The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 19

them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them,'' and "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke ii. 51, 52), iR all that we know of the Measio.h'e life during e.n interve.l of a.bout seventeen years, so here, " Se.muel judged Israel" covers o.n interval of perhaps nearly double tho.t duration. We leo.ve him a young man setting up the memorial stone of Ebenezer; o.nd when the no.rro.tive begins a.gain he ie old and failing in strength, and has made his sons judges to help him. During the interval the political atmosphere has become more and more heavily charged with the desire for a change of government, and a com- paratively small thing precipito.tee it. Joel and Abiah, the two sons of Samuel, are not satisfactory &B judges. They are not scandalously wicked, like Hophni and Phinehas, but they are tainted with what has ever been the plague-spot in the ad- ministration of justice in the EaFt-bribery-and also with exorbitant usury. "They turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment" (eh. viii. 3). Samuel's uprightness is wanting in hie sons, just as Eli'e piety in his, to the sorrow and shame of the parents. And thus the proverb against which Ezekiel protests so emphatically is reversed: "The children eat the sour grape and the fathers' teeth a.re set on edge." The '' elders of Israel " come to Samuel and formally request him to nominate a king. Whether the judgeship as administered by him had been adequate to their needs or not, certainly it was not at all so ae administered by his sons. The old evils would soon be coming back again; the tribes would be falling away into their fatal state of division and isolation, if there were not some central power, which all could respect, to hold them together. Even ae it was, the Philistines were still in the land, and had been eo for years, beco.use there-was no one to take the lead in driving them out. This feeling had been in the air at least since Abimelech, the son of Gideon, made his ill-ad,;sed attempt at royalty (comp. Judg. viii. 22); and it had evidently been increasing. The miscar- rio.gee of justice in the ho.nde of Samuel's sons brought matters to o. crisis. The wave of national despair at the loss of the ark, and the still more powerful wave of national enthusiasm at its recovery, which had carried Samuel to the high position in which hie great gifts had since then maintained him, had by this time subsided ; and popular discontent now me.de itself formally heard. It had been proved by the sad experience of centuries that the Theocracy under a.republican form of govem- ment was too high an ideal for the Israelites ; experience of so stern a kintl must not be thrown away, and the time had now come for a change to a constitution which, if less lofty in conception, would be more beneficial in fact. "But the thing displeased Samuel." The demand sbocked him, not so mnch because it was a revolution as because it was a revolt; a revolt against Jehovah. The Almighty sanctioned this view ; but at the same time instructetl Samuel tu yield to the demantl. He was first to explain to the people what monarchy meant, and then, if they still wished for it, to comply. The case reminds us of that of Balaam. In both the Almighty gra.nts a petition• with which He is displeased; and inasmuch as He granted what was a~ketl, the thing asked for cannot in itself have been wrong. What then displeased Him iu the petition? The answer seems to be the same in both oases-the spirit which dictated it. It was lo.wful for Balo.am to go to Balak; but to <lo Gotl's will, not his own, A rebellious hope of being o.ble to get his own way, at leo.st in part, lurks in Balo.ani's millll to the last. It was lawful for Israel to have a king. It had been promised to Abraham that kings shoultl come out of him (Gen. xvii. 6) ; Jacob hatl foretold that the sceptre should not depai-t from Judah till Shiloh come (Gen. xlix. xxii INTRODUCTtON TO Tim 11ISTO1UCAt BOOKS: