Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 12

And Samuel said unto all Israel. —We believe we possess in this section of our history, in the report the compiler of these memoirs has given us of the dialogue between the judge Samuel and the elders of Israel at the solemn assembly of Gilgal, many of the very words spoken on this momentous occasion by the old man. It is undoubtedly a true and detailed account of all that took place on that day—the real inauguration of the earthly monarchy, that great change in the life of Israel which became of vast importance in the succeeding generations.

In such a recital, the words used by that grand old man, who belonged both to the old order of things and to the new, who was the link between the judges and the kings—the link that joined men like Eleazar, the grandson of Aaron, Gideon, and Jephthah, heroes half-veiled in the mists that so quickly gather around an unlettered past, with men like David and Solomon, around whose lives no mist will ever gather—the words used by that old man, who, according to the cherished tradition in Israel, was the accredited minister of the invisible King when the Eternal handed over the sovereignty to Saul, would surely be treasured with jealous care. This gives a special and particular interest to the present chapter, which contains the summary of the proceedings of the Gilgal assembly.

The old judge Samuel, with the hero-king Saul standing by his side, presents the king to the people of the Lord under the title of the “Anointed of the Eternal.” Then, in a few moving words, he first speaks of his own pure and upright past. The elders reply to his moving words. Next, he recounts the glorious acts of the Eternal King and repeats how He, again and again, delivered the people from the miseries into which their own sins had plunged them. “And yet,” says the indignant old man, “in full memory of all this, in the place of this invisible Ruler, so full of mercy and pity, you asked for an earthly king.

The Lord has granted your petition now. Behold your king!” pointing to Saul at his side—the old man continues, “Even after your ingratitude to the true King, still He will be with you and the man He has chosen for you, if only you and he are obedient to the old, well-known Divine commandments.” At this juncture, Samuel strengthens his argument by invoking a sign from heaven. Awe-struck and appalled, the assembled elders, confessing their sin, ask for Samuel’s prayers. The old prophet closes the solemn scene with a promise that his intercession for king and people shall never cease.

Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. —This should be compared with 1 Samuel 8:7; 1 Samuel 8:19–20; 1 Samuel 8:22, where the proceedings of the deputation of the people to Samuel at Ramah are related at length. Their wishes expressed on that public occasion had been scrupulously carried out by him. He would now say a few words respecting the past, as regards his (Samuel’s) administration, would ask the assembled elders of the nation a few grave questions, and then would leave them with their king. The account, as we possess it, of these proceedings at Gilgal on the occasion of the national reception of Saul as king, is in the form of a dialogue between the prophet Samuel and the elders of the people.

And now, behold, the king walks before you. —No doubt, here pointing to Saul by his side. The term “walks before you” implied generally that the kingly office included guiding and governing the people, as well as the special duty of leading them in war; from now on they must accept his authority on all occasions, not merely in great emergencies.

Both king and people must understand that the days when Saul could quietly return to his old pursuits on the farm of the Ephraim hills were now past forever. He must lead, and they must follow. The metaphor is taken from the usual practice of a shepherd in the East, who goes before his flock. Compare the words of our Lord, who uses the same image of a shepherd walking before his sheep (John 10:27): My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

And I am old and grayheaded. —Here the prophet, with some pathos, refers to the elders’ own words at Ramah (1 Samuel 8:5). Yes, said the seer, I am old—grown gray in your service; listen to me while I ask you what manner of service that has been. Can anyone find in it a flaw? Has it not been pure and disinterested throughout?

My sons are with you. —Yes, old indeed, for my offspring are now numbered among the grown men of the people. Possibly, however, a tinge of mortified feeling at the rejection of himself and his family, mixed with a desire to recommend his sons to the favor and goodwill of the nation, is at the bottom of this mention of them.— Speaker’s Commentary. It is evident that these sons, whose conduct as Samuel’s deputies had excited the severest criticism on the part of the elders (1 Samuel 8:5), had been reduced—with the full consent, of course, of their father, who up to this period evidently exercised supreme power in all the territories of Israel—to the condition of mere private citizens.

From my childhood to this day. —Samuel’s life had in truth been constantly in the public eye from very early days; well known to all were the details of his career—his early consecration under unique and exceptional circumstances to the sanctuary service, the fact of the “word of the Lord” coming directly to him when still a boy, his recognition by the people directly afterwards as a prophet, then his restless, unwearied work during the dark days which followed the fall of Shiloh. It was indeed a public life. He would have Israel, now they had virtually rejected his rule, reflect on that long busy life of his for a moment, and then pronounce a judgment on it.

Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed. —I speak in a solemn presence, "before the Eternal," the old man continued, looking up heavenward, "and before His anointed," pointing with a reverent gesture to the kingly form by his side. "His Anointed"—this is the earliest instance of a king bearing this title of honor. The high priest, whose blessed office brought him in such close contact with the invisible and eternal King, is in the early Hebrew story occasionally styled by this honored name.

But from then on it seems to be limited to the man invested with the kingly dignity. The infinite charm which the name "Anointed of the Eternal" carried with it for centuries is, no doubt, due to the fact that one greater than any of the sons of men would, in the far future, assume the same sacred designation—"His Anointed," or "His Christ." (The words are synonymous, both being translations of the Hebrew word Messiah.)

Nor has this peculiar reverence for the "Lord’s Anointed" been limited to His own people. Since the seer in the early morning on the hillside, looking on "Ramah of the Watchers," poured out the holy oil on the young Saul’s head, and then before all Israel gathered at Gilgal styled the new king by the title of the "Anointed of the Eternal," this name has carried an infinite charm wherever the one true God has been worshipped.

A strange and peculiar reverence has surrounded everyone who could fairly claim to bear it. For many a century, among all peoples, an awful curse has at once attached itself to anyone who would dare lift his hand against the "Lord’s Anointed."

Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? —The ox and the ass are taken as representative possessions in this primitive age, in a country where agriculture formed the principal source of the national resources. Before the wars and conquests of David and Solomon, there was comparatively little of the precious metals among the Hebrew people, who rarely traded in those early days with foreign nations; horses were also unknown among them.

The law of Exodus 20:17 especially mentions the ox and the ass as things the Israelite was forbidden to covet. On these words of Samuel, the Babylonian Talmud has an important note, which well illustrates the doctrine of the "Holy Spirit" as taught in Israel before the Christian era.

"Rabbi Elazer said, 'On three occasions the Holy Spirit manifested Himself in a peculiar manner—in the judicial tribunal instituted by Shem, in that of Samuel the Ramathite, and in that of Solomon. In that of Shem, Judah declared, She is righteous, etc. How could he know it? Might not another man have come to her as well as he did? But an echo of a voice was heard exclaiming: "Of me (the word ממגי is separated from the preceding word and taken as a distinct utterance of the Holy Spirit); these things were overruled by me."

Samuel said (1 Samuel 12:3–5), "Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? ... And he said unto them, The Lord is witness against you, etc... . And he said, He is witness" (ו׳אמך). It ought to read, "And they said." But it was the Holy Spirit that gave that answer. So with Solomon the words "She is the mother thereof" (1 Kings 3:27) were spoken by the Holy Spirit.'—Treatise Maccoth, fol. 23,Colossians 2:0.

Whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? —Alluding, of course, to his conduct during his long tenure in office as supreme judge in Israel. The "bribe"—literally, ransom—alludes to that practice unhappily so common in the East of giving the judge a gift (usually of money) to buy his favor, and thus a criminal who had means was too often able to escape punishment.

The sons of Samuel, we know from 1 Samuel 8:3, "took bribes, and perverted judgment." This accusation, we know, had been made by the very elders of the nation before whom the seer was then speaking. The old judge must have been very confident of his own spotless integrity to venture upon such a solemn challenge.

The elders, by their bold accusation against the seer’s sons, had shown they were no respecters of persons. And, from the tone of Samuel’s address, they must have felt his words were but the prelude to some scathing reproaches they would have to listen to. Yet, they were constrained with one voice to bear witness to the perfect truth of his assertion that his long official life had indeed been pure and spotless. The Talmud has a curious tradition respecting the prophets, based apparently upon this saying of Samuel. "All the prophets were rich men.

This we infer from the account of Moses, Samuel, Amos, and Jonah. Of Moses, as it is written (Numbers 16:15), 'I have not taken one ass from them.' Of Samuel, as it is written (1 Samuel 12:3), 'Behold, here I am; witness against me before the Lord, and before His anointed. Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken?' Of Amos, as it is written (Amos 7:14), 'I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit,' i.e., I am proprietor of my herds and own sycamores in the valley. Of Jonah, as it is written (Jonah 1:3), 'So he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it.' Rabbi Yochanan says he hired the whole ship. Rabbi Rumanus says the hire of the ship amounted to four thousand golden denarii."—Treatise Nedarim, fol. 38,Colossians 1:0.

The Lord is witness. —Then Samuel again, with increased solemnity, called the Eternal in the heavens above and His anointed king then standing by his side to witness what the people had just acknowledged concerning his scrupulously just rule.

And they answered, He is witness. —And the assembly of Israel, again with one voice, shouted, Yes, He is witness.

It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron. —The Hebrew should be rendered, “even the Eternal that advanced Moses and Aaron.” The elders of Israel (1 Samuel 12:5) had unanimously cried out, in reply to Samuel’s solemn call for God and the king to witness, He is witness. Then Samuel takes up their words with great emphasis, even the Eternal that advanced Moses, etc. The English rendering greatly weakens the dramatic force of the original Hebrew. The Septuagint has accurately caught the thought by supplying the word “witness”: thus, The Lord is witness, etc.

The Exodus is mentioned in this and in many places in these ancient records of the people as the great call of love by which the Eternal assumed sovereignty over Israel. The Talmud here comments: It is the Lord that made Moses and Aaron (1 Samuel 12:6); and it is said (1 Samuel 12:11), And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel. Scripture balances in the same scale the three least important with the three most important personages, in order to teach you that Jerrubbaal in his generation was like Moses in his, Bedan (said to be Samson) like Aaron, and Jephthah like Samuel. Hence the most insignificant man, if appointed a ruler of the congregation, has the same authority as the most important personage.—Treatise Rosh-Hashanah, fol. 25,Colossians 2:0.