1 Samuel 25:1
When Samuel died, all Israel gathered to mourn for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David set out and went down to the Wilderness of Paran.
Sermons
Samuel's Death and BurialB. Dale 1 Samuel 25:1
When I Die, Will I be Missed?Ebenezer Rees.1 Samuel 25:1
David's Activity and AdvancementB. Dale 1 Samuel 25:1-44














1 Samuel 25:1. (RAMAH.)
And Samuel died.

1. The end of the great prophet's life is recorded in brief and simple words. This is according to the manner in which the death of men is usually spoken of in the Scriptures. Whilst their life is narrated at length, their death is either passed over in silence or mentioned only in a sentence, as of comparatively little consequence in relation to their character, work, and influence. There is one significant exception, viz., that of him "who once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."

2. In the last glimpse afforded of him before his decease he is described as "standing as one appointed over the company of the prophets," and occupied with them in celebrating the praises of God (1 Samuel 19:20). During the years that had since elapsed he was left unmolested by Saul; and it is hardly likely that David ever ventured to Ramah again, although he probably kept up indirect intercourse with his aged and revered friend (1 Samuel 22:5), and was often in his thoughts.

3. In connection with the mention of his death it is stated that "David arose and went down" (from "the hold" in the hill of Hachilah, to which he had returned from Engedi) "to the wilderness of Paran." He may have done so for reasons independent of this event, or without the knowledge of it; or possibly because he feared that with the removal of Samuel's restraining influence Saul might renew his persecution. However it may have been, the melancholy intelligence would speedily reach him.

4. "Samuel died." Good and great as he was, he could not escape the common lot of men. "One event happeneth to them all." But that which comes as a judgment to "the fool" (ver. 38) comes as a blessing to the wise. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." The news of it came upon the people as a surprise and filled them with grief. "It was as if from that noble star, so long as it shone in the heaven of the holy land, though veiled by clouds, there streamed a mild beneficent light over all Israel. Now this star in Israel was extinguished" (Krummacher). "Another mighty one had passed away. The very heart of the nation sighed out its loving, weeping requiem. But who among them all mourned as that son of Jesse, on whose head he had at God's command poured the anointing oil, as he arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran? Doubtless in those waste places he heard again in living memory the echoes of the prevailing cry of him who was so great among those that call upon the name of the Lord. Doubtless his own discipline was perfected in this new sorrow, but he learnt in losing Samuel to lean more simply and alone on Samuel's God" ('Heroes of Hebrews Hist.'). We have here -

I. THE DECEASE OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS MAN: saint, prophet, intercessor, judge, restorer of the theocracy, founder of the monarchy. "He was a righteous man, and gentle in his nature; and on that account he was very dear to God" (Josephus). "Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, beloved of the Lord, established a kingdom and anointed princes over his people. And.before his long sleep he made protestations in the sight of the Lord, etc. And.after his death he prophesied, and showed the king his end" (Ecclesiastes 46:13-20). He died -

1. In a good old age. At what age we know not; but long ago he spoke of himself as "old and grayheaded" (1 Samuel 12:2). His protracted life was an evidence of his self-control and piety, a mark of Divine favour, and a means of extended usefulness. He was cut down not like "the flower of the field," which blooms for a day and is gone, nor like the spreading forest tree smitten by a sudden blast; but rather like the ripe corn, bending down beneath its golden burden and falling under the sickle of the reaper; arid "as shocks of corn are brought in in their season," so was he "gathered to his people."

2. At the proper time. When his appointed work was done, the new order of things firmly established, and he could by his continuance do little more for Israel, he was "taken away from the evil to come" through which the nation was to attain its highest glory. "He was the link which connected two very different periods, being the last representative of a past which could never come back, and seemed almost centuries behind, and also marking the commencement of a new period intended to develop into Israel's ideal future" (Edersheim). "If David's visible deeds were greater and more dazzling than Samuel's, there can be no doubt that David's blaze of glory would have been impossible without Samuel's less conspicuous but far more influential career, and that all the greatness of which the following century boasts goes back to him as its real author" (Ewald).

3. In peaceful retirement; removed from public strife, under Divine protection, surrounded by prophetic associates, reviewing the past, contemplating the present, and awaiting the final change. A holy and useful life is crowned with a peaceful and happy death.

4. In Divine communion, which constitutes the highest life of the good. In God (with whom he had walked from his childhood, and whose inward voice he had so often heard) he found his chief delight, to his will he cheerfully submitted, and into his hands he committed his spirit in hope of continued, perfect, and eternal fellowship. The ancient covenant to be "the God" of his people overshadowed the present and the future; nor did they suppose (however dim their views of another life) that he would suffer them to be deprived by death of his presence and love "All live unto him" and in him. He "died in faith." His decease was like a peaceful summer sunset.

"Not the last struggle of the sun
Precipitated from his golden throne
Holds, dazzling, mortals in sublime suspense;
But the calm exode of a man,
Nearer, but far above, who ran
The race we run, when Heaven recalls him hence"


(W.S. Landor)

II. THE MOURNING OF A WHOLE PEOPLE. "And all Israel" (represented by their elders) "were gathered together" (out of common veneration and love), "and lamented him (whom all knew and none would see again), and buried him in his house at Ramah" ("the ancient and the manor house," so long his residence, and endeared to him by so many tender associations). It was "a grievous mourning," as when Jacob was buried at Machpelah (Genesis 1:11; Acts 8:2). The honour rendered to his memory was simple and sincere, very different from that which, it is said, was paid to his dust in later times, when "his remains were removed with incredible pomp and almost one continued train of attendants from Ramah to Constantinople by the Emperor Arcadius, A.D. 401" (Delany, 1:148). But "of Samuel, as of Moses, it may be said, 'No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day'" (Stanley). The national mourning was an indication of -

1. The high esteem in which he was held, on account of his great ability, eminent piety, and beneficent activity - his integrity, firmness, gentleness, consistency, disinterestedness, adaptability, and living communion with God (1 Samuel 2:30; Psalm 112:6). "A true Christian. may travel in life under troubles and contempts; but mark his end, and you shall find (as peace, so) honour. Life is death's seed time; death life's harvest. As here we sow, so there we reap. He that spends himself upon God and man shall at last have all the honour that heaven and earth can cast upon him" (R. Harris).

2. The deplorable loss which had been sustained. "The men who had once rejected Samuel now lamented him; when the light of his presence was departed they felt the darkness which remained; when the actual energy of his example had ceased to act they remembered the strength of his principles, the consistency of its operation. There was a feeling common to man. Whilst we enjoy the gift we ofttimes forget the Giver, and are awakened only to the full consciousness of the value of that which we once possessed by finding that we possess it no longer" (Anderson).

3. The unjust treatment which he had received, and which was now regretted. His predictions had proved true (1 Samuel 8:11), and his course was fully vindicated. "The sorrow at his decease was the deeper, the more heavily the yoke of Saul's misgovernment pressed on them."

4. The continued influence he exerted upon the nation. "The holy expression stamped by him on the tribes of Benjamin and Judah remained for centuries uneffaced. Never was a single man more instrumental in sowing the soil of a district with the enduring seeds of goodness. It seems to have been mainly through his influence that piety found a home in Judah and Benjamin when it was banished from the rest of the country. Humanly speaking David could never have been king if Samuel had not prepared the way. He was to King David what John the Baptist was to Christ. Unquestionably he is to be ranked among the very greatest and best of the Hebrew worthies" (Blaikie). "And he being dead yet speaketh."

"O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall'n at length that tower of strength
Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew!"


(Tennyson) Learn to -

1. Honour the memory of the good.

2. Praise God for their lives.

3. Imitate their example.

4. Carry out their purposes. - D.

And Samuel died, and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him.
"And Samuel died; and all Israel lamented him." What an epitaph! What a character to have deserved such an epitaph! The humblest mortal can so live as to leave a gap when he goes — a fact we realise with difficulty, for we say, "Oh! the great ones are missed, but I am poor and humble; my attainments are so insignificant." No life need be insignificant. "And Samuel died; and all Israel lamented for him." Some poor housewife in far Beersheba, who had never been five miles from home, when the word comes that Samuel is dead, she goes to the corner, lifts her apron to her eyes and weeps. Such is the result of a good life. We do not know how far its influence may travel. Are we not all of us largely influenced by men and women whose faces we have never seen, whose voices we have never heard? Do they not lead us, cheer us, inspire us on our way?

1. The self-forgetting life. We want to learn to do good quietly, unostentatiously.

2. Joy in daily tasks.

3. Disinterested virtue. To live a good life in order to be missed, and nothing more, is one thing. But to live it without any such intention is another. Our virtue must be disinterested.

4. The life of service. So we speak of the useful life as the true one. The ideal life is that of consecrated service. Is there anyone living in loneliness who will say: "When I had not a friend in the world, when I came up from come country place and went into a certain church, that man befriended me?"

5. Active religion. "And Samuel died, and all Israel wept for him." We, too, must die. Will men weep for us? Will the world be sorry or will he clap his hands?

(Ebenezer Rees.)

People
Abigail, Ahinoam, Caleb, David, Israelites, Jesse, Jezreel, Laish, Maon, Michal, Nabal, Palti, Paltiel, Phalti, Samuel, Saul
Places
Carmel, Gallim, Hebron, Maon, Paran, Ramah
Topics
Assembled, Body, Buried, Bury, David, Death, Desert, Died, Dieth, Gathered, Home, Israelites, Lamented, Maon, Mourn, Mourned, Moved, Paran, Ramah, Resting-place, Riseth, Rose, Samuel, Themselves, Waste, Weeping, Wilderness
Outline
1. Samuel dies
2. David in Paran sends to Nabal
10. Provoked by Nabal's rudeness, he minds to destroy him
14. Abigail understanding thereof
18. takes a present
23. and by her wisdom
32. pacifies David
36. Nabal hearing thereof, dies
39. David takes Abigail and Ahinoam to be his wives
44. Michal is given to Phalti

Dictionary of Bible Themes
1 Samuel 25:1

     5241   burial

Library
If Then to Sin, that Others May not Commit a Worse Sin...
21. If then to sin, that others may not commit a worse sin, either against us or against any, without doubt we ought not; it is to be considered in that which Lot did, whether it be an example which we ought to imitate, or rather one which we ought to avoid. For it seems meet to be more looked into and noted, that, when so horrible an evil from the most flagitious impiety of the Sodomites was impending over his guests, which he wished to ward off and was not able, to such a degree may even that just
St. Augustine—Against Lying

Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed.
"Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord."--Jeremiah i. 8. The Prophets were ever ungratefully treated by the Israelites, they were resisted, their warnings neglected, their good services forgotten. But there was this difference between the earlier and the later Prophets; the earlier lived and died in honour among their people,--in outward honour; though hated and thwarted by the wicked, they were exalted to high places, and ruled in the congregation.
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

How the Meek and the Passionate are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 17.) Differently to be admonished are the meek and the passionate. For sometimes the meek, when they are in authority, suffer from the torpor of sloth, which is a kindred disposition, and as it were placed hard by. And for the most part from the laxity of too great gentleness they soften the force of strictness beyond need. But on the other hand the passionate, in that they are swept on into frenzy of mind by the impulse of anger, break up the calm of quietness, and so throw into
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Appendix xix. On Eternal Punishment, According to the Rabbis and the New Testament
THE Parables of the Ten Virgins' and of the Unfaithful Servant' close with a Discourse on the Last Things,' the final Judgment, and the fate of those Christ's Righ Hand and at His Left (St. Matt. xxv. 31-46). This final Judgment by our Lord forms a fundamental article in the Creed of the Church. It is the Christ Who comes, accompanied by the Angelic Host, and sits down on the throne of His Glory, when all nations are gathered before Him. Then the final separation is made, and joy or sorrow awarded
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Letters of St. Bernard
I To Malachy. 1141.[924] (Epistle 341.) To the venerable lord and most blessed father, Malachy, by the grace of God archbishop of the Irish, legate of the Apostolic See, Brother Bernard called to be abbot of Clairvaux, [desiring] to find grace with the Lord. 1. Amid the manifold anxieties and cares of my heart,[925] by the multitude of which my soul is sore vexed,[926] the brothers coming from a far country[927] that they may serve the Lord,[928] thy letter, and thy staff, they comfort
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

The Exile Continued.
"So David fled, and escaped and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done unto him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth" (1 Sam. xix. 18)--or, as the word probably means, in the collection of students' dwellings, inhabited by the sons of the prophets, where possibly there may have been some kind of right of sanctuary. Driven thence by Saul's following him, and having had one last sorrowful hour of Jonathan's companionship--the last but one on earth--he fled to Nob, whither
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

Barzillai
BY REV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, M.A., D.D. "There is nothing," says Socrates to Cephalus in the Republic, "I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom it is right to learn the character of the way, whether it is rugged or difficult, or smooth and easy" (p. 328 E.). It is to such an aged traveller that we are introduced in the person of Barzillai the Gileadite. And though he is one of the lesser-known characters
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known

The Section Chap. I. -iii.
The question which here above all engages our attention, and requires to be answered, is this: Whether that which is reported in these chapters did, or did not, actually and outwardly take place. The history of the inquiries connected with this question is found most fully in Marckius's "Diatribe de uxore fornicationum," Leyden, 1696, reprinted in the Commentary on the Minor Prophets by the same author. The various views may be divided into three classes. 1. It is maintained by very many interpreters,
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Promise in 2 Samuel, Chap. vii.
The Messianic prophecy, as we have seen, began at a time long anterior to that of David. Even in Genesis, we perceived [Pg 131] it, increasing more and more in distinctness. There is at first only the general promise that the seed of the woman should obtain the victory over the kingdom of the evil one;--then, that the salvation should come through the descendants of Shem;--then, from among them Abraham is marked out,--of his sons, Isaac,--from among his sons, Jacob,--and from among the twelve sons
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Samuel
Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.; while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate,
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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