1. And Samuel said to all Israel. It is not clear whether Samuel’s farewell speech takes place at Gilgal on the ceremony of “renewing the kingship” mentioned at the end of the preceding chapter, or whether this is a separate occasion. It does seem in character for Samuel that he would end up converting the coronation assembly into still another diatribe against the monarchy and an apologia for his own authority as prophet-judge.

I have heeded your voice. The phrase takes us back to the tribal convocation in chapter 8, when the grudging Samuel was enjoined by God to heed the people’s voice and make them a king.

2. the king walks before you. As we have had occasion to note earlier, this idiom means to serve or act as a functionary.

my sons, they are here with you. This slightly odd reference to Samuel’s sons is in all likelihood a final verbal gesture toward the dynasty he has failed to create: Samuel’s crooked sons have already disqualified themselves from assuming his mantle, but here he appears to take a last wistful look at that prospect—my sons are here among you, but you insist instead on a king.

3. Whose ox have I taken and whose donkey have I taken. Samuel’s profession of innocence, as Kyle McCarter Jr. has aptly noted, picks up antithetically his admonition against the “practice of the king” in chapter 8. There he warned repeatedly that the king would “take” all the people’s cherished possessions. Here he proclaims that he, the prophet-judge, has taken nothing. In both instances, he shows himself a master of rhetoric.

abused. The Hebrew verb means etymologically to crush or smash.

6. Witness is the LORD. The Masoretic Text lacks “witness” (ʿed), which is supplied by the Septuagint. (The next clause also looks textually problematic because the verb rendered here as “appointed,” ʿasah, actually means “made” and is not idiomatic.) It is noteworthy that Samuel sets up his entire speech as a legal disputation between him and the people in which all the evidence, as they are compelled to admit, stands in his favor.

7. and I shall tell you. The Masoretic Text lacks these words, but the next phrase, “all the LORD’s bounties,” preceded by the accusative particle ʾet, clearly requires a verb, and the appropriate verb is reflected in the Septuagint.

8. When Jacob came into Egypt, and your fathers cried out. The Septuagint inserts between these two clauses the words “the Egyptians oppressed them.” But the Greek translators may have simply filled out a narrative ellipsis in the original Hebrew text.

10. we have abandoned the LORD and served the Baalim and the Ashtaroth. Samuel’s speech seems to be an intertwining of an early story with a Deuteronomistic (seventh-century or sixth-century) editorial recasting. The vehement opposition to the monarchy would be original, perhaps even going back to the historical figure of Samuel. The Deuteronomistic school on its part was by no means antimonarchic, though it wanted to limit the monarch with the rules of the Book of God’s Teaching (the Torah). On the other hand, the sin of idolatry is not an issue in the Samuel story, but it is a Deuteronomistic preoccupation. It is at this point in the speech that we encounter clusters of Deuteronomistic verbal formulas: “abandoned the LORD and served the Baalim,” “delivered [literally, sold] into the hand of,” “fear the LORD and serve Him and heed His voice,” “serve Him truly with all your heart.”

11. Bedan. The name of this judge is otherwise unknown, but since there is no reason to assume that the list in the Book of Judges is exhaustive, it seems prudent not to emend this into a familiar name.

and Samuel. It makes sense that Samuel would refer to himself by name rather than with the first-person pronoun because he wants to set himself as a matter of official record in the great roll call of Judges.

12. Nahash king of the Ammonites. Since there had been no question of Nahash in the original demand for a king in chapter 8, many scholars have inferred that the present episode reflects a different tradition, in which the call for monarchy is specifically linked with the Ammonite incursion reported in chapter 11. But Moshe Garsiel proposes an interesting political reading that preserves the unity of the text. The original request for a king stresses the need for a military leader but mentions no particular enemy, perhaps because the people fear to name the dominant Philistines. Saul would have initially been installed in the ceremony at Mizpah as a sort of vassal king (or, alternatively, leader of an underground movement), for the Philistines had garrisons in the territory of Benjamin. Now, after Saul’s military success against the Ammonites, Samuel explicitly associates the call for a monarchy with Nahash’s assault on Israel. This meeting at Gilgal would also have been an occasion to enlist the allegiance to Saul of the trans-Jordanian tribes.

13. the king you have chosen, for whom you have asked. Several times Samuel plays sardonically on “asked” (shaʾal) and “Saul” (Shaʾul). Garsiel also suggests a pun as well in “chosen” (baḥar) and the introductory designation of Saul as a “fine fellow” (baḥur, literally “chosen one”). Although the story of the institution of the monarchy indicates that God does the choosing, there is no real contradiction—Samuel, in his acute discomfort with the monarchy that has displaced his own authority, readily imputes the choosing to the people, despite his awareness that God has supposedly chosen. God on His part no more than acquiesces in the people’s stubborn insistence on a king. The ambiguity of Saul’s divine election will continue to be manifested in the narrative.

14. rebel not against the LORD’s words. The Hebrew says literally “against the LORD’s mouth,” but the same verb (root m-r-h) appears elsewhere with “words” as object, and the two formulations are variants of the same idiom.

He will rescue you. The Masoretic Text lacks a clause stating what will happen if Israel remains faithful to God. These words (which would reflect a single verb with its suffix in the Hebrew) are supplied from the Septuagint.

15. against your king to destroy you. The Masoretic Text reads “against your fathers” (without “to destroy you”). This makes no sense because it is a prediction of future catastrophe. Some ancient and medieval interpreters construe the word “as against your fathers,” but the Septuagint’s reading, reflected in this translation, is more likely because Samuel repeatedly brackets “you and your king” sarcastically in this speech.

17. wheat harvest. That is, early summer, when no rain falls in Israel.

19. an evil thing to ask for ourselves a king. Through the pressure of Samuel’s oration, this “renewal of the kingship” most peculiarly turns into a collective confession of the sin of having wanted a king.

21. swerve not after mere emptiness. “Swerve” is once again Deuteronomistic terminology—to veer off from the straight and narrow path of the LORD. The Masoretic Text inserts “that” (ki) after this verb, creating a small problem of syntax, but the Septuagint deletes the word. The present translation adds the adjective “mere” to “emptiness” (tohu) in order to convey the full pejorative sense of the noun, which in many contexts suggests futility and is associated with the emptiness of the desert (compare the tohu wabohu, “welter and waste,” of the beginning of Genesis).

23. far be it from me to offend the LORD by ceasing to intercede on your behalf. One should note how deftly Samuel upstages the king whom he has just helped the people to confirm in office. It is true, his argument runs, that you have made the sinful error of choosing yourself a king. (Samuel of course makes no allowance for God’s role in the choice, which might express grudging divine recognition of a new political necessity.) That cannot be reversed, but never fear—I will still be here to act as the intercessor you will desperately continue to need.