{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"1SA","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"1 Samuel","commonName":"1 Samuel","introduction":"THE FIRST AND SECOND BOOKS OF SAMUEL. The two were, by the ancient Jews, conjoined so as to make one book, and in that form could be called the Book of Samuel with more propriety than now, the second being wholly occupied with the relation of transactions that did not take place till after the death of that eminent judge. Accordingly, in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, it is called the First and Second Books of Kings. The early portion of the First Book, down to the end of the twenty-fourth chapter, was probably written by Samuel; while the rest of it and the whole of the Second, are commonly ascribed to Nathan and Gad, founding the opinion on Ch1 29:29. Commentators, however, are divided about this, some supposing that the statements in Sa1 2:26; Sa1 3:1, indicate the hand of the judge himself, or a contemporary; while some think, from Sa1 6:18; Sa1 12:5; Sa1 27:6, that its composition must be referred to a later age. It is probable, however, that these supposed marks of an after-period were interpolations of Ezra. This uncertainty, however, as to the authorship does not affect the inspired authority of the book, which is indisputable, being quoted in the New Testament (Sa1 13:14 in Act 13:22, and Sa2 7:14 in Heb 1:5), as well as in many of the Psalms. \n\n\n\nNext: 1 Samuel Chapter 1\n\n","order":9,"numberOfChapters":31,"sha256":"1975a4e2a6bdaa5be4dcf999c79b20d8910671818d67532ae00697e811d891c8","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1SA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1SA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":31,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1SA/31.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1SA","chapter":31},"totalNumberOfVerses":294},"chapter":{"number":2,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["they that were hungry ceased--that is, to hunger. \n\nthe barren hath born seven--that is, many children.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up--that is, He reduces to the lowest state of degradation and misery, and restores to prosperity and happiness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill--The dunghill, a pile of horse, cow, or camel offal, heaped up to dry in the sun, and used as fuel, was, and is, one of the common haunts of the poorest mendicants; and the change that had been made in the social position of Hannah, appeared to her grateful heart as auspicious and as great as the elevation of a poor despised beggar to the highest and most dignified rank. \n\ninherit the throne of glory--that is, possesses seats of honor.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth . . . exalt the horn of his anointed--This is the first place in Scripture where the word \"anointed,\" or Messiah, occurs; and as there was no king in Israel at the time, it seems the best interpretation to refer it to Christ. There is, indeed, a remarkable resemblance between the song of Hannah and that of Mary (Luk 1:46).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest--He must have been engaged in some occupation suited to his tender age, as in playing upon the cymbals, or other instruments of music; in lighting the lamps, or similar easy and interesting services.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["THE SIN OF ELl'S SONS. (Sa1 2:12-17)\n\nNow the sons of Eli were sons of Belial--not only careless and irreligious, but men loose in their actions, and vicious and scandalous in their habits. Though professionally engaged in sacred duties, they were not only strangers to the power of religion in the heart, but they had thrown off its restraints, and even ran, as is sometimes done in similar cases by the sons of eminent ministers, to the opposite extreme of reckless and open profligacy.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["the priests' custom with the people--When persons wished to present a sacrifice of peace offering on the altar, the offering was brought in the first instance to the priest, and as the Lord's part was burnt, the parts appropriated respectively to the priests and offerers were to be sodden. But Eli's sons, unsatisfied with the breast and shoulder, which were the perquisites appointed to them by the divine law (Exo 29:27; Lev 7:31-32), not only claimed part of the offerer's share, but rapaciously seized them previous to the sacred ceremony of heaving or waving (see on Lev 7:29); and moreover they committed the additional injustice of taking up with their fork those portions which they preferred, while still raw. Pious people revolted at such rapacious and profane encroachments on the dues of the altar, as well as what should have gone to constitute the family and social feast of the offerer. The truth is, the priests having become haughty and unwilling in many instances to accept invitations to those feasts, presents of meat were sent to them; and this, though done in courtesy at first, being, in course of time, established into a right, gave rise to all the rapacious keenness of Eli's sons.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["SAMUEL'S MINISTRY. (Sa1 2:18-26)\n\nBut Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child--This notice of his early services in the outer courts of the tabernacle was made to pave the way for the remarkable prophecy regarding the high priest's family. \n\ngirded with a linen ephod--A small shoulder-garment or apron, used in the sacred service by the inferior priests and Levites; sometimes also by judges or eminent persons, and hence allowed to Samuel, who, though not a Levite, was devoted to God from his birth.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year--Aware that he could not yet render any useful service to the tabernacle, she undertook the expense of supplying him with wearing apparel. All weaving stuffs, manufacture of cloth, and making of suits were anciently the employment of women.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife--This blessing, like that which he had formerly pronounced, had a prophetic virtue; which, before long, appeared in the increase of Hannah's family (Sa1 2:21), and the growing qualifications of Samuel for the service of the sanctuary.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle--This was an institution of holy women of a strictly ascetic order, who had relinquished worldly cares and devoted themselves to the Lord; an institution which continued down to the time of Christ (Luk 2:37). Eli was, on the whole, a good man, but lacking in the moral and religious training of his family. He erred on the side of parental indulgence; and though he reprimanded them (see on Deu 21:18), yet, from fear or indolence, he shrank from laying on them the restraints, or subjecting them to the discipline, their gross delinquencies called for. In his judicial capacity, he winked at their flagrant acts of maladministration and suffered them to make reckless encroachments on the constitution, by which the most serious injuries were inflicted both on the rights of the people and the laws of God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because--it should be therefore. \n\nthe Lord would slay them--It was not God's preordination, but their own wilful and impenitent disobedience which was the cause of their destruction.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["A PROPHECY AGAINST ELI'S HOUSE. (Sa1 2:27-35)\n\nthere came a man of God unto Eli, and said . . . that there shall not be an old man in thine house--So much importance has always, in the East, been attached to old age, that it would be felt to be a great calamity, and sensibly to lower the respectability of any family which could boast of few or no old men. The prediction of this prophet was fully confirmed by the afflictions, degradation, poverty, and many untimely deaths with which the house of Eli was visited after its announcement (see Sa1 4:11; Sa1 14:3; Sa1 22:18-23; Kg1 2:27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house--By the withdrawal of the high priesthood from Eleazar, the elder of Aaron's two sons (after Nadab and Abihu were destroyed, [Num 3:4]), that dignity had been conferred on the family of Ithamar, to which Eli belonged, and now that his descendants had forfeited the honor, it was to be taken from them and restored to the elder branch.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation--A successful rival for the office of high priest shall rise out of another family (Sa2 15:35; Ch1 24:3; Ch1 29:22). But the marginal reading, \"thou shalt see the affliction of the tabernacle,\" seems to be a preferable translation.\n\n\n\n\nNext: 1 Samuel Chapter 3\n\n"]}],"introduction":"HANNAH'S SONG IN THANKFULNESS TO GOD. (Sa1 2:1-11)\n\nHannah prayed, and said--Praise and prayer are inseparably conjoined in Scripture (Col 4:2; Ti1 2:1). This beautiful song was her tribute of thanks for the divine goodness in answering her petition. \n\nmine horn is exalted in the Lord--Allusion is here made to a peculiarity in the dress of Eastern women about Lebanon, which seems to have obtained anciently among the Israelite women, that of wearing a tin or silver horn on the forehead, on which their veil is suspended. Wives, who have no children, wear it projecting in an oblique direction, while those who become mothers forthwith raise it a few inches higher, inclining towards the perpendicular, and by this slight but observable change in their headdress, make known, wherever they go, the maternal character which they now bear.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1SA/2.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1SA","chapter":2},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1SA/3.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1SA","chapter":3},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1SA/1.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1SA","chapter":1},"numberOfVerses":15}