Part 56 (1/2)
BOOK 6 Footnotes
[1] Dagon, a famous maritime G.o.d or idol, is generally supposed to have been like a man above the navel, and like a fish beneath it.
[2] Spanheim informs us here, that upon the coins of Tenedos, and those of other cities, a field-mouse is engraven, together with Apollo Smintheus, or Apollo, the driver away of field-mice, on account of his being supposed to have freed certain tracts of ground from those mice; which coins show how great a judgment such mice have sometimes been, and how the deliverance from them was then esteemed the effect of a divine power; which observations are highly suitable to this history.
[3] This device of the Philistines, of having a yoke of kine to draw this cart, into which they put the ark of the Hebrews, is greatly ill.u.s.trated by Sanchoniatho's account, under his ninth generation, that Agrouerus, or Agrotes, the husbandman, had a much-wors.h.i.+pped statue and temple, carried about by one or more yoke of oxen, or kine, in Phoenicia, in the neighborhood of these Philistines. See c.u.mberland's Sanchoniatho, p. 27 and 247; and Essay on the Old Testament, Append. p.
172.
[4] These seventy men, being not so much as Levites, touched the ark in a rash or profane manner, and were slain by the hand of G.o.d for such their rashness and profaneness, according to the Divine threatenings, Numbers 4:15, 20; but how other copies come to add such an incredible number as fifty thousand in this one town, or small city, I know not.
See Dr. Wall's Critical Notes on 1 Samuel 6:19.
[5] This is the first place, so far as I remember, in these Antiquities, where Josephus begins to call his nation Jews, he having hitherto usually, if not constantly, called them either Hebrews or Israelites.
The second place soon follows; see also ch. 3. sect. 5.
[6] Of this great mistake of Saul and his servant, as if true prophet of G.o.d would accept of a gift or present, for foretelling what was desired of him, see the note on B. IV. ch. 6. sect. 3.
[7] It seems to me not improbable that these seventy guests of Samuel, as here, with himself at the head of them, were a Jewish sanhedrim, and that hereby Samuel intimated to Saul that these seventy-one were to be his constant counselors, and that he was to act not like a sole monarch, but with the advice and direction of these seventy-one members of that Jewish sanhedrim upon all occasions, which yet we never read that he consulted afterward.
[8] An instance of this Divine fury we have after this in Saul, ch.
5. sect. 2, 3; 1 Samuel 11:6. See the like, Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; and 14:6.
[9] Take here Theodoret's note, cited by Dr. Hudson:--”He that exposes his s.h.i.+eld to the enemy with his left hand, thereby hides his left eye, and looks at the enemy with his right eye: he therefore that plucks out that eye, makes men useless in war.”
[10] Mr. Reland observes here, and proves elsewhere in his note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 1. sect. 6, that although thunder and lightning with us usually happen in summer, yet in Palestine and Syria they are chiefly confined to winter. Josephus takes notice of the same thing again, War, B. IV. ch. 4. sect. 5.
[11] Saul seems to have staid till near the time of the evening sacrifice, on the seventh day, which Samuel the prophet of G.o.d had appointed him, but not till the end of that day, as he ought to have done; and Samuel appears, by delaying to come to the full time of the evening sacrifice on that seventh day, to have tried him [who seems to have been already for some time declining from his strict and bounden subordination to G.o.d and his prophet; to have taken life-guards for himself and his son, which was entirely a new thing in Israel, and savored of a distrust of G.o.d's providence; and to have affected more than he ought that independent authority which the pagan kings took to themselves]; Samuel, I say, seems to have here tried Saul whether he would stay till the priest came, who alone could lawfully offer the sacrifices, nor would boldly and profanely usurp the priest's office, which he venturing upon, was justly rejected for his profaneness. See Apost. Const.i.t. B. II. ch. 27. And, indeed, since Saul had accepted kingly power, which naturally becomes ungovernable and tyrannical, as G.o.d foretold, and the experience of all ages has shown, the Divine settlement by Moses had soon been laid aside under the kings, had not G.o.d, by keeping strictly to his laws, and severely executing the threatenings therein contained, restrained Saul and other kings in some degree of obedience to himself; nor was even this severity sufficient to restrain most of the future kings of Israel and Judah from the grossest idolatry and impiety. Of the advantage of which strictness, in the observing Divine laws, and inflicting their threatened penalties, see Antiq. B. VI. ch. 12. sect. 7; and Against Apion, B. II. sect. 30, where Josephus speaks of that matter; though it must be noted that it seems, at least in three instances, that good men did not always immediately approve of such Divine severity. There seems to be one instance, 1 Samuel 6:19, 20; another, 1 Samuel 15:11; and a third, 2 Samuel 6:8, 9; Antiq. B. VI. ch. 7. sect. 2; though they all at last acquiesced in the Divine conduct, as knowing that G.o.d is wiser than men.
[12] By this answer of Samuel, and that from a Divine commission, which is fuller in l Samuel 13:14, and by that parallel note in the Apostolical Const.i.tutions just now quoted, concerning the great wickedness of Saul in venturing, even under a seeming necessity of affairs, to usurp the priest's office, and offer sacrifice without the priest, we are in some degree able to answer that question, which I have ever thought a very hard one, viz. Whether, if there were a city or country of lay Christians without any clergymen, it were lawful for the laity alone to baptize, or celebrate the eucharist, etc., or indeed whether they alone could ordain themselves either bishops, priests, or deacons, for the due performance of such sacerdotal ministrations; or whether they ought not rather, till they procure clergymen to come among them, to confine themselves within those bounds of piety and Christianity which belong alone to the laity; such particularly as are recommended in the first book of the Apostolical Const.i.tutions, which peculiarly concern the laity, and are intimated in Clement's undoubted epistle, sect. 40. To which latter opinion I incline.
[13] This rash vow or curse of Saul, which Josephus says was confirmed by the people, and yet not executed, I suppose princ.i.p.ally because Jonathan did not know of it, is very remarkable; it being of the essence of the obligation of all laws, that they be sufficiently known and promulgated, otherwise the conduct of Providence, as to the sacredness of solemn oaths and vows, in G.o.d's refusing to answer by Urim till this breach of Saul's vow or curse was understood and set right, and G.o.d propitiated by public prayer, is here very remarkable, as indeed it is every where else in the Old Testament.
[14] Here we have still more indications of Saul's affectation of despotic power, and of his entrenching upon the priesthood, and making and endeavoring to execute a rash vow or curse, without consulting Samuel or the sanhedrim. In this view it is also that I look upon this erection of a new altar by Saul, and his offering of burnt-offerings himself upon it, and not as any proper instance of devotion or religion, with other commentators.
[15] The reason of this severity is distinctly given, 1 Samuel 15:18, ”Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites:” nor indeed do we ever meet with these Amalekites but as very cruel and b.l.o.o.d.y people, and particularly seeking to injure and utterly to destroy the nation of Israel. See Exodus 17:8-16; Numbers 14:45; Deuteronomy 25:17-19; Judges 6:3, 6; 1 Samuel 15:33; Psalms 83:7; and, above all, the most barbarous of all cruelties, that of Haman the Agagite, or one of the posterity of Agag, the old king of the Amalekites, Esther 3:1-15.
[16] Spanheim takes notice here that the Greeks had such singers of hymns; and that usually children or youths were picked out for that service; as also, that those called singers to the harp, did the same that David did here, i.e. join their own vocal and instrumental music together.
[17] Josephus says thrice in this chapter, and twice afterwards, ch. 11.
sect. 2, and B. VII. ch. 1. sect. 4, i.e. five times in all, that Saul required not a bare hundred of the foreskins of the Philistines, but six hundred of their heads. The Septuagint have 100 foreskins, but the Syriac and Arabic 200. Now that these were not foreskins, with our other copies, but heads, with Josephus's copy, seems somewhat probable, from 1 Samuel 29:4, where all copies say that it was with the heads of such Philistines that David might reconcile himself to his master, Saul.
[18] Since the modern Jews have lost the signification of the Hebrew word here used, cebr; and since the LXX., as well as Josephus, reader it the liver of the goat, and since this rendering, and Josephus's account, are here so much more clear and probable than those of others, it is almost unaccountable that our commentators should so much as hesitate about its true interpretation.
[19] These violent and wild agitations of Saul seem to me to have been no other than demoniacal; and that the same demon which used to seize him, since he was forsaken of G.o.d, and which the divine hymns and psalms which were sung to the harp by David used to expel, was now in a judicial way brought upon him, not only in order to disappoint his intentions against innocent David, but to expose him to the laughter and contempt of all that saw him, or heard of those agitations; such violent and wild agitations being never observed in true prophets, when they were under the inspiration of the Spirit of G.o.d. Our other copies, which say the Spirit of G.o.d came him, seem not so here copy, which mentions nothing of G.o.d at all. Nor does Josephus seem to ascribe this impulse and ecstasy of Saul to any other than to his old demoniacal spirit, which on all accounts appears the most probable. Nor does the former description of Saul's real inspiration by the Divine Spirit, 1 Samuel 10:9-12; Antiq. B. VI. ch. 4. sect. 2, which was before he was become wicked, well agree with the descriptions before us.
[20] What is meant by Saul's lying down naked all that day, and all that night, 1 Samuel 19:4, and whether any more than laying aside his royal apparel, or upper garments, as Josephus seems to understand it, is by no means certain. See the note on Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 14. sect. 2.
[21] This city n.o.b was not a city allotted to the priests, nor had the prophets, that we know of, any particular cities allotted them. It seems the tabernacle was now at n.o.b, and probably a school of the prophets was here also. It was full two days' journey on foot from Jerusalem, 1 Samuel 21:5. The number of priests here slain in Josephus is three hundred and eighty-five, and but eighty-five in our Hebrew copies; yet are they three hundred and five in the Septuagint. I prefer Josephus's number, the Hebrew having, I suppose, only dropped the hundreds, the other the tens. This city n.o.b seems to have been the chief, or perhaps the only seat of the family of Ithamar, which here perished, according to G.o.d's former terrible threatenings to Eli, 1 Samuel 2:27-36; 3:11-18.
See ch. 14. sect. D, hereafter.