Bede : It came to pass then, when Merob was to be given, etc. It came to pass, when the greater part of the Jewish people ought to have believed in Christ teaching in the flesh, they rather believed and adhered to the scribes and Pharisees. However, the other part of the same people, itself royally educated through the law of the Lord, loved the coming of the Savior. The very name itself also agrees well in signifying the doctors of the law. Hadriel Molathites. For Hadriel means the flock of God; Molathites is said from "begetting me." And the assembly of legal masters, who were chosen from common action and rusticity, ordered to devote themselves to divine matters, to meditate on divine things, act and preach, rightly shines by the distinctive name of the flock of God. Nor is it the fault of the good shepherd if any portion of the flock, jumping from his custody, prefers to be subject to the wolf's teeth rather than to the pastoral rod. This assembly of doctors, since it received the beginnings of living rightly through the letter full of new grace, is fittingly called the city of Hadriel from "begetting me." Whom indeed do we understand by "begetting" other than Him whose mysteries all the old Scripture prefigured? whom the whole knowledge of the law and prophets held long hidden, but after a long labor, at the right time brought forth for us to behold. — Commentary on Samuel