And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel,.... When they assembled at one of their three yearly feasts, or as he went from place to place, exhorting them to repentance and reformation; and perceiving they began to be awakened to a sense of their sins, and seemed desirous of returning to God, and restoring his worship:saying, if ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts; truly and sincerely; for he might fear there was hypocrisy and dissimulation at least in some of them:[then] put away the strange gods; as all but the true God are; or the gods of another people, as the Philistines, Canaanites, &c.
Baalim seem chiefly intended, as appears from the following verse:and Ashtaroth from among you; female deities, such as with other nations went by the name of Juno, Venus, &c. so the Arabic version,"the idols of the women ye secretly worship.'