Samuel
Samuel means "his name is El". He is the co judge of Samson and prophet/priest after Eli and he judged Israel all the days of his life, from 2799 FC to 2897 FC (1169 BC – 1071 BC | 98 yrs).
Both mothers of Samson and Samuel were barren before they were born (Judges 13:2, 1 Samuel 1:2). Both Samson and Samuel did not have "razon come upon their heads" (Judges 13:5, 1 Samuel 1:11). Samson was "dedicated" or is a Nazarite to the Lord (Judges 13:5), while Samuel was given/lent to the Lord all the days of his life (1 Samuel 1:11,28). It is possible the they were born on the same year, for the same purpose, to judge Israel during the time of the Philistines?
Both of them grew and when Abdon died, the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord again (1 Samuel 2:12-17, 3:12-13, Judges 13:1) so they were sold to the Philistines.
Samuel probably knew about God's plan on Samson so he just let 20 years pass by.
And on the 20th year (Judges 16), Samson died, which was probably heard on all of Israel. But even after that, they were still under the Philistines, the ark was still in Kirjathjearim, "the time was long, for it was 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord." (1 Samuel 7:2).
And so Samuel, took this chance on stirring Israel up so they would return to the Lord.
Contents
Why we chose that time?
Between Judges 13 and 1 Samuel 12 the timing of events gets very murky. I’ve reconstructed a plausible version of events but it’s complicated, so bear with me. In Judges 13:1, Israel is delivered into captivity to the Philistines for 40 years. Looking at your chart, you’ve already drawn in David and Saul, so you see there is only 40 years between Judges 13:1 and Saul. So this has to be the SAME captivity :– there would be no room for another one, anyway!</
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The early part of 1 Samuel overlaps with Judges 13 and possibly Judges 12 as well. The loss to the Philistines is described in Judges 13:1 and in 1 Samuel 4. This makes a bridge between these two scriptures. There Eli dies, after having judged Israel for 40 years (as a priest, apparently in a different capacity than Jephthah and Elon who must have been contemporary with him), and the Ark was lost to the Philistines.
At that time, Samuel was a young man, whom all Israel knew was going to be a prophet (1 Samuel 3:20). Now reading Judges 13:1 carefully, it doesn’t say they were slaves 40 years! It said they were “delivered into the hand of the Philistines” for 40 years :– that is, that each time they fought, they lost, which naturally eventually resulted in a state of occupation. They didn’t stop losing until the time of Saul (1 Samuel 9:16), when there were still garrisons posted in Israel (1 Samuel 10:5).
Therefore, between these two events was 40 years. The period between the death of Eli and the first captivity under Mesopotamia is easy to establish as 280 years. This leaves 37 years from the entry to the promised land for Joshua, and the elders who outlived Joshua, to die, and for Israel to sin and enter the first captivity. (This in turn means Jephthah's “300 year” claim was about 287 years).
After the Ark was lost to the Philistines, it was in Philistia for 7 months (1 Samuel 6:1). The Philistines, tired of hemorrhoids, returned it to Israel, and the divinely-guided cattle took it to Bethshemesh (verses 7-14). Israel, having learned no respect at all for the power of God, looked into the Ark and died by the thousands (verse 19). Rather than repent, they gave the problem to someone else, a city called Kirjath-Jearim, where it stayed in the house of Abinadab for 20 years (1 Samuel 7:12). Now the strange thing :– verse 3. Eli died when the Ark was taken, and Samuel was young, yes; but respected. Why did Samuel wait 20 years to bring the Ark back to the tabernacle? And why, only then, did Samuel become a judge? (verse 6)
From Wikipedia
Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the period of the biblical judges to the institution of a kingdom under Saul, and again in the transition from Saul to David. He is venerated as a prophet by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. In addition to his role in the Hebrew Scriptures, Samuel is mentioned in the New Testament, in rabbinical literature, and in the second chapter of the Qur'an, although here not by name.
He is also treated in the fifth through seventh books of Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, written in the first century CE (AD). He is first called the Seer in 1 Samuel 9:9.
Family
Samuel's mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Elkanah lived at Ramathaim in the district of Zuph.
His genealogy is also found in a pedigree of the Kohathites (1 Chronicles 6:3–15) and in that of Heman the Ezrahite, apparently his grandson (1 Chronicles 6:18–33).
According to the genealogical tables in Chronicles, Elkanah was a Levite - a fact not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah (Judges 17:7, for example).
According to 1 Samuel 1:1–28, Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah had children; Hannah did not. Nonetheless, Elkanah favored Hannah. Jealous, Penninah reproached Hannah for her lack of children, causing Hannah much heartache. The relationship of Penninah and Hannah recalls that between Hagar and Sarah.
Elkanah was a devout man and would periodically take his family on pilgrimage to the holy site of Shiloh. The motif of Elkanah and Hannah as devout, childless parents will reoccur with Zachariah and Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist, and with Joachim and Saint Anne and the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus.
On one occasion Hannah went to the sanctuary and prayed for a child. In tears, she vowed that if she were granted a child, she would dedicate him to God as a Nazirite.
Eli, who was sitting at the foot of the doorpost in the sanctuary at Shiloh, saw her apparently mumbling to herself and thought she was drunk but was soon assured of her motivation and sobriety. Eli was the priest of Shiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel. He had assumed the leadership after Samson's death.
Eli blessed her and she returned home. Subsequently, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to Samuel. Hannah's exultant hymn of thanksgiving resembles in several points Mary's later Magnificat.
After the child was weaned, she left him in Eli's care, and from time to time she would come to visit her son.
Name
According to 1 Samuel 1:20, Hannah named Samuel to commemorate her prayer to God for a child. "...
called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord" (KJV). The Hebrew root rendered as "asked" in the KJV is "sha’al", a word mentioned seven times in 1 Samuel 1. Once it is even mentioned in the form "sha’ul", Saul’s name in Hebrew (1 Samuel 1:28).
According to the Holman Bible Dictionary, Samuel was a " ersonal name in the Ancient Near East meaning, 'Sumu is God' but understood in Israel as 'The name is God,' 'God is exalted,' or 'son of God.'"
Calling
Samuel worked under Eli in the service of the shrine at Shiloh. One night, Samuel heard a voice calling his name. According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, Samuel was about 11 years old.
Samuel initially assumed it was coming from Eli and went to Eli to ask what he wanted. Eli, however, sent Samuel back to sleep. After this happened three times, Eli realised that the voice was the Lord's, and instructed Samuel on how to answer:
If He calls you, then you must say, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears".
Once Samuel responded, the Lord told him that the wickedness of the sons of Eli had resulted in their dynasty being condemned to destruction.
In the morning, Samuel was hesitant about reporting the message to Eli, but Eli asked him honestly to recount to him what he had been told by the Lord. Upon receiving the communication, Eli merely said that the Lord should do what seems right unto him.
This event established that Samuel was now "established as a prophet of the Lord" and "all Israel from Dan to Beersheba" became aware of his prophetic calling.
Anglican theologian Donald Spence Jones comments that "the minds of all the people were thus gradually prepared when the right moment came to acknowledge Samuel as a God-sent chieftain"
Leader
During Samuel's youth at Shiloh, the Philistines inflicted a decisive defeat against the Israelites at Eben-Ezer, placed the land under Philistine control, and took the sanctuary's Ark for themselves. Upon hearing the news of the capture of the Ark of the Covenant, and the death of his sons, Eli collapsed and died. When the Philistines had been in possession of the Ark for seven months and had been visited with calamities and misfortunes, they decided to return the Ark to the Israelites.
According to Bruce C. Birch, Samuel was a key figure in keeping the Israelites' religious heritage and identity alive during Israel's defeat and occupation by the Philistines. " t may have been possible and necessary for Samuel to exercise authority in roles that would normally not converge in a single individual (priest, prophet, judge)."
After 20 years of oppression, Samuel, who had gained national prominence as a prophet (1 Samuel 3:20), summoned the people to the hill of Mizpah, and led them against the Philistines. The Philistines, having marched to Mizpah to attack the newly amassed Israelite army, were soundly defeated and fled in terror. The retreating Philistines were slaughtered by the Israelites. The text then states that Samuel erected a large stone at the battle site as a memorial, and there ensued a long period of peace thereafter.
King-maker
Samuel initially appointed his two sons Joel and Abijah as his successors; however, just like Eli's sons, Samuel's proved unworthy. The Israelites rejected them. Because of the external threat from other tribes, such as the Philistines, the tribal leaders decided that there was a need for a more unified, central government,
and demanded Samuel appoint a king so that they could be like other nations. Samuel interpreted this as a personal rejection, and at first was reluctant to oblige, until reassured by a divine revelation. He warned the people of the potential negative consequences of such a decision. When Saul and his servant were searching for his father's lost asses, the servant suggested consulting the nearby Samuel. Samuel recognized Saul as the future king.
Just before his retirement, Samuel gathered the people to an assembly at Gilgal, and delivered a farewell speech
or coronation speech in which he emphasised how prophets and judges were more important than kings, that kings should be held to account, and that the people should not fall into idol worship, or worship of Asherah or of Baal. Samuel promised that God would subject the people to foreign invaders should they disobey. This is seen by some as a deuteronomic redaction; since archaeological finds indicate that Asherah was still worshipped in Israelite households well into the sixth century. However, 1 Kings 11:5, 33 and 2 Kings 23:13 note that the Israelites fell into Asherah worship later on.
Critic of Saul
When Saul was preparing to fight the Philistines, Samuel denounced him for proceeding with the pre-battle sacrifice without waiting for the overdue Samuel to arrive. He prophesied that Saul's rule would see no dynastic succession.
Samuel directed Saul to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites in fulfilment of the commandment in Deuteronomy 25:17–19:
When the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, ... you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
During the campaign against the Amalekites, King Saul spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and the best of their livestock. Saul told Samuel that he had spared the choicest of the Amalekites' sheep and oxen, intending to sacrifice the livestock to the Lord. This was in violation of the Lord's command, as pronounced by Samuel, to "... utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (1 Samuel 15:3, KJV). Samuel confronted Saul for his disobedience and told him that God made him king, and God can unmake him king. Samuel then proceeded to execute Agag. Saul never saw Samuel alive again after this.
Samuel then proceeded to Bethelehem and secretly anointed David as king. He would later provide sanctuary for David, when the jealous Saul first tried to have him killed.
Death
Samuel is described in the biblical narrative as being buried in Ramah.
According to tradition, this burial place has been identified with Samuel's tomb in the West Bank village of Nabi Samwil.
Some time after his death, Saul had the Witch of Endor conjure Samuel's ghost in order to predict the result of an up-coming battle. This passage is ascribed by textual scholars to the Republican Source. Classical rabbinical sources say that Samuel was terrified by the ordeal, having expected to be appearing to face God's judgment, and had, therefore, brought Moses with him (to the land of the living) as a witness to his adherence to the mitzvot.
