1 Samuel 16:4

And Samuel did that which the LORD spake, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?

The elders of the town trembled at his coming. Beth-lehem was an obscure town, and not within the usual circuit of the judge. The elders were naturally apprehensive, therefore, that his arrival was occasioned by some extraordinary reason, and that it might entail evil upon their town, in consequence of the estrangement between Samuel and the king. 'They might have been conscious of secret guilt, and supposed that Samuel, coming among them as the judicial vicegerent of God, was about to investigate and punish the commission of some crime. The inhabitants of this place have long been proverbial for their refractory spirit; because even in modern times they have been often at variance with the reigning power' (Hardy's 'Notices of the Holy Land,'

p. 174).