1 Samuel 8:12

_AND HE WILL APPOINT HIM CAPTAINS OVER THOUSANDS, AND CAPTAINS OVER FIFTIES; AND WILL SET THEM TO EAR HIS GROUND, AND TO REAP HIS HARVEST, AND TO MAKE HIS INSTRUMENTS OF WAR, AND INSTRUMENTS OF HIS CHARIOTS._ He will appoint him captains. In the East a person must accept any office to which he may be nominated by the king, however irksome it may be to his taste or ruinous to his interests....

10-22 If they would have a king to rule them, as the eastern kings ruled their subjects, they would find the yoke exceedingly heavy. Those that submit to the government of the world and the flesh, are told plainly, what hard masters they are, and what tyranny the dominion of sin is. The law of God and the manner of men widely differ from each other; the former should be our rule in the several relations of life; the latter should be the measure of our expectations from others. These would be their grievances, and, when they complained to God, he would not hear them. When we bring ourselves into distress by our own wrong desires and projects, we justly forfeit the comfort of prayer, and the benefit of Divine aid. The people were obstinate and urgent in their demand. Sudden resolves and hasty desires make work for long and leisurely repentance. Our wisdom is, to be thankful for the advant...

This organization was as old as the time of Moses Numbers 31:14; Deuteronomy 1:15, and prevailed among the Philistines also 1 Samuel 29:2. The civil and military divisions were identical, and the civil officers were the same as the captains of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, in time of war. TO EAR HIS GROUND - literally, “to plow his plowing.” “To ear” is an old English word, now obsolete, for to plow....

EXPOSITION SAUL (CHS. 8-31). THE great interest of the First Book of Samuel lies in the fact that we have in it the orderly consolidation of two of the main factors in the preparation for the manifestation of our Lord, namely, prophecy and the kingdom. The first seven chapters give us the history of Samuel's birth, and of the gradual development in him of those spiritual powers which finally made him not merely a prophet, but the founder of prophecy as a permanent and regularly organised institution of the Jewish Church. The whole of the rest of the book, while adding many interesting particulars about Samuel, is occupied with the establishment of the kingdom and with Saul. We have in him, both in his uprise and his fall, one of the most remarkable personages of the Old Testament. But his character for good and for evil will develop itself as we proceed. Before, however, we can apprecia...

AND HE WILL APPOINT HIM CAPTAINS OVER THOUSANDS, AND CAPTAINS OVER FIFTIES,.... Which though posts of honour, yet when they are not matter of choice, and especially being precarious, and depending on the arbitrary will of a prince, are not eligible, and less so to persons that choose another sort of life: AND [WILL SET] THEM TO EAR HIS GROUND; to plough it; not the same persons made captains of thousands and fifties, but others, whom he will employ in tilling and manuring his fields, and oblige them to it: AND TO REAP HIS HARVEST; when it is ripe, and gather it in, and bring it home into his barns and garners: AND TO MAKE HIS INSTRUMENTS OF WAR: as swords, spears, bows and arrows, most commonly used in those times: AND INSTRUMENTS OF CHARIOTS; which seem to design chariots of war, and the iron spikes and scythes which were joined to them, to cut down the foot soldiers, when driven am...

II. KING SAUL: HIS REIGN AND REJECTION 1. The King Demanded CHAPTER 8:4-22 _ 1. The king demanded (1 Samuel 8:4)_ 2. The rights of the king (1 Samuel 8:10) The kingly government is now to be established through the deliberate and untheocratic self-determination of the people. Jehovah was their invisible King, and Him they rejected by requesting a king like all the nations. The motives for the demand of a king are three: 1. The old age of Samuel and the unfitness of his sons; 2. The desire to be upon the same footing with other nations; 3. To have a leader and fight their battles (verse 20). “The state or political organization reaches its highest development when royalty is introduced. The King of Israel is not, however, intended to be an autocratic but a theocrat

1 SAMUEL 8. DEMAND FOR A KING. Opening section, continued 1 Samuel 10:17, of later account of Saul's appointment as king: either Deuteronomic or late stratum of E. Probably 1 Samuel 10:17_ a_ (to over us) in the Deuteronomic document stood in the place of 1 Samuel 8:10, giving the following sequence of events: appeal of the elders, convocation of assembly (as in 1 Samuel 7:5), Saul's election, etc. Also, in 1 Samuel 8:22; Go ye every man unto his city, is, like 1

EAR. plough (Anglo-Saxon, _erian)._...

The rights of a king 10. _unto the people_ Through their representatives the elders. Cp. note on 1 Samuel 8:4....

_Samuel Describes a King._ 1 Samuel 8:10-18 10 And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. 11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint _them_ for himself, for his chariots, and _to be_ his horsemen; and _some_ shall run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and _will set them_ to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 13 And he will take your daughters _to be_ confectionaries, and _to be_ cooks, and _to be_ bakers. 14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, _even_ the best _of them,_ and give _them_ to his servants. 15 And he will ta