1 Samuel 8:12 Komentář

Things went so very well with Israel, in the chapter before, under Samuel's administration, that, methinks, it is a pity to find him so quickly, as we do in this chapter, old, and going off, and things working towards a revolution. But so it is; Israel's good days seldom continue long. We have here, I. Samuel decaying (Sa1 8:1). II. His sons degenerating (Sa1 8:2, Sa1 8:3). III. Israel discontented with the present government and anxious to see a change. For 1. They petition Samuel to set a king over them (Sa1 8:4, Sa1 8:5). 2. Samuel brings the matter to God (Sa1 8:6). 3. God directs him what answer to give them, by way of reproof (Sa1 8:7, Sa1 8:8), and by way of remonstrance, setting forth the consequences of a change of the government, and how uneasy they would soon be under it (Sa1 8:9-18). 4. They insist upon their petition (Sa1 8:19, Sa1 8:20). 5. Samuel promises them, from God, that they shall shortly be gratified (Sa1 8:21, Sa1 8:22). Thus hard is it for people to know when they are well off.

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 8 This chapter relates, how that Samuel being old, and his sons behaving ill, the people desired to have a king set over them, Sa1 8:1, which case Samuel laid before the Lord, and he was directed by him to yield to the people's desire, but at the same time to set before them all the disadvantages and ill consequences that would arise from thence, which he did, Sa1 8:6, but they insisting upon it, nevertheless, he gave them reason to expect that their request would be granted, Sa1 8:19.

And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties,.... Which though posts of honour, yet when they are not matter of choice, and especially being precarious, and depending on the arbitrary will of a prince, are not eligible, and less so to persons that choose another sort of life: and will set them to ear his ground; to plough it; not the same persons made captains of thousands and fifties, but others, whom he will employ in tilling and manuring his fields, and oblige them to it: and to reap his harvest; when it is ripe, and gather it in, and bring it home into his barns and garners: and to make his instruments of war: as swords, spears, bows and arrows, most commonly used in those times: and instruments of chariots; which seem to design chariots of war, and the iron spikes and scythes which were joined to them, to cut down the foot soldiers, when driven among them in battle, which are commonly called chariots of iron; see Jos 17:16.

And observe the wisdom of the prophet, or rather the lovingkindness of God. For because he wished to turn them from their desire, bringing together a number of difficult things he asserted what would be true of their future king, as, for instance, that he would make their wives grind at the mill, require the men to serve as shepherds and drivers of mules; for he described all the service appertaining to the kingdom in minute detail.

Account these worthy to be esteemed your rulers and your kings, and bring them tribute as to kings; for by you they and their families ought to be maintained. As Samuel made constitutions for the people concerning a king, in the first book of Kings, and Moses did so concerning priests in Leviticus, so do we also make constitutions for you concerning bishops. For if there the multitude distributed the inferior services in proportion to so great a king, ought not therefore the bishop much more now to receive of you those things which are determined by God for the sustenance of himself and of the rest of the clergy belonging to him? But if we may add somewhat further, let the bishop receive more than the other received of old: for he only managed the affairs of the soldiery, being entrusted with war and peace for the preservation of men's bodies; but the other is entrusted with the exercise of the priestly office in relation to God, in order to preserve both body and soul from dangers. By how much, therefore, the soul is more valuable than the body, so much the priestly office is beyond the kingly. For it binds and looses those that are worthy of punishment or of remission. Wherefore you ought to love the bishop as your father, and fear him as your king, and honour him as your lord, bringing to him your fruits and the works of your hands, for a blessing upon you, giving to him your first-fruits, and your tithes, and your oblations, and your gifts, as to the priest of God; the first-fruits of your wheat, and wine, and oil, and autumnal fruits, and wool, and all things which the Lord God gives thee. And thy offering shall be accepted as a savour of a sweet smell to the Lord thy God; and the Lord will bless the works of thy hands, and will multiply the good things of the land. "For a blessing is upon the head of him that giveth."

9. When subjection is sought by carnal men, assuredly whatever is commanded them is burdensome, even if it is not difficult: because since they have it from the swelling of pride that they follow the judgment of their own will, whatever opposes their deliberation they consider most grievous. But indeed when harsh and contrary things are commanded, what a weight of burden is that! What swelling of heart! When they could scarcely bear even pleasant and light things unwillingly—things which, if they had been willing, they would have borne most easily. Let us therefore see how the pious dispensation of the Creator worthily answers the foolish audacity of man. The laws of men are set before those who despise the laws of God; and upon those who had spurned the mild and salutary counsels of the Divinity, the harsh and unbearable burdens of human servitude are proclaimed: so that from these things they might reckon with themselves how intolerable the commands of man would be for those who had refused to obey the counsels of God—who was not so much commanding as advising them not to seek this. But the hearts of carnal men possess recklessness from the increase of audacity, and hardness from the nature of pretense. From recklessness indeed they deliberate upon things easy to do; but because they do not understand what they wrongly propose, they cannot be helped by the counsels of those who are wiser. Wherefore here too it is added: (Verse 19.) The people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel. And they said: By no means: for a king shall be over us, and we also shall be like all the nations, and our king shall judge us, and shall go out before us, and shall fight our battles for us.

5. There follows: 'And he will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions.' Tribunes and centurions are made when they come to such an advance in evil that, for carrying out the tyrant's commands, they take command over impious attendants, when they arrange the battle lines of worldly forces, which they lead forth to wars against the innocent. Tribunes indeed are those who, through many supporters allied to them, lay ambushes against those living uprightly. Centurions, however, are those who omit no kind of harm. For they obtain the perfection of iniquity from this: that they always strive to inflict the many and enormous evils that they can. For the centurion is named from the number one hundred. And because the number one hundred signifies perfection, it is fulfilled in an evil sense when the summit of wickedness is reached by the impious. They are indeed smooth in cunning and violent in terror. They sweetly flatter some, so that with their help they may fiercely terrify others. And so there rightly follows: 'And the plowmen of his fields, and the reapers of his harvests.' 6. The fields of the carnal ruler are the minds of his subjects; and the plowmen of these fields are those who, by the craft of worldly cunning, persuade them to acts of wickedness. For they open up, as it were, the firmness of the fields by speaking, those who through wicked counsels corrupt the hearts of the simple. And they reap the crops when, by the seed of evil counsel, the deceived hearts of the lesser ones yield the fruit of wicked works. Which works are indeed designated by the name of crops: because the perversity of the wicked subject, when it is joyfully received by carnal rulers, is, as it were, the choice food of their mind. In which perversity, because they advance little by little, there follows: "And makers of his weapons and of his chariots." What are the weapons and chariots of tyrants, if not all those instruments of harm that are prepared for overthrowing the hearts of the lesser ones? But because by the chariot one arrives where one may strike with weapons, they become makers of the king's weapons and chariots when, by the most wicked machination of their hearts, they devise both the evils they should commit and the manner in which to inflict those same devised evils. For to forge weapons is to gather up kinds of harm with a wicked mind. And to forge chariots is to find the craft by which they can approach to inflict those same evils.

They are tribunes when they begin; centurions when they are perfected in spiritual teaching. For indeed, as we said above, a centurion is so called from the number one hundred. Tribunes can also be understood as spiritual men, simple in knowledge, but inflamed with love of God and neighbor. Although they do not know how to speak of lofty and spiritual things, nevertheless through the examples of the elect, which they know, they strive to kindle those whom they can to the love of the Creator. A tribe is indeed called a kinship, or an assembly. If therefore tribunes are so called from "tribe," those who bring forth the examples of the saints for the advancement of their neighbors are named tribunes. They come as an assembly, as it were, to destroy our rusticity, when they set before us those things by which holy men pleased almighty God. And when they set forth the particular virtues of very many saints, they open to us, as it were, the nobility of spiritual kinships. Centurions, therefore, can be understood as more perfect men, who, while they advance well under the teaching of preachers, become their hearers and co-workers. Concerning whom the Lord indeed says in the Gospel: "Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder, who brings forth from his treasure things new and old" (Matt. 13:52). Such men indeed are not only outstanding in action, but also learned in the knowledge of God's word. Hence they can exhort their neighbors to the struggle of spiritual warfare all the more usefully, inasmuch as they demonstrate in the work of virtue the lofty things which they know how to preach. They have words in their learning, and they have works as examples for the simple: so that the wise may understand the lofty things they speak, and those who do not perceive the secrets of words in their depths may imitate the works which they see outwardly. They are therefore appointed centurions when, by the perfection of virtue, they obtain the summit of dignity: so that they may live sublimely, and the more loftily they live, the more usefully they may teach. But those who are centurions, when they have arranged the times of war, ought to advance: so that they may be recognized as bearing fruit in peacetime as well. After the tribunes, therefore, the centurions become plowers of fields and reapers of crops; so that they may open the hearts of the now-victorious with the plowshare of exhortation, from which they may reap more abundantly the wheat of good works. As if now indeed plowing in peace, they rouse to the practice of works of piety those hearts that had conquered spiritual assaults. And they reap the harvests when they rejoice that chosen works have sprung forth from the seed of the divine word which they had scattered in the hearts of their hearers. For just as they reap wheat from a field with sickles, so through the embrace of charity they receive from heavenly conversation that by which they may be satisfied with inner devotion. But as long as we live in this life, we possess nothing in peace. For since the ancient enemy always opposes those who act well, it is necessary that we always defend the things we do well. Wherefore they are also rightly said to become, after being plowers of fields and reapers of crops, makers of arms and chariots of the king. They make arms and chariots so that they may defend those very fields which they cultivate and those crops which they reap. They make a chariot so that they may be swift to meet adversaries, and arms so that they may be powerful. They mount the chariot so that with great force they may crush the camps of demons, and they carry arms so that they may destroy those whom they attack. In this lofty height of the chariot stood he who said: "Our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20). Whence also, now secure, he who appeared superior to all his enemies, affirming, said: "No creature shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ" (Rom. 8:39). But he who had mounted the chariot held arms; whence he also explains, saying: "But I so run, not as uncertainly; so I fight, not as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection" (1 Cor. 9:26, 27). What then is more rightly expressed by this chariot than the loftiness of right intention? To make a chariot, therefore, is to raise up the height of right intention in the minds of hearers. For those who obtain the ministry of preaching through the examples of their betters make chariots after the labor of plowing and reaping, when they teach their well-doing subjects that from all the good works they do, they should await only the rewards of eternal recompense. Indeed, to despise earthly things, to desire nothing transitory, to love eternal things, and to hasten toward them with great desires, is already to preside over a lofty chariot. Of which chariots indeed it is said through the Psalmist: "The chariot of God is multiplied ten thousandfold, thousands of those rejoicing; the Lord ascends in them" (Ps. 67:18). But their arms are keen counsels, by which they strike their enemies the more powerfully as they more quickly detect their cunning. Whence also that powerful one spoke as if armed: "We are not ignorant of his devices" (2 Cor. 2:11). He was also making arms when he said: "And the shield of faith, with which you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the most wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:16, 17). The elect, placed in those chariots and arms, are indeed swift and powerful. Swift indeed, because while they desire spiritual things, they detect spiritual wickedness in a moment. And they are powerful, because while they more ardently desire the highest things, whatever is suggested to them from the lowest love of the world, they count as nothing; and like chariots carried by their weight, they have great force against enemies, who, filled with holy virtues and keen counsels, destroy in a moment all the temptations that are brought against them. Nor is it without meaning in this regard that a chariot, while it rolls along the ground, both lifts the lower part upward and brings the upper part downward. So indeed also the right intention of holy men, while from the earthly things it does it expects heavenly things, as it were directs upward the part that it drags along the ground. And because it humbles itself before the Creator both for its good work and for its expectation of eternal recompense, it as it were plunges toward the earth the part that it lifts upward. Our chariot indeed revolves unceasingly on its wheels, if from good work we always aim at eternal things, and from every height of our advancement we take care to be humble. These arms and chariots are indeed the king's when they are seen to differ in no way from the pattern and teaching of the preachers of holy Church. The elect preachers therefore make chariots and arms when they teach their hearers to hasten toward the heavenly homeland, both by the rectitude of intention and by the fortification of virtue. But there is nothing to prevent us from understanding all these things, which we have shown in the advancement of one person, as distributed individually among many. We have shown indeed that the elect, advancing through the degrees of virtues, are first placed in chariots, then appointed as horsemen and runners before the royal chariots, established as tribunes, centurions, plowers, and reapers, and finally become makers of arms. But because holy Church makes use of the diverse ministries of the elect, whoever wishes may attribute individual gifts of graces to individual orders, so that each of these may be proper to those who are more closely joined to their respective dispositions.

And he will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions, etc. And from your great deeds, as if from sons born from the womb of a good conscience, the ancient corrupter will appoint others for himself to this office, as if certain tribunes to lead a hostile army against the camps of truth; others to promise the great perfection of eternal life to those who follow them as centurions; those who, sowing in the flesh, will reap corruption from the flesh; according to what Hosea says, "You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lies" (Hosea X). Others whom the fraudulent arranger distributes to strengthen fabricators of errors with dialectical snares and worshippers of perverse doctrines against the truth. We can also perceive the plowers of the devil's fields to be those who cultivate the hearts of the wretched with the exercise of wicked doctrine. The reapers, indeed, who, as if perfect in the smaller fruits of their hearers, lead them to the contemplation of their more secret mysteries as cleaners to the barns; this is proper to heretics, and especially is usually the invention of the Manicheans. For the sons of the rebellious people, whom we have interpreted over the diverse acts of one person, can also be referred to diverse persons, defiled by different errors but from the same adversary.

Samuel, grown old, makes his sons judges in Beer-sheba, Sa1 8:1, Sa1 8:2. They pervert judgment; and the people complain, and desire a king, Sa1 8:3-5. Samuel is displeased, and inquires of the Lord, Sa1 8:6. The Lord is also displeased; but directs Samuel to appoint them a king, and to show them solemnly the consequences of their choice, Sa1 8:7-9. Samuel does so; and shows them what they may expect from an absolute monarch, and how afflicted they should be under his administration, Sa1 8:10-18. The people refuse to recede from their demand; and Samuel lays the matter before the Lord, and dismisses them, Sa1 8:19-22.

OCCASIONED BY THE ILL-GOVERNMENT OF SAMUEL'S SONS, THE ISRAELITES ASK A KING. (1Sa. 8:1-18) when Samuel was old--He was now about fifty-four years of age, having discharged the office of sole judge for twelve years. Unable, from growing infirmities, to prosecute his circuit journeys through the country, he at length confined his magisterial duties to Ramah and its neighborhood (Sa1 7:15), delegating to his sons as his deputies the administration of justice in the southern districts of Palestine, their provincial court being held at Beer-sheba. The young men, however, did not inherit the high qualities of their father. Having corrupted the fountains of justice for their own private aggrandizement, a deputation of the leading men in the country lodged a complaint against them in headquarters, accompanied with a formal demand for a change in the government. The limited and occasional authority of the judges, the disunion and jealousy of the tribes under the administration of those rulers, had been creating a desire for a united and permanent form of government; while the advanced age of Samuel, together with the risk of his death happening in the then unsettled state of the people, was the occasion of calling forth an expression of this desire now.

he will appoint him captains--In the East, a person must accept any office to which he may be nominated by the king, however irksome it may be to his taste or ruinous to his interests.

II. The Monarchy of Saul from His Election Till His Ultimate Rejection - 1 Samuel 8-15 The earthly monarchy in Israel was established in the time of Samuel, and through his mediation. At the pressing desire of the people, Samuel installed the Benjaminite Saul as king, according to the command of God. The reign of Saul may be divided into two essentially different periods: viz., (1) the establishment and vigorous development of his regal supremacy (1 Samuel 8-15); (2) the decline and gradual overthrow of his monarchy (1 Samuel 16-31). The establishment of the monarchy is introduced by the negotiations of the elders of Israel with Samuel concerning the appointment of a king (1 Samuel 8). This is followed by (1) the account of the anointing of Saul as king (1 Samuel 9:1-10:16), of his election by lot, and of his victory over the Ammonites and the confirmation of his monarchy at Gilgal (1 Samuel 10:17-11:15), together with Samuel's final address to the nation (1 Samuel 12); (2) the history of Saul's reign, of which only his earliest victories over the Philistines are given at all elaborately (1 Samuel 13:1-14:46), his other wars and family history being disposed of very summarily (Sa1 14:47-52); (3) the account of his disobedience to the command of God in the war against the Amalekites, and the rejection on the part of God with which Samuel threatened him in consequence (1 Samuel 15). The brevity with which the history of his actual reign is treated, in contrast with the elaborate account of his election and confirmation as king, may be accounted for from the significance and importance of Saul's monarchy in relation to the kingdom of God in Israel. The people of Israel traced the cause of the oppression and distress, from which they had suffered more and more in the time of the judges, to the defects of their own political constitution. They wished to have a king, like all the heathen nations, to conduct their wars and conquer their enemies. Now, although the desire to be ruled by a king, which had existed in the nation even from the time of Gideon, was not in itself at variance with the appointment of Israel as a kingdom of God, yet the motive which led the people to desire it was both wrong and hostile to God, since the source of all the evils and misfortunes from which Israel suffered was to be found in the apostasy of the nation from its God, and its coquetting with the gods of the heathen. Consequently their self-willed obstinacy in demanding a king, notwithstanding the warnings of Samuel, was an actual rejection of the sovereignty of Jehovah, since He had always manifested himself to His people as their king by delivering them out of the power of their foes, as soon as they returned to Him with simple penitence of heart. Samuel pointed this out to the elders of Israel, when they laid their petition before him that he would choose them a king. But Jehovah fulfilled their desires. He directed Samuel to appoint them a king, who possessed all the qualifications that were necessary to secure for the nation what it looked for from a king, and who therefore might have established the monarchy in Israel as foreseen and foretold by Jehovah, if he had not presumed upon his own power, but had submitted humbly to the will of God as made known to him by the prophet. Saul, who was chosen from Benjamin, the smallest but yet the most warlike of all the tribes, a man in the full vigour of youth, and surpassing all the rest of the people in beauty of form as well as bodily strength, not only possessed "warlike bravery and talent, unbroken courage that could overcome opposition of every kind, a stedfast desire for the well-being of the nation in the face of its many and mighty foes, and zeal and pertinacity in the execution of his plans" (Ewald), but also a pious heart, and an earnest zeal for the maintenance of the provisions of the law, and the promotion of the religious life of the nation. He would not commence the conflict with the Philistines until sacrifice had been offered (Sa1 13:9.); in the midst of the hot pursuit of the foe he opposed the sin committed by the people in eating flesh with the blood (Sa1 14:32-33); he banished the wizards and necromancers out of the land (Sa1 28:3, Sa1 28:9); and in general he appears to have kept a strict watch over the observance of the Mosaic law in his kingdom. But the consciousness of his own power, coupled with the energy of his character, led his astray into an incautious disregard of the commands of God; his zeal in the prosecution of his plans hurried him on to reckless and violent measures; and success in his undertakings heightened his ambition into a haughty rebellion against the Lord, the God-king of Israel. These errors come out very conspicuously in the three great events of his reign which are the most circumstantially described. When Saul was preparing for war against the Philistines, and Samuel did not appear at once on the day appointed, he presumptuously disregarded the prohibition of the prophet, and offered the sacrifice himself without waiting for Samuel to arrive (Sa1 13:7.). In the engagement with the Philistines, he attempted to force on the annihilation of the foe by pronouncing the ban upon any one in his army who should eat bread before the evening, or till he had avenged himself upon his foes. Consequently, he not only diminished the strength of the people, so that the overthrow of the enemy was not great, but he also prepared humiliation for himself, inasmuch as he was not able to carry out his vow (Sa1 14:24.). But he sinned still more grievously in the war with the Amalekites, when he violated the express command of the Lord by only executing the ban upon that nation as far as he himself thought well, and thus by such utterly unpardonable conduct altogether renounced the obedience which he owed to the Lord his God (1 Samuel 15). All these acts of transgression manifest an attempt to secure the unconditional gratification of his own self-will, and a growing disregard of the government of Jehovah in Israel; and the consequence of the whole was simply this, that Saul not only failed to accomplish that deliverance of the nation out of the power of its foes which the Israelites had anticipated from their king, and was unable to inflict any lasting humiliation upon the Philistines, but that he undermined the stability of his monarchy, and brought about his own rejection on the part of God. From all this we may see very clearly, that the reason why the occurrences connected with the election of Saul as king as fully described on the one hand, and on the other only such incidents connected with his enterprises after he began to reign as served to bring out the faults and crimes of his monarchy, was, that Israel might learn from this, that royalty itself could never secure the salvation it expected, unless the occupant of the throne submitted altogether to the will of the Lord. Of the other acts of Saul, the wars with the different nations round about are only briefly mentioned, but with this remark, that he displayed his strength and gained the victory in whatever direction he turned (Sa1 14:47), simply because this statement was sufficient to bring out the brighter side of his reign, inasmuch as this clearly showed that it might have been a source of blessing to the people of God, if the king had only studied how to govern his people in the power and according to the will of Jehovah. If we examine the history of Saul's reign from this point of view, all the different points connected with it exhibit the greatest harmony. Modern critics, however, have discovered irreconcilable contradictions in the history, simply because, instead of studying it for the purpose of fathoming the plan and purpose which lie at the foundation, they have entered upon the inquiry with a twofold assumption: viz., (1) that the government of Jehovah over Israel was only a subjective idea of the Israelitish nation, without any objective reality; and (2) that the human monarchy was irreconcilably opposed to the government of God. Governed by these axioms, which are derived not from the Scriptures, but from the philosophical views of modern times, the critics have found it impossible to explain the different accounts in any other way than by the purely external hypothesis, that the history contained in this book has been compiled from two different sources, in one of which the establishment of the earthly monarchy was treated as a violation of the supremacy of God, whilst the other took a more favourable view. From the first source, 1 Samuel 8, Sa1 10:17-27, Sa1 10:11-12, and Sa1 10:15 are said to have been derived; and 1 Samuel 9-10:17, Sa1 10:13, and Sa1 10:14 from the second.