(5) Mizpeh.--Or, as it should be spelt, Mizpah, a common name for lofty situations. It signifies a "watch-tower," a place where an outlook could be kept against an advancing enemy.

Now the assembly of the tribes at Mizpeh marked a new departure for Israel. It was the result of more than twenty years of toil undertaken by the greatest reformer and statesman the chosen race ever knew. The great gathering belonged both to religion and to war. Its first object was solemnly to assure the Lord that the heart of His people, so long estranged from Him, was again His. Its second was to implore that Jehovah might again restore a repentant and sorrowful people to the land of their inheritance. What more likely than that the prophet-statesman--who in that solemn juncture represented priest and judge and seer to Israel--devised on that momentous day new symbolic rites, signifying Israel's new dedication to the Eternal for the future, Israel's repentance for the sad past? The solemn pouring out of water before the Lord symbolised, to a people trained so carefully to watch the meaning and signification of symbols and imagery, the heart and whole inner life poured out before the Lord; the fasting represented the repentant humble sinner bowed down in grief before the one true God. Is it not at least probable that the strange, mysterious custom which we hear of in after days--the high priest filling the golden vessel with the waters of Siloam, and then pouring it out silently before the Lord--was the record of one of the holiest memories of the people--their reconciliation with their God-Friend at Mizpeh? Now, after years of estrangement, they repented and were forgiven. The fasting of Mizpeh being a favourite practice, ever much observed by the worshippers in the Temple and synagogue, needed no special record or reminder.

Verse 5. - Gather all Israel to Mizpeh. Mizpah, for so the place should be spelt, means a watch tower (Genesis 31:49), and so is a not uncommon name for spots among the hills commanding an extensive outlook. This was probably the Mizpah in the tribe of Benjamin, distant about five miles from Jerusalem (see Conder, 'Tent Work,' 1:25); and though Samuel may have partly chosen it as a holy place (Judges 11:11; Judges 20:1), yet the chief reason was probably its lofty situation, 500 feet above the neighbouring tableau, which itself was 2000 feet above the sea level. It was thus difficult to surprise, and admirably adapted for warlike purposes. The gathering of the people at Mizpah was the necessary result of the public insult offered to the Philistine gods, and virtually a declaration of war, as being an assertion of national independence.

7:5,6 Israel drew water and poured it out before the Lord; signifying their humiliation and sorrow for sin. They pour out their hearts in repentance before the Lord. They were free and full in their confession, and fixed in their resolution to cast away from them all their wrong doings. They made a public confession, We have sinned against the Lord; thus giving glory to God, and taking shame to themselves. And if we thus confess our sins, we shall find our God faithful and just to forgive us our sins.And Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mizpeh,.... Not Mizpeh in Gilead, on the other side Jordan, but a city which lay on the borders of Judah and Benjamin, where the tribes met on the account of the Levite's concubine, Judges 20:1. This order Samuel gave by messengers sent to the several tribes, or the heads of them, to meet him at this place:

and I will pray for you unto the Lord; no doubt he prayed for them privately, that the reformation begun might be carried on, and appear to be sincere, and hearty, and general, and universal; but he was desirous that they might appear in a body, and join with him in public prayer for their spiritual and temporal welfare; that they might have true repentance for their sins, reform from them, and have remission of them, and be delivered out of the hands of their enemies.