1 Samuel 7:3

_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...

1-4 God will find a resting-place for his ark; if some thrust it from them, the hearts of others shall be inclined to receive it. It is no new thing for God's ark to be in a private house. Christ and his apostles preached from house to house, when they could not have public places. Twenty years passed before the house of Israel cared for the want of the ark. During this time the prophet Samuel laboured to revive true religion. The few words used are very expressive; and this was one of the most effectual revivals of religion which ever took place in Israel....

Verse 1 Samuel 7:3. _AND SAMUEL SPAKE_] We have heard nothing of this judge since he served in the tabernacle. He was now grown up, and established for a prophet in the land of Israel. _IF YE DO RETURN_] From your backsliding and idolatry. _WITH ALL YOUR HEARTS_] For outward services and professions will avail nothing. _PUT AWAY THE STRANGE GODS_] Destroy their _images, altars_, and _groves_: they are _strange_; you do not know them as _helpers,_ _saviours_, or _defenders_. _PREPARE YOUR HEARTS_] Let your hearts be _straight_ and _steady_. _AND SERVE HIM ONLY_] Have no other religious service but his, and _obey_ his laws. _HE WILL DELIVER YOU_] Vain are your own exertions;

Compare the marginal references. Twenty years of Samuel’s life had passed away since the last mention of him 1 Samuel 4:1. Now he appears in the threefold character of prophet, Judge, and the acknowledged leader of the whole people. His words were an answer to a profession of repentance on the part of Israel, the practical proof of which would be the putting away all their false gods. (Compare Judges 6:10 note.) WILL PRAY FOR YOU ... - So Moses prayed for the people at Rephidim Exodus 17:11; and for Miriam Numbers 12:13; so Elijah prayed at Carmel...

EXPOSITION 1 SAMUEL 7:1 At Kirjath-jearim the people reverently undertook the charge of the ark, and carried out their arrangements so carefully that no further calamity occurred. On its arrival they placed it in THE HOUSE OF ABINADAB IN THE HILL. More probably _at Gibeah, _as it is translated in 2 Samuel 6:3, 2 Samuel 6:4. In Joshua 15:57 a village of this name is mentioned in the tribe of Judah not far from Kirjath-jearim (_ibid. _Joshua 15:60), and probably Abinadab, who lived there, was a L

AND SAMUEL SPAKE UNTO ALL THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL,.... When they assembled at one of their three yearly feasts, or as he went from place to place, exhorting them to repentance and reformation; and perceiving they began to be awakened to a sense of their sins, and seemed desirous of returning to God, and restoring his worship: SAYING, IF YE DO RETURN UNTO THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEARTS; truly and sincerely; for he might fear there was hypocrisy and dissimulation at least in some of them: [THEN] PUT AWAY THE STRANGE GODS; as all but the true God are; or the gods of another people, as the Philistines, Canaanites, c. Baalim seem chiefly intended, as appears from the following verse: AND ASHTAROTH FROM AMONG YOU female deities, such as with other nations went by the name of Juno, Venus, c. so the Arabic version, "the idols of the women ye secretly worship.'' Aquila renders it, "the images of...

ASHTAROTH (_ See Scofield) - (Judges 2:13). _...

7. THE RETURN UNTO JEHOVAH AND THE DELIVERANCE CHAPTER 7:3-14 _ 1. Samuel's message and the response of the people (1 Samuel 7:3)_ 2. Gathered at Mizpah (1 Samuel 7:5) 3. The deliverance (1 Samuel 7:7) Samuel now is seen beginning his great national ministry. The message he brings is the message of repentance and the assurance of faith. In simple words he addressed the people, who no doubt were prepared for it by their long period of humiliation. He demands that their true return to the Lord must be practical; the strange gods and Ashtaroth must be put away. If they serve the Lord only, deliverance out of the hands of the Philistines would come. The message was at once obeyed. Every true

SAMUEL AS JUDGE. Philistines subdued by Divine intervention; probably an ideal picture, by the Deuteronomic writer, of the happy results of Israel's repentance and Samuel's piety peace, victory, and orthodoxy. The section is the typical form of the Deuteronomic accounts of the Judges apostasy, oppression, repentance, deliverance. The statements that the Philistines ceased to invade Israel, and that the Israelites recovered the Philistine cities from Ekron to Gath, are inconsistent with the older narratives. On the other hand, the writer sees no difficulty in Samuel building an altar at Ramah, because his view was that the limitation of sacrifice to a central sanctuary did not come into force till Solomon built the Temple. 1 SAMUEL 7:2. The return of the Ark leads the people to repent; Samuel encourages them in this by promising deliverance if they worship Yahweh only....

The National Repentance and Reformation under Samuel 2. _And it came to pass_, &c. Better, AND IT CAME TO PASS, FROM THE DAY WHEN THE ARK RESTED IN KIRJATH-JEARIM, THAT A LONG TIME ELAPSED, EVEN TWENTY YEARS. Twenty years was not, as the E. V. seems to imply, the whole duration of the Ark's sojourn at Kirjath-jearim, but the time that elapsed before the reformation now to be recorded. The period here passed over in silence was a dark page in Israel's history, politically and religiously. They were vassals of the Philistines, reduced apparently to abject submission. The public worship of Jehovah was intermitted; for the Tabernacle seems to have been dismantled, and the Ark was in a private house. The people sank into gross idolatry. But meanwhile Samuel was growing in strength and influence, and when the right moment came and the desire for better things sprang up as the fruit of his pr...