24 Only fear H3372 the LORD, H3068 and serve H5647 him in truth H571 with all your heart: H3824 for consider H7200 how great things he hath done H1431 for you.
Then was our mouth H6310 filled H4390 with laughter, H7814 and our tongue H3956 with singing: H7440 then said H559 they among the heathen, H1471 The LORD H3068 hath done H6213 great things H1431 for them. The LORD H3068 hath done H6213 great things H1431 for us; whereof we are glad. H8056
And after H310 all that is come H935 upon us for our evil H7451 deeds, H4639 and for our great H1419 trespass, H819 seeing that thou our God H430 hast punished H2820 us less H4295 than our iniquities H5771 deserve, and hast given H5414 us such deliverance H6413 as this; Should we again H7725 break H6565 thy commandments, H4687 and join in affinity H2859 with the people H5971 of these abominations? H8441 wouldest not thou be angry H599 with us till thou hadst consumed H3615 us, so that there should be no remnant H7611 nor escaping? H6413
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 1 Samuel 12
Commentary on 1 Samuel 12 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 12
1Sa 12:1-5. Samuel Testifies his Integrity.
1-4. Samuel said unto all Israel—This public address was made after the solemn re-instalment of Saul, and before the convention at Gilgal separated. Samuel, having challenged a review of his public life, received a unanimous testimony to the unsullied honor of his personal character, as well as the justice and integrity of his public administration.
5. the Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness—that, by their own acknowledgment, he had given them no cause to weary of the divine government by judges, and that, therefore, the blame of desiring a change of government rested with themselves. This was only insinuated, and they did not fully perceive his drift.
1Sa 12:6-16. He Reproves the People for Ingratitude.
7-16. Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you—The burden of this faithful and uncompromising address was to show them, that though they had obtained the change of government they had so importunely desired, their conduct was highly displeasing to their heavenly King; nevertheless, if they remained faithful to Him and to the principles of the theocracy, they might be delivered from many of the evils to which the new state of things would expose them. And in confirmation of those statements, no less than in evidence of the divine displeasure, a remarkable phenomenon, on the invocation of the prophet, and of which he gave due premonition, took place.
11. Bedan—The Septuagint reads "Barak"; and for "Samuel" some versions read "Samson," which seems more natural than that the prophet should mention himself to the total omission of the greatest of the judges. (Compare Heb 11:32).
1Sa 12:17-25. He Terrifies Them with Thunder in Harvest-time.
17-25. Is it not wheat harvest to-day?—That season in Palestine occurs at the end of June or beginning of July, when it seldom or never rains, and the sky is serene and cloudless. There could not, therefore, have been a stronger or more appropriate proof of a divine mission than the phenomenon of rain and thunder happening, without any prognostics of its approach, upon the prediction of a person professing himself to be a prophet of the Lord, and giving it as an attestation of his words being true. The people regarded it as a miraculous display of divine power, and, panic-struck, implored the prophet to pray for them. Promising to do so, he dispelled their fears. The conduct of Samuel, in this whole affair of the king's appointment, shows him to have been a great and good man who sank all private and personal considerations in disinterested zeal for his country's good and whose last words in public were to warn the people, and their king, of the danger of apostasy and disobedience to God.