1 Samuel 8

Bede

1 Samuel 8:2

The name of his firstborn son was Joel, etc. Joel means 'beginning' or 'was of God', Abia stands for 'father', and Beersheba means 'well of the oath'. It is indeed a place, as the name itself proves, where Abraham and Isaac made a covenant with Abimelech by swearing; this signifies that very fountain of salvation, which, united in the pact of one and the same faith, washes those circumcised and uncircumcised; in which the aforementioned brothers are appointed as judges so that they may both offer and drink the fountain of life. But they according to their name began but did not persevere to the end, to be saved, and though once belonging to God and worthy of the name of the patriarchs, now changed to the contrary, they preferred their own traditions and crimes over both the law and grace. And when any of us, cooling with the spiritual fervor he had begun, places base and earthly thoughts before his mind, it is as if the aging Samuel set the degenerate sons as judges in Beersheba; for the perverse senses are subject to the mystery of baptism. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:4

Therefore, all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel, etc. Therefore, after the ascension of the Lord, all the elders of carnal Israel gathered together against him, and sent out to follow him into Ramah, that is, into the heights of heaven, where whatever we do on earth is quickly revealed, saying: 'We do not want this man to reign over us' (Luke 19); and as if speaking to him who can hide nothing, they said: 'Behold, they said, your faith and love in us have grown old, and the sons whom you have nurtured and lifted up, they have despised you' (Isaiah 1). Therefore, we preferred, like the nations that did not know you, and the kingdoms that did not call on your name, to remain strangers to your leadership rather than be deprived of the kingdom, faith, and homeland of your grace. For if, leaving the skill of fighting, we follow the simplicity of your doctrine, the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. This indeed the Jews, though not in voice, at least in their depraved mind and intention, spoke against the Lord and against His Christ. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:6

The speech was displeasing to the eyes of Samuel, etc. The infidelity of the Jews was displeasing before the wise in Christ, who are the eyes of the Church, because in choosing the lowest for the highest, although ignorant, they said to the Lord, "Give us an earthly kingdom that will perpetually damn us." For of the heavenly kingdom, which you promise to the poor in spirit, we have no care, for whose salvation the Savior prayed either by himself while he was in the world, or through his members even after the ascension. This is specially narrated in the ecclesiastical history concerning James, the brother of the Lord (Matthew V), because he prayed for the people attending the temple with such insistence and diligence that his knees were believed to have taken on the hardness of camels'. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:7

But the Lord said to Samuel: "Listen to the voice of the people," etc. Do not take away their free will, but give the power to become children of God, to those who were unwilling to believe, and do not grieve the reproach of men resulting from the rejection of the people. For they have not rejected your teaching in the person speaking, but my divine teaching operating through you, so that I may not grant them an eternal kingdom in you. This is similar to what he himself said: "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" (John VII). — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:8

"As they have forsaken me and served other gods," etc. That is, just as they will also forsake the grace of the Gospel and serve rituals alien to God. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:9

Now therefore listen to their voice, etc. And these most fittingly apply to the person of the Father speaking to the Son: "Let them go according to the desires of their hearts, and they will go in their own wills" (Psalm LXXX). However, testify to them through the Gospel, and preach to them what temporal misery before men, what eternal torment in hell those will suffer who, neglecting service, or rather spiritual freedom, preferred to reign over themselves, saying: "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, and your house will be left desolate" (Luke X), and similar things, and he said: — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:11

This will be the law of the king who will rule over you. It does not explain what a moderate and just emperor should be like, whose perfection is taught in many places of the Holy Scriptures and especially in Deuteronomy; but rather it intimates a wicked ruler, by whose harshness the subjects will be oppressed, in order to persuade the people to withdraw from their stubborn request. Figuratively, the Scripture that speaks of a good king signifies Christ: about whom it is sung under the figure of Solomon, "O God, give your judgment to the king" (Psalm 71). But what is said of a bad king refers to the devil: according to Ecclesiasticus, "A foolish king destroys his people" (Eccl. 10). And rightly so, because he belongs to the devil, while the other is a member of Christ. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:11

And he will make for himself horsemen, etc. So much, he says, has the devil also subjected your stronger endeavors to himself, that through these he may strive to correct others with the bridle of error, to tame them, and to lead them to the path of impiety, and to make the offspring of virtue a herald of vices. For just as in good the chariots of virtues minister, bringing prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance into the hearts of neighbors; so on the contrary, the chariot of the worst king is preceded by one who, to his followers, prefigures examples of vices contrary to these virtues. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:11

He will take your sons, etc. You, he says, were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use freedom as an opportunity for the flesh (Gal. 5). Therefore, whoever gives the freedom into which he was called as an opportunity for the flesh, will soon, under the power of an impious king, that is, the devil whom he has chosen as his lord, suffer all these servitudes in himself which Samuel spoke to the people about. For what was once said specifically of one people but has for a longer time and with historical and typical truth been practiced, should generally be applied to all mortals who cast off the sweet yoke of the Lord; whose sons the wicked king takes and places in his chariots, when the ancient enemy, taking their glorious deeds, such as modesty, patience, kindness, almsgiving, and other similar things, corrupts them with hypocrisy, vainglory, pride, or any other vicious plague, he binds them to the works of the faithless, in whose hearts, constrained by the bridle of iniquity, the very worst charioteer freely and proudly rides around in his chariots. And because now the impious enemy falsely associates those whom he considers faithful among the faithful by their works, the strict Judge will associate them in the end through punishments; of such it is rightly written: "The lord of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect, and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the unfaithful" (Matt. 24). — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:12

And he will appoint for himself tribunes and centurions, etc. And from your great deeds, as if from sons born from the womb of a good conscience, the ancient corrupter will appoint others for himself to this office, as if certain tribunes to lead a hostile army against the camps of truth; others to promise the great perfection of eternal life to those who follow them as centurions; those who, sowing in the flesh, will reap corruption from the flesh; according to what Hosea says, "You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity, you have eaten the fruit of lies" (Hosea X). Others whom the fraudulent arranger distributes to strengthen fabricators of errors with dialectical snares and worshippers of perverse doctrines against the truth. We can also perceive the plowers of the devil's fields to be those who cultivate the hearts of the wretched with the exercise of wicked doctrine. The reapers, indeed, who, as if perfect in the smaller fruits of their hearers, lead them to the contemplation of their more secret mysteries as cleaners to the barns; this is proper to heretics, and especially is usually the invention of the Manicheans. For the sons of the rebellious people, whom we have interpreted over the diverse acts of one person, can also be referred to diverse persons, defiled by different errors but from the same adversary. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:13

He will also make your daughters his ointment-makers, etc. He will make your synagogues, or the souls of the deceived, or certainly thoughts once free from pure chastity, to favor his depraved iniquities with wicked flattery; the prophet who abhors this worst kind of ointment prays: "But let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head" (Psalm 140). Contrary to this is the ointment-maker of the good king, Mary Magdalene, who says: "While the king was on his couch, my spikenard gave forth its fragrance" (Song of Songs 1). He will also make those who serve his furnace of vices: about which the prophet testifies, "All of them adulterers, like an oven their hearts" (Hosea 7). Contrary to this is the furnace of heavenly love, of which those who have received the word of truth say to one another: "Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, and explaining the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24). He will also make bread-makers, who call those madmen to the abominable feasts of heresies, saying: "Eat bread in secret with pleasure: stolen waters are sweeter, and hidden bread more delightful" (Proverbs 9:17). Concerning which bread, it is also said elsewhere: "Sweet to a man is the bread of lies, but afterwards his mouth will be filled with gravel" (Proverbs 20:17). Contrary to this is the bread of truth, which strengthens the heart of man. Of which knowledge, because neither flesh nor blood shall reveal, but the Father who is in heaven: rightly it is sung under the figure of a strong woman of the Church, "She is like the ships of the merchant, bringing her bread from afar" (Proverbs 31). — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:14

He will also take your fields and vineyards, etc. Also taking from you the most abundant stores of your spiritual virtues, and the fruits of fervent love, not to mention the sweetest gifts of shining mercy, he will subject them rather to the pleasures of unclean spirits. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:15

But he will also tithe your fields and the incomes of your vineyards, etc. But the ancient corrupter will wholly deprive you of your works, almost brought to the perfection of nature, and the hope of all your life with heavenly reward, which is signified by the number ten, so that he may restore the insatiable desires of those wicked spirits serving him, whom, once stripped of angelic virtue, he made to hunger for human destruction, by the damage of these things. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:17

Your male and female servants also, etc. Even the improper motions of mind or flesh, for example, anger, jealousy, gluttony, lust, and other such things, which must be restrained and curbed by the discipline of wise men; but even the other duties of right intention, the cruel deceiver will instead claim for his own jurisdiction, and in the rich flocks of virtues, in which you have long served in vain, lacking the perfection of ten, the enemy himself will receive the palm of pasture in the end. Thus, you will finally bewail yourselves made servants under the adversary, whom it had previously wearied you to live as free under the Lord. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:18

And you will cry out on that day from the face of your king, etc. This prophecy is clear, and until today, it continues to be fulfilled among the Jews; who, as it is written in the seventeenth Psalm: They will cry (and there is no one to save them) to the Lord, and He did not hear them. To whom the Lord says: I will not hear your prayers. For your hands are full of blood (Isa. I). Namely, the blood that they were calling down upon themselves in the choice of this wicked king by saying: His blood be upon us, and upon our children (Matt. XXVII). Let them wash this off with the water of baptism, and they will cry out to the Lord from their tribulation, and He will deliver them from their necessities (Psalm CVI). Otherwise, they hear from the apostle James: You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly (Acts IV). But even in the moral understanding, vices are difficult and conquered late, which for a long time lying down willingly, and voluntarily casting themselves down, had oppressed. — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:19

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, etc. This obstinacy of the disobedient people asking for a king instead of the Lord does not only pertain to the time of proclaimed grace, but also before the celebrated mysteries of the Lord's incarnation. It occupied the Synagogue, indeed nearly the entire human race, from the first parent, when he put the words of the serpent before God. For always the obstinate ones endeavor to place their free will's decision before the governance of divine grace. But the good children of the Father, supplicating in spirit, do not say 'our kingdom' or 'our will'; rather, they say, 'Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven' (Matthew 6). — Commentary on Samuel

1 Samuel 8:22

And Samuel said . . . Let each one return to his city. Even today, the divine word teaches that all who are obstinate and rebellious against the Lord should return individually to the heart's council from the public scene of obstinate contention; so that each, more freely within his own heart, may diligently examine what he has done against the will of your heavenly ordination, and what sentence he is to receive from the strict judge. — Commentary on Samuel