1 Samuel 12:10

10 Then they cried out to the Lord, and said, 'We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and Ashtoreths; but now deliver us from the hand of our enemies, and we will serve You.'

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 had gone into Egypt, and your fathers cried out to the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place.

9 And when they forgot the Lord their God, He sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them.

10 Then they cried out to the Lord, and said, 'We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and Ashtoreths; but now deliver us from the hand of our enemies, and we will serve You.'

11 And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, Bedan, Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side; and you dwelt in safety.

12 And when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, 'No, but a king shall reign over us,' when the Lord your God was your king.

Footnotes

• [a]. Canaanite goddesses