John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: July 22

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: July 22


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Corruption of Justice

1Sa_7:15 to 1Sa_8:22

It is remarkable how little is related of Samuel calculated to throw light upon his character and position during the twenty years in which he was the sole ruler of the Hebrew state. We hear more of him before he attains that high distinction, and more after he had been reluctantly constrained to resign much of his authority into other hands. Peace and prosperity are, however, seldom fruitful in materials for narrative; and the inference from the silence of the history is, that the people enjoyed ease and security under his rule. It is related, that his usual residence was at Ramah, his native place, whence he proceeded, in yearly circuit, to administer justice to the people—at Mizpeh, Gilgal, and Bethel—all of them places of sacred interest in the ancient history of the Israelites, and selected, probably, for that reason. We do not find that any writer has thought it needful to inquire, why, if the object of Samuel was, as in the circuits of our own judges, to carry justice to the people, and to render it of more easy access to them, the circuit was confined to places so near to each other—all in fact lying within the narrow limits of the small tribe of Benjamin. We should rather expect that, with that object in view, one of the towns would have been away in the north, another in the south, and the third in the country beyond the Jordan. We can only explain this by supposing that in reality it is only in the territory of the southern tribes that Samuel’s authority was practically acknowledged, or that had an any concern with the part of his history we have gone through. The northern and central tribes seem to have been little affected by the triumphs or defeats of the Philistines, who do not appear to have ever manifested much solicitude to push their dominion to any distance from their own country. Supposing they had remained unaffected by these circumstances, their internal government must be conceived to have proceeded under the authority of their own tribunal chiefs and elders, without any further reference to the government of Samuel, than to recognize it as a fact existing in the south, and as, perhaps, in conjunction with his prophetic character, giving him a claim to consideration in case he should have occasion to bring forward any matter affecting the general interests of all the tribes. The probability of this limitation of Samuel’s practical authority to the southern tribes—we may say Judah, Benjamin, Dan, and Simeon—is confirmed by the fact that when Samuel made his sons his assistants in the administration of justice, he did not send them north or east, but only south, fixing their stations at Beersheba on the southernmost border of the land.

This appointment was made in the latter part of the period under our survey. It may be doubted whether Samuel acted wisely in making this appointment—especially if, as seems to have been understood, the nomination in his lifetime of his sons, to exercise the functions he had hitherto discharged alone, was an intimation that he meant them to be regarded as his successors in such government as he exercised. Nothing of the kind had ever been done before. No son had hitherto succeeded his father as judge; and Gideon, for one, had nobly declined to nominate any one of his sons as his successor. Besides, no judge had hitherto taken office but at the special appointment of God, or at the spontaneous call of the people. Whether his intentions were justly interpreted or not, his integrity of purpose is beyond all suspicion; and his proceeding, however mistaken, or biased by fatherly partialities, could only have been founded on a sincere regard for the welfare of the people, and a deep anxiety to carry out the principles which had guided his own administration, and which he believed to be essential to the abiding prosperity of the nation. He might naturally suppose that sons trained up by him, and introduced to office under his eye, would be better qualified than any other persons to carry out his views, and to walk in his steps. There might be others as well or better able to do this, and qualified to hold the reins of the state with even a firmer hand; but he could not know them so well, or trust them so fully; and thus, almost unconsciously, perhaps, he was led to give a kind of sanction to the hereditary principle of government, which was soon to be turned against himself.

It does not appear that this appointment was at first regarded with any discontent; and it cannot be said what results might have ensued had the sons been like their father, and had their conduct given satisfaction to the people. But this was not the case; and Samuel is not blameworthy for not knowing his sons better, for the misconduct into which they fell was of a nature which could only have been developed by the possession of power. Uncertain, as they must have felt, of their tenure of office, and lamenting, as they probably did, that their father had, after such long possession of power, done so little to enlarge the patrimony of his family, they made haste to be rich, and in doing this they fell into the temptation and the snare which ever attends the inordinate pursuit of worldly gain. The most easy way of doing this was to sell justice, and they sold it. “They took bribes, and perverted justice.” It is highly creditable to the law, and its administration among the Hebrews, that from this offence, so common throughout the ancient and modern East as scarcely to excite any of the abhorrence and indignation with which it is regarded among ourselves, their history is signally and memorably free, though it crept in at a later and more corrupt age, and is sometimes rebuked by the prophets. It must, at this time, have appeared particularly heinous, as contrasted with the spotless administration of Samuel himself, who, in the grand address in which he laid down his power, could call upon the assembled people to avouch the cleanness of his hands. “Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? or whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe, to blind mine eyes therewith?” The loud and ready answer of that one-voiced multitude was, “Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken aught of any man’s hand.”

The corruption of justice throughout the East impresses an emphatic value upon this testimony in behalf of Samuel, scarcely credible to us who regard the matter as scarcely ground for commendation in a judge, being points of ordinary and common duty which it would be gross dishonor to neglect; and although the administration of justice was, for the East, singularly pure among the Israelites, the fact that, although its corruption was deemed to be an offence and a wrong; in their judgments it was not a disgraceful offence or a shameful wrong, as with us, appears to be shown in the credit attached to exemption from it. Men are not held in distinguished honor for conduct which it would be ignominious not to exemplify.

Speaking of the administration of justice in Egypt, Mr. Lane says, “The rank of a plaintiff or defendant, or a bribe from either, often influences the decision of the judge. In general the Naib Note: Deputy of the judge. and Mooftee Note: Chief Doctor of the Law. take bribes, and the Ckadee Note: Chief Judge—usually written Cadi. receives from his Naib. On some occasions, particularly in long litigations, bribes are given by each party, and the decision is awarded in favor of him who pays highest. This frequently happens in difficult law-suits; and even in cases respecting which the law is perfectly clear, strict justice is not always administered; bribes and false testimony being employed by one of the parties. The shocking extent to which bribery, and the suborning false witnesses, are carried on in Moslem courts of law, and among them in the tribunal of the Ckadee at Cairo, can be scarcely credited.” Note: Modern Egyptians, i. 136. Matters are in this respect still worse, if possible, in the further East. Mr. Roberts, illustrating Isa_5:23, from Indian customs says: “Not a man in a thousand will hesitate to give or receive a bribe, when there is the least chance of its being kept secret. Nearly all the situations which are at the disposal of the native chiefs, are acquired by ki-cooly, i.e., ‘the reward of the hand,’ and yet there are numerous proverbs against this system.” Note: Oriental Illustrations, p. 402.