And as Samuel was offering up the burnt
offering
&c.] Which he might do by a priest, as Ben Gersom suggests,
he being only a Levite; though he being a prophet, and an
extraordinary person, and this an extraordinary case, he might do
it himself, as Gideon and others, as well as offer it in another
place than where the tabernacle was; Shiloh being now destroyed,
persons and places for sacrifice were now dispensed with: and
before Samuel had made an end of offering the sacrifice,
the Philistines drew near to battle against
Israel;
and were come as far almost as Mizpeh, where Israel were, and
Samuel was sacrificing:
but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day
upon the
Philistines;
which fulfilled Hannah's prophecy, ( 1 Samuel
2:10 ) and this, as Josephus F14 says, was attended with
lightning, which flashed in their faces, and shook their weapons
out of their hands, so that they fled disarmed; and also with an
earthquake, which caused gaps in the earth, into which they fell:
and discomfited them;
disturbed, affrighted them, and threw them into confusion and
disorder, as well as destroyed many of them:
and they were smitten before Israel;
the meaning of which is not that they fled before them, and were
killed by them; but that before Israel could come out against
them, and fight with them, they were smitten and destroyed, many
of them by the thunder and lightning, and by the earth opening
upon them, and devouring them; for this phrase, "before Israel",
denotes time, as Abarbinel observes, and not place.
F14 Antiqu. l. 6. c. 2. sect. 2.