Introduction
SECTION FIRST.
HISTORY OF SAMUEL. CHAPTERS 1-12.
SAMUEL’S BIRTH.
The opening chapters of First Samuel are invaluable for the light they shed upon the darkest period of Israelitish history. From the point of time with which they open there stretches backward into the age of the Judges a period of gloom, a time of comparative lawlessness and violence, yet also of rude simplicity and homeliness, of whose manners and condition we gather much knowledge from the account of Eli’s administration. The history opens abruptly with the particulars of Samuel’s birth, and leaves us, for our knowledge of its chronology, altogether to subsequent details. We find at the head of the sanctuary worship, holding the offices of both high priest and judge, a venerable man, far advanced in years, whose name has had no previous mention. He is of the house of Ithamar; but at the last historical notice of the subject the high priesthood was held by the house of Eleazar. How the change was effected we are nowhere told, and must be content to remain ignorant. It was, doubtless, effected amidst some of the disorders of the age of the Judges; perhaps, by unlawful means. See note on 1 Samuel 1:9.
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