1 And Samuel said to all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened to your voice in all that ye said to me, and have made a king over you.
And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom Jehovah has chosen, that there is none like him among all the people? And all the people shouted and said, May the king live.
And Samuel said to the people, Come and let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there. And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before Jehovah in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed peace-offerings before Jehovah. And there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced exceedingly.
and said to him, Behold, thou art become old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now appoint us a king to judge us, like all the nations. And the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to Jehovah. And Jehovah said to Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the deeds that they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, in that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.
And the people refused to hearken to the voice of Samuel; and they said, No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations; and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and conduct our wars. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the ears of Jehovah. And Jehovah said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said to the men of Israel, Go ye every man to his city.
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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.