CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
1 Samuel 25:1. “And Samuel died.” Josephus says that “Samuel governed and presided over the people alone, after the death of Eli, twelve years, and eighteen years in conjunction with Saul, the king.” He likewise adds, “They wept for him a very great number of days, not looking on it as a sorrow for the death of another man, but as that in which they were everyone of themselves concerned. He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature, and on that account he was very dear to God.” “In his house,” i.e., in a court or garden attached to his house. “Every respectable family in the East still has its own house of the dead, and often this is in a little detached garden, consisting of a small stone building, where there is no rock, resembling a house. It has neither door nor window. (Cf. 1 Kings 2:34; Job 30:23.) (Jamieson.) “David arose,” etc. It might be that David felt himself in more danger now that the restraint which Samuel might have exercised over Saul was removed, or, as Keil suggests, the wilderness of Judah might no longer afford sustenance to him and his large body of six hundred men. The wilderness of Paran seems to have been a somewhat undefined tract of country extending from the southern border of Canaan to the Sinaitic desert on the south, the wilderness of Shur on the west, and the territory of Edom on the east. The examination of the various Scripture references to this region seems to show that the term was sometimes used for the entire wilderness tract of this district. (See Smith’s Biblical Dictionary.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Samuel 25:1
THE DEATH OF SAMUEL
I. The death of the righteous often seems unseasonable in relation to the living. It is often so in family and social life. Children especially need a kind and strong hand to guide and train them, and when their father’s or their mother’s hand is such an one, their removal by death seems most inopportune and an unmitigated calamity. We think how much better it would have been for the family if the parent’s life had been prolonged for a little season, until the children’s characters were more established, and they were altogether more fitted to face the world alone. And the same thing often takes place in national life. A great and good man is removed when it seems as if the country in which he has been so great a power for good must suffer irreparable loss by his removal, and that the time of his departure is the time when the nation most needs him. Samuel’s death at this time seemed a most unseasonable event so far as the welfare of Israel was concerned. Although he had retired from public life, he could hardly fail still to exert some power for good over Saul, and the universal lamentation at his death shows that the respect of the people was undiminished, and, therefore, his influence upon them was still great and salutary. Looking from a human stand-point, it seemed especially desirable that his life should be prolonged until David had succeeded to the throne, and peace and order had taken the place of the present misrule and anarchy.
II. But the value of the life of the righteous often becomes more manifest at his death, and so the lessons of his life more influential. The sun rises upon the earth morning by morning, and its coming is so regular and certain that men take its appearance and all the light and heat that it brings as a matter of course, and do not realise how many and how inestimable are the blessings that it bestows, or how indispensable it is to our well-being. But if there came a morning when the sun did not rise, and if it were known that it would shine upon the world no more, how the value of sunlight would come home to every man, and how universal would be the lamentation over its absence. So it is often with a good man’s influence. It is so constant, so unobtrusive, and yet so fraught with blessing, that none realise what he is and what he does until he is gone, and then they know his value by his loss. But the awakening to a sense of his worth gives force to the lessons of his life—both to those of deed and word—and so he being dead still speaks, and often to more attentive and obedient ears than when living. This is doubtless the key to what often seems at first sight so mysterious and dark a providence, the death of the righteous when their life seems so much needed. It is quite possible it was so in Samuel’s case. It is certain that the people who had disregarded his advice were the same who now lamented him, and it may be that their sense of loss brought home more powerfully to their hearts and consciences the truths which he had taught them in the days which were past.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The aged man is laid aside, and sinks out of the popular view; and when, at length, he dies, people are startled as they recall how great a man he was in his prime, how great a work he did. It is something to live so that one’s death will be truly mourned by a whole people. The old, who sadly think themselves forgotten, may find solace, not only in reviewing the past, but also in the persuasion that yet once again they will be vividly remembered, while the younger should strive to anticipate that coming time, and show respect and affection while it can be fully enjoyed.—Translator of Lange’s Commentary.
THE GENERAL EFFECT OF SAMUEL’S WHOLE CAREER
Observe what his position was, and how he filled it. He was not a founder of a new state of things, like Moses, nor a champion of the existing order, like Elijah or Jeremiah. He stood, literally, between the two—between the living and the dead, between the past and future, the old and the new, with that sympathy for each which, at such a period, is the best hope for any permanent solution of the questions which torment it. He had been brought up and nurtured in the old system.… His early dedication to the sanctuary belonged to that age of vows of which we saw the excess in the rash vows of Jephthah, of Saul, and the assembly at Mizpeh: in the more regular, but still peculiar and eccentric devotion of Samson to the life of a Nazarite.… He was also the last of the Judges, of that long succession who had been raised up from Othniel downwards to effect special deliverances. (1 Samuel 7:12.) … But he must be regarded as the first representative of the new epoch which was dawning on the country. He is explicitly described as Samuel, the Prophet. (Acts 3:24; Acts 13:20.) … By the ancient name of seer—older than any other designation of the prophetic office—he was known in his own and after times, … and he is the beginning of that prophetical dispensation which ran parallel with the monarchy from the first to the last king.… And, unlike Moses or Deborah, or any previous saint or teacher of the Jewish Church, he grew up for this office from his earliest years.… His work and his life are the counterparts of each other, … and his mission is an example of the special mission which such characters are called upon to fulfil. In proportion as the different stages of life have sprung naturally and spontaneously out of each other, without any abrupt revulsion, each serves as a foundation upon which the other may stand—each makes the foundation of the other more sure and stable. In proportion as our own foundation is thus stable, and as our own minds and hearts have grown up thus gradually and firmly, without any violent disturbance or wrench to one side or to the other; in that proportion is it the more possible to view with calmness and moderation the difficulties and differences of others—to avail ourselves of the new methods and new characters that the advance of time throws in our way, … to preserve and to communicate the childlike faith—changed, doubtless, in form, but the same in spirit—in which we first knelt in humble prayer for ourselves and others, and drank in the first impressions of God and heaven. The call may come to us in many ways; it may tell us of the change of the priesthood, of the fall of the earthly sanctuary, of the rise of strange thoughts, of the beginning of a new epoch. Happy are they who are able to perceive the signs of the times, and to answer without fear or trembling, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.”—Dean Stanley.