Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD on your behalf.”
We may well wonder where Samuel was and what he was doing all this while, for we have not had him so much as named till now, since Sa1 4:1, not as if he were unconcerned, but his labours among his people are not mentioned till there appears the fruit of them.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 7:3-6
And Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mizpeh,.... Not Mizpeh in Gilead, on the other side Jordan, but a city which lay on the borders of Judah and Benjamin, where the tribes met on the account of the Levite's concubine, Jdg 20:1.
And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for you unto the LORD. (c) For Shiloh was now desolate, because the Philistines had taken the ark from it.