Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 12:25
But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.
1Sa 12:25
But if ye shall do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.
Sin ruins a kingdom
Such was the language of Samuel to the Jews. He requires of them nothing superstitious; nothing merely ceremonious; nothing only external and temporary–but the exercise of piety flowing from the feet of God, End accompanied with sincerity and fervour in serving Him. This is all. Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart. This He enforces by two motives; the one drawn from gratitude, and the other from interest. Already I hope you have dropped Judea, and fixed your attention on your own country. The words could never have been more applicable to the Jews than they are to us. Has He not done great things for us? It is not foolish partiality, but truth that compels us to say, The lines are fallen to us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage. And to secure all these civil and religious advantages–how often has He made our cause His own! How seasonably and signally has He interposed to save us from the designs of our enemies! When brought low He has helped us. Can we be insensible to all this? If there were any ingenuousness in us, this motive alone would be sufficient. But fear has its use–and it is necessary to tell you not only that you are bound by gratitude, but interest. If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be destroyed, both you and your king. This is dreadful–Think of a king you love, as well as honour, and whose life is a lesson to the land he sways–driven from his throne. Think of liberty exchanged for slavery. Think of property rapaciously plundered, or devoured by tyrannical exaction. Think of your private dwellings affording those who are dearer to you than yourselves no security from brutal passions. Think of the temples of God burnt up, or converted to other purposes.
1. If there be a moral governor of the universe, sin must provoke Him. For who could adore a Being who professed to govern the world, and suffered the wicked to go on with impunity?
2. If sin provoke God He is able to punish it. All the elements are His. Every creature obeys His nod, from an archangel to a worm. Is anything too hard for the Lord–when He would either show mercy or execute wrath?
3. Bodies of men are punishable in this world only. In eternity there are no families, churches, nations. If, therefore, a country is to be destroyed, it is tried and condemned and executed here.
4. There is a tendency in the very nature of sin to injure and ruin a country. It destroys subordination. It relaxes the ties which bind mankind together, and makes them selfish and mean. Social welfare cannot survive the death of morals and virtue.
5. Gods dealings with guilty nations are confirmed by His word, and indeed by all history. Finally, to enable us to draw the conclusion, He often–he always–gives previous intimation of His displeasure–so that, were not men blind and deaf, they must see and bear His coming. When you see the body wasting away by disease, and every complaint growing more inveterate, you suspect that death will be the consequence–it is already begun. When the fig tree, and all the trees, put forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh. And how is it that we do not perceive that God is angry with us–that He is contending with us? But, you ask–Have we any cause to fear this? I answer, just in proportion to the degree of our sin. Now there are two ways by which we may judge of our national guilt. The first is to enumerate the sins which reign predominant among us. The other method is to lay down Criterions, by which we may estimate the prevalency and the aggravations of sin in a country. And what test has ever been devised that is not alarming when applied to ourselves? There is one thing of which we hear very much, and many seem to consider it as a counterpoise to all our fears, that there are so many good people among us. Blessed be God, this is true, and they certainly afford us encouragement. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom. Let us remember that it is a hopeful circumstance–but that it does not absolutely insure the salvation of a country. Let us recollect that there was a time when God used the following language to Jeremiah and Ezekiel concerning the Jews: Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me: for I will not hear thee. Then said the Lord unto Me, Pray not for this people for their good. Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people: Cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth. What learn we from all this? That there are cases in the history of nations when the Divine forbearance is exhausted, and when the cries of the righteous will avail no more than those of the wicked. Let us prize those institutions which are favourable to the morality and sanctification of mankind. Especially let us value the Gospel. And, oh! remember, if your country should be saved, and you as an individual continue impenitent–you–you will be certainly destroyed! And what is any national calamity to everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power! (William Jay.)
Sin the ruin of nations
The influence which continuance in sin hath upon a kingdoms ruin. But here a material question may be asked, whether this connection between their doing wickedly and being consumed were not by virtue of that political covenant between God and the people of Israel, which was peculiar to themselves; and how far it may be just and reasonable to argue concerning the case of other nations, with whom God hath entered into no such covenant, as He did with them? To make this clear, and to bring it nearer to our own case, I shall proceed in this method.
1. To show that God doth exercise a particular Providence with respect to the state End condition of kingdoms and nations.
2. That according to the usual method of Providence their condition is better or worse as the people are.
3. That there are some circumstances of sinning which do very much portend and hasten a peoples ruin.
I. That God doth exercise a particular providence with a respect to the state and condition of nations, i.e., as they are united into several and distinct bodies, which are capable as such of being happy or miserable. For since mankinds entering into society is both necessary and advantageous to them, and God doth not barely permit and approve, but dispose and incline men to it, and hath given them laws to govern themselves by, with respect to society, it is but reasonable to suppose that God should call men to an account in that capacity. Either, therefore, those societies as such shall go wholly unpunished, or they must suffer according to them in this world, and therefore here the case is very different, from that of particular persons. We say, and with a great deal of reason, that it is no disparagement to the justice of Gods Providence for good men to suffer, or for wicked men to escape punishment in this life, because the great day of recompense is to come, wherein there will be a Revelation of the righteous judgment of God. But that will not hold as to nations, who shall not suffer in communities then as they have sinned here; and therefore it is more reasonable to suppose the rewards and punishments of such shall be in this life according to the measure and proportion of their sins. And of this we have sufficient evidence in Scripture upon these accounts.
1. Because it charges guilt upon nations as well as upon particular persons.
2. Because the Scripture tells us of a certain measure to which the sins of a nation do rise before they are ripe for punishment. This was the reason given why Abrahams children must stay to the fourth generation before they come to the possession of the promised land, for the iniquity of the Ammorites is not vet full.
3. Because it attributes the great revolutions of government to a particular Providence of God, God is the Judge, or the supreme Arbitrator of the affairs of the world, He pulleth down one and setteth up another. Which holds with respect to nations as well as particular persons. When a nation is near some dreadful calamity, as a just punishment of its sins, God takes away the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent, and the resolution of the men of courage, that they all stand amazed and confounded, not knowing how to give or take advice; but they are full of fears, and rather apt to quarrel with one another than to consult the general good. This was just the state of Egypt when God did purpose to execute His justice upon it.
(1) First, their courage failed them.
(2) Their counsels were divided and infatuated: And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians.
The Princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof. The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof, and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a reeling man staggereth in his vomit, i.e., they know not what to fix upon, all their counsels being so uncertain, and the best taking no effect. But on the other side, when God raises up a nation to be a scourge to other nations, He inspires them with a new spirit and courage, unites their counsels. Look over all the mighty revolutions which have happened in the kingdoms and empires of the world, and the more ye search and consider and compare things together the greater truth you will find in this observation. When God designed to punish the Eastern nations for their transgressions, then the Babylonian monarchy rose so fast and spread so far that nothing was able to stand before it. And when the sins of Babylon called for vengeance, God raised up Cyrus, and called him by his name, long before he was born, and brought the fierce nations of the East to submit themselves to him.
4. Because the Scripture still leaves hopes of mercy to a people where they have a heart to repent. And where repentance hath intervened between the threatening and execution of judgment God hath showed wonderful kindness either in stopping, removing, or deferring the severity of judgments.
(1) In stopping His hand when it hath been lifted up, end just ready to strike. We can desire no clearer instance in that case than that of Nineveh.
(2) In removing His hand when it hath struck.
(3) In putting by the stroke for the present, or deferring the execution of His wrath.
II. The second particular is that according to the usual method of providence the state or condition of a people is better or worse according to the general nature of their actions. If they be good and virtuous, careful to please God, diligent observers of Gods Laws and their own, and dealing with other nations according to the laws of nations, they will live in a much more flourishing and happy condition than a nation can do where atheism, profaneness, and all sorts of wickedness abound, which I shall prove two ways.
1. Absolutely, and that will appear
(1) From the tendency of true goodness and piety to promote a nations honour and interest abroad. And no man is ignorant how much reputation brings of real advantage to a nation; and that a people despised are next to a people enslaved, and that it is impossible to hold up honour and esteem in the world, where the reputation of virtue is lost.
(2) From its tendency to maintain peace and tranquillity at home.
(3) From the keeping up the spirits, and securing the safety of men. A good conscience makes a man dare to do his duty; but the sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.
2. Comparatively, if we do compare several nations together, we shall find those to flourish most and to be the most happy where men do most fear God and work righteousness. This may seem a paradox at first hearing to those who consider by what ways of fraud and violence, of injustice and cruelty, of rapine and oppression, the great and mighty empires of the world have been raised and maintained. Yet, notwithstanding this plausible objection, the truth of my assertion will appear, if we understand it as we ought to do with these following cautions.
(1) That it is not to be understood of the largeness of dominion, or superfluity of riches, but of the true happiness of living in society together, which is by promoting the real good of all. To which the vastness of empire, and immensity of riches is by no means necessary, but a sufficiency both of strength and treasure to defend itself in case of foreign enemies, and to provide for the necessities and conveniences of all the members of it.
(2) That this is not to be understood of the private benefit of any particular persons, but of the general good of all sorts and conditions of men.
(3) That it is not to be understood of sudden and surprising events, but of a lasting and continued state.
(4) It is to be understood of persons under equal circumstances, when we compare the condition of people with each other: not the nobles of one nation with the peasants of another, nor the princes with the people, but every rank and order of men with those of the same rank and condition. And upon these terms we need no other proof of the truth of this assertion than the instance in the text of the people of Israel, which will best appear by comparing the state of both kingdoms after the body of the people was broken into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The kingdom of Israel by Jeroboams policy, and for reasons of state, fell off from the worship of the true God, and worshipped the calves of Dan and Bethel. But did they prosper or succeed more than the kingdom of Judah? The ten tribes had a much larger territory, yet the kingdom of Judah was stronger and flourished more, and continued longer by 135 years than the kingdom of Israel did; and when they were carried into captivity the ten tribes were lost as to their name and interest among the people of Assyria; but the two tribes were restored after 70 years captivity under the princes of the line of David.
III. That there are some circumstances in the sins of a nation which do very much portend and hasten its ruin.
1. When they are committed after more than ordinary mercies received, such as in reason ought to keep men most from the commission of them, as greater knowledge of the will of God that other people enjoy, more frequent warnings of their danger than others have had, many and great deliverances which God hath vouchsafed.
2. When they are committed with more than ordinary contempt of God and religion.
3. When there is an universal degeneracy of all ranks and conditions of men. Thus I have considered the influence which doing wickedly hath upon the ruin of a nation, it remains now that I make application of this to our own case. We have been a people that have received wonderful mercies and many final deliverances from Gods hand. He hath placed us in a rich and fruitful land, and hath furnished us with so great plenty, that even that hath been thought our burden; hath blessed us with such an increase of trade that our merchants far exceed those of Tyre both in riches and number. Our ships of trade are like a valley of cedars when they lie at home, and when they are abroad they compass the earth, and make the fiches of the East and West Indies to meet in our streets. As to our civil constitution, if we consider the admirable temper of our government, the justice and wisdom of our laws, and the greatness of our liberties, we have no reason to envy the condition of any people upon earth. Thus far all things tend still to make us a happy nation if we did know and value our own happiness. But that which above all other things should make us so hath been the great occasion of our trouble, and is still of our fears, and that is religion. And yet in this respect we have advantages above any other nation in the Christian world, having a Church reformed with so much wisdom and moderation as to avoid the dangerous extremes on both sides. But before I conclude the text suggests to us three things, very pertinent to the duty of this day, which I shall briefly recommend to your consideration.
1. Matter of humiliation for our sins, as they have an influence upon the nations suffering.
2. Matter of advice, only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth, and with all your heart.
3. Matter of encouragement, for consider what great things He hath done for you. (Edward Stillingfleet.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 25. Ye shall be consumed] If ye do wickedly you shall be destroyed, your kingdom destroyed, and your king destroyed. Here they had set before them life and good, death and evil. Never was a people more fully warned, and never did a people profit less by the warning; and they continue to this day monuments of God’s justice and forbearance. Reader, What art thou? Perhaps a similar monument. Consider therefore what great things God has done for thee.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But if ye shall still do wickedly,…. Continue to rebel against God, revolt from him, and depart from his worship, and despise his prophets, and serve idols:
ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king; their king would be so far from protecting, that he should perish with them, be killed by the sword, as Saul their first king was, or go into captivity, as others of their kings did.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
25. Consumed, both ye and your king Mark the decree: By disobedience and sin even the Lord’s anointed, as well as the chosen people, shall most certainly perish! Surely a most impressive warning with which to close the prophet’s last public address to the assembled nation!
This address is a noticeable representative of the burden of prophecy as exhibited in the oracles of all the prophets that followed Samuel. Here we see the true prophet as emphatically the man of God, the messenger of Jehovah, commissioned to reveal the divine will, to rebuke the wickedness of kings and peoples, and to pronounce the judgments that would surely follow personal and national sins. He was the spiritual watchman whom Jehovah set over his people to reveal the great truths of the divine government, and apply them to the leading persons and events of his age.
Samuel appeared again at intervals in the subsequent history of Saul, but his public ministry as ruler in Israel closed with this farewell address at Gilgal. His history, as recorded in this book which bears his name, presents him as the holy child, the saintly judge, and the venerable seer and prophet.
(1) The holy child. His mother was a prophetess, as appears from the inspired psalm which she uttered at the time of his dedication, (1Sa 2:1-10,) and he was given her in answer to most fervent prayer. Hence his name Samuel Heard of God. 1Sa 1:20. Like Samson, he was a Nazarite from the womb, and the vow of his consecration was binding on him all his days. 1Sa 1:11. While yet a tender child his parents took him to the tabernacle at Shiloh, and, by special sacrifices, consecrated him unto the Lord; and there, until the place was desolated, he ministered unto the Lord, girded with a linen ephod. 1Sa 2:18. It was while he was yet a child that the Lord revealed himself to him in a vision of the night, and from that time he knew Jehovah by a divine and intimate communion. 1Sa 3:7. This supernatural endowment speedily elevated him to recognition by all Israel as a prophet of the Most High God. 1Sa 3:20. Surely Samuel’s holy childhood, like that of the blessed Jesus, proclaims to all who study it that even in its earliest and tenderest years the human heart may bear the image of the heavenly.
(2) The saintly judge. His holy childhood and early call to be a prophet invest his character as judge with more of saintliness than that of any other judge in Israel. Even Eli, who was also the high priest, never wielded the moral and religious influence that Samuel did. We first meet with him in the character of judge at Mizpeh, (1Sa 7:6,) where the Philistines met with one of their most disastrous defeats. 1Sa 7:13. Yet even on that occasion his character of judge seemed almost swallowed up in that of intercessor for the people. They looked to him as a mediator between themselves and God. 1Sa 7:8. He presided at the sacrifices offered there and at other places, and his own home was not without its altar. 1Sa 7:17. In fact, no sacrifice of the people seemed complete without his blessing; and his yearly visits to Beth-el, Gilgal, and Mizpeh (1Sa 7:16) were probably hailed with like interest and enthusiasm to that which greeted him at the city where he first met Saul. 1Sa 9:12-13. The people showed their entire confidence in his judgeship by committing to his hands the task of establishing them into a kingdom, (1Sa 8:5,) and when he resigned his rulership over them, they called God to witness that no unrighteous act could be laid to his charge. 1Sa 12:5.
(3) The venerable seer and prophet. It was this relation in which Samuel stood before God and man that gave such saintliness to his character as judge; and, in fact, whenever he appeared on public occasions it would seem that his judgeship was almost lost sight of in view of the far more exceeding sanctity and venerableness of his prophetic calling. While yet a youth, all Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba, knew that he was established to be a prophet of the Lord. 1Sa 3:20. It is as prophet rather than judge that he intercedes with God for the people, blesses their sacrifices, and teaches them the right ways of the Lord. He was both seer and prophet. 1Sa 9:9. Gifted with a supernatural vision, he could discern things that were unknown to common mortals. 1Sa 9:20; 1Sa 10:22. It was in a vision of the night that the Lord first revealed himself to Samuel. 1Sa 3:15. Before that time, in Israel divine revelations were few and far between, (1Sa 3:1😉 but afterwards there was an unbroken succession of prophets until the close of Old Testament history, so that the inspired apostle seems to have regarded him as the beginning of the sacred order. Act 3:24. He was the founder of the schools of the prophets, (1Sa 10:5,) and after he resigned his judgeship he sought retirement at Ramah among his spiritual children in one of these schools, (1Sa 19:18,) and there for a time he had the training of the great psalmist king of Israel. His prophetical office he exercised after the inauguration of Saul, and that monarch ever looked up to him as his spiritual father, and showed him the profoundest reverence. We next meet with him at Gilgal, near the Jordan, where he first declared to the disobedient Saul that his kingdom should not long continue. 1Sa 13:14. Afterwards he counselled him to war with Amalek, (1Sa 15:1😉 and after the battle, in which Saul was again disobedient to the divine word, he uttered before him his last solemn oracle. 1Sa 15:17-35. Then, in accordance with a divine revelation, he turned aside to Beth-lehem and anointed the youthful son of Jesse, (1Sa 16:1😉 after which he retired to his home at Ramah, and there died and was buried (1Sa 25:1) amid the lamentations of a people with whom his word had been as the law of God. There have been other prophets in some respects, perhaps, greater than Samuel; in the office of judge, perhaps Gideon surpassed him in the number of his mighty works; and there may have been many children equally as holy and devout in their childhood; but, taking him altogether, we find for him in history no perfect parallel. His is a monumental character on which no blot appears, and on whose memory Jew and Christian will ever love to meditate.
“Samuel is the chief type,” says Stanley, “in ecclesiastical history, of holiness, of growth, of a new creation without conversion; and his mission is an example of the special missions which such characters are called to fulfil. In proportion as the different stages of life have sprung naturally and spontaneously out of each other, without any abrupt revulsion, each serves as a foundation on which the other may stand; each makes the foundation of the whole more sure and stable. In proportion as our own foundation is thus stable, and as our own minds and hearts have grown up gradually and firmly, without any violent disturbance or wrench to one side or to the other, in that proportion is it the more possible to view with calmness and moderation the difficulties and differences of others; to avail ourselves of the methods and new characters that the advance of time throws in our way; to return from present troubles to the pure and untroubled well of our earlier years; to preserve and to communicate the childlike faith, changed, doubtless, in form, but the same in spirit, in which we knelt in humble prayer for ourselves and others, and drank in the first impressions of God and of heaven. The call may come to us in many ways; it may tell us of the change of the priesthood, of the fall of the earthly sanctuary, of the rise of strange thoughts, of the beginning of a new epoch. Happy are they who, here or elsewhere, are able to perceive the signs of the times, and to answer, without fear or trembling, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.’”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
REFLECTIONS
READER! let us not too hastily pass over this chapter, without taking with us the several very interesting instructions it affords.
In this address of the prophet, dismissed, as he evidently was, by the people, we behold how pleasant a thing it is, in the close of any labours, to be able to make an appeal to God, for the rectitude of our proceedings. And while we are enabled to challenge the tongue of calumny, to be yet more refreshed, in the consciousness, that our record is on high.
In the beautiful recapitulation, which the man of God makes in his sermon of Israel’s history, by way of calling up the remembrance of the people, both to divine mercies, and their unworthiness, we ought to learn the preciousness of faith, in referring all our blessings, while we review them, into the grace, and mercy, and loving kindness of our God. Faith finds great strength in such reviews, for future occasions. And I would desire the reader, not to overlook this instruction from it, while I pray, that my own mind may be refreshed in the thought; that the best method to seek strength for confidence in Jesus, for future blessings, is to make remembrance at the throne of what are past. Looking up to the great Author, and Finisher of faith, for suited strength for our day, we certainly take the most effectual means to trust him for what is to come, when we tell him of what he hath done before. And by giving him the glory of what we have received, to rely upon him for what we need.
But principally, as an improvement from the perusal of this chapter, in the call of Samuel to the Lord, and the Lord’s answer, in a way contrary to the usual manner of things; let the Reader behold in the Prophet the type of his Master. Yes! blessed Jesus! I would desire grace, upon the humblest and slightest occasions, as well as the highest and the greatest, to discover somewhat of These. Do I not know, dearest Lord, that all intercourse with heaven can only be opened by Thee? No prophet, no patriarch, no apostle, no angel of light, could have procured for our fallen nature, this blessing. Heaven must have been forever inaccessible, hadst thou not opened that new, and that living way, by thy blood! Convinced therefore, of this most precious, and soul-reviving truth, oh! let me learn to prize the unspeakable mercy; delight myself in seeking constant communion, and intercourse with my God and Father, in Christ Jesus; and like Samuel, learn to be looking out for such manifestations of thy grace, and glory, as may be contrary to the usual plan of ordinary events; that at an evening time, if needful, it may be light.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Sa 12:25 But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.
Ver. 25. But if ye shall still do wickedly. ] Thus he mixeth promises and menaces, 1Sa 12:15 and artificially concludeth with that which would stick by them, and ring in their ears.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
But if: Deu 32:15-44, Jos 24:20, Isa 3:11
ye and: 1Sa 31:1-5, Deu 28:36, Hos 10:3
Reciprocal: Gen 22:12 – now Deu 8:19 – I testify against Deu 30:17 – if thine 1Sa 28:19 – the Lord 1Sa 31:6 – General 1Ki 14:15 – the Lord 1Ch 10:6 – Saul 2Ch 7:19 – if ye turn away Isa 1:20 – if ye refuse Isa 1:28 – they that Act 13:22 – when Heb 11:32 – Samuel