1 Samuel 10:17

17 Samuel summoned the people to the Lord at Mizpah

1 Samuel 10:17 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 10:17

And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord at
Mizpeh.
] Not that in Gilead, but in the tribe of Benjamin, where the people had been before convened on a certain occasion, ( 1 Samuel 7:5 ) and the people called together could not be every individual of the nation, but the heads and elders of the people, their representatives, and who were summoned by the orders of Samuel; perhaps by an herald making proclamation and cry of the same, as the word signifies; and these were gathered together to the Lord, to have the following affair transacted before him, and under his guidance and direction; the priest perhaps being here with the Urim and Thummim, as Kimchi thinks, and who also conjectures that the ark might be brought hither at this time, the symbol of the divine Presence; though wherever the church and people of God were gathered together in his name, in a solemn manner, there the Lord was.

1 Samuel 10:17 In-Context

15 Saul's uncle said, "Tell me what Samuel said to you."

16 Saul said to his uncle, "He told us that the donkeys had been found." But about the matter of the kingship, of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything.

17 Samuel summoned the people to the Lord at Mizpah

18 and said to them, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.'

19 But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said, "No! but set a king over us.' Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans."