1 Samuel 8:4-7; 1 Samuel 11:14,15; 1 Samuel 12:13,16-18;
John 18:33,36,37; John 19:13-20; Acts 2:1-5,14,32-36
All the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him…make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them—Then said Samuel to the people, Come, and let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there. And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the LORD; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly—Now therefore behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired! and, behold, the LORD hath set a king over you…Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest to day? I will call unto the LORD, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the LORD; and the LORD sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel.
Pilate called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered and said, My kingdom is not of this world…Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?—And he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar…And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come…suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven…And Peter said unto them…This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Gilgal was the place where Saul, the first king of Israel, was proclaimed.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “Oh!” says someone, “that is merely a coincidence.”
THE EDITOR: Why did Samuel ask a rhetorical question, “Is it not wheat harvest today?”
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Samuel, by putting this question, not only would have them observe that it was the time of wheat harvest in general, but on that day in particular, the men were at work in the fields reaping the wheat, and so it was not cloudy, and inclining to rain, but all serene and clear—otherwise they would not have been employed in cutting down the corn; all which made what happened more remarkable.
THE EDITOR: Maybe. But they assembled on that particular day “to renew the kingdom,” and “to make Saul the king of Israel;” an unprecedented national celebration which was widely attended—“all the people went to Gilgal.”
C. H. SPURGEON: Those who read Bibles and who have judgment, say there is something more than chance in such a coalition of circumstances. It could not be mere coincidence.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): “Man’s goings are of LORD,” Proverbs 20:24. Man determines and acts freely in the minute circumstances of the day. Yet the active pervading influence, disposing every step at the right time and place, makes it plain, that his goings are of the LORD.
C. H. SPURGEON: Events of history, whether on a large or small scale, betray an evident design and arrangement. All things work together with singular accuracy and punctuality to accomplish a lofty purpose. It is the fashion, nowadays, to say that these are coincidences. It is a pretty word for boys to play with! Some of us observe God’s Providences, and we are never without a Providence to observe. We see the hand of God in daily life and we are glad to do so, though we are laughed at as poor fools.
THE EDITOR: That same Providential principle holds true regarding details recorded in the Bible. They are not written by whim, but by the Spirit’s inspiration with design and purpose; all of them are given for our learning, and their actual phrasing sometimes provides connective links to horizontal narratives running through the Bible. That’s why it is necessary to be very careful with exact translations of God’s Word; because “every word of God is pure,” Proverbs 30:5; and “the words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,” Psalm 12:6.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The wheat harvest began at Pentecost, when they offered the firstfruits.
JOHN GILL: The feast of Pentecost, called “the feast of weeks,” because seven sabbaths or weeks, or fifty days, were to be reckoned from the day in the Passover feast, on which the sheaf of the wave offering was brought, and which was also called the feast of “the firstfruits” of wheat harvest, to distinguish it from the barley harvest, at the time of the Passover, when a sheaf of barley was the wave offering to the Lord; but at this two loaves or cakes of fine wheaten flour were brought as the first fruits of the wheat harvest.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): In the feast of weeks, we have prefigured before us the descent of the Holy Ghost, fifty days after the resurrection.
THE EDITOR: Pentecost is inseparably connected to that earlier Feast of Firstfruits, first observed in Gilgal after Israel’s circumcision; and Pentecost connects not only in Christ’s resurrection power; but particularly, in the Spirit’s regenerative power. At Gilgal, the “kingdom” was “renewed,” which means “made new again,” which connects to Christ’s resurrection at the Feast of Firstfruits, and also to Pentecost, when God also showed Who Israel’s true King really was. But why “fifty” days? Surely that specific number has deep significance.
ADAM CLARKE: The Jews celebrate the Feast of Pentecost fifty days after the Passover: from the departure out of Egypt to the coming to Sinai were forty-five days; for they came out the fifteenth day of the first month, from which day to the first of the third month forty-five days are numbered, Numbers 33:3. On the second day of this third month, Moses went up into the mountain, when three days were given to the people to purify themselves; this gives the fourth day of the third month, or the forty-ninth from the departure out of Egypt, Exodus 19. On the next day, the fiftieth from the celebration of the Passover, the glory of God appeared on the mount; in commemoration of which the Jews celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. This is the opinion of Augustine and of several others.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): I will not refute that high and subtle interpretation of Augustine, that like as the law was given to the people fifty days after Easter, being written in tables of stone by the hand of God, so the Spirit, whose office it is to write the same in our hearts, did fulfill that which was figured in the giving of the law as many days after the resurrection of Christ, who is the true Passover.
THE EDITOR: At Sinai, the law came with thunder and lightning, and “the Lord descended upon it in fire,” Exodus 19:16-18—which spoke of judgment. In Gilgal, after giving them Saul, the king that they wanted, the Lord sent “thunder and rain” at wheat harvest to “renew the kingdom”—it was judgment and grace. But at Jerusalem, on Pentecost, God spoke from Zion, not Sinai, with “a sound of a mighty rushing wind,” and with “cloven tongues of fire which sat upon each of them,” Acts 2:2-4; Hebrews 12:18-24. It was all of grace. The Holy Spirit descended to begin the spiritual wheat harvest, and indwelt believers for the very first time—and 3,000, who had come “out of every nation under heaven,” including “strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,” feared greatly, crying “What shall we do?” Acts 2:5,10,37,38. They were renewed—or born again, their hearts circumcised by the Spirit, and by faith, entered into that spiritual land of promise, the kingdom of God. Therefore God definitely wrote His law in their hearts that day, even in a firstfruit fulfillment of Ezekiel 36:24,26-29—“I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land…A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
ADAM CLARKE: The ark of the covenant was fixed in Gilgal, until it was removed to Shiloh.
THE EDITOR: In Shiloh, the Lord first revealed Himself to Samuel, 1 Samuel 3:1; Shiloh means “peace,” and also prophecies of Jesus Christ as King, Genesis 49:10; Hebrews 7:1-3.
C. H. SPURGEON: Some of these may have been singular coincidences. But I am not so credulous as to suppose that they were brought about by accident.
