Father Noel Alexandre's Literal Commentary on 1 Peter 1:3-9

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 Translated by Qwen. 1 Pet 1:3–4: The Blessing of Regeneration "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you." We ought to give immortal thanks to God, to offer Him continually the sacrifice of praise, on account of His infinite goodness toward His elect. It belongs to the Eternal Father to choose the members of His Son, the adopted children who are co-heirs with the Only-Begotten. Let us seek no other reason for this election than mercy, whose greatness cannot be worthily expressed in human words. He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Us, unworthy sinners, His enemies, deserving of eternal punishments, He has regenerated through Baptism; and, the oldness which we had contracted from Adam in our first birth being abolished, He ...
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Cardinal Cajetan's Commentary on 1 Samuel Chapter 8

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Verse 1: And it came to pass when Samuel was old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. Verse 2: And the name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of the second, Abijah, judges in Beersheba. The place in which the sons of Samuel judged is described. Verse 3: And his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after avarice, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. The sin of the sons of Samuel regarding judgment is described in a most correct order, namely a threefold sequence: internal cupidity for things, the external acceptance of gifts, and the effect of both—unjust judgment.

Verse 4: Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel in Ramah. Verse 5: And they said to him: "Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to judge us, as all the nations have." Verse 6: And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel because they had said: "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed to the Lord. Although this petition—which resulted in the rejection of both himself and his sons—displeased Samuel according to human reason and passion, he nevertheless did not forget to consult God.

Verse 7: And the Lord said to Samuel: "Hear the voice of the people in all that they say to you." God commands a king to be made at the people's request because they were seeking a good thing in an absolute sense, consonant with the Law; however, they were not seeking what was good regarding the standing divine disposition of God Himself as King of Israel. "For they have not rejected you, but me, that I should not reign over them." These divine words are consolatory to Samuel. Indeed, after a human fashion, God declares to Samuel that this petition is not directly against Samuel himself, because Samuel is not king, but rather it is against God Himself reigning over Israel. Whence in the Hebrew it is held: "for they have not abominated you, but they have abominated me from reigning over them." Read the nineteenth chapter of Exodus [Exodus 19:6] and you will find, among other things promised to the people by God: "and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests." God deigned to exhibit Himself as King of Israel by the very fact that He promised that if they acted well, they themselves would be to God a kingdom; "kingdom" refers to a king, and therefore He now says that the Israelites, by seeking a human king, have abominated God as King; for it would not suffice that God be King if they themselves were not "the kingdom."

And understand this not according to their intention, but as to the fact and the reason of their affection. For they did not intend to reject God as King, but to have a human king under Him; nevertheless, the fact itself excluded from the Israelites the character of a kingdom relative to God as King. Regarding the "reason of affection": if it had been because the Law disposed that the people could have a king [Deuteronomy 17:14-15], it would have been irreproachable. But an ethnic, rather than a legal, reason is brought forward by saying they wish to have a king "after the fashion of other nations." From this it appears manifest that they considered of little value the singular privilege of God by which they excelled other nations—in that they were elected and raised into a kingdom whose King was God. And for this reason, God assimilates this act of the people to other acts done in the past, from the departure from Egypt against God Himself: Verse 8: "According to all the works which they have done from the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, and have forsaken me and served strange gods, so do they also to you."

First He consoled Samuel in that, as to the royal title, they act not against Samuel but against God; now He consoles him as to his own rejection, toward which the petition for a king by its nature tends, by a similar act against God Himself—saying that just as they left off worshipping Me as God and served other gods, so they do to you, leaving you and wanting a king who may judge them.

Verse 9: "Now therefore hear their voice; nevertheless, protest to them." Truly kind is God toward the people by commanding the fulfillment of their petition, but declaring beforehand to the people every kind of oppression that would come to them from a king, lest afterward, repenting, they might claim they did not know such oppressions were coming. "Indicate to them the right of the king"—according to the Hebrew, "the judgment of the king"—"who shall reign over them." And note attentively that by saying "the right" or "the judgment" of the king, it is said by diminishing the nature of right and judgment; so that "judgment" is limited by a diminishing condition. The sense is not that the things written below are of Right [law], but of the right of the king—that is, they will be "right" because the king wills them to be right.

Verse 10: And Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who sought a king from him. Verse 11: And he said: "This will be the right of the king who shall reign over you: he will take your sons and put them in his chariots, and make them horsemen and runners before his chariots." Verse 12: "And he will appoint for himself captains of thousands and captains of fifties, and plowmen of his fields and reapers of his harvests, and smiths of his armor and his chariots." Verse 13: "And he will take your daughters for perfumers, and cooks, and bakers." Verse 14: "And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best oliveyards, and give them to his servants." Verse 15: "And he will take the tithe of your seeds and your vineyards, and give it to his eunuchs and his servants." Verse 16: "Your servants also, and your handmaids, and your best young men, and your asses he will take and put to his work." Verse 17: "He will tithe your cattle, and you shall be his servants." Verse 18: "And you shall cry out in that day because of the face of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day."

Vers19: But the people refused to hear the voice of Samuel, and they said: "Nay, but there shall be a king over us." Verse 20: "And we also shall be like all the nations; and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." Verse 21: And Samuel heard all the words of the people and spoke them in the ears of the Lord. Samuel reports to God the sentence of the pertinacious people regarding having a king, consulting Him again in this, showing that he did not wish to recede from the divine will. Verse 22: And the Lord said to Samuel: "Hear their voice, and appoint a king over them." And Samuel said to the men of Israel: "Every man go to his own city." Less is written here than is signified—namely, that he would gather the people in Mizpah for the election of the king; he sent them away joyful as though they had been heard, but to their own homes without a king, because it was not convenient at that time to institute the king.

CONTINUE 

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