Is it not wheat harvest to day? I will call unto the LORD, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking you a king.
Is it not wheat harvest today? That season in Palestine occurs at the beginning of May, when it seldom or never rains, and the sky is serene and cloudless. There could not, therefore, have been a stronger or more appropriate proof of a divine mission than the phenomenon of rain and thunder happening, without any prognostics of its approach, upon the prediction of a person professing himself to be a prophet the of Lord, and giving it as an attestation of his words being true. The people regarded it as a miraculous display of divine power, and, panic-struck by this unmistakeable token of the divine displeasure at the criminal motives which had prompted their desire for a king, confessed their sin and implored the prophet to pray for them. (Josephus calls it 'a winter storm in the midst of harvest' ('Antiquities,' b. 6:, ch. 5:, sec. 6). In our climate, thunder and lightning commonly occur in summer, but in Palestine they usually happen in winter, and are unknown in summer.) Promising to do so, he dispelled their fears. The conduct of Samuel, in this whole affair of the king's appointment, shows him to have been a great and good man, who sank all private and personal considerations in disinterested zeal for his country's good; and whose last words in public were to warn the people and their king of the danger of apostasy and disobedience to God.