1 Samuel 12:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 12:8
When Jacob was come into Egypt, and your fathers cried unto the LORD, then the LORD sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place.
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Egypt
מִצְרָ֑יִםmitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · proper noun, a place name
fathers
אֲבֽוֹתֵיכֶם֙'a.vo.tei.Khem
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
cried
וַיִּזְעֲק֤וּvai.yiz.'a.Ku
H2199
to shriek (from anguish or danger) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
LORD
יְהוָ֜הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
sent
וַיִּשְׁלַ֨חvai.yish.Lach
H7971
to send away · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Moses
מֹשֶׁ֣הmo.Sheh
H4872
Mosheh · proper noun, a man's name
Aaron
אַהֲרֹ֗ן'a.ha.Ron
H175
Aharon · proper noun, a man's name
forth
וַיּוֹצִ֤יאוּvai.yo.Tzi.'u
H3318
to go (causatively · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
fathers
אֲבֹֽתֵיכֶם֙'a.vo.tei.Khem
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
Egypt
מִמִּצְרַ֔יִםmi.mitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · preposition + proper noun, a place name
dwell
וַיֹּשִׁב֖וּםvai.yo.shi.Vum
H3427
properly · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
place
בַּמָּק֥וֹםba.ma.Kom
H4725
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 4:14-16 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And al…
Exodus 2:23-24 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cr…
Genesis 46:5-7 And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons…
Exodus 3:9-10 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppres…
Exodus 4:27-31 And the LORD said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and kissed him.
Exodus 6:26 These are that Aaron and Moses, to whom the LORD said, Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies.
Exodus 12:51 And it came to pass the selfsame day, that the LORD did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.
Exodus 14:30-31 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 12:6-15
Samuel, having sufficiently secured his own reputation, instead of upbraiding the people upon it with their unkindness to him, sets himself to instruct them, and keep them in the way of their duty, and then the change of the government would be the less damage to them.
I. He reminds them of the great goodness of God to them and to their fathers, gives them an abstract of the history of their nation, that, by the consideration of the great things God had done for them, they might be for ever engaged to love him and serve him. "Come," says he (Sa1 12:7), "stand still, stand in token of reverence when God is speaking to you, stand still in token of attention and composedness of mind, and give m…
HE REPROVES THE PEOPLE FOR INGRATITUDE. (Sa1 12:6-16)
Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you--The burden of this faithful and uncompromising address was to show them, that though they had obtained the change of government they had so importunely desired, their conduct was highly displeasing to their heavenly King; nevertheless, if they remained faithful to Him and to the principles of the theocracy, they might be delivered from many of the evils to which the new state of things would expose them. And in confirmation of those statements, no less than in evidence of the divine displeasure, a remarkable phenomenon, on the invocation of the prophet, and of which he gave due premo…
The Lord sent Moses and Aaron - He shows them that through all their history God had ever raised them up deliverers, when their necessities required such interference.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 12:8
When Jacob was come into Egypt,.... With his family to see his son Joseph, and dwelt there; or rather the posterity of Jacob are meant, who settled in Egypt, and continued there many years, and at length were oppressed by the Egyptians, and brought into hard bondage:
and your fathers cried unto the Lord; by reason of their bondage, for help and deliverance:
then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt; after various messages carried by them from the Lord to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and after many signs and wonders wrought by them, by which the heart of that king was at last brought to consent to their dismission:
and made them dwell in this place; the la…
The Church Fathers
Enumerating these same mercies, he says: "How Jacob entered into Egypt, and our fathers cried out to the Lord, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, and He brought our fathers out of Egypt, and settled them in this place. And because they forgot the Lord their God, He delivered them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Asshur, and into the hands of the Philistines, and of the king of Moab, and they fought against you. Afterward they cried out to the Lord and said: 'We have sinned, because we forsook the Lord and served the Baals and Ashtaroth. Now therefore deliver us from the hand of the Philistines, and we will serve You.' And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Barak, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and He delivered you from the hand of your enemies on every side, and you dwelt in safety." 5. He commemorates these acts of mercy performed according to history for this reason: so that, in the matter of having asked for a king, the people might recognize themselves as guilty before the Lord. For he who had the Lord present to remove all dangers had no need of a human king over himself. Moreover, he shows the very presence of the Lord through the mercies bestowed, since he declared that they were delivered from the hand of the Egyptians through Moses and Aaron, and from the hand of Sisera and the Philistines, and from the hand of the king of Moab through Jerubbaal, Barak, and Jephthah, and by Samuel. In this passage it must be carefully inquired why the petition by which a king is requested is so strictly reproved, and yet the very aids of divine mercy are taught to have been bestowed upon the people of God through human leaders set over them. To this matter, what must be answered except that the governance of kings is vastly different from the governance of judges? The latter preside as equals, while the former display the arrogance of domination in their power of preeminence. The latter commend the testimony of their innocence before the Lord and all the people, because they neither oppress anyone nor take anything belonging to another for their own use; the former, however, not only take away from their subjects what belongs to them, but even press down the very persons of their subjects under the burden of servitude.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Aaron · Commissioned as a — Commissioned as a
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
"And now come hither, and I will reason with you before the Lord with regard to all the righteous acts which He has shown to you and your fathers." צדקות, righteous acts, is the expression used to denote the benefits which Jehovah had conferred upon His people, as being the results of His covenant fidelity, or as acts which attested the righteousness of the Lord in the fulfilment of the covenant grace which He had promised to His people.
Sa1 12:8-12
The first proof of this was furnished by the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their safe guidance into Canaan ("this place" is the land of Canaan). The second was to be found in the deliverance of the people out of the powe…
In 12:1-5, Samuel put himself on trial and was found innocent. In 12:6-25, he put the nation on trial and found it guilty.
12:6 Moses and Aaron were not self-made leaders but were appointed by God as leaders.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 12:7
And I shall enter into judgment. I.e., I shall debate with you.
