11 Yahweh sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side; and you lived in safety.
Therefore on that day he named him Jerubbaal, saying, Let Baal contend against him, because he has broken down his altar.
She sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, Hasn't Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded, [saying], Go and draw to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?
Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and lived in his own house.
neither shown they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, [who is] Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shown to Israel.
Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, and he was the son of a prostitute: and Gilead became the father of Jephthah. Gilead's wife bore him sons; and when his wife's sons grew up, they drove out Jephthah, and said to him, You shall not inherit in our father's house; for you are the son of another woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brothers, and lived in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain fellows to Jephthah, and they went out with him. It happened after a while, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. It was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah out of the land of Tob; and they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, Didn't you hate me, and drive me out of my father's house? and why are you come to me now when you are in distress? The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, Therefore are we turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and you shall be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, If you bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and Yahweh deliver them before me, shall I be your head? The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, Yahweh shall be witness between us; surely according to your word so will we do. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them: and Jephthah spoke all his words before Yahweh in Mizpah. Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What have you to do with me, that you are come to me to fight against my land? The king of the children of Ammon answered to the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan: now therefore restore those [lands] again peaceably. Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the children of Ammon; and he said to him, Thus says Jephthah: Israel didn't take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon, but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea, and came to Kadesh; then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, Please let me pass through your land; but the king of Edom didn't listen. In the same way, he sent to the king of Moab; but he would not: and Israel abode in Kadesh. Then they went through the wilderness, and went around the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they encamped on the other side of the Arnon; but they didn't come within the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab. Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, Let us pass, we pray you, through your land to my place. But Sihon didn't trust Israel to pass through his border; but Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. Yahweh, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. They possessed all the border of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan. So now Yahweh, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them? Won't you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever Yahweh our God has dispossessed from before us, them will we possess. Now are you anything better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them? While Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns, and in Aroer and its towns, and in all the cities that are along by the side of the Arnon, three hundred years; why didn't you recover them within that time? I therefore have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong to war against me: Yahweh, the Judge, be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. However the king of the children of Ammon didn't listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him. Then the Spirit of Yahweh came on Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon. Jephthah vowed a vow to Yahweh, and said, If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be, that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Yahweh's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and Yahweh delivered them into his hand. He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more within the border of Israel: and the hand of Yahweh was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.
The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years. There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and didn't bear. The angel of Yahweh appeared to the woman, and said to her, See now, you are barren, and don't bear; but you shall conceive, and bear a son. Now therefore please beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and don't eat any unclean thing: for, behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb: and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came to me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome; and I didn't ask him whence he was, neither did he tell me his name: but he said to me, Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death. Then Manoah entreated Yahweh, and said, Oh, Lord, please let the man of God whom you did send come again to us, and teach us what we shall do to the child who shall be born. God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah, her husband, wasn't with her. The woman made haste, and ran, and told her husband, and said to him, Behold, the man has appeared to me, who came to me the [other] day. Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, Are you the man who spoke to the woman? He said, I am. Manoah said, Now let your words happen: what shall be the ordering of the child, and [how] shall we do to him? The angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, Of all that I said to the woman let her beware. She may not eat of anything that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe. Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, I pray you, let us detain you, that we may make ready a kid for you. The angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, Though you detain me, I won't eat of your bread; and if you will make ready a burnt offering, you must offer it to Yahweh. For Manoah didn't know that he was the angel of Yahweh.
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.