Israelites resumed the aggressive, took Gath, and completely broke
forever the ascendency of their powerful foes. Under Solomon it would
appear that the whole of Philistia was incorporated with the Hebrew
monarchy, and remained so until the calamities of the Jews gave
Philistia to the Assyrian conquerors of Jerusalem, and finally it fell
into the hands of the Romans. The Philistines were zealous idolaters,
and in times of great religious apostasy they succeeded in introducing
the worship of their gods among the Israelites, especially that of Baal
and Ashtaroth.

Samuel did not live to see the complete humiliation of his nation which
succeeded the bloody battle when Saul was slain; but he lived to a good
old age, and never lost his influence over the Israelites, whom he had
rescued from idolatry and to whom he had given political unity. Although
Saul was king, we are told that Samuel judged Israel all the days of his
life. He died universally lamented. There is no record in the Scriptures
of a death attended with such profound and general mourning. All Israel
mourned for him. They mourned because he was a good man, unstained by
crime or folly; they mourned because their judge and oracle and friend
had passed away; they mourned because he had been their intercessor with
God himself, and the interpreter of the divine will. His like would
never appear again in Israel. "He represents the independence of the
moral law, as distinct from regal and sacerdotal enactments. If a
Levite, he was not a priest. He was a prophet, the first in the regular
succession of prophets. He was also the founder of the first regular
institutions of religious instruction, and communities for the purposes
of education. From these institutions were developed the universities of
Christendom."

In a spiritual and religious sense the prophet takes the highest rank