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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Samuel 12:7 - 12:7
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“And now come hither, and I will reason with you before the Lord with regard to all the righteous acts which He has shown to you and your fathers.” צְדָקֹות, righteous acts, is the expression used to denote the benefits which Jehovah had conferred upon His people, as being the results of His covenant fidelity, or as acts which attested the righteousness of the Lord in the fulfilment of the covenant grace which He had promised to His people.
1Sa 12:8-12
The first proof of this was furnished by the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their safe guidance into Canaan (“this place” is the land of Canaan). The second was to be found in the deliverance of the people out of the power of their foes, to whom the Lord had been obliged to give them up on account of their apostasy from Him, through the judges whom He had raised up for them, as often as they turned to Him with penitence and cried to Him for help. Of the hostile oppressions which overtook the Israelites during this period of the judges, the following are singled out in 1Sa 12:9 : (1) that by Sisera, the commander-in-chief of Hazor, i.e., that of the Canaanitish king Jabin of Hazor (Jdg 4:2.); (2) that of the Philistines, by which we are to understand not so much the hostilities of that nation described in Jdg 3:31, as the forty years' oppression mentioned in Jdg 10:2 and Jdg 13:1; and (3) the Moabitish oppression under Eglon (Jdg 3:12.). The first half of Jdg 13:10 agrees almost word for word with Jdg 10:10, except that, according to Jdg 10:6, the Ashtaroth are added to the Baalim (see at 1Sa 7:4 and Jdg 2:13). Of the judges whom God sent to the people as deliverers, the following are named, viz., Jerubbaal (see at Jdg 6:32), i.e., Gideon (Judg 6), and Bedan, and Jephthah (see Judg 11), and Samuel. There is no judge named Bedan mentioned either in the book of Judges or anywhere else. The name Bedan only occurs again in 1Ch 7:17, among the descendants of Machir the Manassite: consequently some of the commentators suppose Jair of Gilead to be the judge intended. But such a supposition is perfectly arbitrary, as it is not rendered probable by any identity in the two names, and Jair is not described as having delivered Israel from any hostile oppression. Moreover, it is extremely improbable that Samuel should have mentioned a judge here, who had been passed over in the book of Judges on account of his comparative insignificance. There is also just as little ground for rendering Bedan as an appellative, e.g., the Danite (ben-Dan), as Kimchi suggests, or corpulentus as Böttcher maintains, and so connecting the name with Samson. There is no other course left, therefore, than to regard Bedan as an old copyist's error for Barak (Judg 4), as the lxx, Syriac, and Arabic have done, - a conclusion which is favoured by the circumstance that Barak was one of the most celebrated of the judges, and is placed by the side of Gideon and Jephthah in Heb 11:32. The Syriac, Arabic, and one Greek MS (see Kennicott in the Addenda to his Dissert. Gener.), have the name of Samson instead of Samuel. But as the lxx, Chald., and Vulg. all agree with the Hebrew text, there is no critical ground for rejecting Samuel, the more especially as the objection raised to it, viz., that Samuel would not have mentioned himself, is far too trivial to overthrow the reading supported by the most ancient versions; and the assertion made by Thenius, that Samuel does not come down to his own times until the following verse, is altogether unfounded. Samuel could very well class himself with the deliverers of Israel, for the simple reason that it was by him that the people were delivered from the forty years' tyranny of the Philistines, whilst Samson merely commenced their deliverance and did not bring it to completion. Samuel appears to have deliberately mentioned his own name along with those of the other judges who were sent by God, that he might show the people in the most striking manner (1Sa 12:12) that they had no reason whatever for saying to him, “Nay, but a king shall reign over us,” as soon as the Ammonites invaded Gilead. “As Jehovah your God is your king,” i.e., has ever proved himself to be your King by sending judges to deliver you.