Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 12:2

"And now, behold, the king walketh before you; and I am old and grayheaded; and, behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my youth unto this day." — 1 Samuel 12:2 (ASV)

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.