8 `When Jacob hath come in to Egypt, and your fathers cry unto Jehovah, then Jehovah sendeth Moses and Aaron, and they bring out your fathers from Egypt, and cause them to dwell in this place,
And the anger of Jehovah burneth against Moses, and He saith, `Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I have known that he speaketh well, and also, lo, he is coming out to meet thee; when he hath seen thee, then he hath rejoiced in his heart, and thou hast spoken unto him, and hast set the words in his mouth, and I -- I am with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and have directed you that which ye do; and he, he hath spoken for thee unto the people, and it hath come to pass, he -- he is to thee for a mouth, and thou -- thou art to him for God;
And it cometh to pass during these many days, that the king of Egypt dieth, and the sons of Israel sigh because of the service, and cry, and their cry goeth up unto God, because of the service; and God heareth their groaning, and God remembereth His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob;
and Joshua saith, `By this ye know that the living God `is' in your midst, and He doth certainly dispossess from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite: lo, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into Jordan; and now, take for you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, one man -- one man for a tribe; and it hath been, at the resting of the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of Jehovah, Lord of all the earth, in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan are cut off -- the waters which are coming down from above -- and they stand -- one heap.'
and Jacob went down to Egypt, and died, himself and our fathers,
And He giveth to them the lands of nations, And the labour of peoples they possess,
To the Overseer. -- By sons of Korah. An Instruction. O God, with our ears we have heard, Our fathers have recounted to us, The work Thou didst work in their days, In the days of old. Thou, `with' Thy hand, nations hast dispossessed. And Thou dost plant them. Thou afflictest peoples, and sendest them away. For, not by their sword Possessed they the land, And their arm gave not salvation to them, But Thy right hand, and Thine arm, And the light of Thy countenance, Because Thou hadst accepted them.
And Samuel saith unto the people, `Jehovah -- He who made Moses and Aaron, and who brought up your fathers out of the land of Egypt!
And Jacob riseth from Beer-Sheba, and the sons of Israel bear away Jacob their father, And their infants, and their wives, in the waggons which Pharaoh hath sent to bear him, and they take their cattle, and their goods which they have acquired in the land of Canaan, and come into Egypt -- Jacob, and all his seed with him, his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, yea, all his seed he brought with him into Egypt.
be strong and courageous, for thou -- thou dost cause this people to inherit the land which I have sworn to their fathers to give to them.
`Moses my servant is dead, and now, rise, pass over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. `Every place on which the sole of your foot treadeth, to you I have given it, as I have spoken unto Moses. From this wilderness and Lebanon, and unto the great river, the river Phrath, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great Sea -- the going in of the sun -- is your border.
that our fathers go down to Egypt, and we dwell in Egypt many days, and the Egyptians do evil to us and to our fathers;
and Jehovah saveth Israel in that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel seeth the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore, and Israel seeth the great hand with which Jehovah hath wrought against the Egyptians, and the people fear Jehovah, and remain stedfast in Jehovah, and in Moses His servant.
This `is' Aaron -- and Moses -- to whom Jehovah said, `Bring ye out the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, by their hosts;'
And Jehovah saith unto Aaron, `Go to meet Moses into the wilderness;' and he goeth, and meeteth him in the mount of God, and kisseth him, and Moses declareth to Aaron all the words of Jehovah with which He hath sent him, and all the signs with which He hath charged him. And Moses goeth -- Aaron also -- and they gather all the elders of the sons of Israel, and Aaron speaketh all the words which Jehovah hath spoken unto Moses, and doth the signs before the eyes of the people; and the people believe when they hear that Jehovah hath looked after the sons of Israel, and that He hath seen their affliction; and they bow and do obeisance.
`And now, lo, the cry of the sons of Israel hath come in unto Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them, and now, come, and I send thee unto Pharaoh, and bring thou out My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.'
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.