chief judge. And every year he went to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpeh, that he might judge the children of Israel in those parts of the land; but his own home was at Ramah, and there also he judged Israel. All those who had committed great sins against the Lord, were brought before Samuel to be judged by him. And when the judges who were in every city could not decide in a dispute, because it was too hard for them; or if the people thought that they had judged wrongly, they came before Samuel, and he did justice, and judged according to the law of the Lord. 1 Samuel vii. To lament, is to weep and grieve for the loss of a thing. To lament after the Lord, was to grieve that they had lost the favour of the Lord, and to desire to regain it. To restore, is to give back. Chapter CHF. THE SIN OF ISRAEL IN DESIRING TO HAVE A WHEN Samuel had grown old, he made his two About B.C. 1095. placed them in Beersheba, in the south border of the tribe of Judah. But the sons of Samuel did not walk in the ways of their father; for they did not serve the Lord with a perfect heart, and deal justly and truly with the people over whom they were placed. They loved money more than truth and justice; they took bribes and gifts from the people whom they judged, and gave wrong judgment for the sake of gain. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel to Ramah, and said, "Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." Samuel was much displeased at the words of the elders of Israel; for it seemed to him an evil thing that the Lord's people should seek to be as the heathen nations that were round about them, and to have a king to rule over them; because the Lord Himself was now their king. Then he prayed to the Lord to show him what he should do. And the Lord said that Samuel should do as the people required, and give them a king; but He commanded him first to warn them, and show them how evil a thing it was that they desired. Then Samuel spoke to all the people as the Lord had commanded, but they would not listen to his words. They said that they would have a king over them, that they might be like other nations; and that their king might judge them, and go out before them to fight their battles. Then Samuel again asked counsel of the Lord, and the Lord said that he should hearken to their voice, and make them a king. So he told the elders of Israel what the Lord had said, and sent them away. And they returned every man to his own city. Thus the children of Israel" rejected the Lord;" they wished to have one from among their brethren to rule over them and be their king, instead of the Lord their God. They chose rather to trust in man, than in the unseen God. They thought it better to have a king, like the heathen nations, to whom they should look in time of trouble to lead them in their battles, and to judge them, rather than to trust to the Lord to rule them from His throne in heaven, and to save them from their enemies. Perhaps, also, in the secret wickedness of their evil hearts, they thought to have more liberty to do what was right in their own eyes, when the great and holy Lord God should no longer be their king. As their fathers in the wilderness had turned from the bread from heaven with which God fed them day by day, and longed for the fleshpots of Egypt, and the food of the heathen, so now the children of Israel grew weary of God's holy rule, and wished for a king like other nations. And the Lord in His anger gave them that which they sought. He gave them a king after their own heart. 1 Samuel viii. A bribe is money, or any other gift, which is offered to a man to make him do what is not right. To reject, is to cast off, or put away from us. Liberty is freedom. Men have liberty to do what they like when no one restrains them or keeps them from doing it. Chapter CEEF. THE CALL OF SAUL, THE SON OF KISH, TO BE KING AFTER the elders of Israel had refused to hearken And on the morrow there came to Ramah a man of the tribe of Benjamin, whose name was Saul. "Saul was a choice young man, and a goodly; and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upwards he was higher than any of the people." The asses of Kish, the father of Saul, had been lost, and Saul had been sent forth, with one of his father's servants, to seek them. He had sought them for three days, but had not found them. And as he was returning again to his father's home, he turned aside to Ramah, where B.C. 1095. |