‘God … at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets’. When God spoke in the still of the night to the boy Samuel it was to renew the process of revealing His mind to Israel through a human instrument. Samuel’s development into this role is succinctly recorded. ‘And all Israel … knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord … for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel’, 1 Sam. 3. 19-4. 1. There is reference to Samuel as a prophet in Peter’s second sermon, as if to indicate that he began a line of prophets, Acts 3. 22. Certainly, after Samuel we have constant allusions to the prophets, for significant, even tempestuous, days lay ahead for Israel, so that God would speak in direct fashion to them through the lips of prophets, to instruct and to warn.
The manner in which God answered Samuel’s prayer regarding the appointment of a king, 1 Sam. 8. 6-9, would indicate how the process of his communication with God went – he heard God’s voice speaking to him. Notable, too, was the way he faithfully relayed God’s words to the people in their literal form; cf. v. 10. As prophet he would not summarize God’s message, neither would he embellish the message with his own thoughts, nor paraphrase according to his own personal feeling towards it. The prophet spoke in terms of direct revelation from God, respecting and repeating the very words of the communication. This was confirmed in his introduction of the fateful message to Saul to destroy Amalek, ‘hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord’, 1 Sam. 15. 1-3.
Samuel’s acceptance of any instruction given him by God was demonstrated in the incident of David’s anointing to be king over Israel. Samuel’s own feelings would have taken him in another direction, for he lacked God’s perception of character, looking only on the outward appearance. Complying with God’s emphatic directive he anointed David, the man after God’s own heart. No mistake was made that day by the prophet whose ear had been opened in youth to recognize the voice of God, and who, thereafter, sought to obey ‘the word of the Lord’.
