Usually there is no rain in Palestine from about the end of April till October. Samuel was speaking during the wheat harvest, which falls about the beginning of June. We note that he volunteered the sign, and, what is still more remarkable, that he is sure that God will send it in answer to his prayer. Why was he thus certain? Because he recognized that the impulse to proffer the sign came from God. We know little of the mental processes by which a prophet could discriminate between his own thinking and God's speech, but such discrimination was possible, or there could have been no ring of confidence in the prophet's Thus saith the Lord.' Not even a Samuel among them that call upon His name' had a right to assume that every asking would certainly have an answer. It is when we ask anything according to His will' that we know that He heareth us,' and are entitled to predict to others the sure answer.
It seems a long leap logically from hearing the thunder and seeing the rain rushing down on the harvest field, to recognizing the sin of asking for a king. But the connecting steps are plain. Samuel announced the storm, he asked God to send it, it came at his word; therefore he was approved of God and was His messenger; therefore his words about the desire for a king were God's words. Again, God sent the tempest; therefore God ruled the elemental powers, and wielded them so as to affect Israel, and therefore it had been folly and sin to wish for another defender. So the result of the thunder-burst was twofold--they feared Jehovah and Samuel,' and they confessed their sin in desiring a king. They were but rude and sense-bound men, like children in many respects; their religion was little more than outward worship and a vague awe; they needed signs' as children need picture-books. The very slightness and superficiality of their religion made their confession easy and swift, and neither the one nor the other went deep enough to be lasting. The faith that is built on signs and wonders' is easily battered down; the repentance that is due to a thunderstorm is over as soon as the sun comes out again, the shallowness of the contrition in this ease is shown by two things,--the request to Samuel to pray for them, and the boon which they begged him to ask, that we die not.' They had better have prayed for themselves, and they had better have asked for strength to cleave to Jehovah. They were like Simon Magus cowering before Peter, and beseech-ina him, Pray ye for me to the Lord, that none of the things which ye have spoken may come upon me.' That is not the voice of true repentance, the godly sorrow' which works healing and life, but that of the sorrow of the world which worketh death.' The real penitent will press the closer to the forgiving Father, and his cry will be for purity even more than for pardon.
