1 Samuel 7:3 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel. A great national reformation was effected through the influence of Samuel. Disgusted with their foreign servitude, and panting for the restoration of liberty and independence, they were open to salutary impression; and, convinced of their errors, they renounced idolatry [Septuagint, tas Baalim. Baal is here represented as a goddess; but it is the masculine in the original text, the Hebrew having no name signifying a goddess, because the Israelites owned no sex in the Deity], and the re-establishment of the faith of their fathers was inaugurated at a great public meeting held at Mizpeh in Judah, and hallowed by the observance of impressive religious solemnities. The 'drawing water, and pouring it out before the Lord,' seems to have been a symbolical act by which, in the people's name, Samuel testified there sense of national corruption, their need of that moral purification of which water is the emblem, and their sincere desire to pour out their hearts in repentance before God.