Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Samuel 8:3
And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.
3. turned aside after Lucre ] From the straight-forward path of their father’s example. Lucre (from Lat. lucrum) is only used in the E. V. in a bad sense of ill-gotten gain.
took bribes and perverted judgment ] The same phrases are coupled together in Deu 16:19, though differently translated in the E. V. “Thou shalt not wrest judgment nor take a gift.” Cp. Exo 23:6; Exo 23:8.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 3. His sons walked not in his ways] Their iniquity is pointed out in three words:
1. They turned aside after lucre; the original ( batsa) signifies to cut, clip, break off; and therefore Mr. Parkhurst thinks that it means nearly the same with our clipping of coin. It however expresses here the idea of avarice, of getting money by hook or by crook. The Targum says, “They looked after mamon dishkar, the mammon of unrighteousness;” of which they did not make unto themselves friends but enemies; See Clarke on Mt 6:24.
2. They took bribes; shochad, gifts or presents, to blind their eyes.
3. They perverted judgment – they turned judgment aside; they put it out of its regular path; they sold it to the highest bidder: thus the wicked rich man had his cause, and the poor man was oppressed and deprived of his right.
This was the custom in our own country before MAGNA CHARTA was obtained; he that would speed in the king’s court must bribe all the officers, and fee both the king and queen! I have found in our ancient records the most barefaced and shameful examples of this kind; but it was totally abolished, invito rege, by that provision in the above charter which states, Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimvs ant differemus rectum aut judicium; “To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or defer, justice and right.” It was customary in those inauspicious times, for judgment to be delayed in banco regis, in the king’s court, as long as there was any hope that more money would be paid in order to bring it to issue. And there were cases, where the king did not like the party, in which he denied justice and judgment entirely! Magna Charta brought them to book, and brought the subject to his right.
Of those times it might well be said, as Homer did, Iliad xvi., ver. 387.
,
, .
“When guilty mortals break the eternal laws,
Or judges, bribed, betray the righteous cause.”
“When the laws are perverted by force; when justice is expelled from her seat; when judges are swayed from the right, regardless of the vengeance of Heaven.” Or, in other words, these were times in which the streams of justice were poisoned in their source, and judges neither feared God nor regarded man.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Opportunity and temptation drew forth and discovered the corruption in them, which till now was hid from their father, and, it may be, from themselves.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And his sons walked not in his ways,…. The meaning of which is not that they did not go the circuit he did, which is too low a sense of the words some Jewish writers give; but they did not walk in the fear of God, in the paths of religion and righteousness, truth and holiness; they neither served God, nor did justice to men, as Samuel had done:
but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment; indulged to covetousness, sought to get riches at any rate, took bribes, which blind the eyes of judges; and so passed wrong judgment, and gave the cause to those that gave the largest gifts, right or wrong.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(3) Took bribes, and perverted judgment.This sin, at all times a fatally common one in the East, was especially denounced in the Law. (See Exo. 23:6-8; Deu. 16:19.) It is strange that the same ills that ruined Elis house, owing to the evil conduct of his children, now threatened Samuel. The prophet-judge, however, acted differently to the high priestly judge. The sons of Samuel were evidently, through their fathers action in procuring the election of Saul, quickly deposed from their authority. The punishment seems to have been successful in correcting the corrupt tendencies of these men, for we hear in after days of the high position occupied at the court of David by the distinguished descendants of the noble and disinterested prophet. (See the notices in 1Ch. 6:33; 1Ch. 25:4-5, respecting Heman, the grandson of Samuel, the kings seer, who was chief of the choir of the Psalmist-king in the house of God.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Turned aside after lucre took bribes perverted judgment Three evils which cannot be too strongly reprobated in a judge. The Hebrew word , here translated lucre, means properly ill-gotten gain that which is obtained by violence or fraud. The judge who covetously puts his hand on ill-gotten gain will be easily overcome with bribery, and he who takes bribes will necessarily pervert judgment and truth.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Sa 8:3. 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 great distance from him, and might receive the bribes secretly: nor, further, does it appear, that he was wanting in a proper chastisement of them when he did know of their enormities; at least nothing of this kind is recorded in history.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Sa 8:3 And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.
Ver. 3. And his sons walked not in his ways. ] Heroum filii noxae. Grace is by gift, not inheritance. See Trapp on “ 1Sa 3:12 “ This was no fault of Samuel’s, as hath been said. Plato worthily blameth Darius for so ill breeding his son Xerxes, whereas he had seen the evil consequence in Cyrus’s breeding Cambyses, whom Darius succeeded in the empire.
But turned aside after lucre.
And perverted judgment.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
turned aside, &c.: i.e. stooped to extortion. took bribes: contrary to Deu 16:19.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
his sons: 2Sa 15:4, 1Ki 12:6-11, 2Ki 21:1-3, Ecc 2:19, Jer 22:15-17
but turned: Exo 18:21, Deu 16:19, Psa 15:5, Psa 26:10, Isa 33:15, 1Ti 3:3, 1Ti 6:10
Reciprocal: Exo 23:8 – thou shalt take 1Sa 12:2 – my sons 1Sa 12:12 – Nay Job 15:34 – the tabernacles Pro 15:27 – He that is Pro 17:21 – that Pro 17:23 – General Ecc 7:7 – a gift Hos 4:18 – her Amo 5:12 – take Mic 3:11 – heads Act 24:26 – hoped Eph 5:3 – covetousness
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Sa 8:3. Took bribes Opportunity and temptation discovered that corruption in them which, till now, was hid from their father, and, it may be, from themselves. It has often been the grief of holy men, that their children did not tread in their steps. So far from it, that the sons of eminently good men have been often eminently wicked.