1 Samuel 12:3

Behold, here I am Samuel puts himself on his trial. The people are to be the accusers: Jehovah, and His representative Saul are the judges.

before his anointed The title "the anointed of Jehovah" (see 1 Samuel 10:1, note) is here for the first time actually applied to the King, though it had been employed before in prophecy (ch. 1 Samuel 2:10; 1 Samuel 2:35). Its use certainly gains point if we may follow the Sept. in 1 Samuel 11:15 (see note), and suppose that the ceremony of anointing had just been performed in the presence of all the people.

whose ox … whose ass The most valuable property of a pastoral and agricultural people, hence named expressly in the Tenth Commandment (Exodus 20:17). Cp. Numbers 16:15.

any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith Cp. Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19.

The Sept. reads here, "from whose hand have I received as a bribe even a pair of shoes? Answer against me, and I will restore it to you." A pair of shoes seems to have been a proverbial expression for a mere trifle, a paltry bribe. See Amos 2:6; Amos 8:6. This rendering represents a small change in the consonants of the Heb. text, and may possibly preserve the original reading. At any rate it is as old as the Greek translation of the book of Ecclesiasticus (170 150 b.c.), the author of which must have found it in the Sept. (even if the author of the Hebrew original did not find it in his Hebrew text), for in ch. Sir 46:19 we read, "And before his long sleep [Samuel] made protestations in the sight of the Lord and his anointed, I have not taken any man's goods, so much as a shoe: and no man did accuse him."