Samuel

"God hath heard." A celebrated Hebrew prophet. The peculiar circumstances connected with his birth are recorded in 1 Sam. 1:20. Hannah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, who came up to Shiloh to worship before the Lord, earnestly prayed to God that she might become the mother of a son. Her prayer was graciously granted; and after the child was weaned she brought him to Shiloh and consecrated him to the Lord as a perpetual Nazirite.¹ Here his bodily wants and training were attended to by the women who served in the tabernacle, while Eli cared for his religious culture. Thus, probably, twelve years of his life passed away. "The child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men."² It was a time of great and growing degeneracy in Israel,³ and the Philistines kept the people in subjection.⁴

At this time new communications from God began to be made to the pious child. A mysterious voice came to him in the night season, calling him by name, and, instructed by Eli, he answered, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." The message that came from God was one of woe and ruin to Eli and his profligate sons. Samuel told it all to Eli, whose only answer to the denunciations⁵ was, "It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good." God revealed himself now in divers manners to Samuel, and his fame and his influence increased throughout the land as of one divinely called to the prophetical office.

The Philistine yoke was heavy, and the people, groaning under the wide-spread oppression, suddenly rose in revolt, and "went out against the Philistines to battle." A fierce and disastrous battle was fought at Aphek, near to Ebenezer.⁶ The Israelites were defeated, leaving 4,000 dead "in the field." The chiefs of the people thought to repair this great disaster by carrying with them the ark of the covenant as the symbol of God's presence. They accordingly, without consulting Samuel, fetched it out of Shiloh to the camp near Aphek. At the sight of the ark among them the people "shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again." A second battle was fought, and again the Philistines defeated the Israelites, stormed their camp, slew 30,000 men, and took the sacred ark. The tidings of this fatal battle was speedily conveyed to Shiloh; and so soon as the aged Eli heard that the ark of God was taken, he fell backward from his seat at the entrance of the sanctuary, and his neck brake, and he died. The tabernacle with its furniture was probably, by the advice of Samuel, now about twenty years of age, removed from Shiloh to some place of safety, and finally to Nob, where it remained many years.⁷

The Philistines followed up their advantage, and marched upon Shiloh, which they plundered and destroyed.⁸ For twenty years after this fatal battle at Aphek the whole land lay under the oppression of the Philistines. During these years Samuel was a spiritual power in the land. From Ramah, his native place, where he resided, his influence went forth on every side among the people. With unwearied zeal he went up and down from place to place, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting the people, endeavoring to awaken in them a sense of their sinfulness, and to lead them to repentance. His labors were so far successful that "all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord."

Samuel summoned the people to Mizpeh, one of the loftiest hills in Central Palestine, where they fasted and prayed, and prepared themselves there, under his direction, for a great war against the Philistines, who now marched their whole force toward Mizpeh, in order to crush the Israelites once for all. At the intercession of Samuel God interposed in behalf of Israel. Samuel himself was their leader, the only occasion in which he acted as a leader in war. The Philistines were routed and fled before the army of Israel, and a great slaughter ensued. This battle put an end to the forty years of Philistine oppression. In memory of this great deliverance, and in token of gratitude for the help vouchsafed, Samuel set up a great stone in the battlefield, and called it Eben-ezer, saying, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."⁹ This was the spot where, twenty years before, the Israelites had suffered a great defeat, when the ark of God was taken.

This victory over the Philistines was followed by a long period of peace for Israel,¹⁰ during which Samuel exercised the functions of judge, going "from year to year in circuit" from his home in Ramah to Bethel, thence to Gilgal (not that in the Jordan valley, but that which lay to the west of Ebal and Gerizim), and returning by Mizpeh to Ramah. He established regular services at Shiloh, where he built an altar; and at Ramah he gathered a company of young men around him and established a school of the prophets, afterwards established also at Gibeah, Bethel, Gilgal, and Jericho.

Many years passed, during which Samuel exercised the functions of his judicial office, being the friend and counselor of the people in all matters of private and public interest. At the close of this period, when he was now an old man, the elders of Israel came to him at Ramah;¹¹ and feeling how great was the danger to which the nation was exposed from the misconduct of Samuel's sons, whom he had invested with judicial functions as his assistants, and had placed at Beersheba on the Philistine border, and also from a threatened invasion of the Ammonites, they demanded that a king should be set over them. This request displeased Samuel. He remonstrated with them, and warned them of the consequences of such a step. At length, however, referring the matter to God, he acceded to their desires, and anointed Saul to be their king.¹² Before retiring from public life he convened an assembly of the people at Gilgal,¹³ and there solemnly addressed them with reference to his own relation to them as judge and prophet.

The remainder of his life he spent in retirement at Ramah, only occasionally and in special circumstances appearing again in public¹⁴ with communications from God to king Saul. While mourning over the many evils which now fell upon the nation, he is suddenly summoned¹⁵ to go to Bethlehem and anoint David, the son of Jesse, as king over Israel instead of Saul. After this little is known of him till the time of his death, which took place at Ramah when he was probably about eighty years of age. "And all Israel gathered themselves together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah,"¹⁶ not in the house itself, but in the court or garden of his house.¹⁷

Samuel's devotion to God, and the special favour with which God regarded him, are referred to in Jer. 15:1 and Ps. 99:6.

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