1 Samuel 25:1

1 Samuel 25:1 . And Samuel died — According to the best chronologers, he governed Israel after the death of Eli sixteen years or upward, and lived about forty years after in the reign of Saul; and all the Israelites lamented him — It is no wonder that so wise and holy a man, so righteous a ruler, so just a judge, and so enlightened a prophet, should be uncommonly and universally lamented; especially when the wisdom and equity of his government, compared with Saul’s tyranny and extravagance, made his memory more dear and his loss more regretted. “Those have hard hearts,” says Henry, “that can bury their faithful ministers with dry eyes, and are not sensible of the loss of them who have prayed for them, and taught them the way of the Lord.” And buried him in his house in Ramah — Where , it is likely, there was a burying-place for his family in some part of his garden, or some field adjacent. For they had then no public places of interment. He was now attended by all Israel to his grave, and his remains, many centuries after, were removed with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Constantinople, by the Emperor Arcadius, A.D. 401.

Verse 1. - And Samuel died. According to Josephus, Samuel had for eighteen years been contemporaneous with Saul's kingdom. If this calculation, which probably rests upon some Jewish tradition, be at all correct, we must include the years of Samuel's judgeship in the sum total of Saul's reign (see on 1 Samuel 13:1), as evidently his fall was now fast approaching. Samuel's life marked the beginning of the second age of Israelite history ( Acts 3:24 ). Moses had given the people their law, but Samuel in the schools of the prophets provided for them that education without which a written law was powerless, and called forth also and regulated that living energy in the prophetic order which, claiming an all but equal authority, modified and developed it, and continually increased its breadth and force, until the last prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, with supreme and Divine power reenacted it as the religion of the whole world. And as neither his educational institutions nor the prophetic order, whose ordinary duties were closely connected with these schools, could have flourished without internal quietness and security, Samuel also established the Jewish monarchy, which was ideally also necessary, because the Messiah must not only be priest and prophet, but before all things a king ( Matthew 2:1, 6 ; John 18:37 ).

And side by side with the kingdom he lived on to see the military successes of the first king, and the firm establishment of the royal power; but to witness also the development of that king into a despot, the overclouding of his mind with fits of madness, the designation of his successor, the probation of that successor by manifold trials, his ripening fitness under them to be the model of a theocratic king, and his growth in power so as practically to be now safe from all Saul's evil purposes. And so in the fulness of time Samuel died, and all Israel gathered together and made lamentation for him (see Genesis 1:10 ), and buried him in his house. The tomb at present shown as that of Samuel is situated upon a lofty hill, the identification of which with Ramah is very uncertain. Probably he was buried not actually in his house, as that would lead to perpetual ceremonial defilement ( Numbers 19:16 ; Luke 11:44 ), but in some open spot in his garden (comp. 2 Kings 21:18 ; 2 Chronicles 33:20 ). So Joab was buried in his own house ( 1 Kings 2:34 ). At Ramah. Thenius thinks that the prophets shared with the kings the right of intramural burial. DAVID IN THE WILDERNESS OF PARAN (vers. 1-42). DAVID ASKS A GIFT OF THE WEALTHY NABAL AND IS REFUSED (vers. 1-13). Verse 1. - David arose. This is not to be connected with the death of Samuel, as though David had now lost a protector.

Ch. 1 Samuel 25:1 . Samuel’s death and burial 1 . all the Israelites , &c.] A public mourning was held as after the death of Moses ( Deuteronomy 34:8 ), and the whole nation met to do honour to him, who for well nigh eighty years had gone in and out amongst them as Prophet, Judge, and Counsellor of the King. in his house ] Not actually in the house, which would have been inconsistent with the laws of ceremonial purity ( Numbers 19:16 ), but in some court or garden attached to the house. Compare 2 Chronicles 33:20 with 2 Kings 21:18 . The Mussulman tradition places the prophet’s tomb on the hill known as Neby Samwil , five miles N.W. of Jerusalem, but see note on 1 Samuel 1:1 . the wilderness of Paran ] A general name for the great tract of desert south of Palestine, between the wilderness of Shur on the west, Edom on the east, and the wilderness of Sinai on the south. It was the abode of Ishmael ( Genesis 21:21 ); the scene of the wanderings of the Israelites; and the place from which the spies were sent ( Numbers 10:12 ; Numbers 13:3 ). The Sept. reads Maon , but the change is unnecessary, if we suppose the term Paran to be used with some latitude.

(1) And Samuel died. —At this period—namely, about the time when Saul and David met at En-gedi—died Samuel, full of years and honour—perhaps rather than honours, for a long time the old prophet had lived apart from the court, and alienated from the king he had chosen and anointed. Since Moses, none so great as Samuel had arisen. Briefly to recapitulate his work: his influence had in great measure restored the Law of Moses to the affections of the people. Before his time, the words and traditions which the great lawgiver, amidst the supernatural terrors of Sinai, had with some success impressed upon the great nomadic tribe of the Beni-Israel were almost forgotten; and the people among whom, for a long period, no really great leader had sprung up were becoming rapidly mixed up, and soon would have been hardly distinguished from the warlike tribes of Canaan in the neighbouring countries. But Samuel, aided by his great natural genius, but far more by the Glorious Arm, on which he leaned with a changeless trust from childhood to extreme old age, quickened into life again the dying traditions of the race, and taught them who they—the down-trodden Israelites—really were— the chosen of God. He restored the forgotten laws of Moses, by the keeping of which they once became great and powerful, and by the creation of an earthly monarchy he welded into one the separate interests of the twelve divisions of the race; so that from Dan to Beersheba there was but one chief, one standard.

But his greatest work was the foundation of the Prophetic Schools, in which men were trained and educated carefully, with the view of the pupils becoming in their turn the teachers and guides of the people. (These schools, which exercised so great an influence upon the future of Israel, and their especial character have been already discussed.) And all the Israelites were gathered together, and lamented him.—“When the hour of his death came, we are told, with a peculiar emphasis of expression, that all the Israelites—not one portion or fragment only, as might have been expected in that time of division and confusion—were gathered together round him who had been the father of all alike, and lamented him, and buried him, not in any sacred spot or secluded sepulchre, but in the midst of the home which he had consecrated only by his own long, unblemished career in his house at Ramah.”—Stanley, Jewish Church, Lect. 18 Josephus makes especial mention of the public funeral honours paid to the great prophet. “They wept for him a very great number of days, not looking on it as a sorrow for the death of another man, but as that in which they were all concerned. He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature, and on that account he was very dear to God.”—Antt. vi. 13, § 5. F. W.

In his house at Ramah - Probably in the court or garden attached to his dwelling-house. (Compare 2 Chronicles 33:20 ; 2 Kings 21:18 ; John 19:41 .) The wilderness of Paran - The Septuagint has the far more probable reading "Maon." The wilderness of Paran lay far off to the south, on the borders of the wilderness of Sinai Numbers 10:12; 1 Kings 11:18, whereas the following verse 1 Samuel 25:2 shows that the scene is laid in the immediate neighborhood of Maon. If, however, Paran be the true reading, we must suppose that in a wide sense the wilderness of Paran extended all the way to the wilderness of Beersheba, and eastward to the mountains of Judah (marginal references).