Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
1. AND SAMUEL DIED.—In what year of Saul’s reign he died is not sufficiently clear. For Samuel and Saul jointly ruled Israel forty years: some so distribute these years that they give twenty to Samuel and twenty to Saul; others give only two to Saul from chapter 12, verse 1, others ten, others eighteen, the rest to Samuel. Others, more probably with Salianus, give Samuel twenty-two years, the other eighteen to Saul.
Again, how many years Samuel survived after Saul was made king is not agreed. Salianus probably thinks he survived sixteen years, and died two years before Saul, in the seventy-first year of his age; in which he is favoured by Clement of Alexandria, Rufinus, Bede, Abulensis and Josephus, whom he cites. For Saul died in the eighteenth year of his reign.
AND ALL ISRAEL WAS GATHERED TOGETHER, AND THEY LAMENTED HIM, AND BURIED HIM IN HIS HOUSE IN RAMATHA.—See here the love and observance of the whole people toward Samuel as their Judge, Prophet and author of every good. See likewise the pomp of mourning and the veneration of the dead. Moreover the bones of Samuel, under the Emperor Arcadius, in the year of the Lord 406, with great pomp and devotion of the people, were translated to Constantinople. Whence St. Jerome, writing against Vigilantius (whom our heretics follow), teaches that his relics and those of the other Saints are to be venerated by the faithful. Hear St. Jerome: “Is the Emperor Arcadius now to be called sacrilegious, who long afterwards translated the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace? Are all the Bishops to be judged not only sacrilegious but foolish, who carried a most vile thing and dissolved ashes in a silken cloth and a golden vessel? Are the people of all the Churches fools, who went to meet the holy relics, and rejoiced with such gladness as if they beheld and looked up to the Prophet present and alive, so that from Palestine as far as Chalcedon swarms of peoples were joined together, and with one voice resounded in the praise of Christ?”
AND HIS POSSESSION WAS IN CARMEL.—There were two mountains in Israel called Carmel. One is famous, in the tribe of Issachar near the sea, distant from Ptolemais 1290 stadia, abounding in vines, olives and other fragrant trees, so that it has passed into a proverb, so that when they wish to signify a fertile place they say it is “Carmel” or “a Carmel”: in this Elias and Eliseus dwelt, and there was the origin of the Carmelites, 3 Kings chapter 18. The other mountain, and on the mountain a city, was in the tribe of Juda, fertile in pastures, fruits and herbs, and productive of most delicate wine. On this Saul, having gained victory over the Amalecites, erected a triumphal arch, 1 Kings 15. In this likewise Nabal dwelt and had his possessions. So St. Jerome, Borchard, Bredenbach, Adrichomius in the Description of the Holy Land.
2. AND THE MAN WAS EXCEEDING GREAT,—as though to say: He was very powerful and very rich; whence, explaining, he adds: “And he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats.” For formerly riches consisted in sheep and flocks: whence peculium (private property) and pecunia (money) took their name from them, because “all money had its foundation in cattle,” says Columella, book 6.
6. AND PEACE TO ALL THAT THOU HAST.—That was in that age a customary salutation, by saying which, “Peace to thee and thine,” they wished every good to the person saluted; for peace brings with it all prosperity, fertility, abundance of things, and every good; as war, to these, brings all adversity and all evils.
8. FOR WE ARE COME IN A GOOD DAY,—as though to say: We have come on a joyful day, on which thou shearest the sheep, and exercisest liberality toward the shearers by giving them a splendid feast: we beg therefore that thou make us, needy and hungry, as thy neighbours, friends and defenders, partakers of this thy gladness and feast. Of the merriment which thou celebratest, then, send a portion to us, and make merry with us. For “good” is often taken for glad, cheerful, pleasant: as “bad” for sad and mournful. Whence that: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity,” Psalm 132, verse 1. And that: “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” that is, its misery and sadness, Matthew chapter 6.
WHATSOEVER THY HAND SHALL FIND, (that is, what thou hast ready, what thou canst conveniently give), GIVE TO US THY SERVANTS.
10. SERVANTS ARE MULTIPLIED NOW A DAYS THAT FLEE FROM THEIR MASTERS,—as though to say: Today David has grown great, who is Saul’s servant, so as to dare to oppose his king, and lead an army against him and aspire to his kingdom. Atrocious was this calumny and injury which Nabal hurled at David.
and might pray for good fortune.
16. THEY WERE A WALL TO US,—that is, they defended us from the inroad of enemies. David therefore justly asked provisions of them: for citizens ought to feed the soldiers in garrison, who guard them and their goods and fight for them against enemies.
a bitter vengeance, decreed by David, and fully and surely conceived by him, hangs over thy husband and thy house. AND HE IS THE SON OF BELIAL,—that is, avaricious, ungrateful, harsh, malicious and very bad, as was said at verse 3. Belial properly is the same as “without yoke,” unbridled, untamed, as though to say: Nabal in his stiff-necked way refuses to hear our good suggestions about guarding against the vengeance prepared for him by David. Wherefore we suggest the same to thee, who art a wise and teachable woman, that thou mayest turn it away from thee and thy house.
18. THEN ABIGAIL MADE HASTE,—to forestall the angry David as he approached and threatened destruction, by her generosity, and to soften him by her eloquence: and so to atone for the inhumanity of Nabal her husband.
Hence Abigail is fitly named, that is “father of exultation,” says Pagninus, because she, leaping up, begot exultation both for David and for her whole house; and she did this with manly prudence and fortitude as a virago, so that she seemed not so much a mother as a father.
FIVE MEASURES OF PARCHED CORN.—The measure (satum) was a kind of measure, containing 26 pounds, that is, 320 ounces.
AND AN HUNDRED BUNCHES OF RAISINS,—that is, a hundred bundles of grapes dried in the oven or in the sun. Others, however, by “bunches of raisins” understand certain masses of grapes of a certain weight or measure. Whence the Septuagint render it, one gomor of raisins. Aquila renders it, an ephi. Wherefore Theodoret here asserts that gomor is the same as ephi and satum, and cites Ezechiel, but falsely; for in Ezechiel 45:11 it is said: “The ephi and the bath shall be equal,” not the gomor. For from Exodus 16:16 it is clear that the gomor was the tenth part of an ephi: the gomor therefore contained eight pounds, that is 96 ounces, but the satum contained 26 pounds, that is 320 ounces.
The ephi, however, contained 80 pounds, that is 960 ounces.
See what I said on weights and measures at the end of the Pentateuch. The gomor is therefore one thing, the homer or cor another; for this contained 800 pounds, that is 9600 ounces. A gomor of raisins therefore contained 96 ounces of raisins. Whence others render the Hebrew tsimmukim, that is “bunches,” as clusters, because grains are gathered in them; or because dried clusters are gathered into a mass. So Pagninus, Arias, Marinus and others. For a hundred clusters easily weigh 96 ounces: for each cluster weighs about an ounce.
To this contributes that in 1 Paralipomenon 30:17 the Hebrews gave to Egypt two tsimmukim, that is two clusters, as it seems: for raisins and clusters are like dainties, of which a few are set at the end of a meal.
Or rather it must be said that gomor in the Septuagint does not signify a determinate measure, but any common vessel, such as the gomor was. So the Italians call every smaller vessel barille. This sense is very plain and fitting. For “bunch” signifies the binding together of several clusters; as in the kingdom of Naples they tie two or more clusters together for drying. For for the six hundred soldiers of David a hundred clusters would have been very little. One gomor, then, is here called one vessel, one mass, one common measure of raisins.