the son of Elkanah and of Hannah, of the tribe of Levi, and family of Kohath, was born A.M. 2848. He was an eminent inspired prophet, historian, and the seventeenth and last Judge of Israel; and died in the ninety-eighth year of his age, two years before Saul, A.M. 2947, 1 Samuel 25. To Samuel are ascribed the book of Judges, that of Ruth, and the first book of Samuel. There is, indeed, great probability that he composed the first twenty-four chapters of the first book of Samuel; since they contain nothing but what he might have written, and such transactions as he was chiefly concerned in. However, in these chapters there are some small additions, which seem to have been inserted after his death. Samuel began the order of the prophets, which was never discontinued till the death of Zechariah and Malachi, Acts 3:24 . From early youth to hoary years, the character of Samuel is one on which the mind rests with veneration and delight.