his birth from Jahveh after
years of childlessness, and had forthwith devoted him to the service of
God. She had sent him to Shiloh at the age of three years, and there,
clothed in a linen tunic and in a little robe which his mother made for
him herself, he ministered before God in the presence of Eli. One night
it happened, when the latter was asleep in his place, "and the lamp
of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down to sleep in the
temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, that the Lord called
Samuel: and he said, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here
am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called thee not; lie down
again." Twice again the voice was heard, and at length Eli perceived
that it was God who had called the child, and he bade him reply: "Speak,
Lord; for Thy servant heareth." From thenceforward Jahveh was "with him,
and did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from
Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet
of the Lord." Twenty years after the sad death of his master, Samuel
felt that the moment had come to throw off the Philistine yoke; he
exhorted the people to put away their false gods, and he assembled them
at Mizpah to absolve them from their sins. The Philistines, suspicious
of this concourse, which boded ill for the maintenance of their
authority, arose against him. "And when the children of Israel heard it,
they were afraid of the Philistines. And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and
offered it for a whole burnt offering unto the Lord: and Samuel cried
unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him." The Philistines,
demoralised by the thunderstorm which ensued, were overcome on the very
spot where they had triumphed over the sons of Eli, and fled in disorder
to their own country. "Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between
Mizpah and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer (the Stone of
Help), saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." He next attacked the
Tyrians and the Amorites, and won back from them all the territory they
had conquered.* One passage, in which Samuel is not mentioned, tells
us how heavily the Philistine yoke had weighed upon the people, and
explains their long patience by the fact that their enemies had taken
away all their weapons. "Now there was no smith found throughout all
the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them
swords or spears;" and whoever needed to buy or re