Catholic Commentary
Samuel Arrives in Bethlehem and Prepares the Sacrifice
4Samuel did that which Yahweh spoke, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?”5He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” He sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.
In 1 Samuel 16:4–5, Samuel obediently arrives in Bethlehem to carry out God's command, and the city elders greet him with trembling fear, asking whether his visit brings peace. Samuel assures them he comes peaceably to perform a sacrifice, then sanctifies Jesse and his sons for the sacrificial ceremony, unknowingly preparing them for David's anointing as future king.
When God's messenger arrives, the trembling question is not "Are you dangerous?" but "Am I in God's favor?" — and the answer changes everything.
"Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice."
The verb qiddesh (sanctify/consecrate) is a priestly term. Samuel acts here not merely as prophet but as priest, calling the community to ritual purity before approaching the holy. This purification is a prerequisite for encountering God's anointed. It anticipates the liturgical preparation that will surround the revelation of David. Notably, Samuel specifically "sanctified Jesse and his sons" — a distinct, personal consecration beyond the general community preparation. This particular consecration marks them as set apart, though they do not yet know why. Theologically, this mirrors the way God consecrates those He has chosen before they themselves understand their vocation.
From a Catholic perspective, these two verses are a microcosm of how God approaches the world: through consecrated human vessels, ritual preparation, and the logic of sacrifice preceding election.
The Church Fathers saw Samuel's figure as a type of the priest-prophet who mediates between God and the people. St. Isidore of Seville, in his De Ortu et Obitu Patrum, describes Samuel as holding together the prophetic and priestly offices in a way that anticipates Christ, the eternal High Priest. The scene at Bethlehem — where the prophet arrives, the community is purified, and sacrifice precedes anointing — maps structurally onto the sacramental economy of the Church: one does not receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit without first being cleansed (Baptism before Confirmation; Confession before Anointing).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the anointing of kings in the Old Testament prefigures the anointing of Christ: "The promises made to David were fulfilled in Jesus Christ" (CCC 711). The sacrificial preparation in this passage underscores the Catholic insistence that divine election is never purely forensic or arbitrary — it is always mediated through the sacred, through the body, through rite. The trembling of the elders also resonates with the timor Domini (fear of the Lord) described in CCC 1831 as a gift of the Holy Spirit: a holy awe in the presence of divine majesty that is the beginning of wisdom, not its absence.
Pope Benedict XVI, in Verbum Domini (§41), emphasized that every encounter with God's Word demands conversion of life — the "sanctify yourselves" of Samuel is not merely ancient rubric but a permanent structure of the divine-human encounter.
Samuel's question-and-answer at Bethlehem's gate offers a penetrating examination for today's Catholic. The elders ask, "Do you come peaceably?" — they fear that God's messenger brings judgment. Many Catholics approach the sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist, with precisely this dread: Will God's presence expose me or heal me? Samuel's single-word answer — shalom — is the same answer Christ gives at every Mass: "Peace be with you." The encounter is not punitive; it is sacrificial and salvific. But Samuel's next words issue a challenge: sanctify yourselves. The peace God brings is not cheap; it requires preparation, self-examination, and a willingness to be set apart. Concretely, this passage invites Catholics to recover a robust practice of pre-sacramental preparation — fasting before Mass, genuine examination of conscience before Confession — not as legalism, but as the proper human response to divine election. Jesse and his sons were consecrated before they understood why. So too the baptized Catholic is consecrated in advance of fully understanding what God intends to accomplish through them.
Commentary
1 Samuel 16:4 — "Samuel did that which Yahweh spoke, and came to Bethlehem."
The verse opens with a statement of obedience so direct it borders on liturgical formula: Samuel acts because God has spoken. This is not incidental. The preceding verses (16:1–3) show Samuel paralyzed by fear of Saul — yet the moment God gives the command, he moves. The narrative thus teaches that prophetic obedience overcomes human fear. Bethlehem (Hebrew: bêt leḥem, "house of bread") is not an arbitrary destination. It is the city of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 1:1–2), the ancestral home of the tribe of Judah, and will later be proclaimed by Micah as the birthplace of the messianic ruler (Micah 5:2). Its selection here is theologically loaded: God consistently chooses the humble and the overlooked — Bethlehem is a minor town in Judah's territory, not the royal seat of Gibeah or the cultic center of Shiloh.
"The elders of the city came to meet him trembling."
The reaction of the elders is visceral: ḥārad, the Hebrew root translated "trembling," connotes not merely anxiety but a shuddering dread before the numinous — the same word used for the trembling of Eli when the Ark was lost (1 Samuel 4:13) and of Mount Sinai at the theophany (Exodus 19:16). The elders recognize that an unannounced visit from the prophet Samuel is not a social call. Samuel's last public act had been the dramatic execution of King Agag and the rupture with Saul (15:32–35). His arrival in a provincial town is dangerous: it could signal royal displeasure, a curse, a divine indictment of the community.
"Do you come peaceably?"
The word shalom here carries its full biblical weight — not merely "without violence," but wholeness, right relationship with God, divine blessing. Their question is really: Are we in God's favor? Does your coming mean judgment or grace? It is one of the great threshold questions of Scripture.
1 Samuel 16:5 — "Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh."
Samuel's answer is a single word — shalom — followed by a declarative statement of purpose. His mission is sacrificial, not punitive. The cover story given to Samuel by God (16:2 — "Take a heifer with you and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh'") is not a lie but a genuine act: the sacrifice is real, and it is the vehicle through which God's hidden purpose — the anointing — will be accomplished. The Catholic tradition, following Aquinas (ST II-II, q.110), would distinguish this as a in service of a divinely sanctioned mission, not a falsehood.