained such skins for writing his book upon “the manner of the kingdom” (1 Sam. 10:25); but we can hardly imagine that writing materials were easy to procure until the prosperous days of David’s kingdom.

With skins of animals or plates of metal still used in Isaiah’s days (Isa. 8:1, where tablet is wrongly translated roll), the narratives would be short and each complete in itself. This fact has often been noticed in the Commentary. Thus the narrative in 1 Sam. 7. carries the history down to Samuel’s death. The narrative in ch. 14 carries Saul’s history down to the end of his victorious wars. That in ch. 16. gives us David’s history up to the time when Saul began to envy and hate him. We may safely conclude that the Acts of Samuel, of Nathan, of Gad, and even the Chronicles of King David, were not well-digested histories, but a series of brief stories each complete in itself. These the compiler, in days when they had not merely skins, but even rolls made of many skins sewn together, seems to have arranged, adding a note here and there, blending perhaps occasionally several narratives into one, but never attempting to form out of them a consecutive history, such as a Thucydides or a modern writer, formed upon classical models, would have done.

§ 4. Date

The next question refers to the compiler’s date, and here some of our materials are sufficiently decisive. When we are told that “Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day” (1 Sam. 27:6), it is plain that he lived after the disruption of Solomon’s kingdom. When he thinks it necessary to apologise for Samuel being called a roëh, it is plain that the name had ceased to be honourable, and, by that degradation which happens to so many titles of office or sex, had become a term of dubious respectability. There is too the frequent recurrence of the phrase “unto this day;” the change of the name of Saul’s successor from Ishbaal to Ishbosheth; the distinction between Israel and Judah in passages like 1 Sam. 18:16, where nothing but subsequent usage would have made a writer so express himself; the note that even princesses wore the same dress as men (the meı̈l) in 2 Sam. 13:18, and so on. But besides these there are one or two other facts not so generally referred to, and which may be worth noting.

Thus, then, we have seen that the compiler places six narratives at the end of the second Book because, excepting David’s “last words,” there was nothing in them to show to what period of his reign they belonged. Evidently a considerable interval must have elapsed before tradition had so completely died out as to leave no trace behind for the historian’s guidance. The same conclusion follows from his uncertainty as to the chronology of Saul’s reign. The compiler uses the formula common in the Books of Kings, but he cannot fill it up. Literally he says, “Saul was one year old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel.” Evidently the numbers one and two answer to our formula M and N. The compiler plainly knew neither Saul’s age nor the length of his reign. St. Paul (Acts 13:21) says that Saul reigned forty years; but not only is forty with Hebrew writers a most indefinite number, signifying a “good long time,” but it is very uncertain when these forty years begin and end. They certainly include the seven and a half years during which the house of Saul maintained a show of ruling, and possibly also several years during which Samuel was judge. Some think that as Saul is described as a “young man” (ch. 9:2) when Samuel anointed him, but had a grown-up son when he was made king, there was a long abeyance, either before he was chosen by lot as king, or possibly between that and his defeat of the Ammonites. But what was hard for the compiler is still harder for us, and the chronology of Saul’s reign is beset with difficulties.

On the other hand, the style of the Hebrew is more pure and free from Aramaisms than that of the Books of Kings. Local worship, moreover, and sacrifices are spoken of without any doubt of their propriety, whereas in the Books of Kings they are condemned. It is a further note of antiquity that the compiler never refers to his authorities, nor are there any hints or allusions to late Jewish history. While then we can at best only give a conjectural date, yet we may feel sure that the compiler must have lived at some period between the reign of Rehoboam and the upgrowth of the strong disapproval of worship anywhere except at Jerusalem. The reign of Jehoshaphat is a not improbable era, for “the high places were not taken away” (2 Chron. 20:33), though idolatry was sternly repressed. Had the compiler lived nearer to David’s reign, he would probably have been able to give us more definite information as to Saul’s age and the duration of his kingdom.

§ 5. Books of Samuel classed among the “Early Prophets.”

The Books of Samuel are classed by the Jews among the “Early Prophets” for the reason given above, that history was their especial study, and the compiler we may feel sure belonged to their order as well as did the writers of the various “books of acts” used by him. The “Early Prophets” comprise the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and all these works were most probably written for the use of the prophetic schools, and certainly were the result of the mental activity awakened in Israel by Samuel, and maintained by those who after his decease presided over the colleges which he had called into existence.

§ 6. Arrangement

The Books of Samuel naturally arrange themselves into four parts according to the chief actors. In Part I., consisting of chs. 1–7., we have the history of Samuel as the restorer of Israel. This again divides itself into two portions, of which the former, consisting of chs. 1–3., gives us the details of Samuel’s birth and early life up to the time when he was acknowledged by all Israel as a prophet; while the latter, chs. 4–7., gives us Samuel as judge. With this the period of the Judges closes, and in Part II., chs. 8–15., we have the history of the first king, Saul, including the preparation for his appointment, his establishment as king, and his final rejection.

In Part III., chs. 16–31, David is the chief actor, but side by side with Saul, and we see the one daily declining in moral worth and external prosperity, while the other is ripening into the full stature of a theocratic king. During most of this period Samuel lived on no unconcerned spectator of the development of Jehovah’s purpose, though devoting his own time to the training of the young men who came to his schools. Finally Saul falls so low as to become the dupe of a wicked charlatan, and dies by his own hand in battle.

In Part IV., 2 Sam. 1–24, David is the sole hero of the narrative. In the first section, chs. 1–10., we see him made king, and reigning in glory. In the second, chs. 11–17., his glory is tarnished by personal vices, imitated too readily by his sons; upon these follow bloodshed in his family, rebellion, and the loss of the royal power. In the third section, chs. 19, 20, we see him restored to his throne. In the last, chs. 21–24, we have an appendix, the contents of which have been already described. Naturally we long to know how David reigned after so severe a punishment, and would gladly have seen how he retrieved in his later years the crimes of his passion-fraught manhood. But the ways of God are not as the ways of man. A veil is thrown over this portion of David’s reign, but we may gather from his last words, and from his psalm of thanksgiving, that he returned to Jerusalem a changed man, and that his last years rivalled in piety his early promise.

§ 7. Literature

The most important modern works upon the Books of Samuel are, in German, the commentaries of O. Thenius, ‘Kurzgef. Handbuch z A. Test.,’ 2te Auflage, Leipzig, 1864; C. F. Keil, ‘Bibl. Com. ü. das A. Test.,’ Leipzig, 1864; C. F. D. Erdmann, in Lange’s ‘Theol. Hom. Bibelwerk,’ Bielefeld, 1873; and Bunsen, ‘Bibelwerk, die Propheten.’

On the text of the Books of Samuel there is a useful treatise by L. J. Wellhausen, Göttingen, 1871.

In English the most important commentaries are that in the ‘Speaker’s Commentary’ by the Bishop of Bath and Wells; Bishop Wordsworth’s; and the translations of Keil and Erdmann, the latter in Dr. Schaff’s edition of Lange Clark, Edinburgh, 1877.

Other illustrative works are Ewald’s ‘History of Israel;’ Stanley’s ‘Lectures on the Jewish Church;’ Robinson’s ‘Biblical Researches;’ Wilson’s ‘Lands of the Bible;’ Thomson’s ‘The Land and the Book;’ and Conder’s ‘Tent Work in Palestine,’ a most valuable addition to our knowledge of the Holy Land.

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[1]McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 2:121

[2]Henry, Matthew: Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible : Complete and Unabridged in One Volume. Peabody : Hendrickson, 1996, c1991, S. 1 Sa 1:1

[3]Richards, Larry ; Richards, Lawrence O.: The Teacher's Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1987, S. 199

[4]Richards, Larry ; Richards, Lawrence O.: The Teacher's Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1987, S. 202

[5]Richards, Larry ; Richards, Lawrence O.: The Teacher's Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1987, S. 202

[6] Spence-Jones, H. D. M. (Hrsg.): The Pulpit Commentary: 1 Samuel. Bellingham, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2004, i