And Samuel died— This great prophet was in the ninety-seventh or ninety-eighth year of his age: he had ruled sixteen, or, as others think, twenty years before the reign of Saul, and judged the Israelites, that is, was their principal judge, for about forty years after. No wonder that so righteous a ruler, and so just a judge, should be universally lamented, especially when the wisdom and equity of his government, compared with Saul's tyranny and extravagancies, made his memory more dear, and his loss more regretted. He was buried in his house at Ramah; for the Jews had no places of public sepulture. Each family had its private sepulchres; which appears to have been the case from Abraham to the time of Joseph of Arimathea. They were, indeed, for the most part, in fields and rocks; and Samuel is the first that we read of who was buried in, or at his own house; probably in his garden: see ch. 1 Samuel 28:3 though we are afterwards told that Joab was buried in the same manner, 1 Kings 2:34 and the practice, for aught we know, might have been frequent among them; as we are told it was enjoined the Thebans, "before they built a house, to build a sepulchre in the place." Samuel was now attended by all Israel to his grave; and his remains were removed, many centuries after, with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Constantinople, by the emperor Arcadius, Ann. Dom. 401.
REFLECTIONS.—The best of men are dying worms. Samuel departs in peace: he had lived highly respected, and dies universally lamented. His last days he had spent far from a busy world, in the pleasing enjoyment of presiding in the school of the prophets at Naioth, where he was at leisure to look forward to that rest to which he was going, and wait his joyful dismission. He was buried in Ramah, in his own house or garden, and all Israel mourned his loss; a loss the more sensibly felt in the present distracted condition of their country under Saul's outrageous government. David hereupon retires to Paran, that he might be more out of the way of Saul. Note; (1.) In age it becomes us particularly to look forward, and as we get nearer our journey's end, to prepare for our great change. (2.) The death of a great and faithful minister will draw forth tears of real grief from all who know the invaluable blessing they have lost, and who sensibly feel the want of his admonitions, preaching, and prayers.
Wilderness of Paran— Which was to the south of Judea, and on the confines of Arabia, nay, the Mahometans make it a part of Arabia Deserta; and David himself is generally thought to own it such in that dolorous complaint of the 120th Psalm, where he laments his so long continuance in the tents of Kedar: but that by no means follows; for he might, upon Saul's pursuit, have passed from Paran to Arabia, and so sojourned there a considerable time; but as it was the place of Ishmael's residence, it cannot, I think, well be doubted to have been part of Arabia. There seems no doubt, from the whole of this history, that Paran, Maon, and Carmel, were contiguous. See note on chap. 1 Samuel 23:14.