1 Samuel 12:10

10 "Then they cried for help to God. They confessed, 'We've sinned! We've gone off and left God and worshiped the fertility gods and goddesses of Canaan. Oh, deliver us from the brutalities of our enemies and we'll worship you alone.'

1 Samuel 12:10 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 12:10

And they cried unto the Lord
When in the hands of their enemies, and in bondage to them, and cruelly oppressed by them:

and said, we have sinned;
the word for "said" is in the Cetib, or written text, singular, and in the Keri, or marginal reading, plural; and may signify, that everyone of them had a sense of their sin, and made acknowledgment of it; their confession was universal, as their sin was:

because we have forsaken the Lord;
the Word of the Lord, as the Targum:

and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth; (See Gill on Judges 2:11), (See Gill on Judges 2:13).

but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve
thee;
they did not ask for a king to go before them, and fight their battles, as they did now, but applied to the Lord for deliverance, promising to serve him as their King and their God.

1 Samuel 12:10 In-Context

8 When Jacob's sons entered Egypt, the Egyptians made life hard for them and they cried for help to God. God sent Moses and Aaron, who led your ancestors out of Egypt and settled them here in this place.

9 "They soon forgot their God, so he sold them off to Sisera, commander of Hazor's army, later to a hard life under the Philistines, and still later to the king of Moab. They had to fight for their lives.

10 "Then they cried for help to God. They confessed, 'We've sinned! We've gone off and left God and worshiped the fertility gods and goddesses of Canaan. Oh, deliver us from the brutalities of our enemies and we'll worship you alone.'

11 "So God sent Jerub-Baal (Gideon), Bedan (Barak), Jephthah, and Samuel. He saved you from that hard life surrounded by enemies, and you lived in peace.

12 "But when you saw Nahash, king of the Ammonites, preparing to attack you, you said to me, 'No more of this. We want a king to lead us.' And God was already your king!