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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 12:1 - 12:1
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The time and place of the following address are not given. But it is evident from the connection with the preceding chapter implied in the expression וַיֹּאמֶר, and still more from the introduction (1Sa 12:1, 1Sa 12:2) and the entire contents of the address, that it was delivered on the renewal of the monarchy at Gilgal.
1Sa 12:1-2
Samuel starts with the fact, that he had given the people a king in accordance with their own desire, who would now walk before them. הִנֵּה with the participle expresses what is happening, and will happen still. לִפְנֵי הִתְהַלֵּךְ must not be restricted to going at the head in war, but signifies the general direction and government of the nation, which had been in the hands of Samuel as judge before the election of Saul as king. “And I have grown old and grey (שַׂבְתִּי from שִׂיב); and my sons, behold, they are with you.” With this allusion to his sons, Samuel simply intended to confirm what he had said about his own age. By the further remark, “and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day,” he prepares the way for the following appeal to the people to bear witness concerning his conduct in office.
1Sa 12:3
“Bear witness against me before the Lord,” i.e., looking up to the Lord, the omnipotent and righteous God-king, “and before His anointed,” the visible administrator of His divine government, whether I have committed any injustice in my office of judge, by appropriating another's property, or by oppression and violence (רָצַץ, to pound or crush in pieces, when used to denote an act of violence, is stronger than אָשַׁק, with which it is connected here and in many other passages, e.g., Deu 28:33; Amo 4:1), or by taking atonement money (כֹּפֶר, redemption or atonement money, is used, as in Exo 21:30 and Num 35:31, to denote a payment made by a man to redeem himself from capital punishment), “so that I had covered my eyes with it,” viz., to exempt from punishment a man who was worthy of death. The בֹּו, which is construed with הֶעֱלִים, is the בּ instrumenti, and refers to כֹּפֶר; consequently it is not to be confounded with מִן, “to hide from,” which would be quite unsuitable here. The thought is not that the judge covers his eyes from the copher, that he may not see the bribe, but that he covers his eyes with the money offered him as a bribe, so as not to see and not to punish the crime committed.
1Sa 12:4
The people answered Samuel, that he had not done them any kind of injustice.
1Sa 12:5
To confirm this declaration on the part of the people, he then called Jehovah and His anointed as witnesses against the people, and they accepted these witnesses. כָּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל is the subject to וַיֹּאמֶר; and the Keri וַיֹּאמְרוּ, though more simple, is by no means necessary. Samuel said, “Jehovah be witness against you,” because with the declaration which the people had made concerning Samuel's judicial labours they had condemned themselves, inasmuch as they had thereby acknowledged on oath that there was no ground for their dissatisfaction with Samuel's administration, and consequently no well-founded reason for their request for a king.
1Sa 12:6
But in order to bring the people to a still more thorough acknowledgment of their sin, Samuel strengthened still more their assent to his solemn appeal to God, as expressed in the words “He is witness,” by saying, “Jehovah (i.e., yea, the witness is Jehovah), who made Moses and Aaron, and brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt.” The context itself is sufficient to show that the expression “is witness” is understood; and there is no reason, therefore, to assume that the word has dropped out of the text through a copyist's error. עָשָׂה, to make, in a moral and historical sense, i.e., to make a person what he is to be; it has no connection, therefore, with his physical birth, but simply relates to his introduction upon the stage of history, like ποιεῖν, Heb 3:2. But if Jehovah, who redeemed Israel out of Egypt by the hands of Moses and Aaron, and exalted it into His own nation, was witness of the unselfishness and impartiality of Samuel's conduct in his office of judge, then Israel had grievously sinned by demanding a king. In the person of Samuel they had rejected Jehovah their God, who had given them their rulers (see 1Sa 8:7). Samuel proves this still further to the people from the following history.