Scripture Notes | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 16, 1868

Scripture Notes.

SAMUEL’S MIRACLE.

1 Sam. xii, 18. So Samuel called unto the Lord; and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.

In Palestine, and in the torrid zone, the seasons are more distinctly marked than with us; and as the rainy season is a period of almost uninterrupted rain, so summer or harvest is a period of dry weather, without a shower, and almost without a cloud.—Hewlett. In this view, the miracle wrought by Samuel was the more striking.

HONEY DEW.

Chap. xiv, 25. And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground.

(Honey.) This was not the honey of bees, found in the fissures of rocks; nor was it the liquid manna, called terengabîn, although this manna was formerly comprehended under the common word for honey. It is what has been called the honey dew, i. e. the excrements which certain little insects, called by Linnæus, aphides, emit very copiously upon the leaves of trees, so much that it flows down upon the ground.—Jahn.

THE EXECUTION OF AGAG.

Chap. xv, 33. And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.

To Agag Samuel holds language very different [from that to Saul]. He does not speak to him of a divine commission, nor of the duty or disobedience of Saul, but of human merits or demerits—the merits and deserts of Agag—the demands of natural justice. The sacred penman is careful to inform us that it was as a notorious public murderer he was put to death, (and probably by a public executioner). Cavillers have called his being put to death, “in cold blood,” “cruel;” it was just as “cruel” as the hanging of a murderer “in cold blood,” and no more so.—Carpenter. Before the Lord.] i. e. openly. Gen. xiii, 13.—Williams.

GIANTS.

Chap. xvii, 4. And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

When Joshua rooted the Anakims out of the land of Canaan, several of them fled to Gath. Comp. note, Num. xiii, 33.—Dodd. A man named John Middleton was born at Hale, near Warrington, Lancashire, in the reign of James I, whose hand, from the carpus to the end of the middle finger, was 17 inches, his palm 8½ inches broad, and his whole height 9 feet 3 inches.—Plott, in Hewlett.

The coffin of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, is said to be 7 cubits long; and Eleazer, a Jew, called a “giant,” presented by Artabanus, king of the Parthians, to Tiberius Cæsar, is said, by Josephus, to be 7 cubits high; and one Gabbarra of Arabia, in the times of Claudius Cæsar, measured 9 feet 9 inches, so Pliny, who elsewhere speaks of a people in Ethiopia, called Syrbote, 8 cubits high; the Sept. make Goliath to be 4 cubits and a span, and so Josephus, i. e. about 8 feet.—Gill.

SMITING WITH STAVES.

Verse 43. And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

With staves.] Men of high caste [in India] will not strike a low caste with the hand, lest the touch defile, but beat them with a stick. Hence, to offer to strike one with a stick is very provoking, and one so struck will exclaim, “Am I a dog?” Cursed David by his gods.] So do these people [of India] curse each other by their gods. The extremes of filthiness, of sin, and hell, are put under contribution, to furnish epithets and allusions for their execrations.—Roberts.

POWER OF THE SLING.

Verse 49. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slung it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.

Diod. Sic. relates that the Beleares’ slingers would, even in battle, break in pieces shields, helmets, and all kinds of armor.—Gill.

Amos ii, 6, 7.

“Thus saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek.”

After the prophet had given a general warning to surrounding nations, he more particularly, in the name of God, addressed the Israelites, to whom he was especially sent. They also had filled up, or were about to fill up, the measure of their sins; and the Lord would not avert from them the merited punishment. Several atrocious crimes were charged upon them, some of which were sanctioned by the authority and example of their rulers. The smallest bribe, even the value of a pair of shoes, would induce the magistrate to give up a poor man to the will of his merciless oppressors, to be cast into prison, reduced to slavery, or put to death; though his cause and character were most evidently righteous, nay, perhaps for that very reason (2 Kings xvii, 7–18; Hos. iv, 1, 2; Isa. v, 23, 24; Micah iii, 1–6). The least property of a poor man, though scarcely more valuable than the dust of the earth that fell on his head, excited their covetousness, and they panted after it till they had got it from him; or, as some render the clause, “They tread down the heads of the poor, into the dust of the earth.” Thus they perverted the cause of such as were too weak, timid, or gentle, to resist their oppressions. At the same time they were regardless of the divine law, and even of common decency, in their sensual indulgences. Instead of restoring, according to law, the garments of the poor, when taken as pledges, they made use of them, especially when they prostrated themselves before their idols, when they feasted, or slept, or committed abominations before their altars.—Scott’s Notes.

When actions, which are known to be criminal, are deliberately ventured upon for worldly gain, men will by degrees proceed to perpetrate the basest villainies for the lowest recompense, and become callous to all the miseries of the poor; nay, they will take pleasure in trampling upon the righteous and the meek, out of contempt for their characters. Such nominal Christians will grudge the poor servant, laborer, and mechanic, the smallest advantage or indulgence, and eagerly pursue every iniquitous method of extorting their little from them, to increase their abundance.—Practical Observations.