1Sam 12

A king for enslavement under the law

Background

That the Israelites will one day demand to be ruled by a king like other nations was foretold by Moses (Deut 17:14-20): According to Moses*, a future king will only have God’s approval if he accepts to not exalt himself above his fellow Isrealites, and only as long as a supreme court ensures that this law remains unchanged.

The qualification of the Levites joining this court was that they volunteered to submit to one another for the sake of serving the house of God, Deut 17:8-9,18:6-7. The NT states that Moses was faithful as a servant in that house, Heb 3:5, a “house” consisting of people that God sanctified and declared fit to be His dwelling place.

A literal temple in Jerusalem was built only much later, and only as an image of the true house of God, cf Ex 25:40; Heb 8:5. God does not live in a house made by human hands, Acts 17:24. In other words, Moses did not prophesy about priests serving the tabernacle. He prophesied about priests serving God’s people in a “city” that remained to be revealed only in the future. Likewise, in Samuel’s days when this law of Moses for the monarchy was enacted, the people were evidently the only “temple” of God, given that no man-made temple building had been erected yet literally, and that Samuel had never suggested to build one. Speaking of people (not a building), Samuel understood that the law of Moses for a future king thus prescribed that checks and balances must be entrusted to true servants of the people: An epochal innovation in the history of mankind!

Accordingly, Samuel agreed to write the constitution for such a monarchy (1Sa 10:25). However, here in chapter 12, he warned that this choice for a king was another step bringing about a harvest of God’s judgement. Knowing the writings of Moses, he understood that those were God’s testimony against the Israelites: They were foolish to reject their Savior King who calls for free obedience, and to replace Him by one who enforces order as a policeman like in ordinary nations who don’t know this Savior, Deut 31:24-29.

Outline for discussion leader:

vv1-3 Samuel’s integrity

vv4-6 The witnesses against his accusers

vv7: Implication

vv8-15 Imploring the hearers

vv16-18 Prediction of thunder and rain during harvest as a sign

v19 Reaction of the people

vv20-24 Samuel comforting the people

Read 1. Samuel 12

1) vv1-3: What was Samuel’s question to the people (or their elders, 8:4) all about?

What prompted questions about livestock, private property, and integrity? How did those lead the people to wish for a king? 1Sa 2:12-17; 8:1-4
How did Samuel set a model for church leaders and their accountability?
- What were his views on making amends, v3? => Why seek to resolve all grievances? Heb 12:14-15
Why wasn’t Samuel held responsible for the transgressions of his sons?

2) vv4-5: Conflicts about who should lead, and how, arise in all organizations. What distinguishes genuine Christians how they handle conflicts? What can we learn about it here from Samuel?

Instead of inventing his own narrative, Samuel appealed to witnesses. Why? And who were they?
How was God a witness against Samuel’s accusers?*
- How were Saul and his anointing as king a testimony of the same, v5? cf 1Sa 8:9-10
- Hint: How did it prove those wrong who suspected Samuel of clinging to power for his own gain?
- Did the elders accept this as proof, v5? Why?

3) v6: Why did Samuel remind Israel’s elders about Moses and Aaron?

What convinced everyone that those men were indeed sent by God? Ex 4:29-30
How did Moses and Aaron model Israel’s government as a theocracy with none but God as king? Deut 17:8-13 (v12!); 18:1-5, 15-22
As a Levitical priest, judge and tested prophet, how did Samuel size up to that model? How did this further prove Samuel’s accusers wrong?

4) Appointing church leaders is not about who is in control, but about which doctrine they defend against all distortions of the gospel of Jesus (Tit 1:9-10). How did Samuel summarize what this gospel is about, v7?

In Hebrew, v7 literally refers to “the entirety (noun) of the righteousnesses (plural, in the sense of merits) that God accomplished for you and your fathers”. Whose merits was Samuel talking about, and in what sense are these “for the people”? cf Jn 6:28-29; Eph 2:8-10
Read Ro 1:16-17. How could Samuel know already in the OT that this righteousness for us is of God and not of our own? v6; vv9-12
For God to become our righteousness, why did He have to raise prophets like Moses (v6) and Samuel (v11), rather than kings (v12)?
- Hint: What distinguishes ordinary kings from prophets in how they lead their people, v7? cf e.g. 1Cor 2:6-10; 2Cor 10:5

5) vv13-15 describe what awaited the Israelites under the new king that they had asked for. How does this compare to Saul’s earlier assignment to round up straying donkeys (9:3-4)?

For the first time in the book of Samuel,12:14 mentions a “command of the Lord”. Accordingly, for what purpose did God grant the Israelites their wish for their own king? cf Jdg 21:25
- Was Saul appointed as a leader of their faith, or as the chief of police for those who have no such faith?
How does voluntary obedience to God’s laws differ from “subjugation” that needs to be imposed by the police to prevent anarchy? cf Jn 15:14-15; Gal 5:13

6) vv16-19: Why did Samuel pray next for an nonseasonal thunderstorm, and how?

Did Samuel ‘name it and claim it’?
- Why didn’t he chant the name Yeshua to procure a miraculous sign that would make people ‘believe in this glorious name’? cf Mt 12:38-39
- What distinguishes genuine prayer from such occult practices that confuse prophecy with magic? e.g. 1Jn 5:14
How will genuine Christians recognize genuine prophecy as authentic? =>
- How did the people see that Samuel truly was a seer?
- Hint: What made the greater impression, the untimeliness of this rainstorm, or that Samuel could see (and even in advance) that God will answer his prayer for this sign?
- How is this question answered by the people’s reaction, v19?
The people’s demand for a king was not about who enforces the law. It was a decision that it was to be enforced. No longer was it left to individual communities to obey it freely for the love of God.** Did the Israelites finally see this too, v19?
- Why or why not? v17

7) This series of studies in Samuel started with a question how prophecies are a sign for believers, i.e. for those who have faith in Jesus that He is for them who He says He is. What does it signify to you that Samuel predicted a rainstorm, and for the time of the year when it was the least likely?

Foreseeing this most unlikely “thunder and rain” wasn’t a random display of supernatural powers. Such signs are signs because of their meaning. What precedence is there in Scripture of unexpected rain, v25?
Read Gen 6:17-18. When Noah foresaw that he had to build the ark***, how probable was a flood in the eyes of everyone else, or that Noah’s ark will save anyone? Mt 24:39
Why are such signs despised as make-belief fairy tales by those who are blinded by unbelief to not see their meaning?
How did thunder and rain signify that Samuel was right? Why was he right to question that they replaced God as their savior by a law enforcer, cf Gal 1:6-7
vv20-24: Those who finally understood and turned from their error, Samuel could comfort. Is such comfort also for those who repent of similar straying from the gospel in the NT era, and if so, how?

* Contrary to modern critiques who treat Deuteronomy as an attempt of priests to impose monotheistic Yahweh worship some time in the late 8th century to cement their own power (Wikipedia), the Bible itself ascribes the reforms and centralization of worship in Jerusalem at that time to the re-discovery of an ancient scroll (2Ki 22:1-11). This scroll was further verified as genuine by Hulda who was respected as a prophetess for her understanding of God’s word: She agreed that this book was proven authentic by its content, including the predictions (e.g. Deut 30:15-18; 31:15-18) how God will bring disaster on his people for their idolatry and the evil resulting from it, 2Ki 22:13-20. Rather than consolidating the influence of priests, this inconvenient truth put a violent end to them and their corrupt practices, for King Josiah had them executed (2Ki 23:4-5).
** Saul’s appointment as king, and how Samuel made it happen at the behest of God, provided an incontrovertible testimony: A testimony against the people who questioned the theocracy as a ploy designed by priests like Samuel for personal gains. Modern translations that replace the ‘against you’ by ‘among you’ miss this point and make God and Saul merely function as secretaries recording the discussion.
*** cf Ps 119:32; Jer 2:2; Jn 14:15; Rev 15:3-4
**** At the end of the last glaciation, global sea levels rose by approx. 100m, which implies that today’s straight of Hormuz was not always flooded.