_SAMUEL, GROWN OLD, MAKES HIS SONS JUDGES; WHO WALKING NOT IN THEIR FATHER'S WAYS, THE PEOPLE DESIRE SAMUEL TO SET A KING OVER THEM: SAMUEL, BY THE COMMAND OF THE LORD, HEARKENS TO THEIR VOICE, AND INFORMS THEM WHAT WILL BE THE MANNER OF THEIR KING._ _Before Christ 1067._... [ Continue Reading ]
AND HIS SONS WALKED NOT IN HIS WAYS— Eli was punished for the wickedness of his sons, but Samuel was not; because it does not appear that the crimes of Samuel's sons were in any respect so flagrant as those of the sons of Eli, nor does it appear that Samuel knew of their crimes. They lived at a grea... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY HAVE REJECTED ME, &C.— Samuel had now, by a wise and painful direction of affairs, restored the purity of religion, and rescued the nation from the power of the Philistines, and their other hostile neighbours, against whom they were utterly unable to make head when he entered upon the administr... [ Continue Reading ]
THIS WILL BE THE MANNER OF THE KING— They had desired such a king to judge or rule over them as all the nations had. Now it is very well known, that all the eastern nations were under despotic government. It is, therefore, such a kind of government which Samuel sets forth in the following verses, in... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT WE MAY BE LIKE ALL OTHER NATIONS— What unaccountable blindness was it in the Israelites, not to perceive that their happiness principally consisted in their not being like other nations, but under the immediate government of that Almighty King who had chosen them for his own peculiar people and... [ Continue Reading ]