1 Samuel 25:1

EXPOSITION

DEATH OF SAMUEL ( 1 Samuel 25:1 ).

And Samuel died. According to Josephus, Samuel had for eighteen years been contemporaneous with Saul's kingdom. If this calculation, which probably rests upon some Jewish tradition, be at all correct, we must include the years of Samuel's judgeship in the sum total of Saul's reign (see on 1 Samuel 13:1 ), as evidently his fall was now fast approaching. Samuel's life marked the beginning of the second age of Israelite history ( Acts 3:24 ). Moses had given the people their law, but Samuel in the schools of the prophets provided for them that education without which a written law was powerless, and called forth also and regulated that living energy in the prophetic order which, claiming an all but equal authority, modified and developed it, and continually increased its breadth and force, until the last prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, with supreme and Divine power reenacted it as the religion of the whole world. And as neither his educational institutions nor the prophetic order, whose ordinary duties were closely connected with these schools, could hare flourished without internal quietness and security, Samuel also established the Jewish monarchy, which was ideally also necessary, because the Messiah must not only be priest and prophet, but before all things a king ( Matthew 2:1 , Matthew 2:6 ; John 18:37 ). And side by side with the kingdom he lived on to see the military successes of the first king, and the firm establishment of the royal power; but to witness also the development of that king into a despot, the overclouding of his mind with fits of madness, the designation of his successor, the probation of that successor by manifold trials, his ripening fitness under them to be the model of a theocratic king, and his growth in power so as practically to be now safe from all Saul's evil purposes. And so in the fulness of time Samuel died, and all Israel gathered together and made lamentation for him (see Genesis 1:10 ), and buried him in his house. The tomb at present shown as that of Samuel is situated upon a lofty hill, the identification of which with Ramah is very uncertain. Probably he was buried not actually in his house, as that would lead to perpetual ceremonial defilement ( Numbers 19:16 ; Luke 11:44 ), but in some open spot in his garden. So Joab was buried in his own house ( 1 Kings 2:34 ). At Ramah. Thenius thinks that the prophets shared with the kings the right of intramural burial.

DAVID IN THE WILDERNESS OF PARAN ( 1 Samuel 25:1-42 ).

DAVID ASKS A GIFT OF THE WEALTHY NABAL AND IS REFUSED ( 1 Samuel 25:1-13 ).