Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 12:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
The time and place of the following address are not given. But it is evident from the connection with the preceding chapter implied in the expression ויּאמר, and still more from the introduction ( Sa1 12:1, Sa1 12:2) and the entire contents of the address, that it was delivered on the renewal of the monarchy at Gilgal. Sa1 12:1-2 Samuel starts with the fact, that he had given the people a king in accordance with their own desire, who would now walk before them. הנּה with the participle expresses what is happening, and will happen still. לפני התהלּך must not be restricted to going at the head in war, but signifies the general direction and government of the nation, which had been in the hands of Samuel as judge before the election of Saul as king. "And I have grown old and grey (שׂבתּי from שׂיב); and my sons, behold, they are with you." With this allusion to his sons, Samuel simply intended to confirm what he had said about his own age. By the further remark, "and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day," he prepares the way for the following appeal to the people to bear witness concerning his conduct in office. Sa1 12:3 "Bear witness against me before the Lord," i.e., looking up to the Lord, the omnipotent and righteous God-king, "and before His anointed," the visible administrator of His divine government, whether I have committed any injustice in my office of judge, by appropriating another's property, or by oppression and violence (רצץ, to pound or crush in pieces, when used to denote an act of violence, is stronger than אשׁק, with which it is connected here and in many other passages, e.g., Deu 28:33; Amo 4:1), or by taking atonement money (כּפר, redemption or atonement money, is used, as in Exo 21:30 and Num 35:31, to denote a payment made by a man to redeem himself from capital punishment), "so that I had covered my eyes with it," viz., to exempt from punishment a man who was worthy of death. The בּו, which is construed with העלים, is the בּ instrumenti, and refers to כּפר; consequently it is not to be confounded with מן, "to hide from," which would be quite unsuitable here. The thought is not that the judge covers his eyes from the copher, that he may not see the bribe, but that he covers his eyes with the money offered him as a bribe, so as not to see and not to punish the crime committed. Sa1 12:4 The people answered Samuel, that he had not done them any kind of injustice. Sa1 12:5 To confirm this declaration on the part of the people, he then called Jehovah and His anointed as witnesses against the people, and they accepted these witnesses. כּל־ישׂראל is the subject to ויּאמר; and the Keri ויּאמרוּ, though more simple, is by no means necessary. Samuel said, "Jehovah be witness against you," because with the declaration which the people had made concerning Samuel's judicial labours they had condemned themselves, inasmuch as they had thereby acknowledged on oath that there was no ground for their dissatisfaction with Samuel's administration, and consequently no well-founded reason for their request for a king. Sa1 12:6 But in order to bring the people to a still more thorough acknowledgment of their sin, Samuel strengthened still more their assent to his solemn appeal to God, as expressed in the words "He is witness," by saying, "Jehovah (i.e., yea, the witness is Jehovah), who made Moses and Aaron, and brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt." The context itself is sufficient to show that the expressi…
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