Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 8

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 lapse 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:—

1. 1st period (12 years) and 2nd 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.

2. 3rd period (20 years): 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.

3. 4th period (probably nearly 20 years) and 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.

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 burdensome, should turn to his sons, and endeavour to train them up to share in his high duties. However, beyond the natural regret of a father that the honours and dignities he had himself so arduously won should pass from his house forever, no murmur seems to have escaped Samuel’s lips when the will of the Eternal was made known to him. 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 Samuel's strength, 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.

Took bribes, and perverted judgment.—This sin, at all times a fatally common one in the East, was especially denounced in the Law. (Deuteronomy 16:19.) It is strange that the same ills that ruined Eli’s house, owing to the evil conduct of his children, now threatened Samuel. The prophet-judge, however, acted differently to the high priestly judge. The sons of Samuel were evidently, through their father’s action in procuring the election of Saul, quickly deposed from their authority.

The punishment seems to have been successful in correcting the corrupt tendencies of these men, for we hear in later days of the high position occupied at the court of David by the distinguished descendants of the noble and disinterested prophet. (See the notices in 1 Chronicles 6:33; 1 Chronicles 25:4–5, respecting Heman, the grandson of Samuel, the king’s seer, who was chief of the choir of the Psalmist-king in the house of God.)

All the elders of Israel. —We have here a clear trace of a popular assembly which seems to have existed at all times in Israel. Such a body appears to have met for deliberation even during the Egyptian captivity . Of this popular council we know little beyond the fact of its existence. It seems to have been composed of representatives of the people, qualified by birth or office; these were known as “elders.”

Ewald sees special allusions to the “Parliament” or Assembly of Elders in Psalm 1 and Psalm 82. There are, however, various mentions of these councils in the Books of Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, and Isaiah.

And said unto him. —They based their request—which, however, they framed almost in the very terms used in the prophecy of the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14)—on two circumstances: first, the age of Samuel and his resulting inability to act as their leader in the constant wars and forays with the surrounding hostile nations; and secondly, the degeneracy of his sons, who, placed by their father in positions of great trust, naturally expected to succeed him in his high office.

They felt that the cares and duties of government were too weighty for Samuel, now growing old. Moreover, the men who, through their kinship to him, would naturally succeed him were completely unfit for his office. The prospect before them, they felt, was a gloomy one, as the Philistine power, too, was growing greater daily in the south.

But what confidence this assembly of elders must have placed in their aged judge to use such a plea—his own growing infirmity and the unworthiness of his own sons, whom he himself had appointed to high offices! The elders of the people knew Samuel, the man of God, would do what was right and just—he would give them the wisest counsel, completely regardless of any personal interest or feeling. The result justified their perfect confidence.

The thing displeased Samuel. It is clear that the elders of the people were perfectly justified in coming to the resolution contained in their petition to Samuel. The Deuteronomy directions contained in 1 Samuel 17:14–20 are clear and explicit in this matter of an earthly king for the people, and Moses evidently had looked forward to this alteration in the constitution when he framed the Law. No date for the change is specified, but from the terms of the Deuteronomy words, no distant period was evidently anticipated. Then, again, though Samuel was naturally displeased, he at once, as prophet and seer, carried the matter to the God-Friend of Israel in prayer, and the Eternal King at once bids His old true servant to comply with the people’s desire.

The displeasure of the prophet-judge was very natural. He felt—this we see from the comforting words his Master addressed to him (see 1 Samuel 8:7)—that the people, despite the vast claims he had to their gratitude, craved another and a different ruler, and were dissatisfied with his government. Samuel too was conscious that Israel by its request declined the direct sovereignty of the Eternal. The change to an earthly sovereign had been foreseen, foretold, even arranged for, by Moses, but, in spite of all this, to one like Samuel it was very bitter.

It seemed to remove the people from that solitary platform which they alone among nations had been allowed to occupy. They had found by sad experience, as Moses—“their Rabbi,” as the old teachers loved to style him—had predicted, that such a form of government was, alas! unsuited to them, and that they must descend here to the level of ordinary peoples. But though all this was undisputably true, it was very bitter for the hero patriot to give up forever the splendid Hebrew ideal that his people were the subjects of the Eternal King, ruled directly by Him.