Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Chapter the Eighth. Synopsis of the Chapter
The Hebrews ask a king of Samuel, now old, on account of the wickedness of his sons. This request displeased God and Samuel; whence Samuel, by God’s command, relates to them and foretells the rights and burdens of a king, verse 11. But the Hebrews persisting in the request for a king, verse 19, God commands him to yield to them and to appoint a king.
1. And it came to pass when Samuel was old, that he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel. 2. And the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second Abia, judges in Bersabee. 3. And his sons walked not in his ways; but they turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. 4. Then all the ancients of Israel being assembled, came to Samuel to Ramatha. 5. And they said to him: Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have. 6. And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king, to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. 7. And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee: for they have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them. 8. According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day: as they have forsaken me, and served strange gods, so do they also unto thee. 9. Now therefore hearken to their voice: but yet testify to them, and foretell them the right of the king that shall reign over them. 10. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people that had asked a king of him, 11. And he said: This will be the right of the king, that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and put them in his chariots, and will make them his horsemen, and his running footmen of his chariots, 12. And he will appoint of them to be his tribunes and centurions, and ploughmen of his fields, and reapers of his corn, and armourers of his arms and chariots. 13. And your daughters he will take to be his perfumers, and his cooks, and his bakers. 14. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best oliveyards, and give them to his servants. 15. And your corn, and the revenues of your vineyards he will tithe, to make his eunuchs and servants. 16. Your servants also, and handmaids, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, he will take away, and put them to his work. 17. Your flocks also he will tithe, and you shall be his servants. 18. And you shall cry out in that day from the face of your king, whom you have chosen to yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day, because you desired to have a king. 19. But the people would not hear the voice of Samuel, but said: Nay, but there shall be a king over us, 20. And we also will be like all nations: and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles for us. 21. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. 22. And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said to the men of Israel: Let every man go to his city.
1. AND IT CAME TO PASS WHEN SAMUEL WAS OLD, THAT HE APPOINTED HIS SONS JUDGES OVER ISRAEL.—The Hebrews hand down that Samuel was 52 years old, and then died; but they err. For he was an old man, and after this lived many years more with Saul. Wherefore Abulensis, Salianus and others better hold that Samuel at this time was about 60 years old, and after this first made Saul king, and lived with him sixteen years more, and judged Israel, and died in the 77th year of his age, and he being dead, Saul reigned alone for only two years.
HE APPOINTED HIS SONS JUDGES,—as his vicars, says Abulensis, yet so that Samuel himself was the supreme judge and prince of the people, and decided the principal matters himself, but committed the rest to his sons to decide. He appointed his sons Judges not from carnal affection, but because he had instructed them excellently and judged them worthy beyond others, says Dionysius, and perhaps at the beginning they were such, but afterwards, growing proud of their new dignity and corrupted by gifts, they turned out depraved. For honors change manners, but seldom for the better. Hear now St. Gregory: “Behold, he who had been full of the spirit of prophecy did not know whom he was appointing as Judges over Israel. What wonder, then, if those who do not receive the grace of prophecy can be deceived in arranging offices; if those who have the spirit of prophecy do not have the same spirit for arranging all things?”
2. JUDGES IN BERSABEE.—This was the southern boundary of Juda, which Samuel handed over to his sons to govern; the northern part he reserved to himself to govern; so Abulensis. Wrongly, therefore, does Josephus add that the sons of Samuel judged both in Bethel and in Bersabee.
3. (The sons of Samuel) TOOK BRIBES, AND PERVERTED JUDGMENT.—For gifts blind the eyes even of the wise, as I have often shown elsewhere. See here how the sons of Samuel degenerated from their father’s probity, as did the sons of Heli. But why did God not punish Samuel on account of his impious sons, as he punished Heli? Theodoret and Procopius answer that the crimes of the sons of Samuel were lesser and unknown to Samuel; for they received gifts secretly, and for a short time. For the people, noticing it, at once asked a king of Samuel on their account.
Morally, learn that we are not to glory in sons, because they are often degenerate. Thus Abraham begot Ismael; Isaac, Esau; Moses, Gersam; Heli, Ophni and Phinees; Samuel, the impious Joel and Abia; David, Absalom; Solomon, Roboam; Ezechias, Manasses; Josias, Joachim; for the dignity of ruling was to them an occasion of sinning: “The subjects stood,” says St. Gregory, “but the sons of the prophet, set on the summit of prelacy, fell,” namely, as smoke ascends on high and there vanishes, so also does man. Hear St. Basil, hom. 7 against the rich and avaricious: “As rivers,” he says, “issuing from small beginnings, then gradually receiving in their course an intolerable increase, at last drag with them by violent rush whatever is in the way; so also those who are advanced to great power, because they have already oppressed some, proceed continually to greater crimes and greater injuries. The increase of power becomes to them an occasion of greater wickedness.”
5. MAKE US A KING, TO JUDGE US, AS ALL NATIONS HAVE.—The first cause, therefore, that stirred the Hebrews to ask a king was the old age of Samuel and the iniquity of his sons; the second, that they might have the splendor of a kingdom and of kings, which they saw among the neighboring nations; the third, because they hoped to be better defended by a king against the Philistines, says Josephus; the fourth, because they feared the king of the Ammonites, who was preparing a grave war against Israel, as is clear from chap. 12, verse 12.
6. THE WORD WAS DISPLEASING IN THE EYES OF SAMUEL,—both because the wickedness of his sons, which he heard of and until now had not known, displeased him: so Lyranus and Abulensis; and because he loved justice and aristocracy, says Josephus. For although monarchy or kingship is the best form of government, as Aristotle testifies in the Politics, and God granted it to the Hebrews, Deut. chap. 17, nay foretold that it would be, Genesis chap. 49, verse 10 [?], yet the Hebrews sinned here in asking a king. First, because they ask him without consulting, nay against the will of, God. For God had instituted the aristocracy of the Judges; this, therefore, they ought not to have changed into a monarchy, except with God willing and changing it. Wherefore God held this novelty (and the eagerness to change the government) in abhorrence, says St. Gregory. They sinned, then, because they rejected the magistracy of the Judges instituted by God, and demanded another king, when they ought rather to have asked Samuel to correct his sons, or to set other just Judges of Israel over them in their place.
Second, because God wished to be the proper king and immediate Lord of the Hebrews, who should govern them partly by himself, partly through Judges raised up by himself; whence he took it ill that they asked another king in his stead, as if they wished to despoil God of his kingdom of Israel; for he himself had said, Exodus chap. 19, verse 5: