SUMMARY
SamuelThe judge who anointed the first two kings of Israel. fares little better at parenting than EliPriest at Shiloh who cared for young Samuel., the corrupt priestA priest is a person who has the authority to perform religious rites. In New Testament times priests were responsible for daily offerings and sacrifices in the temple. he replaced.
ANALYSIS
As a sad irony, and foretaste of much of the rest of 1 Samuel – 2 Kings, the righteousA righteous person is one who is ethical and faithful to God's covenant. Righteousness in the Old Testament is an attitude of God; in the New Testament it is a gift of God through grace. In the New Testament righteousness is a relationship with God... Samuel had wicked sons. Joel and Abijah shamed their father and themselves by taking bribes and perverting justice after their father installed them as judges in his place. The text does not describe their [mal]formation, but interpreters may be forgiven for wondering if the preceding paragraph describing Samuel’s travels indicated that Samuel perhaps spent too much time on the judging circuit around Israel (1 Samuel 7:15-17), and not enough time with his family. Indeed, if Samuel judged Israel “all the days of his life” and even while he was at home in Ramah, “he judged Israel there [too]” Samuel may be described as a sort of workaholic father, not unlike the scriptural picture of MosesProphet who led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land and received the law at Sinai. with his two neglected sons (Exodus 18).
The wickedness of Samuel’s sons, and their refusal to govern justly, was the proximate cause, in this text, of Israel asking for a king.
