By renewing the kingdom Samuel’s career as judge naturally comes to an end. Chapter 12 is, so to speak, the testament of all his activity as Israel’s leader. “I have hearkened,” he says, “to your voice in all that ye said to me, and have made a king over you. And now behold, the king walks before you; and I am old and gray-headed; and behold, my sons are with you; and I have walked before you from my youth up to this day” (vss. 1-2). Samuel had not been two-faced in his ways; in listening to the people, he had simply followed the Lord’s commandment; therefore he could say a bit later: “Jehovah has set a king over you” (vs. 13). In this we also see the lovely impartiality of a man who is in communion with God; he had forgotten the wrongs and the injustice of the people and the elders against himself personally and had renounced his official functions without a murmur, transferring them to a king who certainly was of less worth morally than himself. He says: “My sons are with you,” thus putting in their rightful place those whom he had wrongfully set up in the past. This act, so natural in appearance, but one which had brought him a measure of discipline from his God, seems to me to be properly judged by this little phrase: “with you.” His sons were false judges, whereas he himself, the true judge, had walked “before” the people. And now the king was walking before them.
The last of the judges goes on to give his evaluation of the people’s behavior and of God’s ways toward them. “And now stand still, that I may plead with you before Jehovah of all the righteous acts of Jehovah which He did to you and to your fathers” (1 Sam. 12:7). But in order to speak thus, a man must be above reproach, and this fact is of the greatest practical importance for us. We can have no authority with regard to God’s people if our actions are not in accord with our gifts and our words. But it is not only a question of conferred authority that counts; one cannot reach consciences without moral authority.
The people are obliged to bear witness about Samuel that his life afforded no ground for reproach or criticism. Like the Apostle Paul later on, he was manifested to the consciences of God’s people. His moral authority was a thousand times more important than his official authority. Saul had the latter, and this did not prevent him from being reproved, even though this authority was established by God.
“It is Jehovah who appointed Moses and Aaron” (1 Sam. 12:6). To his own loss, Samuel had forgotten this for a moment when he appointed his sons on his own initiative. In the Church at present — and it is certainly appropriate to take note of this—there is no official appointment, but the gifts that are necessary remain in spite of the ruin, just as does the moral authority based on the practical holiness of the one exercising it.
Samuel’s speech (1 Sam. 12:6-17) goes back to the deliverance from Egypt which had brought the people into Canaan, for this was the purpose in God’s powerful intervention on their behalf. But in Canaan they had forgotten God and, instead of serving Him, they had worshipped idols. Oppressed by the enemy, they had cried out to the Lord who had delivered them by the judges, from Jerubbaal to Samuel, and had made them “[dwell] in safety” (1 Sam. 12:11).
But now that Nahash, king of the children of Ammon, was threatening them, they had said to Samuel: “Nay, but a king shall reign over us; when Jehovah your God was your king” (1 Sam. 12:12).
Here the Spirit uncovers their hidden motives for asking for a king. At the bottom, it was not the reason which they had given to Samuel in 1 Sam. 8:5: “Behold, thou art become old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways.” Man often colors his motives in the eyes of his fellow man in this way, but he cannot hide them from God or from His prophet. Fear of Nahash, and simply that, reigned in the depths of Israel’s heart, coupled with an absolute lack of faith and of confidence in God. The Lord was their king, but they preferred the help of a king such as the nations had and the security that he could afford them to the “wings of Jehovah,” in whose shadow they should have sought refuge, rejoicing.
Despite all this God condescends to their request, and thus their history in responsibility continues under another form of government: “Jehovah has set a king over you” (1 Sam. 12:13). Would Israel’s heart change under this new dispensation? That which follows reveals the answer. For the moment, it was a question of convicting them that “[their] wickedness [was] great, which [they had] done in the sight of Jehovah in asking for [them]selves a king” (1 Sam. 12:17). Samuel gives them signs of this in thunder and rain falling from heaven out of season; but at the same time he cries out and intercedes for them. Never throughout his whole career did this man of prayer slacken in his supplications.
Once again the conscience of the people is reached, but how many times had this not happened already? Witness the lovely stir at Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7. Here they say to Samuel: “Pray to Jehovah thy God for thy servants, that we die not; for we have added to all our sins the wickedness to ask for ourselves a king” (1 Sam. 12:19). The intercession of the man of God is their only resource; this is true, but the evil has been done and subsists; it is not according to God’s ways to re-plaster a cracked wall, to give a house in ruin an attractive appearance. One thing remains to them, our resource as well in the circumstances in which we live: there is the possibility of walking in the midst of ruin in a way that glorifies God. “Fear not,” Samuel tells the people, “ye have done all this wickedness; yet turn not aside from following Jehovah, and serve Jehovah with all your heart” (vs. 20). If there are souls in the present day whose only purpose is to honor God and serve Him, their path will truly be light in the midst of the darkness that surrounds them. Moreover, these souls, depending on three things that ever abide, will find resources that ruin cannot exhaust nor diminish: “For Jehovah will not cast away His people for His great name’s sake; because it has pleased Jehovah to make you His people. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against Jehovah in ceasing to pray for you; and I will teach you the good and right way” (vss. 22-23). These things are the three pillars of the Christian life. Ruin does not change the grace of God which remains our assurance forever. The intercession of Christ, of which Samuel’s intercession is but a weak type, is able to bring us through all difficulties. Lastly, the Word, of which the prophet was the mouthpiece to the people, “[teaches] us that, having denied impiety and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in the present course of things... “ (Ti. 2:12).
In closing, Samuel says to the people: “Only fear Jehovah, and serve Him in truth, with all your heart; for see how great things He has done for you” (vs. 24). May we not forget that the knowledge of His “great salvation” is the true means of fearing Him as He desires to be feared, and of serving Him as He desires to be served. May we also remember that the knowledge of the grace of God in no way weakens the responsibility of His people. “But if ye do wickedly, ye shall perish, both ye and your king.”