1 Samuel 12:16-18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Now, therefore, stand and see, &c.— Rain indiscriminately in the winter months, and none at all in the summer, is what is most common in the East; so it is at Aleppo, and about Algiers: and so Jacobus de Vitriaco assures us it is in Judea: for he observes, that "lightning and thunder are wont, in the western countries, to be in the summer, but happen in the Holy Land in winter: that in the summer it seldom or never rains there; but in winter, though the returns of rain are not so frequent, yet after they begin to fall, they pour down for three or four nights together, most vehemently as if they would drown the country;" See Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. 1: p. 1097. But though commonly there is no rain at Aleppo through the whole summer, yet sometimes there is such a thing as a smart thunder-shower. So Dr. Russel tells us, that in the night between the first and second of July 1743, some severe thunder-showers fell: but he adds, that it was a thing very extraordinary at that season. Possibly it may be more uncommon still at Jerusalem; for St. Jerome, who lived long in the Holy Land, declares, in his Commentary on Amos, that he never saw rain in those provinces, and especially in Judea, in the end of June, or in the month of July: but if it should be found to be otherwise, and that, though St. Jerome had never seen it, such a thing may now and then happen there, as it did at Aleppo while Dr. Russel resided in that city; the fact here recorded might nevertheless be an authentic proof of what Samuel affirmed; since a very rare and unusual event, happening immediately, without any preceding appearance of such a thing, upon the prediction of a person professing himself to be a prophet, and giving this as an attestation of his being a messenger of God, is a sufficient proof of a divine mission, (as is also its happening at any other time distinctly marked out) though a like event has sometimes happened without any such declared interposition of God, and therefore understood on all hands to be casual, and without design. Bishop Warburton has sufficiently argued this point in his Julian, where he supposes that those fiery eruptions, crosses, &c. which happened upon that emperor's attempt to rebuild the Jewish temple at Jerusalem, were such as have happened at other times, without any particular meaning; and yet, as they were then circumstanced, were an authentic attestation to the truth of Christianity. It should not be forgotten, that this thunder and rain of Samuel's seem to have been in the day-time, and while Samuel and the Israelites continued together, solemnizing Saul's inauguration; which circumstance added considerably to the energy of this event; Dr. Russel informing us, that the rains in those countries usually fall in the night, as did those uncommon thunder-showers of July 1743. See Observations, p. 4. 6 and Scheuchzer on the place.