And Samuel said to the people, [It is] Jehovah who appointed Moses and Aaron, and who brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.
The people have just cleared Samuel of any wrongdoing. He turns from himself to the God who set Moses and Aaron over Israel and led the nation out of Egypt — the reminder a people asking for a king most needed. (Older translations read "advanced Moses and Aaron"; the sense is that God raised them up.)
Samuel had every right to press his grievance. He does not.
Notice what Samuel does next. The people's own mouths have completely cleared his conduct among them. He could fairly have gone on to scold them for their base ingratitude toward him after a lifetime of service for their good, but he does not. It is God's honour he has in view — not his own. He shows them that God is sovereign. He can care for His own interests on earth, which He entrusts to His people. And He can save by anyone He chooses, by many or by few.
The nation wanted a man at the top. Samuel points to two men who once led them — and shows what they were.
He goes back, as he had once done before, to Egypt, and quickly reviews the main features of their history. In their distress in Egypt they had cried to Him. Had He failed them? He sent Moses and Aaron to deliver them out of their slavery and to bring them into the place they were now occupying. Moses and Aaron were not kings. They were God's instruments carrying out His will. Far from pushing Him aside, they were the means of keeping the people closer to Himself.
The verse also touches a failure in Samuel's own home, when he put his sons into office himself.
"It is Jehovah who appointed Moses and Aaron" (v. 6). To his own loss, Samuel had forgotten this for a moment when he appointed his sons on his own initiative. In the Church today there is no official appointment — and this is well worth noting. Yet the gifts that are needed remain despite the ruin. So does the moral authority that rests on the practical holiness of the one who exercises it.
Samuel's reminder does not stop at the night Israel left Egypt.
It was the Lord who brought them safely out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and kept them for forty years in that great and terrible wilderness, surrounded by countless dangers and enemies. Samuel tells them to stand still, just as Moses did when the people were hemmed in at Pi-hahiroth, between Pharaoh's army and the sea: "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today" (Ex. 14:13). This is never an agreeable posture to the flesh, but a very necessary one to the spirit, if we are to hear with profit what God the Lord would say to us. "Be still, and know that I am God" is His word to the restless creature (Ps. 46:10). Quiet waiting suits the soul that wants to know the power and resources of the Almighty.
(Older translations render Exodus 14:13 "stand still", which is the wording Samuel echoes.)
Starting the story at Egypt is not random. It sets up an unbroken record that runs right down to the day they asked for a king.
It is probable that we have only a brief summary of this address, but the scope of the review he takes is complete. He begins with Jacob going down into Egypt and carries it through to his own time. By then, despite all their sins, the LORD had delivered them from their enemies on every side, and they lived in safety. What a moment to show their distrust of Him! What a time to want a man to take the place of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel!
There is a quiet detail in Samuel's family line that gives the words extra weight.
Korah disputed the authority of Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. From his sons came that prophet who spoke to Israel and said, "It is Jehovah that advanced Moses and Aaron" (1 Sam. 12:6, 8).
- Honour — Cleared of all blame, Samuel pleads God's case instead of his own. He is after God's honour, not his own name.
- Appointment — God placed Israel's great leaders; the nation never chose them. Samuel paid for forgetting this when he installed his own sons.
- Instruments — Moses and Aaron were not kings but instruments. They did not displace God; they kept the people close to Him.
- Stillness — Samuel asks for the posture Moses asked for at the sea: stand still. The flesh hates it, but only a quiet soul hears God.
- Timing — God's record ran from Egypt down to their present safety. Asking for a king was distrust at the least excusable moment of all.
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.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
When Jacob had come into Egypt, and your fathers cried to Jehovah, then Jehovah sent Moses and Aaron, and they brought your fathers forth out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place.
In his farewell speech, Samuel reaches back past the judges to the day one family went down into Egypt and cried out. He is answering one question: has the Lord ever failed them? It is a short history lesson with an edge. The people who owe everything to that rescue have just asked for a king instead.
Samuel could only take the people through their own history because nobody could find fault with his own. One writer draws a lasting principle out of the fact that Samuel's challenge in the opening verses goes unanswered:
The last of the judges goes on to give his evaluation of the people's behaviour 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" (v. 7). But in order to speak like this, 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.
Two phrases in Samuel's opening carry weight. "Stand still" echoes a command Moses gave at the Red Sea, where the ESV reads "stand firm." And "righteous acts" — "righteous deeds" in the ESV — covers more than we might expect:
Samuel tells them to "stand still." Moses said the same thing at Pi-hahiroth, when Pharaoh's armies and the sea had the people trapped: "Stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today" (Ex. 14:13). This position is never comfortable for the flesh. But the spirit needs it, if we are to hear what God the Lord says to us and gain from it... "That I may reason with you of all the righteous acts of the Lord," says Samuel. (The margin gives another reading: benefits.) "He reasons," Matthew Henry says, "of the righteous acts of the Lord, that is, both the benefits He has bestowed upon you, in fulfilment of His promises, and the punishments He has inflicted on you for your sins. His favours are called His righteous acts, because in them He is just to His own honour."
The chain of events begins not with a plan or a leader but with a cry from people who had nothing else left. One writer weighs how small that cry was and how much it did:
"A Syrian ready to perish." That was the origin. There is nothing to boast of, as far as nature is concerned. And as to the condition in which grace found them — what of it? Hard bondage in the land of Egypt. Toiling among the brick kilns, under the cruel lash of Pharaoh's taskmasters. But then, "We cried to Jehovah." Here was their sure and blessed resource. It was all they could do; but it was enough. That cry of helplessness went straight up to the throne and to the heart of God, and brought Him down into the very middle of the brick kilns of Egypt.
Two verbs carry the verse, and the Lord is the subject of both. One writer notes the long wait before the answer came, and where the credit lies:
"Jacob and his children went down into Egypt." There, for centuries, all they had was God's promise, because Egypt's slavery had buried them as a nation. God's children know this experience well. They have to learn to trust God's word, to walk by faith, and to wait in patience. But God's arm never fails; in due time the deliverance came. "I sent Moses also and Aaron... I brought your fathers out of Egypt." The Lord "sent," and the Lord "brought out." All was of Him.
This is where the history lesson turns on the listeners. The men God sent to rescue Israel held no throne:
He goes back, as he had once done before, to Egypt, and quickly reviews the main features of their history. In their distress in Egypt they had cried to Him. Had He failed them? He sent Moses and Aaron to deliver them out of their slavery and bring them into the place they were now occupying. Moses and Aaron were not kings. They were God's instruments carrying out His will. Far from displacing Him, they kept the people in closer relationship with Himself.
"Made them dwell in this place" covers a staggering amount of ground — and Israel had grown used to it:
This was quite an achievement. It meant leading probably two to three million people through the wilderness for forty years. It meant settling them in a land from which God had to drive out the people already living there. History has never seen anything like it. At the time, and later, Israel took it as a matter of fact. They hardly realised the wonder of God's grace in blessing them so marvellously.
- Cry — Helplessness was Israel's only resource in Egypt, and it was enough. The cry went straight to God's heart and brought Him down into the brick kilns.
- Sent — The Lord sent and the Lord brought out. Moses and Aaron were instruments; the whole deliverance was His.
- Settled — He "made them dwell in this place." He led a nation forty years through the wilderness and planted it in a land He cleared.
- Forgotten — Israel took it all as a matter of fact and hardly grasped the grace behind it. So Samuel says "stand still": the position the flesh dislikes and the spirit needs.
- Asked — Now Israel asks for a king. But the men God sent to rescue them were never kings, and they never displaced Him.