1 Samuel 12:2

And now, behold, the king walketh before you,.... He invested with his office, and in the exercise of it, and goes in and out as the captain, commander, and leader of the people; it is expressive of

And now, behold, the king walketh before you: and I am old and grayheaded; and, behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. I am old and grey-headed.

Walketh before you; goeth out and cometh in before you, i.e. ruleth over you, as that phrase signifies, . To him I have fully resigned all my power and authority, and do hereby renounce it, and own myself for a private person, and one of his subjects. I am old and gray-headed; and therefore unable to bear the burden of government, and feel myself greatly at ease to see it cast upon other shoulders; and therefore do not speak what I am about to say from envy of Saul’ s advancement, or from discontent at the diminution of my own power. My sons are with you, or among you, in the same stake and place, private persons, as you are; if they have injured any of you in their government, as you once complained, the law is now open against them; any of you may accuse them, your king can punish them; I do not intercede for them, I have neither power nor will to keep them from receiving the just fruits of their misdemeanours. I have walked before you, i.e. been your guide and governor, partly as a prophet, and partly as a judge.

1 Samuel 12:2 And now, behold, the king walketh before you: and I am old and grayheaded; and, behold, my sons [are] with you: and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day.Ver. 2. And now, behold, the king walketh before you.] Graditur ante vos: gressu, sc., grallatorio, with a pace and state befitting a king: with care and charge also, to be unto you a shepherd and a shield. See Numbers 27:17. For which purpose, Samuel, as he here resigneth his power to him, so he propoundeth himself for a pattern to him in the ensuing apology. And I am old and gray headed.] About sixty, as it is conceived, and much decayed in nature by his incessant pains in his office: Cura facit canos. What marvel that he who was so old-a-young-man should not be a young-old man? Some Rabbis think that Samuel was but fifty and two when he died, but then he must have been gray headed at thirty-four, which is not likely, since he lived eighteen years after Saul was king, as Josephus holdeth. And, behold, my sons are with you.] Conditione privata, as private persons, so that you may question them, and deal by them as they deserve. And I have walked before you.] In all integrity and good conscience, not only "harmless and blameless, as the son of God, without rebuke," but useful and serviceable in my place and station; trading all my talents for the common good of you all. Samuelis sane nomen (ut de Socrate, Plinius) non hominis, sed integritatis et sapientiae nomen. παιδαριογερων. Lib. vi., in fine. Lib. vii. cap. 31,34.

(2) And now, behold, the king walketh before you.—No doubt, here pointing to Saul by his side. The term “walketh before you implied generally that the kingly office included the guiding and governing the people, as well as the especial duty of leading them in war; from henceforth they must accept his authority on all occasions, not merely in great emergencies. Both king and people must understand that the days when Saul could quietly betake himself to his old pursuits on the farm of the Ephraim hills were now past for ever. He must lead, and they must follow. The metaphor is taken from the usual place of a shepherd in the East, where he goes before his flock. Compare the words of our Lord, who uses the same image of a shepherd walking before his sheep (John 10:27): “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” And I am old and grayheaded.—Here the prophet, with some pathos, refers to the elders’ own words at Ramah (chap 8:5). Yes, said the seer, I am old—grown grey in your service; listen to me while I ask you what manner of service that has been. Can any one find in it a flaw? has it not been pure and disinterested throughout? My sons are with you.—Yes, old indeed, for my offspring are numbered now among the grown men of the people. Possibly, however, a tinge of mortified feeling at the rejection of himself and his family, mixed with a desire to recommend his sons to the favour and goodwill of the nation, is at the bottom of this mention of them.—Speaker’s Commentary. It is evident that these sons, whose conduct as Samuel’s deputies had excited the severest criticism on the part of the elders (1 Samuel 8:5), had been reduced—with the full consent, of course, of their father, who up to this period exercised evidently supreme power in all the coasts of Israel—to the condition of mere private citizens. From my childhood unto this day.—Samuel’s life had in truth been constantly before the public observation from very early days; well known to all were the details of his career—his early consecration under peculiar and exceptional circumstances to the sanctuary service, the fact of the “word of the Lord” coming directly to him when still a boy, his recognition by the people directly afterwards as a prophet, then his restless, unwearied work during the dark days which followed the fall of Shiloh. It was indeed a public life. He would have Israel, now they had virtually rejected his rule, think over that long busy life of his for a moment, and then pronounce a judgment on it.

Verse 2. My sons are with you] It is generally agreed that these words intimate that Samuel had deprived them of their public employ, and reduced them to a level with the common people. Have walked before you from my childhood] He had been a long, steady, and immaculate servant of the public.

2. the king walketh before you] Goes in and out in your presence in the exercise of his regal authority. and I am old and gray-headed; and, behold my sons are with you] Samuel refers to the two reasons alleged by the elders in ch. 1 Samuel 8:5 for asking a king, (a) his own age, (b) the misgovernment of his sons. He mentions the first expressly, but with the natural reluctance of a father to dwell upon his sons’ misconduct, only hints at the second. The Hebrew conjunction “and” here as often introduces the reason, and may be translated by “for” or “seeing that.” from my childhood] “From my youth,” as the word is rendered everywhere else in the E. V. Samuel’s public life may be said to have commenced when God first spoke to him in Shiloh (1 Samuel 3:11), so that they had had full opportunity of knowing him from the first.

My sons are with you - Possibly, however, a tinge of mortified feeling at the rejection of himself and his family, mixed with a desire to recommend his sons to the favor and goodwill of the nation,

1, 2. I… have made a king over you — This statement, together with that which follows — behold, the king walketh before you — indicates what we have already assumed, that this farewell address was