Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 10:17
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Saul's Election by Lot. - After Samuel had secretly anointed Saul king by the command of God, it was his duty to make provision for a recognition of the man whom God had chosen on the part of the people also. To this end he summoned the people to Mizpeh, and there instructed the tribes to choose a king by lot. As the result of the lot was regarded as a divine decision, not only was Saul to be accredited by this act in the sight of the whole nation as the king appointed by the Lord, but he himself was also to be more fully assured of the certainty of his own election on the part of God. - (Note: Thenius follows De Wette, and adduces the incompatibility of 1 Samuel 8 and Sa1 10:17-27 with Sa1 9:1-10, Sa1 9:16, as a proof that in Sa1 10:17-27 we have a different account of the manner in which Saul became king from that given in Sa1 9:1-10, Sa1 9:16, and one which continues the account in Sa1 8:22. "It is thoroughly inconceivable," he says, "that Samuel should have first of all anointed Saul king by the instigation of God, and then have caused the lot to be cast, as it were, for the sake of further confirmation; for in that case either the prophet would have tempted God, or he would have made Him chargeable before the nation with an unworthy act of jugglery." Such an argument as this could only be used by critics who deny not only the inspiration of the prophets, but all influence on the part of the living God upon the free action of men, and cannot therefore render the truth of the biblical history at all doubtful. Even Ewald sees no discrepancy here, and observes in his history (Gesch. iii. p. 32): "If we bear in mind the ordinary use made of the sacred lot at that time, we shall find that there is nothing but the simple truth in the whole course of the narrative. The secret meeting of the seer with Saul was not sufficient to secure a complete and satisfactory recognition of him as king; it was also necessary that the Spirit of Jehovah should single him out publicly in a solemn assembly of the nation, and point him out as the man of Jehovah.") Sa1 10:17 העם is the nation in its heads and representatives. Samuel selected Mizpeh for this purpose, because it was there that he had once before obtained for the people, by prayer, a great victory over the Philistines ( Sa1 7:5.). Sa1 10:18-19 "But before proceeding to the election itself, Samuel once more charged the people with their sin in rejecting God, who had brought them out of Egypt, and delivered them out of the hand of all their oppressors, by their demand for a king, that he might show them how dangerous was the way which they were taking now, and how bitterly they would perhaps repent of what they had now desired" (O. v. Gerlach; see the commentary on 1 Samuel 8). The masculine הלּחצים is construed ad sensum with המּמלכות. In לו ותּאמרוּ the early translators have taken לו for לא, which is the actual reading in some of the Codices. But although this reading is decidedly favoured by the parallel passages, Sa1 8:19; Sa1 12:12, it is not necessary; since כּי is used to introduce a direct statement, even in a declaration of the opposite, in the sense of our "no but" (e.g., in Rut 1:10, where להּ precedes). There is, therefore, no reason for exchanging לו for לא. Sa1 10:20-21 After this warning, Samuel directed the assembled Israelites to come before Jehovah (i.e., before the altar of Jehovah which stood at Mizpeh, according to Sa1 7:9) according to their tribes and families (alaphim: s…
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