1 Kings 8:1
And it came to pass when Samuel was old, that he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel.
Open 1 Kings 8:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Factum est autem cum senuisset Samuel, posuit filios suos judices Israël.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς ἐγήρασεν Σαμουήλ, καὶ κατέστησεν τούς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ δικαστὰς τῷ Ἰσραήλ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִ֕י כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר זָקֵ֖ן שְׁמוּאֵ֑ל וַיָּ֧שֶׂם אֶת בָּנָ֛יו שֹׁפְטִ֖ים לְיִשְׂרָאֵֽל
Haydock's commentary
Old. Houbigant would translate, "when he was growing old," senesceret, as he supposes he was now nearly sixty, having judged about twenty-five years, and living another twenty as partner with Saul. (Prol. lxii.) See chap. vii. 15. (Haydock)
Judges, as his delegates in the southern parts of the country. (Calmet)
Josephus says one of them was stationed at Bethel. (Antiquities vi. 3.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XCIX
10. Come, my brethren; if we ask how these were punished, the Lord will aid me to tell you. Let us consider these three persons, Moses, Aaron, and Samuel: and how they were punished, since he said, “Thou hast punished all their own affections:” meaning those affections of theirs, which the Lord knew in their hearts, which men knew not. For they were living in the midst of the people of God, without complaint from man. But what do we say? That perhaps the early life of Moses was sinful; for he fled from Egypt, after slaying a man. The early life of Aaron also was such as would displease God; for he allowed a maddened and infatuated people to make an idol to worship; and an idol was made for God’s people to worship. What sin did Samuel, who was given up when an infant to the temple? He passed all his life amid the holy sacraments of God: from childhood the servant of God. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book I
48. When Theophrastus thus discourses, are there any of us, Christians, whose conversation is in heaven and who daily say “I long to be dissolved, and to be with Christ,” whom he does not put to the blush? Shall a joint-heir of Christ really long for human heirs? And shall he desire children and delight himself in a long line of descendants, who will perhaps fall into the clutches of Antichrist, when we read thatMoses andSamuel preferred other men to their own sons, and did not count as their children those whom they saw to be displeasing to God? When Cicero after divorcing Terentia was requested byHirtius to marry his sister, he set the matter altogether on one side, and said that he could not possibly devote himself to a wife and to philosophy. …