To be the leader—and in this chapter Samuel is the spiritual leader—your conscience must be pure, there should be nothing about you that elicits comments. People should not be able to ignore you by saying: let him take a good look at himself. Particularly if he needs to admonish, he must have the right to speak.
You may well ask, who is equal to that? That is a fair question. Notice that Samuel does not claim to be without sin himself. He says: if I have wronged anyone—then I will repay him. He does not exclude the possibility. What is required is not that you as the leader are without fault, but rather, what do you do with your faults? Do you cover them up, deny them or confess them, and try to make good where that lies within your capability? Samuel accepts that someone may accuse him of something. In that case he will make it right. But that, of course, is no license to lead a sloppy life. It is not for nothing that the office bearers are told: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28). Notice the sequence. Thus, to be of meaning to the flock you must live a holy life. An office bearer cannot dodge this demand by repeatedly confessing that he too is a sinner, even apart from the fact that by saying so he is not relating anything new. Of course, he also must not claim the opposite. But he should just pay attention to himself.
Samuel has a difficult message for the people of Israel and he wishes, beforehand, to establish that he has the right to speak.
2 And now, behold, the king walks before you, and I am old and gray; and behold, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth until this day.