1 Samuel 12:2

_AND NOW, BEHOLD, THE KING WALKETH BEFORE YOU: AND I AM OLD AND GRAYHEADED; AND, BEHOLD, MY SONS ARE WITH YOU: AND I HAVE WALKED BEFORE YOU FROM MY CHILDHOOD UNTO THIS DAY._ I am old and grey-headed. [The Septuagint, from a different punctuation, renders it, kagoo gegeeraka kai katheesomai, and I have become old, and will sit down.] This public address was made after the solemn re-installment of Saul, and before the convention at Gilgal separated. Samuel having challenged a review of his public life, received a unanimous testimony to the unsullied honour of his personal character, as well as the justice and integrity of his public administration....

1-5 Samuel not only cleared his own character, but set an example before Saul, while he showed the people their ingratitude to God and to himself. There is a just debt which all men to their own good name, especially men in public stations, which is, to guard it against unjust blame and suspicions, that they may finish their course with honour, as well as with joy. And that we have in our places lived honestly, will be our comfort, under any slights and contempt that may be put upon us....

Verse 1 Samuel 12:2. _MY SONS_ ARE _WITH YOU_] It is generally agreed that these words intimate that Samuel had deprived them of their public employ, and reduced them to a level with the common people. _HAVE WALKED BEFORE YOU FROM MY CHILDHOOD_] He had been a long, steady, and immaculate servant of the public....

MY SONS ARE WITH YOU - Possibly, however, a tinge of mortified feeling at the rejection of himself and his family, mixed with a desire to recommend his sons to the favor and goodwill of the nation, is at the bottom of this mention of them....

EXPOSITION SAMUEL'S EXHORTATION TO THE PEOPLE AT GILGAL. This speech of Samuel is not to be regarded as a farewell address made upon his resignation of his office; for though a new power had been introduced, and Samuel's sons excluded from the succession, yet it was only gradually that a change was made in his own position. He was still judge (1 Samuel 7:15), and on extraordinary occasions came forward with decisive authority (1 Samuel 15:33). But as Saul gathered men of war round him (1 Samuel 14:52), the moral power possessed by Samuel would be overshadowed by the physical force whi

AND NOW, BEHOLD, THE KING WALKETH BEFORE YOU,.... He invested with his office, and in the exercise of it, and goes in and out as the captain, commander, and leader of the people; it is expressive of his being in the full possession of regal power and authority, and therefore Samuel might speak the more freely, as he could not be thought to have any hope and expectation of being reinstated in his government, or to have parted with it with any regret; and he wisely took this opportunity of reproving the people for their sin of desiring a king, when Saul was settled and established in his kingdom, and when they were in the midst of all their mirth and jollity, who might, from the success that had attended this first adventure of their king, conclude that they had done a right and good thing in requesting to have one: AND I AM OLD, AND GREY HEADED; and so unfit for government, and very will...

5. SAMUEL'S WITNESS AND WARNING CHAPTER 12 _ 1. His witness to his own integrity (1 Samuel 12:1)_ 2. His warning (1 Samuel 12:6) 3. Heaven's answer (1 Samuel 12:16) 4. His words of comfort (1 Samuel 12:20) What a scene! The man of God, the man of prayer, now advanced in years, stands before them. “I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day.” Here was not a Nazarite who had failed like Samson, but one who had lived out his Nazariteship in the fullest sense of the word. What unselfish service he had rendered and how he loved his own people! In all this he is a type o

1 SAMUEL 12. SAMUEL'S FAREWELL. From the Deuteronomic document, where it separated the two clauses of 1 Samuel 10:25, which see. 1 SAMUEL 12:1_ A_ (to witness). In response to a solemn adjuration from Samuel, the people agree that his administration has been pure. 1 SAMUEL 12:3. TO BLIND MINE EYES THEREWITH: LXX even a pair of shoes? Answer against me, and I will, etc. (_mg.)._ 1 SAMUEL 12:6_ A_ - 1 SAMUEL 12:11. Samuel briefly reviews the history of Israel, showing the gracious dealings of

_the king walketh before you_ Goes in and out in your presence in the exercise of his regal authority. _and I am old and gray-headed; and, behold my sons are with you_ Samuel refers to the two reasons alleged by the elders in ch. 1 Samuel 8:5 for asking a king, (_a_) his own age, (_b_) the misgovernment of his sons. He mentions the first expressly, but with the natural reluctance of a father to dwell upon his sons" misconduct, only hints at the second. The Hebrew conjunction "and" here as often introduces the reason, and may be translated by "for" or "seeing that." _from my childhood_ "From my youth," as the word is rendered everywhere else in the E. V. Samuel's public life may be said to have commenced when God first spoke to him in Shiloh (1 Samuel 3:11), so that they had had fu

BEHOLD, THE KING WALKETH BEFORE YOU— When Samuel says, _and my sons are with you,_ he seems to mean that the sons of whom they complained are now in their hands, deprived of their public station, reduced to the rank of subjects to the king, like the rest of the people, and punishable before his tribunal, according to their deserts. See Wall's note on the place. This fine apology which Samuel makes for himself puts one in mind of St. Paul's upon the like occasion. See Acts 20:33....