1 Samuel 25:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we have a brief account of Samuel’s death and burial.

Samuel was a great man, and fully fitted for public work, yet he spent the last part of his life in quiet and seclusion. This was not because he had become too old for useful service, for he could still lead the group of prophets (1 Samuel 19:20). Rather, Israel had rejected him, and God rightly corrected them for that. Samuel also desired peace, so that in his later years he could enjoy fellowship with God through worship and devotion. God kindly gave him that rest. Older people should be willing to rest, even if it seems like they are burying themselves while still alive.

Samuel was also a firm friend to David, and Saul hated him for that, along with hating him for speaking honestly to him. Yet Samuel died in peace, even during the worst days of Saul’s harsh rule, when Saul had at times feared he would kill him (1 Samuel 16:2). Saul did not love Samuel, but he did fear him, as Herod feared John the Baptist, and he also feared the people, because everyone knew Samuel was a prophet. In this way, God kept Saul from harming him.

All Israel mourned for Samuel, and they had good reason to do so, because they had all suffered a loss. His own worth made this honor fitting at his death. His earlier service to the nation, when he judged Israel, made their respect a debt they owed his memory. It would have been very ungrateful to withhold it. The sons of the prophets had lost the founder and leader of their school, and anything that weakened them was a public loss.

But that was not all. Samuel had been a steady intercessor, someone who prayed for Israel every day. If he was gone, they lost their best friend. The loss was even heavier at this time, when Saul had become so wild and David had been driven out of the land. Israel had never needed Samuel more than now, and now he was taken away. We may hope the people mourned him all the more because they remembered their own sin and foolishness in rejecting him and asking for a king.

Those have hard hearts who can bury faithful ministers with dry eyes, and who feel no loss when those who prayed for them and taught them the way of the Lord are gone. When God’s providence takes away our relatives and friends, we should humble ourselves for the wrong we did to them while they were still with us.

They buried Samuel not in the prophets’ school at Naioth, but in his own house, or perhaps in the garden beside it, at Ramah, the place where he was born. After this, David went down to the wilderness of Paran, perhaps to mourn Samuel more solemnly. More likely, he did so because, now that he had lost such a good friend and support, he felt his danger more strongly than ever. So he withdrew into the wilderness, beyond the borders of Israel. At that time, he lived among the tents of Kedar (Psalm 120:5). In some parts of the wilderness of Paran, Israel had wandered when they came out of Egypt. That place would remind David of God’s care for his people, and he could draw comfort from that in his own time of wilderness.