3 And Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If ye return to Jehovah with all your heart, put away the strange gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and apply your hearts unto Jehovah, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
Ye shall walk after Jehovah your God, and ye shall fear him, and his commandments shall ye keep, and his voice shall ye hear; and ye shall serve him, and unto him shall ye cleave.
And Jesus answering him said, It is written, Thou shalt do homage to [the] Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve.
Then says Jesus to him, Get thee away, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt do homage to [the] Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve.
Thou shalt fear Jehovah thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.
Now therefore put away the strange gods that are among you, and incline your heart unto Jehovah the God of Israel.
And now fear Jehovah and serve him in perfectness and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river, and in Egypt; and serve Jehovah.
Cast away from you all your transgressions wherewith ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit: why then will ye die, house of Israel?
that has directed his heart to seek God, Jehovah the God of his fathers, although not according to the purification of the sanctuary.
And thou, Solomon my son, know the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Jehovah searches all hearts, and discerns all the imaginations of the thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cut thee off for ever.
Now set your heart and your soul to seek Jehovah your God; and arise and build the sanctuary of Jehovah Elohim, to bring the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and the vessels of the sanctuary of God into the house that is to be built unto the name of Jehovah.
and if they return unto thee with all their heart and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies who led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name;
And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Ba'als and the Ash'taroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook the LORD, and did not serve him.
and shalt return to Jehovah thy God, and shalt hearken to his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy sons, with all thy heart and with all thy soul; that then Jehovah thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will gather thee again from all the peoples whither Jehovah thy God hath scattered thee. Though there were of you driven out unto the end of the heavens, from thence will Jehovah thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee; and Jehovah thy God will bring thee into the land that thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And Jehovah thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And Jehovah thy God will put all these curses on thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, who have persecuted thee. But thou shalt return and hearken to the voice of Jehovah, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. And Jehovah thy God will make thee abound in every work of thy hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, for good; for Jehovah will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers; if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law; if thou turn to Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Yet even now, saith Jehovah, turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving-kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
Come and let us return unto Jehovah: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before his face;
The purposes of the heart are of man, but the answer of the tongue is from Jehovah.
Nevertheless there are good things found in thee; for thou hast put away the Asherahs out of the land, and hast directed thy heart to seek God.
They forsook the LORD, and served the Ba'als and the Ash'taroth.
This people honour me with the lips, but their heart is far away from me;
O Israel, return unto Jehovah thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
For thus saith Jehovah to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up for you a fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves for Jehovah, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my fury come forth like fire and burn, and there be none to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
God [is] a spirit; and they who worship him must worship [him] in spirit and truth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Samuel 7
Commentary on 1 Samuel 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
In this chapter we have,
1Sa 7:1-2
Here we must attend the ark to Kirjath-jearim, and then leave it there, to hear not a word more of it except once (ch. 14:18), till David fetched it thence, about forty years after, 1 Chr. 13:6.
1Sa 7:3-6
We may well wonder where Samuel was and what he was doing all this while, for we have not had him so much as named till now, since ch. 4:1, not as if he were unconcerned, but his labours among his people are not mentioned till there appears the fruit of them. When he perceived that they began to lament after the Lord he struck while the iron was hot, and two things he endeavoured to do for them, as a faithful servant of God and a faithful friend to the Israel of God:-
1Sa 7:7-12
Here,
1Sa 7:13-17
We have here a short account of the further good services that Samuel did to Israel. Having parted them from their idols, and brought them home to their God, he had put them into a capacity of receiving further benefits by his ministry. Having prevailed in that, he becomes, in other instances, a great blessing to them; yet, writing it himself, he is brief in the relation. We are not told here, but it appears (2 Chr. 35:18) that in the days of Samuel the prophet the people of Israel kept the ordinance of the passover with more than ordinary devotion, notwithstanding the distance of the ark and the desolations of Shiloh. Many good offices, no doubt, he did for Israel, but here we are only told how instrumental he was,