A Class-Book of Old Testament History

by G. F. Maclear

The plan was adopted. The Ark was placed in the new cart, together with the coffer containing the trespass-offerings, and the kine took the high-road from Ekron to Beth-shemesh, without turning to the right hand or the left. It was the time of wheat-harvest, and the people of the town were busy gathering in their corn, when lifting up their eyes they with joy beheld the Ark, which they had not seen for seven months (1 Sam. vi. 1). The kine, meanwhile, stopped not till theyhad reached the field of Joshua, an inhabitant of the place, where there was a great stone. Beth-shemesh being a suburb-city, and allotted to the priests (Josh. xxi. 16; 1 Chr. vi. 59), the Levites residing there took down the Ark and the coffer, placed them on the great stone, then clave the wood of the cart, and offered up the kine as a burnt-offering to Jehovah, at the close of which ceremony, the five lords of the Philistines, who had joined the procession, returned to their own country (1 Sam. vi. 10–16).

But even this joyous day was not to pass by without a great calamity. Not content with offering sacrifices, the people of Beth-shemesh approached the Ark, and though even the priests were not allowed to touch it, removed the lid, to do which some force must have been used, and looked into it, for which profanity a considerable number were stricken with instant death. Messengers were, therefore, dispatched to Kirjath-jearim (the fields of the wood, see Ps. cxxxii. 6), and thither through the hills the Ark was sent, and placed in the house of the Levite Abinadab, whose son Eleazar was consecrated to keep it, and there it remained until the time of David (1 Sam. vii. 1).

Meanwhile Samuel, of whom we have not heard since he denounced the doom of the house of Ithamar, was growing up an acknowledged Prophet of the Lord. In this sad crisis of the nation’s history he now came forward and convening an assembly at Mizpeh, probably the Watch-tower of Benjamin, solemnly expostulated with the Israelites on their idolatrous practices. With fasting and public confession they acknowledged the righteousness of the late judgments. Water was poured upon the ground, and the people entered into a covenant to abandon the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth. From this day Samuel’s career as Judge began, and was inaugurated by a great victory over the Philistines, whohearing that the Israelites were recovering from their former depression, once more gathered together at Mizpeh, prepared to give them battle. At this crisis, Samuel taking a lamb offered it as a whole burnt-offering for the nation’s sins, and was thus piously employed when the Philistines made their onslaught. But at this moment a terrific thunder-storm burst forth, accompanied, according to Josephus, by an earthquake. Seized with a sudden panic, the Philistines fled in disorder, and were pursued with great slaughter by the victorious Israelites as far as Beth-car (the house of lambs), a height to the west of Mizpeh. On the very spot, where twenty years before the Philistines had gained their most signal triumph, Samuel now set up a huge stone to commemorate his victory, and named it Ebenezer, the Stone of Help (1 Sam. vii. 12).

The subsequent effects of this success were still more apparent. Not only did the Philistines receive a decided check, but the Amorites also, the scourge of the little tribe of Dan, made peace with Israel, and all the cities in the Philistine territory, which had been taken from the Israelites, from Ekron to Gath, were restored. Samuel’s office as Judge was now confirmed. Ramah, his birth-place, was his residence, and here he erected an altar to the Lord, and thence from year to year went forth in solemn circuit to the old sanctuaries, Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, combining with the duties of a Judge the functions also of a Seer or Prophet, and with all the weight of an Oracle advising in any of the troubles of national or domestic life (1 Sam. ix. 11, 18, 19). As years passed on, and he waxed old, his sons Joel and Abiah, like those of Jair and Abdon before him, shared a portion of his judicial functions, and administered justice in the more southerly portions of the country. But they did not walk in their father’s footsteps. He who, when a child, had denounced the terribledoom on Eli for the wickedness of his sons, lived to see his own sons turning aside after lucre, exacting excessive usury, and perverting judgment (1 Sam. viii. 3).

A new and more advanced period in the history of the nation was at hand, and the supremacy of the Judges was about to close. Samuel, who came like Numa after Romulus, did not fail to prepare the people for the new epoch. At Ramah, at Bethel, at Mizpeh, at Gilgal[230] he gathered together Schools of the Prophets, and was the great reformer of the prophetical order, a work of such importance that he is even classed with Moses, the great Lawgiver of the nation. (Comp. Ps. xcix. 6; Acts iii. 24; xiii. 20.) The title, indeed, of “prophet” has occurred already more than once, and is applied to Abraham (Gen. xx. 7), to Moses (Deut. xviii. 15–18), to Aaron (Ex. vii. 1), to Miriam (Ex. xv. 20), to the seventy elders (Num. xi. 24–30), to Deborah[231] (Judg. iv. 4). But these were isolated cases. It was the work of Samuel to give permanence and effectiveness to the prophetical functions.

Promising youths were gathered by him into Schools or Colleges of Prophets, where they lived together in a society or community, under a head or leading prophet, whom they called their Father (Comp. 1 Sam. x. 12; xix. 20), or Master (2 K. ii. 3), while they were termed his sons. Here they employed themselves in studying the Law of Moses; practised the composition of sacred poetry; and became skilled in sacred music, the psaltery, harp, tabret, pipe, and cymbals (1 Sam. x. 5; 2 K. iii. 15; 1 Ch. xxv. 1, 6). They also preserved and copied historical records, and “gathered up the traditions of their own and former times.” Their callingwas not merely, sometimes not at all, to predict future events. They were to be forth-speakers for God, to commune with God, to speak of God, to teach His truth, to declare His will, and that not only in words, but sometimes in action. Studying the Law of Moses, and the records of God’s past dealings with their nation, they were to see the earnest of His presence for rebuke or consolation in the present. Their vocation required of them to preach morality and spiritual religion, to denounce oppression and covetousness, injustice and profligacy, cruelty and idolatry. And while called to reveal God’s will in each successive crisis of the nation’s history, they were also specially raised up to fix the eye of their countrymen on the future, to keep alive the belief in God’s promises of Redemption, and to foretell the incarnation of Him, in whom all nations were to be blessed. If they often typified Him, whose appearance they announced and whose Spirit dwelt in them, in His humiliation, being despised and rejected by the generation in which they lived, yet from time to time they typified Him also in His exaltation, for the Lord, whose messengers they were, stood by them, frequently confirmed their word by miracles, and punished those who injured them[232].

The subsequent position of the Prophetical order at momentous periods of the national history is strikingly illustrated by the conduct of its Reformer and Organizer now. The misconduct of Samuel’s sons produced dissatisfaction and a cry for change. Samuel himself was stricken in age. He had been a man of peace. One military success and one only had distinguished his Judgeship. On the west the ever-restless Philistines gave signs of recovery from their late defeat (1 Sam. x. 5), while beyond the Jordan Nahash the Ammonite threatened the cities of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh (1 Sam. xii. 12). There was no known general in Israelqualified by his position or powers to take the command of the nation’s armies, and lead them to battle. The fixed form of kingly government, which the people saw enjoyed by all the nations around, which they had themselves partially adopted under Gideon and Abimelech, under Jair and Abdon, and to which events appeared to have been rapidly tending, was not yet realized.

At this juncture, then, the elders and accredited heads of the nation repaired to Ramah, and on the ground of Samuel’s advanced age, the misconduct of his sons, and, as we gather from an incidental remark of Samuel himself afterwards, an apprehended invasion by the Ammonites, they requested that the form of government might be changed, that a king might rule over them, like the nations round about (1 Sam. viii. 5).

This demand was a shock to Samuel’s feelings, and the thing displeased him. He knew well the abuses such a form of government was too likely to entail. But he did not reject the petition of the nation. He was a true mediator between the old order that was changing and the new order, to which it was destined to give place. He prayed to the Lord for advice and direction in this great crisis, and his prayer was heard. Though he had been rightly displeased with the people’s request, though they had done worse than rejecting him and had rejected their invisible Ruler, he was directed to hearken to their voice, but he was not to leave them without warning. He was to shew them the manner of the king that should reign over them (1 Sam. viii. 9).

Accordingly Samuel convened an assembly, and faithfully described the Oriental court and ceremonial, which the election of a king would inevitably entail; how he would at his own pleasure take their sons and appoint them to command his chariots and his horses, would set them to ear his ground and reap his harvest, and fashion his chariots and instruments of war; how hewould take their daughters to be his confectioners, his cooks, and his bakers; how their property would cease to be their own, and their fields, their oliveyards and vineyards, their flocks and herds, their menservants and maidservants would be required to be at his disposal. Under this despotism he warned them that a day would come when they would cry unto the Lord, but He would not hear them (1 Sam. viii. 10–18).