Samuel said to Saul, “Yahweh sent me to anoint you to be king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore listen to the voice of Yahweh’s words. Yahweh of Armies says, ‘I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way, when he came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don’t spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ”
Saul summoned the people, and counted them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek, and set an ambush in the valley. Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
Saul struck the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, that is before Egypt. He took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, of the cattle, and of the fat calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. Then Yahweh’s word came to Samuel, saying, “It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he cried to Yahweh all night.
Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning; and Samuel was told, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned, and passed on, and went down to Gilgal.”
Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, “You are blessed by Yahweh! I have performed the commandment of Yahweh.”
Samuel said, “Then what does this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the cattle which I hear mean?”
Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the cattle, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God. We have utterly destroyed the rest.”
Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stay, and I will tell you what Yahweh said to me last night.” He said to him, “Say on.”
Samuel said, “Though you were little in your own sight, weren’t you made the head of the tribes of Israel? Yahweh anointed you king over Israel; and Yahweh sent you on a journey, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then didn’t you obey Yahweh’s voice, but took the plunder, and did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight?”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 17 Because he hath preferred thee to this honor, thou…
Because he hath preferred thee to this honor, thou art bound to obey him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–19 1Sa 15:1-35 :1 Samuel also said unto Saul, The…
1Sa 15:1-35 :1 Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee [to be] king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.
Ver. 1. The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king.] And kings are doubly bound to obey the Lord, - as Queen Elizabeth wrote to Henry IV of France, - first as men; next as men so entrusted and advanced.
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Now therefore hearken thou.] Now at least, and at length, after thy so foul miscarriages, and God’s heavy menaces thereupon. {1Sa 13:8-9} Ut prioris inobedientiae nexus enodes, as Gregory hath it, that thou mayest redeem thine own sorrows, breaking off thy sins by righteousness, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity, or a healing of thine error. {Dan 4:27}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19 The Lord made thee king, and therefore thou art…
The Lord made thee king, and therefore thou art highly obliged to serve and obey him. Thou hast committed one error already, for which God hath severely rebuked and threatened; now therefore make amends for thy former error, and regain God’s favour by thy exact obedience to what he now commands.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 Here, I. Samuel, in God's name, solemnly requires Saul…
Here, I. Samuel, in God's name, solemnly requires Saul to be obedient to the command of God, and plainly intimates that he was now about to put him upon a trial, in one particular instance, whether he would be obedient or no, Sa1 15:1. And the making of this so expressly the trial of his obedience did very much aggravate his disobedience. 1. He reminds him of what God had done for him: "The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be a king. God gave thee thy power, and therefore he expects thou shouldst use thy power for him. He put honour upon thee, and now thou must study how to do him honour. He made thee king over Israel, and now thou must plead Israel's cause and avenge their quarrels. Thou art advanced to command Israel, but know that thou art a subject to the God of Israel and must be commanded by him." Men's preferment, instead of releasing them from their obedience to God, obliges them so much the more to it. Samuel had himself been employed to anoint Saul, and therefore was the fitter to be send with these orders to him. 2. He tells him, in general, that, in consideration of this, whatever God commanded him to do he was bound to do it: Now therefore hearken to the voice of the Lord. Note, God's favours to us lay strong obligations upon us to be obedient to him. This we must render, Psa 116:12.
II. He appoints him a particular piece of service, in which he must now show his obedience to God more than in any thing he had done yet. Samuel premises God's authority to the command: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the Lord of all hosts, of Israel's hosts. He also gives him a reason for the command, that the severity he must use might not seem hard: I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, Sa1 15:2. God had an ancient quarrel with the Amalekites, for the injuries they did to his people Israel when he brought them out of Egypt. We have the story, Exo 17:8, etc., and the crime is aggravated, Deu 25:18. He basely smote the hindmost of them, and feared not God. God then swore that he would have war with Amalek from generation to generation, and that in process of time he would utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek; this is the work that Saul is now appointed to do (Sa1 15:3): "Go and smite Amalek. Israel is now strong, and the measure of the iniquity of Amalek is now full; now go and make a full riddance of that devoted nation." He is expressly commanded to kill and slay all before him, man and woman, infant and suckling, and not spare them out of pity; also ox and sheep, camel and ass, and not spare them out of covetousness. Note, 1. Injuries done to God's Israel will certainly be reckoned for sooner or later, especially the opposition given them when they are coming out of Egypt. 2. God often bears long with those that are marked for ruin. The sentence passed is not executed speedily. 3. Though he bear long, he will not bear always. The year of recompence for the controversy of Israel will come at last. Though divine justice strikes slowly it strikes surely. 4. The longer judgment is delayed many times the more severe it is when it comes. 5. God chooses out instruments to do his work that are fittest for it. This was bloody work, and therefore Saul who was a rough and severe man must do it.
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III. Saul hereupon musters his forces, and makes a descent upon the country of Amalek. It was an immense army that he brought into the field (Sa1 15:4): 200,000 footmen. When he came to engage the Philistines, and the success was hazardous, he had but 600 attending him, Sa1 13:15. But now that he was to attack the Amalekites by express order from heaven, in which he was sure of victory, he had thousands at his call. But, whatever it was at other times, it was not now for the honour of Judah that their forces were numbered by themselves, for their quota was scandalously short (whatever was the reason), but a twentieth part of the whole, for they were by 10,000, when the other ten tribes (for I except Levi) brought into the field 200,000. The day of Judah's honour drew near, but had not yet come. Saul numbered them in Telaim, which signifies lambs. He numbered then like lambs (so the vulgar Latin), numbered them by the paschal lambs (so the Chaldee), allowing ten to a lamb, a way of numbering used by the Jews in the later times of their nation. Saul drew all his forces to the city of Amalek, that city that was their metropolis (Sa1 15:5), that he might provoke them to give him battle.
IV. He gave friendly advice to the Kenites to separate themselves from the Amalekites among whom they dwelt, while this execution was in doing, Sa1 15:6. Herein he did prudently and piously, and, it is probable, according to the direction Samuel gave him. The Kenites were of the family and kindred of Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, a people that dwelt in tents, which made it easy for them, upon every occasion, to remove to other lands not appropriated. Many of them, at this time, dwelt among the Amalekites, where, though they dwelt in tents, they were fortified by nature, for they put their nest in a rock, being hardy people that could live any where, and affected fastnesses, Num 24:21. Balaam had foretold that they should be wasted, Num 24:22. However, Saul must not waste them. But, 1. He acknowledges the kindness of their ancestors to Israel, when they came out of Egypt. Jethro and his family had been very helpful and serviceable to them in their passage through the wilderness, had been to them instead of eyes, and this is remembered to their posterity many ages after. Thus a good man leaves the divine blessing for an inheritance to his children's children; those that come after us may be reaping the benefit of our good works when we are in our graves. God is not unrighteous to forget the kindnesses shown to his people; but they shall be remembered another day, at furthest in the great day, and recompensed in the resurrection of the just. I was hungry, and you gave me meat. God's remembering the kindness of the Kenites' ancestors in favour to them, at the same time when he was punishing the injuries done by the ancestors of the Amalekites, helped to clear the righteousness of God in that dispensation. If he entail favours, why may he not entail frowns? He espouses his people's cause, so as to bless those that bless them; and therefore so as to curse those that curse them, Num 24:9; Gen 12:3. They cannot themselves requite the kindnesses nor avenge the injuries done them, but God will do both. 2. He desires them to remove their tents from among the Amalekites: Go, depart, get you down from among them. When destroying judgments are abroad God will take care to separate between the precious and the vile, and to hide the meek of the earth in the day of his anger. It is dangerous being found in the company of God's enemies, and it is our duty and interest to come out from among them, lest we share in their sins and plagues, Rev 18:4. The Jews have a saying, Woe to the wicked man and woe to his neighbour.
V. Saul prevailed against the Amalekites, for it was rather an execution of condemned malefactors than a war with contending enemies. The issue could not be dubious when the cause was just and the call so clear: He smote them (Sa1 15:7), utterly destroyed them, Sa1 15:8. Now they paid dearly for the sin of their ancestors. God sometimes lays up iniquity for the children. They were idolaters, and were guilty of many other sins, for which they deserved to fall under the wrath of God; yet, when God would reckon with them, he fastened upon the sin of their ancestors in abusing his Israel as the ground of his quarrel. Lord, How unsearchable are thy judgments, yet how incontestable is thy righteousness!
VI. Yet he did his work by halves, Sa1 15:9. 1. He spared Agag, because he was a king like himself, and perhaps in hope to get a great ransom for him. 2. He spared the best of the cattle, and destroyed only the refuse, that was good for little. Many of the people, we may suppose, made their escape, and took their effects with them into other countries, and therefore we read of Amalekites after this; but that could not be helped. It was Saul's fault that he did not destroy such as came to his hands and were in his power. That which was now destroyed was in effect sacrificed to the justice of God, as the God to whom vengeance belongeth; and for Saul to think the torn and the sick, the lame and the lean, good enough for that, while he reserved for his own fields and his own table the firstlings and the fat, was really to honour himself more than God.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–19 Samuel also said unto Saul,.... When and where he…
Samuel also said unto Saul,.... When and where he said to him what follows, it is not easy to determine, perhaps at Gilgal, where they after met again:
the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel; that is, he gave him orders to anoint him king of Israel, otherwise Saul was in providence sent to Samuel to be anointed, and not Samuel to Saul:
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now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord; for so great a favour, and such high honour he had conferred on him, laid him under great obligation to obey the commands of the Lord; and whereas he had been deficient in one instance before, for which he had been reproved, he suggests, that now he should take care to observe and do, particularly and punctually, what should be enjoined him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18 God commands Saul utterly to destroy the Amalekites, ver.…
God commands Saul utterly to destroy the Amalekites, ver. 1- 3. He destroys them, but not utterly, ver. 4-9. Samuel pronounces sentence upon him for his disobedience, yet consents to honour him before the people, ver. 10-31. Slays Agag, ver. 32, 33. Takes his leave of Saul, yet mourns for him, ver. 34, 35.
Hearken - Thou hast committed error already, now regain God's favour by thy exact obedience to what he commands.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 15, 17 Samuel sends Saul to destroy the Amalekites, and all…
CHAPTER XV
Samuel sends Saul to destroy the Amalekites, and all their
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substance, 1-3.
Saul collects an immense army and comes against their city,
4, 5.
He desires the Kenites to remove from among the Amalekites, 6.
He smites the Amalekites, and takes their king, Agag, prisoner,
and saves the best of the spoil, 7-9.
The Lord is displeased, and sends Samuel to reprove him, 10, 11.
The conversation between Samuel and Saul, in which the latter
endeavours to justify his conduct, 12-23.
He is convinced that he has done wrong, and asks pardon, 24-31.
Samuel causes Agag to be slain; for which he assigns the
reasons, 32-35.
NOTES ON CHAP. XV
Verse 1. The Lord sent me to anoint thee] This gave him a right to say what immediately follows.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 18 1Sa 15:1-2. Hearken thou unto the voice of the…
1Sa 15:1-2. Hearken thou unto the voice of the Lord — Thou hast erred already; now regain God’s favour by thy exact obedience to what he commands. Thus saith the Lord, I remember, &c. — Now I will avenge those old injuries of the Amalekites on their children, who continue in their parents’ practices. God here refers to that most notorious instance of cruelty, inhumanity, and impiety, their invading and destroying, as far as in them lay, by treachery and surprise, and that uninjured and unprovoked, the people of Israel, when they were coming out of Egypt, and were manifestly under the immediate and miraculous protection of Almighty God. “This was a sin,” says Dr. Delaney, “at once so inhuman and so atheistical, as perhaps cannot be paralleled in any one instance from the foundation of the world, and therefore it is no wonder if this flagrant act of villany and impiety produced that dreadful decree against them, recorded Exo 17:14, I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven: and again, 1Sa 15:16, The Lord hath sworn that he will have war with Amalek, from generation to generation. To reconcile this severe decree with the principles of justice, and God’s own declaration, (Ezekiel 18.,) of his limiting the vengeance of guilt to the person of the offender, we need only to reflect upon one plain observation, with which every day’s experience sufficiently furnishes us, that nothing is more common than for children to be unrepentant, and, it may be, improved and inveterate in the sins of their ancestors: and that nothing is more easy to the divine prescience than to foresee this, and to pronounce upon it. And that this was the case of the Amalekites, sufficiently appears from their history. For, as their fathers attempted upon the Israelites, when under the manifest protection of God, their sons continued to do the same upon every occasion, though the same protection became every day more and more conspicuous by many and repeated instances.” When he came out of Egypt — When he was newly come out of cruel and long bondage, and was now weak, and weary, and faint, and hungry, Deu 25:18; and therefore it was barbarous, instead of that pity which even nature prompted them to afford, to add affliction to the afflicted; it was also horrid impiety to fight against God himself, and to lift up their hand in a manner, against the Lord’s throne, while they struck at that people which God had brought forth in so stupendous a way.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18 The absence of all chronology or note of time…
The absence of all chronology or note of time is remarkable.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17 Lord, in gratitude for so great an honour. (Haydock)
Lord, in gratitude for so great an honour. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The rejection of Saul for his disobedience in the…
SECOND SECTION
The rejection of Saul for his disobedience in the Amalekite war
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1Sa_15:1-35
1Samuel also [And Samuel] said unto Saul, The Lord [Jehovah] sent me to anoint thee to be [om. to be] king over his people,1 over Israel; now therefore [and 2now] hearken thou unto the voice of the words2 of the Lord [Jehovah]. Thus saith the Lord [Jehovah] of hosts, I remember [have considered3] that which [what] Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for [withstood4] him in the way, when Hebrews 3 came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy5 all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4And Saul gathered [summoned] the people together [om. together], and numbered them in Telaim,6 two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of 5Judah.7 And Saul came to a [the]8 city of Amalek, and laid wait9 in the valley.10 6And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So [And] the Kenites11 departed from 7among the Amalekites. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until [as]12 8thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people [all the people he utterly 9destroyed] with the edge of the sword. But [And] Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings [secondrate],13 and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile13 and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
10Then came the word of the Lord [And the word of Jehovah came] unto Samuel, 11It repenteth me that I have set up [made] Saul to be [om. to be] king; for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And 12it grieved14 Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord [Jehovah] all night. And when [om. when] Samuel rose early15 to meet Saul in the morning, [ins. and] it was told Samuel,16 saying, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set him up a place [monument]17 13and is gone about, and passed on [over], and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul,18 and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord [Jehovah]; 14I have performed the commandment of the Lord [Jehovah]. And Samuel said, What meaneth then [And what is] this bleating of the [om. the19] sheep 15in mine ears, and the lowing of the [om. the19] oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They20 have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord [Jehovah] thy God; 16and the rest we20 have utterly destroyed. Then [And] Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord [Jehovah] hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.
17And Samuel said, When [Though]21 thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord [Jehovah] anointed thee 18king over Israel? And the Lord [Jehovah] sent thee on a journey [way], and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until 19they be consumed.22 Wherefore, then, didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord [Jehovah], but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah]? 20And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea23 [om. yea] I have obeyed the voice of the Lord [Jehovah]24, and have gone the way which the Lord [Jehovah] sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and [ins. the Amalekites I] have 21utterly destroyed the Amalekites [om. the Amalekites]. But [And] the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed [things devoted to destruction (or, banned)] to sacrifice unto the 22Lord [Jehovah] thy God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Hath the Lord [Jehovah] as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord [Jehovah]? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat 23of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry [For the sin of witchcraft is rebellion, and idolatry (or idols) and teraphim is stubbornness].25 Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord [Jehovah], he hath also [om. also] rejected thee from being king.
24And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord [Jehovah] and thy words; because I feared the people and 25obeyed their voice. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon [And now, pardon, I pray thee] my sin, and turn again [return] with me, that I may [and I will] worship the 26Lord [Jehovah]. And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee; for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord [Jehovah], and the Lord [Jehovah] hath 27rejected thee from being king over Israel. And as [om. as] Samuel turned about 28to go away, [ins. and] he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord [Jehovah] hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou. 29And also, the Strength26 of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man that 30he should repent. Then [And] he said, I have sinned; yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and turn again [return] 31with me, that I may [and I will] worship the, Lord [Jehovah] thy God. So [And] Samuel turned again [returned] after Saul; and Saul worshipped the Lord [Jehovah].
32Then said Samuel [And Samuel said], Bring ye hither [om. ye hither] to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately [cheerfully].27 33And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord [Jehovah] in Gilgal.
34Then [And] Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah 35of Saul. And Samuel came no more to see Saul [saw Saul no more] until the day of his death; nevertheless [for] Samuel mourned for Saul; and the Lord [Jehovah] repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Sa_15:1-3. The divine commission to Saul to execute judgment on Amalek. 1Sa_15:1 is not to be connected chronologically with 1 Samuel 12. (Then.), but continues the narrative of chs. 13. and 14. The solemn reminder of Saul’s royal anointing and of Samuel’s divine mission to that end refers not to 1Sa_11:15, but to 1Sa_9:15 to 1Sa_10:1. It points to the fact that the following commission is a divine command, communicated by the appointed organ, the prophet of God, and that the bearer of the royal office has here to perform a theocratic mission with unconditional obedience. The “me” stands first [such is the order in the Heb.—Tr.] in order to give prominence to the official authority, as bearer of which Samuel must needs have felt himself obliged by Saul’s past conduct to assert himself over against him.
1Sa_15:2. The Amalekites were a wild, warlike desert-people, dwelling south and south-west of Judea in Arabia Petræa, descended from the same ancestor as the Edomites, and took their name from Esau’s grandson Amalek (Gen_36:12; Gen_36:16; 1Ch_1:36). Comp. Joseph., Antiq. II. 1, 2, where this people is described as an Edomitic tribe, and their territory said to be part of Idumea. The mention of the “country of the Amalekites” in Gen_14:7 is not in conflict with their derivation from Esau’s grandson, for this (Hengst, Pent. II. 303 sq.) is merely a proleptical statement (comp. Winer, W. B. I. 51, Anm. 1).28 In the prophecy of Balaam (Num_24:20) it is expressly mentioned as the first of the heathen nations that opposed Israel as the Lord’s people, and whose destruction by Israel (comp. 1Sa_15:8) is foretold. The first hostile movement of this people is narrated in Exo_17:8 sq. Soon after Israel’s exodus from Egypt the Amalekites fell on their wearied rearguard in the desert of Rephidim, but were defeated by Joshua through Moses’ prayer, and were doomed to extermination by the divine command (1Sa_15:14; 1Sa_15:16). God’s command to Saul goes back to these first hostilities of the Amalekites (which were often afterwards repeated in their alliances with the Canaanites (Num_14:40 sq.), with the Moabites (Jdg_3:13), and with the Midianites (Jdg_7:12)), the Amalekites (according to 1Sa_15:33) having newly made an inroad, with robbery and murder, on the Israelitish territory.—I have noted what Amalek did to Israel, that is, the whole series of Amalekite hostilities, the beginning of which is expressed in the following words: “how he withstood him” (to Heb. שָׂם supply מַחֲנֶה29 as in 1Ki_20:12), because in Exo_17:14; Exo_17:16, Amalek is declared the doomed hereditary and deadly enemy of Israel. Comp. Deu_25:17-19.
1Sa_15:3. The complete extermination of the Amalekites, persons and property, as a righteous judgment of the holy God (as is intimated in the “noted” (considered) of 1Sa_15:2) is enjoined on Saul. The phrase “put everything under the ban” [this is the exact meaning of the Heb.; Eng. A. V.: “utterly destroy,”—Tr.] is explained by the following parallel phrases to mean “slaying,” the “inferior being put last in each member” (Then.), and the “both … and” expressing complete destruction without exception. [The Ban. The ban, of which we have here a notable instance, was an old custom, existing probably before Moses, but formulated, regulated and extended by him. In its simplest form it was the devotion to God of any object, living or dead. (The object thus devoted was called חֵרֶם, Cherem, from חרם, “to separate,” “set apart from common use,” and from the noun comes, according to Ewald, the Heb. Hiph. “to make a thing cherem,” “put under the ban.”) When an Israelite or the whole congregation wished to devote to God anything, man, beast or field, whether for the honor of God, or to get rid of an injurious or accursed thing, it was brought and offered to the priest, and could not then be redeemed (Lev_27:28)—if living, it must be put to death. A deep consciousness of man’s sin and God’s holiness underlay this law. The wicked thing, contrary to the spiritual theocratic life of God’s people, must be removed, must be committed to him who was the ruler and judge of the people. And so the custom had a breadth of use as well as of meaning in Israel which it never had in other ancient nations (Ew.). A city might be devoted (Deu_13:12-17), or a whole nation by vow of the people (Num_21:2), or by command of God (Exo_17:14). In such case all human beings and cattle were to be slain, all the spoil (houses, furniture, etc.) to be burned, the land was to lie for some time fallow, and other things to be given to the sanctuary. From this strict rule there were occasional deviations (Numbers 31; Jos_9:3-15), but on special grounds. To spare the devoted thing was a grave offence, calling down the vengeance of God. In later times the ban was, doubtless under prophetic direction, softened, and in the New Testament times the infliction of death had quite ceased.—On this whole subject see Ew., Alterth. I. 101 sq. (1866), Herzog R. E., s. v. Bann, Comm. of Kalisch and Bib. Comm. on Leviticus 27.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:4-9. How Saul performs this divine command.
1Sa_15:4. Saul summons the people (Heb. “make them hear,” the Pi. only elsewhere in 1Sa_23:8). The whole of the population fit for war (see the numbers in 1Sa_15:4) appears again in arms, because the powerful Amalekites could be overthrown and destroyed only by the full force of Israel.—Telaim is the same with Telem, a southern city of Judah (Jos_15:24), lying, therefore, near the Amalekite territory, which agrees with Saul’s choice of the place for his mustering of the army. The reading of the Sept.: “in Gilgal,” is an unfortunate gloss, suggested by chs. 11 and 12. [On the numbers see “Text. and Gram.” The separate mention of Judah points possibly to a post-Solomonic date for the chapter. See Erdmann’s Introduction, p. 40.—Tr.]30 1Sa_15:5. The name of the “city” of the Amalekites, against which Saul advanced, is not known.31 Saul lay in ambush in the valley. To this Thenius objects that nothing more is said of an ambush, and that Saul went openly to work; but the first remark is of no importance, since it is not intended to give a full account of the battle; and as to the second, Saul was able to treat with the Kenites in the manner described the better because he had concealed his army in a gorge. According to the reading conjectured by Thenius: “and he set the battle in array” (וַיַּעֲרֹךְ מִלְחָמָה, after the Arabic [and Targ.—Tr.]: “he set the people in array there”), Saul, “already prepared for battle,” must have addressed himself openly to the Kenites. But neither this declaration to the Kenites, who were living in the midst of the Amalekites, nor the withdrawal of the former from their midst could have occurred as related, if the Israelitish army had stood over against the Amalekites ready for battle. The latter would certainly not have looked quietly on while Saul withdrew the Kenites from them to himself.—The Kenites, a small tribe of the northwestern Arabian nomadic peoples (in Canaan as early as Gen_15:19), had shown friendship and kindness to the Israelites after their departure from Egypt (Num_10:29). Moses’ brother-in-law, Hobab (Jdg_1:16), belonged to them, and under his guidance it was that this kindness was shown. According to Jdg_1:16 these friendly Kenites dwelt south of the city Arad in the wilderness of Judah, that is, near the Amalekites, and near their original seat. Thence they had descended up to Saul’s time farther into the Amalekite territory. Some of them settled in the north, as Heber, husband of Jael (Jdg_4:11; Jdg_4:17). Another branch of the Kenites, hostile to the Israelites and in alliance with the Edomites, who dwelt in the caves of Arabia Petræa, and are without ground regarded by Hengstenberg (Bileam, p. 190 sq.) as a totally distinct people, are set forth in Num_24:21 as the object of God’s inevitable judgment. The Kenites here mentioned (they appear also in the history of David as friends of Israel, 1Sa_27:10; 1Sa_30:29) are withdrawn from the punishment which was inflicted on the Amalekites.
1Sa_15:7. The defeat of the Amalekites reached from Havilah to Shur. Havilah, according to Gen_25:18, the boundary of the Ishmaelites, probably, therefore in the south-east on the border of Arabia Petræa and Arabia Felix (according to Strabo 16, 767, the region of the Chaulotœans, which he puts between the Nabatæi and the Agræi). Shur is the present Wilderness of Jifar, the portion of the Arabian desert bordering on Egypt, into which the Israelites entered after the exodus (Exo_15:22). Saul thus smote the Amalekites throughout their territory from southeast towards the west and northwest.—[Havilah and Shur. Great difficulty attaches to the name Havilah on account of the different mentions of it in the Old Testament. It belongs to a Cushite (Gen_10:7) and to a Shemitic Joktanite (Gen_10:29), perhaps thus denoting a region in southern Arabia occupied by these two peoples. The statement in Gen_2:11 throws no light on the locality. It is difficult certainly to assign to this tribe (the Amalekites) a limit so far south, and we should then have to suppose a place different from those mentioned in the passages cited, and have almost no data for an opinion.—Shur is certainly in the border of Egypt; but it is not easy to fix its exact position from the Bible-statements about it (Gen_16:7; Gen_20:1; Gen_25:18; 1Sa_15:7; 1Sa_27:8; Exo_15:22-23). It seems to be here not a wilderness, but a town or fortress. As the word means “wall,” and Ebers has brought out the fact that a wall extended in ancient times across the north-eastern boundary of Egypt (whence the name Mizraim, “the enclosed or fortified”), it is suggested by Wellhausen that the place took its name from the wall near which it was.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:8. Agag (“the fiery,” according to the Arab.) seems to have been the official name of their kings, Num_24:7 (as Pharaoh among the Egyptians, and Abimelech among the Philistines).—That Saul did not slay Agag, but took him alive, is to be referred, from what we know of Saul, either to a fit of weak lenity and forbearance, or to a vain desire to hold the king of this people prisoner (5. Gerlach).32 The whole people, that is, speaking generally. Some survived of course; the Amalekites appear afterwards, 1Sa_27:8; 1Sa_30:1; 2Sa_8:12. Their complete annihilation is mentioned in 1Ch_4:43.
1Sa_15:9. Besides the best of the people, king Agag, the best of the property, that is, among this people herds of course, was spared; for selfish reasons Saul and the people were unwilling to destroy the best of the booty. Besides the best of the small and large cattle, there is specially mentioned the best of the מִשְׁנִים, that is, the animals which held the second rank (so the Sing. denotes the second after the king, 2Ch_28:7, the second of brothers, 1Ch_5:12; 1Sa_8:2; 1Sa_17:13, and the Plu. goblets of the second rank in value, Ezr_1:10). According to this it must be supposed that the herds were divided into groups according to their value. Perhaps, however, the word also means (Kimchi and Tanchum) “animals of the second birth,” which were thought better than the others.—[So Rödiger in Ges. Thes., while Gesenius says incorrectly that they were inferior. Bochart (Hieroz. 2, 43, pp. 429–431) renders “bidentes,” that is, animals which had shed, or were about to shed, their two long teeth, at which time they were in their prime. Other meanings have been assigned to the word, none satisfactory.—Tr.]—Fat lambs also, fattened on the meadows, are specially mentioned. The Sept. reading “vineyards” (and so Ew.) is to be rejected, because, as Then, rightly says, we have here to do with things that could be carried along. Thenius and Ewald [and Eng. A. V.] read (with Chald., Syriac, Arabic) “failings” (מַשְׁמַנִּים), instead of “second-class” (as in the Heb.); but this is suspicious on account of the ease of the change33—“And they spared everything good.” From this comprehensive expression, and especially from the following statement of what they destroyed, it is evident that the idea of the word “best” is a loosely-defined one. Namely, it expressly says, they destroyed all property [that was worthless.—Tr.]34
1Sa_15:10-23. By command of God Saul is called to account by Samuel for his disobedience, and his excuse being set aside, is by God condemned and rejected.
1Sa_15:10. Samuel receives a revelation from God concerning Saul’s God-opposing conduct. The psychological basis of this revelation is Samuel’s exact acquaintance with the condition of Saul’s heart, which was already poisoned and rent by self-seeking and self-will. The way and the form in which the word of the Lord came to Samuel is not pointed out. But it is probable from what follows (Ew.) that it was by a dream. The content of the divine word Isaiah 1) the declaration: It repenteth me that I have made Saul king.—The repentance of God is the anthropopathic expression for the change of the divine procedure into the opposite of what the holy and righteous will of God had determined under the condition of holy and righteous conduct by men, when on man’s side there has been a change to the opposite of this condition without repentance. Theodoret: “God’s repentance is His change in administration.”35 The repentance of God always presupposes a change for the worse in man’s conduct towards God, whose holiness and justice must consequently assume another relation to man; hence it cannot exist without accompanying sorrow in the divine love over the sin of man, which necessitates a change in God’s action on man’s life; but it is too narrow a definition to regard it (as Keil does, on Gen_6:6 and here) merely as an anthropopathic expression for the sorrow of the divine love over the sin of man. Saul indeed remains the legitimate king of Israel according to the divine appointment. But, since he has not remained the humble servant of God, as which he was called to be king, God the Lord, with the deep sorrow of His holy love, must now regard and treat him as an apostate who is in conflict with the truth of the theocratic kingdom. This declaration of God’s repentance itself involves the judicial decision of God, which, however, is here not yet expressly announced; rather this divine word contains 2) only the ground of God’s repentance: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandment [literally, word]. The first clause denotes internal defection from sincere fellowship of life with the Lord under the figure of a way, in which the walk after God, that is, in His retinue in fellowship with him, is performed in humble subjection to his will and command; Saul has not observed Samuel’s exhortation “turn not aside from after the Lord” (1Sa_12:20), and has gone his own way away from God. The last clause: “and has not kept my word,” is the external form of the defection: disobedience in the non fulfilment of the divine command. “He has not performed my word,” that is, has fallen away, has not reached permanence, fulfilment.—A two-fold effect is produced by this revelation of God on Samuel’s heart.—To Samuel was kindled, namely, anger (supply אַף, “anger,” as in Gen_18:30; Gen_31:36; 2Sa_19:43, and many other places). That it was holy anger is clear from what follows; for Samuel could pray in his anger. The object, of his anger was first, obviously, Saul’s defection and disobedience, and then the therein-involved violation of the Lord’s honor and thwarting of His purposes. To render: “was sorry” (J. Schmid: doluit Samueli) is inadmissible, because the expression always denotes anger.—[On the difficulty here see “Text, and Grammat.”—Tr.]—But to anger at Saul’s disobedience and frustration of his holy mission Samuel adds prayer for Saul, mighty, fervent: he cried to the Lord, and persistent, unremitting: the whole night.—The object of the prayer was doubtless not release from the fulfilment of the divine command (Ew.), but the exemption of Saul from the sentence of rejection and the forgiveness of his disobedience. But the hearing of such a prayer is conditioned on the sincere repentance of him for whom it is made. This condition did not appear in Saul, but rather its opposite. Therefore the picture of the priestly mediator, in which character Samuel represents Saul before the Lord, changes into that of the judging prophet, who represents the Lord over against Saul.—[Abarbanel says, that Samuel was angry and displeased because he loved Saul for his beauty and heroism and as his own creature whom he had made king, and that he prayed all night because God had not revealed to him Saul’s sin, and he wished to know why sentence was pronounced against him.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:12. Having thus learned immediately from God by this revelation his divine mission to Saul, Samuel after this grievous night goes early to meet Saul. On the way he learns that Saul had come to Carmel (Jos_15:55), now Kurmul with extensive ruins dating from ancient times and the Middle Ages, southeast of Hebron [ten miles] on the mountains of Judah (comp. 1Sa_25:2; 1Sa_27:3); that he had there set up a monument in commemoration of this great victory over Amalek. (יָד, “the hand,” here denotes a monument of victory, as in 2Sa_18:18, because this, like the hand, directs attention to what it denotes.) The “him” [=to him] is in the whole connection significant, as it brings out the selfish principle which actuated Saul. He does not give the honor to God the Lord by unconditional obedience, but he sets up a monument in his own honor.—(רַיִסּב [“is turned, gone about”] cannot mean “went in solemn procession” (Buns.), nor are we to read: “and turned the chariot,” as Then, does after the Sept. whose translators did not understand the וַיַּעֲבֹר, “passed on.”) He passed over, namely from Carmel and the neighboring mountain across the mountains of Judah, and then descended into the Jordan-valley to Gilgal (1Sa_13:4). Saul went to Gilgal to celebrate his victory with offerings. Thenius and Ewald insert after “Gilgal” (from Sept. and Vulg.) the words: “And Samuel came to Saul, and behold, he was offering a burnt-offering to the Lord, the firstlings of the spoil, which he brought from Amalek,” supposing (but without sufficient ground) that they fell out of the Heb. because the following sentence begins with the same words. It is nowhere hinted that, according to the view of the narrator, Samuel and Saul had intended to meet on Mount Carmel (Then.). The Sept. introduced Saul’s offering after the analogy of 1Sa_13:8 sq. in order to conform this second great sin of Saul to the first.
1Sa_15:13. Samuel took the long journey to Gilgal to meet Saul. In the place where he had solemnly pledged Saul and the people to unconditional obedience (chap. 12), he now executes judgment for disobedience to the divine will. The psychological and ethical momenta of this procedure are clearly exhibited in the following deeply moving narrative. After all that had occurred between Samuel and Saul (13—1Sa_15:1), Samuel’s mere appearance must have been an accusation and a warning of conscience for Saul. Conscious of his sin, which, however, he will not confess,—disregarding it, and deceiving himself with all the arts of a heart entangled in hypocrisy and lies, and alienated from the Lord,—he anticipates Samuel’s accusation with his defence: 1) he not only meets, but anticipates, Samuel with forced friendliness with the greeting: Blessed be thou of the Lord; and 2) straightway adds the assurance: I have performed the commandment [word] of the Lord.—In this he in one respect tells the truth; for he had broken the power of the Amalekites. But in another respect he tells a lie; for from selfish motives he had failed to carry out the command of complete annihilation, as given in the “word of the Lord.” 1Sa_15:14. Saul is convicted of falsehood by the voices of the animals which he has spared contrary to God’s command. Samuel’s mode of citing them against him by the question: “What mean these voices?” has an air of holy humor and cutting irony.
1Sa_15:15. Saul continues to advance in falsehood and hypocrisy, receding more and more from the truthfulness of a confession of sin (which was his duty) by presenting a two-fold defence: 1) “The people spared,” he declares; he does not blame himself. And yet in 1Sa_15:9 it is said: “Saul and the people spared.” He seeks to excuse himself as blameless by transferring the blame to the people. And, suppose the people had spared the good oxen, yet he, the general, had permitted it; the people dared not do it against his will. [Comp. the people’s obedience to Saul in 1Sa_14:24; 1Sa_14:34; 1Sa_14:40.—Tr.] 2) He seeks to extenuate and to justify his transgression of the divine command by pleading the holy purpose of “sacrificing to God.” …… Whether now this was thought of or not, in any case it is hypocrisy, by which Saul seeks to excuse himself and the people. [Bib. Comm.: “Every word uttered by Saul seems to indicate the break-down of his moral character. One feels that after this scene, Saul must have forfeited his self-respect.” Bishop Sanderson (quoted by Wordsworth in loco), in his Lectures on Conscience, II. § 13, exposes the futility of the pretence that good intention is a right rule of conscience and a good guide of conduct.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:16. Samuel interrupts him with the exclamation: “Stay!” (חֶרֶף Imper. apoc. Hiph. of רָפָא, “desist, cease.”) To the false and hypocritical speech of Saul he solemnly and sharply opposes what the Lord said to him in the night. (Instead of plu. וַיֹּאמְרוּ read sing.)36
1Sa_15:17-19 follows the powerful, crushing address of Samuel, hurled on Saul’s conscience with the might of Samuel’s conviction that he now spoke as prophet solely in the name and stead of the Lord to the deep-fallen king.
First comes the reminder of his elevation from lowliness to the high dignity of royalty by the favor of the Lord. The question “wast thou not?” sharpens for Saul’s conscience the sting concealed in this recollection. The sentence is variously construed. Kimchi renders: “though thou seemedst to thyself too little and weak to curb the people, yet wast thou the head, and shouldst as such have done thy duty”—wholly against the connection, and under the incorrect supposition that Samuel received Saul’s excuse. Köster refers the expression hypothetically to the future: “if thou wouldst henceforward be humble, thou shouldst.” But against this is the reference to the past fact: “the Lord anointed thee.” Others (S. Schmid, De Wette, Keil) render: “when thou wast little, thou wast made.” But אִם must retain its meaning, “if.” Here, as in many places (Jdg_13:16; Amo_5:22; Jer_5:2; Jer_15:1; Jer_22:24; Job_9:15; Jos_1:18), it=“although.” Ges. § 306, 2, 9 [Conant’s Transl., § 155, 2 g.—Tr.]; Ewald, § 355, 1, 6 [1 b].37 Though thou wast little in thine own sight.—The reference here to Saul’s own words, 1Sa_9:21, is beyond doubt. It is the humiliating reminder to the haughty Saul of the low position whence he had been elevated to the headship of Israel, and of the modesty and humility which he then possessed. “In thine eyes.” Samuel here indirectly points to the haughtiness of his heart as the deepest ground of his defection from the Lord. The Lord anointed thee.—That was God’s gracious act by which he had been raised to this height, and had incurred the most sacred obligation to be obedient to the Lord and to keep the people obedient to Him. On this foundation Samuel bases his exhortation in respect to Saul’s guilt in this particular case.
1Sa_15:18. The Lord sent thee on the [properly a] way and said: Go, etc.—It was a distinctly marked way which Saul was to go according to the Lord’s command, “after him;” it was a divine mission which he was obediently completely to fulfil. The sinners the Amalekites.—These words give the reason why this people was to be destroyed and not spared, because they strove to annihilate God’s people and kingdom.38 All this ought to have pledged thee to obedience. The question: Why didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord?—with the accusation which it contains—connects itself all the more emphatically with the reference to the duty of obedience which the Lord Himself had laid on him. The following words characterize Saul’s conduct as based on avarice [“didst fly upon the spoil”]. The “fly,” as in 1Sa_14:32, expresses eagerness, passionate craving.39
1Sa_15:20-21. Saul hardens himself still farther: 1) in deceitful self-justification, positively denying the fault attributed to him (following exactly the order of Samuel’s specifications), and affirming with emphasis (אֲשֶׁר) that he had gone the appointed way and fulfilled the mission assigned him, witness of which was the captive Agag and the annihilated Amalekites; 2) in vain and hypocritical excuse, which is a mere repetition of the above pretext of the people’s act and their purpose to sacrifice to the Lord the spared oxen as “firstlings of the spoil.” This might have seemed a pious act, as in the similar case in Num_31:48 sq.; but, as all the goods of the Amalekites had been devoted—that is, consecrated—to the Lord, and the living things must be killed, no burnt-offering (according to Lev_27:29) could be made with them (see Keil). Saul evades the fact that the command of God is: Every thing is to be put under the ban (1Sa_15:3). The words: “to the Lord thy God” are a sort of captatio benevolentiœ, an attempt to curry favor [others see here, perhaps not so well, an implied censure of Samuel, as if Saul would say: “you rebuke me for serving the God whom you profess to serve.”—Tr.]
1Sa_15:22-23. Samuel’s answer tears away all the cloaks with which Saul had striven to cover his sin, and lays bare the deepest ground of evil in his heart. Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?—To give color to his open disobedience to the Lord, Saul adduced his purpose to make an offering. In opposition to this is the meaning of Samuel’s words: offering, brought with such a disobedient heart, cannot be well-pleasing to God, as is the obedience of the will, which subjects itself unconditionally to the will of the Lord, and brings itself as offering. External offerings are an abomination to the Lord when there is lacking the heart full of obedient love, the humble consecration of the whole man. The same thought was repeatedly expressed by Samuel (1Sa_12:14; 1Sa_12:20; 1Sa_12:24) in his exhortations to the people and their king, with the threat of destruction for both, if they should fail in this time-offering and service in faithful, hearty obedience to the will and commands of God. This fundamental ethical truth is affirmed, with unmistakable reference to these words of Samuel, in the classical passages Psa_50:8-14; Psa_51:18-19; Isa_1:11; comp. 16–19; Mic_6:6-8; Hos_6:6; Jer_6:20.—In the following words: To obey is better than sacrifice, the thought takes a new turn: apart from what alone is well-pleasing to God, only an obedient disposition of mind is in itself something good, the offering, without such a disposition, is not a good thing, has no moral value. The “fat of rams,” that is, the pieces of fat offered on the altar [see Leviticus 1 and many other places.—Tr.].
1Sa_15:23. The thought is carried on as follows: As the outward work of offering without answering devotion of heart and life to God with obedient mind has no moral value, and is not an object of the divine good-pleasure, so disobedience and the thence-resulting rebellion and defiant self-dependence is similar in essence to, stands on the same moral plane with the outward wickedness of witchcraft, that is, “divination in the service of anti godly demon-powers” (Keil), and of idolatry. אָוֶן [Eng. A. V. “iniquity”] is “nothingness,” then “false god” and “idol,” Isa_66:3, “idol-worship,” Hos_10:3. Teraphim [Eng. A. V. “idolatry”] are household-gods as oracle-deities and dispensers of good fortune, Gen_31:19. Comp. Keil, Archäol., § 90 [and Smith’s Bib. Dict., Arts. “Teraphim” and “Magic,” Commentaries of Kalisch, Delitzsch, Lange and Bib. Comm. on Gen_31:19. Samuel’s decided condemnation of teraphim-worship (which he clearly did not regard as a permissible form of Jehovah-worship) is to be noted.—Tr.].—For the sake of emphasis the predicates in both clauses stand before the subjects. As in divination and idolatry the living God is denied and rejected, so is rebellion and stubbornness a defection from the Lord and a rejection of the Lord40 This is the ground (כִּי) of the declaration in 1Sa_15:22. Now follows the sentence thus grounded, with sharp brevity concluding this part of the scene: Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath rejected thee from being king.41—Rejected by the Lord, Saul is now himself abandoned “to his self-love and his passions” (Berl. Bib.).
1Sa_15:24-31. Saul’s vain striving with Samuel in false penitence, and Samuel’s sentence of rejection. 1Sa_15:24. Saul confesses: I have sinned.—To judge from his previous obstinate refusal to acknowledge his wrong, Samuel’s earnest and powerful address must have worked on his inner life like a circle of fire ever closing in upon his conscience, so that he saw himself forced to abandon his attempts at palliation and frankly make this confession of sin. The whole preceding narrative shows that it was extorted from him partly by the unsparing revelation of his lies and hypocrisy and the undeniable exhibition of his heart-rooted disobedience, partly by the judicial decision respecting the unavertible consequences of his defection and disobedience. A confession of sin induced by resulting evil and punishment is often no expression of true penitence. And it is not this with Saul; for though he now confesses that he has transgressed the commandment of the Lord, he yet shows that he is not thinking solely of the Lord, since he adds: “and thy word.” His conduct before and after this throws light on this apparently unimportant statement of his; powerfully impressed by Samuel’s word, he puts it alongside of the word of the Lord; he is concerned to regain Samuel’s good-will and approbation. This regard for Samuel’s human authority, which ought to vanish out of sight before God’s authority, springs from the same root in his heart (lack of humble fear and simple obedience towards God) as the fear of men and desire to please men which he himself now gives as the reason for his disobedience: For I feared the people and obeyed their voice.—Berl. Bib.: “Here stands revealed the hypocrite, who loved the honor of men more than the favor of God. The people must still tear the blame.” Instead of fearing God, he feared the people, he the king, who in this, therefore, was guilty of unpardonable weakness; he obeyed the voice of the people instead of God’s voice out of fear of man, if indeed the people did make the demand. And yet in all his confession of sinful regard for men his purpose is evidently to soften his guilt by bringing in the people.—[Exo_23:2 : Thou shalt not follow the multitude into evil.—Tr.]—He prays Samuel: And now, pardon my sin. He does not turn straightway to God with this prayer; the “and now” indicates his belief that he might expect the fulfilment of his prayer in return for his confession of sin. Samuel turns from him, perceiving that the confession and prayer do not come from a truly penitent heart. To this Saul’s request refers: Return with me that I may worship the Lord.—Confession, renewed excuse, cry for forgiveness, request to Samuel to remain, desire to approach God, all follow one after another in painful haste. Saul is smitten by his conscience; but his heart is not broken. He nevertheless gives not God the honor. 1Sa_15:26. Samuel, seeing through him, shortly and decidedly rejects his request, and instead repeats his previous judicial sentence, because Saul’s desire for forgiveness sprang not from a penitence directed to God, but from a self-loving penitence, whose aim was his own advantage; for he did not trouble himself about his having dishonored God, but was afraid that he might lose the kingdom.
1Sa_15:27. Samuel’s turning away from Saul was a vigorous confirmation of his rejection, and a sign that he would henceforth have no association with him. The impression which the narrative makes on us of a, vehement, unquiet and disordered mind is heightened to the utmost by this moving scene in which Saul seizes the skirt of Samuel’s mantle in order to arrest his departure, uses physical force, that is, to attain his end: and it was rent.—[It is plain that it is Saul that tears Samuel’s garment undesignedly. Some Jewish writers held that Samuel symbolically tore Saul’s garment or his own (Gill).—Tr.]
1Sa_15:28. Samuel uses this as a symbol to show Saul that the Lord had that day rent the kingdom from him. The second part of Samuel’s address declares that the theocratic kingdom was to be given to another, “thy neighbor,”—an indefinite expression, since Samuel did not yet know whom the Lord had chosen—who is better than thou, that is, who would walk obediently in the ways of the Lord. Before it was said: “the Lord hath rejected thee from the kingdom;” now it is said: the Lord hath rent the kingdom from thee. Samuel, who for the third time announces the rejection of Saul (whose spiritual steadfastness constantly diminishes), expressly emphasizes the fact that the Lord has rejected him not merely personally, but as the theocratic king. In 1 Samuel 13., on the other hand, it was declared that the kingdom should not remain permanently in his family. Though now Saul retained the kingdom some years after this rejection, God’s relation to him was, in consequence of his apostasy, completely altered; he no longer looked on him as the organ of His will, and withdrew from him the power and gifts of His Spirit. His external royalty remained as a divine appointment; but its inner core was rejected; Saul, as bearer of the royal office, was rejected, because he had rejected the Lord.
1Sa_15:29. Samuel declares this divine sentence to be unavertible and unavoidable: And also the Refuge of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man that he should repent, that is, the judicial decision, by which the Lord has inflicted on thee the penalty of rejection, remains unchanged and unchangeable by reason of His immutable will. “And also” introduces this sentence as something new=“in addition to this.” נֵצַח = “steadfastness, permanence,” then subjectively “trust, confidence” (Lam_3:18), then the object of trust, of God: the Refuge42 [Eng. A. V. Strength]. The same declaration of the unchangeableness of the divine decisions, only in reference to His promise of blessing, is found in Num_23:19. Comp. Jer_4:28; Eze_24:14. The apparent contradiction between this declaration (“The Lord does not repent”) and that in 1Sa_15:11; 1Sa_15:35 (“The Lord repented”) is by some expositors harmonized by remarking (Clericus) that here (1Sa_15:29) the words are said θεοπρεπῶς [as becomes God], and are there to be understood ἀνθρωποπαθῶς [after the manner of men]; but this does not offer a complete solution of the question, since the expression “it repented the Lord,” rightly understood after being divested of its human dress, is the appropriate expression of a real manifestation of the unchangeable divine being and will, only this latter must occupy a different relation to the man who has himself changed. In contrast with man, who repents because his will changes, God is here declared by Samuel to be (in respect to Saul) the unchangeable God, who cannot contradict Himself, as would be the case if He retracted His decision concerning the impenitent Saul; while in 1 Samuel 15:41 and 1Sa_15:35 the same unchangeable God is described in human phrase according to the changed relation which His unvarying holy and righteous will must occupy to men when they recede from the religious-moral relation to Him, under which He has hitherto in holiness and righteousness revealed Himself.
1Sa_15:30. Not even by this overwhelming declaration of the irrevocable character of God’s sentence, founded, as it was, in the unchangeableness of His holy and righteous will, is the excited Saul silenced. Two things, he says, wherein is displayed the real selfishness and self-love of his heart. First he repeats his confession of sin. But it is only in one word: “I have sinned.” And that this was a hypocritical one is shown by what follows:—Yet, honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me that I may [better, “and I will,”—Tr.], worship the Lord thy God. How many words, spoken with passionate haste, against that one cold introductory word “I have sinned!” If the Lord’s sentence of rejection is irrevocable, Saul will at least before men save the halo of royal honor. His inner man is revealed. He did not honor the Lord by obedience, and when his disobedience was held up before him, he persistently denied the Lord His honor in his impenitent mind. Now comes to light the deepest-lying ground of this conduct. He is concerned about his own honor. In his self-seeking he has clean cast loose from the Lord and withdrawn into himself. [If Saul had been really penitent, he would have prayed to be humbled rather than to be honored (Gregory, quoted by Wordsworth).—Tr.]. And Samuel returned after Saul. He then acceded to Saul’s request, not, of course, to yield to his selfish opposition to God’s honor, but to preserve unimpaired in the eyes of the people the position of Saul’s kingdom, which though theocratically rejected, yet still in fact by God’s will remained, and especially not to be wanting in the sacrifice of the people.
1Sa_15:32 sq. What Saul had disobediently neglected, Samuel executes in the name of the Lord, namely, the extermination of Amalek by slaying king Agag.—Agag appeared before Samuel cheerfully; the word occurs in Ps. 29:17 in the sense of “joy.” His words: Surely, the bitterness of death is past agree with his joyful mood. S. Schmid sees in them the feigned courageousness which cowards can put on. Others understand a real heroic contempt of death in the presence of death. Probably, however, Agag, not having been slain by Saul, was all the surer of life when he was led from the king to Samuel [since Samuel was an old man and a priest.—Tr.].
1Sa_15:33. Samuel’s words, however, must have immediately shown him his error. They presuppose that Agag had acted with great cruelty in his marauding and military expeditions: “As thy sword has made women childless, so shall thy mother be the most childless [or, be childless] among women;” that is, “because in her son she loses at the same time the king of her people” (Bunsen).—There can be nothing surprising in Samuel’s “hewing Agag in pieces” for one who from the theocratic point of view regards Agag’s death as a necessity founded in the divine decree, and sees in Samuel the divine instrument for the fulfilment of the divine will, coming in place of him who in spite of his call thereto has refused obedience and service. Grot.: “When kings abandoned their duty, God often executed His law by prophets” 1Ki_18:40. [Samuel’s act was not one of revenge, not an individual execution of justice, but a simple carrying out for the people of the ban-sentence pronounced against Amalek by Jehovah.—Tr.].
1Sa_15:34 sq. The notice that Samuel returned to Ramah and Saul to Gibeah is a significant introduction to the important statement that henceforth Samuel broke off all communication with Saul: He saw him no more to the day of his death. Maurer: “He went to see Saul no more.” This does not contradict 1Sa_19:24, according to which Saul once more met him. All intercourse with Saul on Samuel’s side ceased from now on, since God had rejected him, and Samuel could have met him only as messenger and prophet of God. From this also we see that Saul’s kingship, though still one de facto, yet from this time lost its theocratic relation. God’s ambassador was recalled from him; the intercourse of the God of Israel with Saul through His Spirit came to an end, because Saul, sinking step by step away from God, had by continued disobedience and increasing impenitence given up communion with God.—In keeping with the above mention of Samuel’s fervent, continued prayer for Saul is the statement: “For Samuel mourned for Saul;” this was the human sorrow for this highly-gifted, highly-favored, and hopelessly-sunken man; then follows the deeply pathetic statement: “The Lord repented, etc.;” this was the divine sorrow over the loss of this chosen instrument.
HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL
1. When the Scriptures speak of God’s repentance, anger, zeal, and the like, ascribing to Him human affections and dispositions, and consequently changes, we cannot regard these anthropopathisms as merely figurative statements; these representations, after leaving out the ungodly human element, as Nitzsch (Syst., § 79 A. 2) remarks, have “realness and validity; it is not a human, but a divine movement that is spoken of, and we must therefore deny that it is sinful and passionate, but not that it is efficient and true.” The anthropopathic representations set forth a real relation of the living God to man who bears His image, only described from a human standpoint. They are the means of maintaining vigorously and effectively the thought of the living God and His real relation to man, and of saving it from being dissipated in abstractions. Kling admirably says on the two passages in point in this chapter (Art. “Reue” in Herzog): “The latter (1Sa_15:29 “he does not repent”) refers to the firm, irrevocable resolution to give the kingdom to a better man; the repentance (1Sa_15:11) looks to the fact that Saul, an humble man when he was called and fitted to discharge his duty in faith and obedience, was now changed, exalted himself in his office, would be his own master, and, setting aside God’s express command, followed his own pleasure. Thus he showed himself no longer fit to be king in Israel, God’s people, and the divine will, which made him king, changed to the opposite,—a repentance which betrays no mutability in God, but rather reveals His constancy alongside of the mutability of man, His unvarying will that the humbly obedient shall be king in Israel.”
2. Persistent impenitence towards the holy and righteous God, as it is exemplified in Saul, has its deepest ground in the unwillingness to subordinate one’s own self, especially one’s own will to the holy will and the gracious will of God. It leads to hypocrisy, which seeks to cover its own wrong with works of external piety, or lays the blame on outward circumstances and other men. Before the irrefragable self-revelation of the holy and righteous God the impenitent man, despite his concealing lies and hypocrisy, must ever reveal new hidden sins, ever involve himself from step to step in new sins, till the deepest depth of his sinful heart is displayed in self-seeking, self-love, and self-will; and if the sinner will not even then humble himself and take refuge in the grace of God, there comes the judgment of inner hardening, by which the man becomes insusceptible to the influences of God’s Spirit and word, and incapable of turning to God, since the will confirms itself in permanent opposition to God; the end is the divine judgment of rejection. See the separate steps of this process in the Exposition of the Section.
3. The word: “Obedience is better than sacrifice” is the refutation of a twofold error: 1) that man can gain God’s approval by outward works, apart from a spirit of true obedience in which heart and will are given up and subjected to Him; 2) that man can by such works absolve himself from the performance of moral duties, and escape the guilt and punishment of his disobedience to God.—This declaration further indicates the true relation between the ceremonial law and the moral law. The holy usages of the former, especially sacrifices, do not occupy towards the demands of the latter the relation of the Outward to the Inward. “Every ceremonial law is moral; the outward act is never enjoined but for the sake of the inward thing, what it pictures—represents. Never is there body without spirit. But the fleshly sense would have none of the spirit, and laid hold solely of the body, which thus isolated became a corpse.” Hengst. Einl. zu Psalms 50. That word contains the principle of and lays the foundation for the position which the prophetic Order (after Samuel’s example) takes towards the sacrificial worship and the fulfilment of the ceremonial law in general. Not the offering absolutely is rejected, but the outward work without the root of love to God (Deu_6:5) and of the obedience whence alone it can spring as fruit well-pleasing to God. On the relation between the teaching of the Mosaic law and this prophetical doctrine (which dates from this word of Samuel) of the necessity of the sacrifice of a pious heart and an humbly obedient will in contrast with external service according to the prescriptions of the ritual law, Oehler (Herz. XII. 228) says: “The prophets, by bringing out the difference between the ritual and moral laws, and by declaring the merely outward service to be in itself worthless—and valid only as the expression of a godly will, merely logically developed Mosaism, which indeed commonly puts the moral and the ritual, the inward and the outward immediately side by side, but therein indicates not unclearly the sense and aim of its teaching, partly by basing all laws on the divine elective grace and the divine holiness, partly in the fact that even the ritual ordinances of the Law every where display a spiritual meaning, and thus awaken a dim conception of moral duties. On the other hand, Prophecy by inserting in its pictures of the Messianic times essential features of the old ceremonial, shows that it holds fast the divine significance and warranty of the ritual law.”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1Sa_15:1. Berlenb. Bible: Although Saul was rejected by God on account of his disobedience, yet God left him still king, so that he was bound to carry out the will of God.—[Henry: Samuel plainly intimates that he was now about to put Saul upon a trial, in one particular instance, whether he would be obedient to the command of God or no. And the making of this so expressly the trial of his obedience, did very much aggravate his disobedience.—Gill: And whereas he had been deficient in one instance before, for which he had been reproved [chap. 13.], he suggests that now he should take care to observe and do, particularly and punctually, what should be enjoined him.—Tr.] It is impossible to be truly a king and to rule in the church, if one does not yet know the voice of the Lord, and cannot distinguish it from the voice of reason and nature.
1Sa_15:2-3. Starke: God’s judgments, though they come slowly, yet come certainly and at the right time (Exo_32:34).—[Hall: He that thinks, because punishment is deferred, that God hath forgiven or forgot his offence, is unacquainted with justice, and knows not that time makes no difference in eternity.—Tr.]—Schlier: When God the Lord commands such a war of annihilation, then this is no war of human vengeance; still less is it an ambitious war of conquest—but it is a judgment of divine wrath.
1Sa_15:6. Cramer: We must beware of communion with the ungodly, that we may not be swept away with them (Rom. 18:4).—Osiander: God requites to the pious even their forefathers’ good works and benefits, which they have done to their neighbor. Who then will say that it is vain to serve God (Mal_3:14).—Schlier: Thus does every good thing reward itself; nothing remains forgotten; often in later centuries the seed sown in an old past yet every where comes up gloriously, and children and children’s children derive advantage from the good done by the fathers.
1Sa_15:8-9. Starke: Not what seems to us good are we to do, but what God will have from us (Jer_7:23). Avarice leads to great sins, especially to untimely compassion (1Ti_6:10).—S. Schmid: No one is more foolish than he who wishes to be wiser than God, and ventures to explain God’s word and commandments according to what seems good to him.
1Sa_15:10-11. “It repenteth me.”—Berlenb. Bible: Such feelings must in the case of God be understood in a divine manner, and not as in the case of changeable men in a human manner; they must be understood more in the effect than in the affection, of God’s unchangeable righteousness, which moves Him to withdraw His special grace and to with hold His hand, the cause of every change that takes place among His creatures.—[Gill: Though God repented He made Saul king, He never repents of His making His saints kings and priests for Himself. His outward gifts He sometimes takes away, as an earthly crown and kingdom; but His gifts and callings which are of special grace are without repentance, Rom_11:29.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:12. Osiander: The lost sheep we must diligently seek, if perhaps they may be brought to the right way.
1Sa_15:13. [Henry: Thus sinners think by justifying themselves to escape being judged of the Lord; whereas the only way to do that is by judging ourselves.—Tr.]—Starke [from Hall]: No man brags so much of holiness as he that wants it (Luk_18:11-12).—[Wordsworth: Here is a proof that a man may be blinded by his own self-will, and that he may imagine that his own way is right, while it is leading him to the gate of death (Pro_14:12; Pro_16:25). It is not enough for a man to be approved by his own conscience; but it is necessary to regulate the conscience by God’s Will and Word (Act_26:9; 1Ti_1:13).—Tr.]
1Sa_15:14-15. S. Schmid: God knows how to bring men’s sins to light, however great the care with which they may be cloaked.—Starke: Nothing remains concealed, and sooner than the sins of the ungodly should fail to be reported, the irrational creatures themselves must reveal them. [Hall: Could Saul think that Samuel knew of the asses that were lost, and did not know of the oxen and sheep that were spared? …… Much less when we have to do with God Himself should dissimulation presume either of safety or secrecy. Can the God that made the heart, not know it?—Tr.]
1Sa_15:15. [From Hall]: It is a shameful hypocrisy to make our commodity the measure and rule of our execution of God’s command, and under pretence of godliness to intend gain.—Osiander: Hypocrites will not come right out with the confession of their sin, but desire always to excuse and palliate it.—Berl. Bible: Beware of covering thy ungodly heart with the cloak of religion, and consider that the day is coming on which God will make manifest what is hidden in darkness and the counsel of men’s hearts (1Co_4:5).
1Sa_15:16. S. Schmid: We must not look to what hypocrites say of themselves, but to what God’s word says of them.—Berl. Bible: Hold on! speak not many vain words to cloak and to palliate! The stitches do not hold. Happy he in whose spirit there is no guile (Psa_32:2). [Scott: The unhumbled heart, however, will never be at a loss to excuse or palliate the most evident criminality; and it will always be necessary for preachers to drive sinners from their subterfuges, to show them the malignity and aggravation of their offences, to silence their objections and excuses, and urge conviction upon their hearts, though the convincing Spirit of God alone can render the means effectual (Joh_16:8; Joh_16:11).—Tr.]
1Sa_15:20. Cramer: That is the way with hypocrites, that they make themselves fair, and yet are not washed from their filthiness (Pro_30:12). They boast of their works, and their hand kisses their mouth (Job_31:27; Luk_18:11).—Berl. Bible: Saul makes his cause worse and worse, while he wishes to be guiltless, yea, even to be in the right towards God, as if he had executed every thing quite well, even after Samuel had already censured him and sought to arouse his conscience. It is accordingly not only a single sin, but many there come together. He contradicts the prophet, he denies that he has been disobedient; he makes light of his fault, even if any fault were granted, and throws it to and fro from himself to the people; he uses the service of God for a pretext and cloak of excuse, like a vile hypocrite who has little respect for God’s omniscience. See what tricks corrupt nature can devise? How crafty it is in its concealment! How many kinds of subterfuges it employs to defend itself!
1Sa_15:21. Osiander: It is a horrible crime when any one wishes to cloak his avarice, disobedience and other crimes with religious devotion (Joh_12:4-6).—Berl. Bible: How many engaged in God’s worship deceive themselves herein, who think it is enough to offer something temporal to the Lord, when meanwhile they are constantly maintaining their own disposition and their own will!—[Scott: When the Lord expressly says, “Thou shalt,” and His rational creature dares to persist in saying, “I will not,” whether the contest be about an apple or a kingdom—it is “stubbornness” and “rebellion”—a contempt of the commandment of God, and a daring insult to His majesty and authority.—Tr.]—J. Lange: Even in the Levitical worship God always and chiefly looked to the inner (Eze_6:6; Psa_51:18-19). My fellow Christian! make thy Christianity then consist not in the outward but in the inward, and worship God in spirit and truth (Joh_4:24).—Berl. Bible: May we then take good care that even when we mean to render the Lord service or obedience, we yet beware of our choice and fancy, and follow only the traces of the divine will, and thereby escape from ourselves or break and tame our own will. Obedience is the mother-grace, the parent of all virtues. It makes the eye see, the ear hear, the heart think, the memory remember, the mouth speak, the foot go, the hand work, and the whole man do that, yea, that alone, which is conformed to the will of God. All these and other things are valuable only in so far as they agree with the will of God.
1Sa_15:23. S. Schmid: It is a dreadful fault when one wishes to make light of gross sins. An honest servant of God represents the greatness of the sins according to the truth and prescription of the word of God.—Tueb. Bible: God rejects no one unless he is before rejected by Him.—Berl. Bible: It is impossible for him who is not obedient to God to lay any command upon men. That is what these words and the aim of God therein mean.—The authorities must not proceed according to their own will and notion, but in everything must take God’s word and will for their rule.—If He does not drive them (the apostate rulers) from their position, like as He did Nebuchadnezzar, but leaves them ruling, as He also did Saul for a while, yet they are and remain rejected in His might, and vainly write themselves “by the grace of God,” when He Himself does not so acknowledge them.—[On 1Sa_15:22-23, there is a sermon by Jeremy Taylor, chiefly on rebellion, in which he uses singular arguments to justify religious persecution.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:24. Osiander: That is the way with hypocrites, that they do not outright and freely confess their sins, but push the guilt, as far as ever they can, from themselves upon others.
1Sa_15:26. Berl. Bib.: Every one wonders that God, who is yet so full of compassion, does not forgive Saul, though elsewhere He never refuses forgiveness to any repented sin. But it is due to the fact that the longing after forgiveness in Saul proceeded from no such repentance as God had in view, but from a self-loving repentance, which had only its own advantage as aim. For he was not troubled that he had dishonored God, but was in fear that he might lose the kingdom.
1Sa_15:29. Osiander: Although God, so long as we do not repent, does not change His threatenings, but certainly carries them into execution, yet if we earnestly repent and better our lives, He does repent of the evil which He had threatened to do us if we had gone on in sin (Jer_18:7 sqq.); and such a change is not instability in God, but grace and goodness.
1Sa_15:30. Berlenburger Bible: “Honor me, I pray thee.” That shows what he is mainly concerned about (Joh_5:44; Joh_12:43); loss and shame he would like to escape, and as he cannot deceive God, he wishes to deceive men by the appearance of God’s favor.—Wuert. Bib.: Hypocrites bewail and lament in their repentance only the chastisements they have to suffer, and not their sins; they seek only their own, and not God’s honor (1Ki_21:27).—[S. Gregory (in Wordsworth): If Saul had been really penitent, he would have prayed to be humbled, rather than to be honored.—W. M. Taylor: There came to the son of Kish a tidal time of favor, which if he had only recognized and improved it, might have carried him not only to greatness, but to goodness. But he proved faithless to the trust which was committed to him, and became in the end a worse man than he would have been, if no such privileges had been conferred upon him. …… As his life wore on, the good features in his character disappeared.—Tr.]
1Sa_15:33. S. Schmid: Although the right of retaliation has no place in personal revenge, yet it is righteously exercised in public judgments (Lev_24:20). To execute God’s strict judgment with a spirit free from all thirst for vengeance, is no barbarity.
J. Disselhoff on 1Sa_15:1-21. The fall of King Saul shows: 1) How unrepented and only whitewashed sin at the first severe temptation breaks out as manifest and criminal self-seeking; 2) How this self-seeking is so blinding as to tell itself and others the lie that it is a labor for the Lord.—The same on 1Sa_15:20-23. Sacrifice or obedience? 1) A sacrifice which lacks obedience of heart is an abomination in the sight of God; 2) Where obedience of heart is, there is also the true sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.—The same on 1Sa_15:23-31. Beware of a Saul’s confession. That you may do this, it is necessary to know two things: 1) What a Saul’s confession Isaiah 2) What a Saul’s confession works.
1Sa_15:1-11. God’s curse and blessing: 1) Long delayed, but not revoked; 2) At last fulfilling itself according to God’s truth and righteousness.
1Sa_15:22-23. Sacrifice and obedience: 1) Sacrifice without obedience (worthless in the sight of the Lord, perilous for men); 2) Obedience the best sacrifice (on what ground, with what blessed result).
1Sa_15:10-31. Seeming repentance before the Lord: 1) How it conceals from the Lord the root of sin in the heart; 2) draws the garment of self-righteousness over sin; 3) thereby leads from sin to sin; and 4) drives on towards the judgment of hardening and rejection.
[1Sa_15:11. The Lord repented: 1) in what sense, 2) for what reasons, 3) with what results. (Comp. “Exeg.” on 1Sa_15:11; 1Sa_15:29, and “Hist, and Doct.,” No. 1.)
1Sa_15:11. Praying in vain.
1Sa_15:11; 1Sa_15:16. Grieving, but faithful.
1Sa_15:12-13. The glory and the shame of Saul—his victory, his disobedience, his efforts to hide and palliate his offence. (This would embrace nearly the whole chapter.)
1Sa_15:20-21. Eclectic obedience.
1Sa_15:23. The rejecter rejected. Comp. Rom_1:24; Rom_1:26; Rom_1:28; Joh_3:18-19.
1Sa_15:27. Clinging to the religious teacher, while not clinging to religion.
1Sa_15:30-31. Worshipping to save appearances.
1Sa_15:32. To be without fear of death is not proof of preparation for death.—Tr.]
Footnotes:
[1][1Sa_15:1. Omitted in Sept. (Vat., not Alex.); Syr. has “Israel his people,” while Vulg. and some MSS. have “his people Israel.” These may be free renderings, or may point to different texts.—Tr.]
[2][1Sa_15:1. Wanting in Vat., Sept., and Vulg., and perhaps in Arab. (though Ar. קול is ratherדבר than קול). The Heb. is not to be regarded as a later insertion to avoid an anthropomorphism “voice of God” (but the Targ. has “the word of the saying of Jehovah”) but simply as a full expression (comp. קוֹל י׳ 1Sa_15:20; 1Sa_15:22 of this ch.). The Heb. קוֹל is equivalent to “word” (as in Arab.) in the phrase “hear the voice, obey the voice of Jehovah.”—Tr.]
[3][1Sa_15:2. The word (פּקד) means “visit,” “inspect,” “fix the mind on,” Vulg. recensui, Aq. ἐπεσκεψάμην. Others render (improperly) “will punish,” so Sept. ἐκδικήσω, Berl. Bib. will heimsuchen, De Wette ahnden, Gesen. (Thes. s. v.). The signification “punish” exists, but the future sense does not accord so well with the following verse.—Tr.]
[4][1Sa_15:2. שׂוּם with לְ “to set one’s self against.” In the corresponding passage in Deut. (1Sa_25:17-19) the word קרה is used “to go to meet” in hostile sense, and it is added “cut off thy rear-guard,” which perhaps in part suggested the rendering of Eng. A. V., which is found only here, comp. Jer_9:7 (8). The Targ., however, has “laid wait” (כמן), and Syr. and Arab. omit.—Tr.]
[5][1Sa_15:3. Sept.: “Destroy him and all his,” which is preferred by Wellhausen. The Greek text contains a duplet, and the Vulg. adds “et non concupiscas ex rebus ipsius aliquid.” The “utterly” which Eng. A. V. everywhere employs in rendering the word חרם is as good an expression of the idea, perhaps, as is available. See translator’s note in the body of the work.—Tr.]
[6][1Sa_15:4. Sept. “Gilgal” (see Erdmann), Syr. Teloyo or Teloye, Arab. Tawila. Chald., Vulg. and others have taken the word as appellative; Chald.: “by paschal lambs,” on which Rashi (Breithaupt’s translation) says: “Saul told every man to take a lamb from the royal flocks, and then he numbered the lambs, since it was forbidden (Gen_16:10, al.) to number the Israelites;” Anonymous Greek version (in the Hexapla) ἅρμασιν for ἄρνασιν; Vulg.: quasi agnos.—Tr.]
[7][1Sa_15:4. “It is strange that Judah forms only the twenty-first part of the army, and that ‘footmen’ and ‘men of Judah’ stand opposed to one another” (Wellh.). Syr: “two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand with the men of Judah.” The text is not clear.—Tr.]
[8][1Sa_15:5. The definite Art. is better, since it was certainly the principal (possibly, the only) city of the Amalekites. Perhaps it was called Ir-Amalek (Bib. Comm.). Sept. has “cities,” and so Josephus (Bib. Comm.).—Tr.]
[9][1Sa_15:5. On the Heb. verb-form see Erdmann.—Tr.]
[10][1Sa_15:5. The bed of a winter-torrent, or, a ravine through which flows a brook or torrent; Arab. Wady.—Tr.]
[11][1Sa_15:6. On account of the absence of the Art. in the Heb. Wellhausen proposes to read קַיִן (as in Num_24:22; Jdg_4:11).—Tr.]
[12][1Sa_15:7. The general direction is here given, as in Gen_25:18 (where, apparently, for אַשּׁוּר we must read שׁוּר).—Tr.]
[13][1Sa_15:9. On the forms on this verse see Erdmann. Sept.: “the good of the flocks and of the herds and of the eatables (מַשְׁמַנִּים) and of the vines (כְּרָמִים).” For מִשְׁנִים (Eng. A. V. “fatlings)” Vulg. has vestibus, perhaps reading מְכַסִּים, or (Bib. Comm.). שָׁנִים. Wellhausen transposes the עַל from the fourth word to the third and renders: “the best of the sheep and oxen, the fat and well-fed animals.” As the text stands the third word is best rendered “second-rate,” which is not satisfactory. Proposed different readings are discussed in the exposition.—Tr.]
[14][1Sa_15:11. The meaning here is not clear. The Heb. phrase (וַיִחַר לְ) usually means “was angry,” properly “was hot, excited,” not only by anger, but (as in Arab., Gesen., Fuerst) by any emotion, as grief. It is difficult, however, to establish the sense “was sorry;” the most favorable passage, Gen_45:5, is not decisive, and, indeed, is commonly rendered “be not angry.” If Samuel here was angry, it was either with Saul (which is improbable), or with himself (for which there is no reason), or with God (which we should not expect in Samuel), or with the general situation of affairs (which includes the others in part or in whole). The indefinite word “grieved” might therefore, be retained in the translation.—Tr.]
[15][1Sa_15:12. Pregnant construction for “rose up and went to meet Saul.” Such constructions are common in Hebrew.—Tr.]
[16][1Sa_15:12. The Sept. here badly transposes the names Samuel and Saul.—Tr.]
[17][1Sa_15:12. יָד clearly here “monument.” Its relation to יד “hand” and its original stem are not known.—Tr.]
[18][1Sa_15:13. Sept. inserts: “and he was offering sacrifices,” though it is clear from the narrative that Samuel had not seen the animals, 1Sa_15:14 (Wellh.).—Tr.]
[19][1Sa_15:14. The Heb. Art. is here better omitted in Eng.—Tr.]
[20][1Sa_15:15. Sept.: I.—Tr.]
[21][1Sa_15:17, The natural translation is: “though thou art little in thy eyes, art thou not head of the tribes of Israel?” as in Sept.: after which it would then be better to begin a new sentence and continue it in 1Sa_15:18. “Jehovah anointed thee and sent thee.” The past rendering, however, (as in Eng. A. V. Erdmann) is possible.—Tr.]
[22][1Sa_15:18. The pron. is repeated here in the Heb., probably by clerical error.—Tr.]
[23][1Sa_15:20. There is nothing in the Heb. corresponding to “yea.” The אֲשֶׁר here introduces oratio recta (as ὅτι in later Greek).—Tr.]
[24][1Sa_15:20. Sept. badly “the voice of the people.”—Tr.]
[25][1Sa_15:23. The Heb. order, in which the predicate precedes the subject, is more forcible, and not likely to be misunderstood by most Eng. readers. So it is stronger to omit the “as” which is not in the Heb. The word rendered “iniquity” in Eng. A. V. (אָוֶן) means “nothingness,” and is used of sin in general, and frequently of idolatry or idols, as here. The Vers., except Vulg. and Chald., are here confused. Chald.: “as the sin of the men who inquire by divination is the sin of every man who rebels against the word of Jehovah, and, as the sin of the people who wander after errors (idols) is the sin of every man who heaps up and adds to the words of the prophets.”—Tr.]
[26][1Sa_15:29. נֵצַח is variously rendered. Chald. and Syr. have same stem as Heb., idea of power, eminence; Vulg., triumphator; Luther, held (hero); Martin, force; Diodati, vittoria (victory); De Wette, vertrauen (confidence, trust); Van Ess., wahrheit (truth); Erdmann, hort (refuge). The Sept. and an anonymous Greek version misunderstood this word, and rendered (as if from חצץ) “and Israel shall be divided into two parts, and shall not return.” The Chald. paraphrases in order to avoid the anthropomorphic expressions of the text.—Tr.]
[27][1Sa_15:32. So Chaldee. Sept., “trembling,” Vulg., pinguissimus et tremens, Aq. ἀπὸ τρυφερίας “delicately, daintily,” and so Sym. ἁβρός.—Tr.]
[28][Another view is that the Amalekites were an ancient Arabian tribe (Gen_14:7), afterwards partially fused with Edomites (Gen_36:12; Gen_36:16). So Ewald (Gesch. I. 331), Knobel (V. T., § 22), and see Smith’s Bib. Dict. s. v. For the view of the text see Herzog R. E., s.v.—Tr.]
[29][That is, “set array against,” instead of “laid wait for,” as in Eng. A. V.—Tr.]
[30]This war seems to be the same as that mentioned in 1Sa_14:48; but no date is given, and the chronology throughout is difficult.—Tr.]
[31] וַיָּרֶב is Hiph. of אָרַב, contracted from וַיַּאֲרֵב, Ew. § 232 a.
[32][Or, to carry him in triumph (Gill), or because of the comeliness of his person (Joseph.).—Tr.]
[33][On these names see “Text. and Grammat.” No satisfactory rendering of them has yet been given.”—Tr.]
[34] מְלָאכָה, from the connection, refers to cattle, as in Gen_33:14—נְמִבְזָה. Ewald holds that this cannot be Niph. Part. from מִבְזֶה, “contempt,” and thinks the text corrupt, § 126 b, Anm. 1 [yet remarks that the book of Samuel presents many examples of strange words from the popular dialect]. Perhaps it is a mingling of נִמְזָה, “sucked out,” and נִבְזָה, “despised” (Böttcher). But it is possible that this last word was corrupted in the popular language, so as to produce alliteration with the following word by the arbitrarily inserted מ. The second predicate נָמֵם is [Ni. Partcp.] from מָסַם, “to melt,” the “ruined, mangy cattle.” Masc. and Fem. here stand together abnormally, as in 1Ki_19:11.
[35][See Gill in loco for a good statement of this.—Tr.]
[36][See a good note in Bib. Comm. on Samuel’s complete acquiescence in the divine decision which at first (1Sa_15:11) so grieved him, and our duty always to trust God.—Tr.]
[37][On this construction see “Text. and Grammat.” in loco.—Tr.]
[38]Instead of כַּלּוֹתָם read ־תְךָ with Sept., Chald., Syr., Arab.
[39] תּעט Impf. Qal. of עיט with Dag. forte implic. Ges. § 72, Rem. 9.
[40][On the difficult subject of the nature of witchcraft and its treatment in the Old Testament see Art. “Magic” in Herzog’s R. E.—Tr.]
[41] מִן with subst. may be predicate when a preceding closely attached verb leaves no doubt as to the sense, Ew. § 337 b.
[42][On this word see “Text. and Grammat.”—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13 Amalek--the powerful tribe which inhabited the country immediately to…
Amalek--the powerful tribe which inhabited the country immediately to the eastward of the northern Cushites. Their territory extended over the whole of the eastern portion of the desert of Sinai to Rephidim--the earliest opponent (Deu 25:18; Exo 17:8-16) --the hereditary and restless enemy of Israel (Num 14:45; Jdg 3:13; Jdg 6:3), and who had not repented (Sa1 14:48) of their bitter and sleepless hatred during the five hundred years that had elapsed since their doom was pronounced. Being a people of nomadic habits, they were as plundering and dangerous as the Bedouin Arabs, particularly to the southern tribes. The national interest required, and God, as KING OF ISRAEL, decreed that this public enemy should be removed. Their destruction was to be without reservation or exception.
I remember--I am reminded of what Amalek did--perhaps by the still remaining trophy or memorial erected by Moses (Exo 17:15-16).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 SAUL’S WAR WITH AMALEK, 1Sa_15:1-9.
SAUL’S WAR WITH AMALEK, 1Sa_15:1-9.
Jehovah deigns to give Saul’s obedience one more test. He has already warned him that, because of disobedience, his kingdom shall not be established in his posterity, (1Sa_13:14;) but ere he utters the final oracle of rejection he affords him one more trial. Occasion for this is found in the war with the Amalekites, those ancient enemies whose wanton hostility to the chosen people had, even in the days of Moses, drawn down upon them the curse of God. See Exo_17:8-16; Deu_25:17-19.
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1. The Lord sent me to anoint thee — The same Divine authority that made him king now commissions him to destroy the fierce, wicked Amalekites. 1Sa_14:48, suggests that this war on Amalek was not without fresh provocation. Those spoilers had probably made a predatory incursion into the southern borders, like that mentioned 1Sa_30:1.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18 Ch. 1Sa_15:1-9. Saul’s commission to destroy Amalek
Ch. 1Sa_15:1-9. Saul’s commission to destroy Amalek
1. Samuel also said] And Samuel said. How long after the repulse of the Philistines this happened, we are not told. Some years at least must be allowed for the evident development of that wilfulness which was Saul’s ruin.
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The Lord sent me] Me did Jehovah send. The pronoun stands emphatically at the head of the sentence. The prophet appeals to his former commission to anoint Saul as accrediting him to be God’s messenger on the present occasion. “The note of special warning” with which he prefaces the command indicates that he felt that “the discipline of Saul’s life was gathering itself up into a special trial,” and that this would be “a crisis in that life-history, with which by God’s own hand his own had been so strangely intertwined.” Wilberforce’s Heroes of Hebrew History, p. 219.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 (1Sa_15:1-3) Samuel also said unto Saul . . .—The…
(1Sa_15:1-3) Samuel also said unto Saul . . .—The compiler of the history, selecting, no doubt, from ancient state records, chose to illustrate the story of the reign and rejection of Saul by certain memorable incidents as good examples of the king’s general life and conduct. The incidents were also selected to show the rapid development of the power and resources of Israel at this period.
The sacred war with Amalek is thus introduced without any “note of time.”
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The Lord sent me to anoint thee.—The account of the Amalekite war is prefaced by the solemn words used by the seer when he came to announce the Eternal’s will to Saul. They are quoted to show that the war was enjoined upon Israel in a general official way by the accredited prophet-messenger of the Most High.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–18 DIVINE COMMAND TO PUNISH THE AMALEKITES, AND ITS EXECUTION…
DIVINE COMMAND TO PUNISH THE AMALEKITES, AND ITS EXECUTION BY SAUL (vers. 1-9).
Samuel also said. Better literally, "And Samuel said." There is no note of time, but probably a considerable interval elapsed before this second trial of Saul was made. God does not finally reject a man until, after repeated opportunities for repentance, he finally proves obdurate. David committed worse crimes than Saul, but he had a tender conscience, and each fall was followed by deep and earnest sorrow. Saul sinned and repented not. Just, then, as Eli had a first warning, which, though apparently unconditional in its terms, (1Sa_2:27-36) was really a call to repentance, and was only made irrevocable by his persistence for many years in the same sins, (1Sa_3:11-14) so was it with Saul. The prophet"s words in 1Sa_13:13, 14 were a stern warning, and had Saul taken them to heart, God would have forgiven him his sin. He repented not, but repeated the offence, and so the sentence was confirmed. When, then, critics say that we have two accounts of Saul"s rejection, and that he is represented as having been set aside first for one reason and then for another, their objection arises entirely from a false view of God"s dealings with mankind. Alike promises and threatenings, blessings and punishments are conditional; for there is no heathen fatalism in Holy Scripture, but mercy waiting to triumph over justice. God, then, was not willing lightly to cast away so noble an instrument as Saul. His first sin too had been committed when he was new in the kingdom, and in a position of danger and difficulty. He waits, therefore, till Saul has had some years of success and power, and his character has developed itself, and is taking its permanent form; and then again gives him a trial in order to test his fitness to be a theocratic king. The interest, then, of this chapter lies in the unfolding of Saul"s character, and so it follows immediately upon ch. 14., which was occupied with the same subject, without any note of chronology, because the historical narrative is subservient to the personal. Hence, too, Samuel"s solemn address, reminding Saul that he was Jehovah"s anointed one, and therefore had special duties towards him; that he had also been anointed by Samuel"s instrumentality, and after earnest instruction as to his duties; and, finally, that Israel was Jehovah"s people, and their king, therefore, bound to obey Jehovah"s commands.
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Vers. 1-7.
God"s terrible acts.
The facts are
1. Saul is reminded that though a king he is but the servant of God, andbound to carry out his declared will.
2. Saul is commanded to utterly destroy Amalek in retribution for former sins.
3 . In prosecuting his duty Saul discriminates in favour of the Kenites, then resident among the Amalekites, in consequence of their former kindness to Israel. It appears from 14:48 that, although the sin of Amalek in bygone (Exo_17:8-16) was the primary ground of the judgment about to be inflicted, the recent annoyance and injury caused to Saul"s subjects was the occasion for the execution of the ancient sentence at this juncture. Those living under the mild and beneficent influences of the Christian dispensation are conscious of a shock to their sensibilities in reading the account of wholesale destruction brought by human instrumentality on an entire people; and the emotional disturbance is supplemented by intellectual perplexity on observing that the transaction was in obedience to a most explicit command of God. It is sometimes the practice, very easy for all who will not take pains to enter carefully into the subject, to get rid of the emotion and the perplexity by rejecting the inspiration of the entire record, or else by saying that Samuel and Saul sincerely but ignorantly mistook their own views of policy and dispositions of heart for the voice of God. The question at issue is a large one, but as it embraces in principle the whole of what in the Psalms are called his "terrible acts," which, whenever occurring or read, tax our feelings and perplex our intellects, we may notice a few points applicable more or less to all God"s righteous judgments.
I THE SPIRIT WITH WHICH WE SHOULD APPROACH THE CONSIDERATION OF GOD"S "TERRIBLE ACTS." It is not improbable that an unteachable, self-assertive spirit a spirit that will not repose in a higher wisdom and goodness than its own, or that chafes under its inability to square human views of sin and its relations with God"s is the moral cause of man"s quarrel with some of the records of Old Testament history. Our present contention is not with atheists, who to get rid of one difficulty create many others, but with those who believe in an almighty, all-wise, and merciful God, who is the Author of the moral and physical laws, by the action of which the world finds bliss or woe. We cannot help finding ourselves face to face with events bringing sorrow add shame, material and moral desolation to multitudes, because God so willed one creature"s condition to be affected by the conduct of another. Apart from all human conduct, there are awful events in which, so to speak, the reputation of God for goodness and tenderness seems to be at stake. This circumstance should make the rejecter of Old Testament records pause ere he yields to the spirit of unbelief. There are "clouds and darkness" round about the throne; and he who would flee from mystery may well seek to flee from the universe. The judgment that condemns everything of which it does not see the reason is not qualified to exercise itself on the acts of an infinite Being. The cherubim and seraphim cover their faces, not presuming to attempt to pierce even with their clear and strong vision the ineffable glory; and so when a great burden of fear rests on our heart because of the terrible things of God, it is for us to bow in lowliness and trustfulness, saying for our comfort, because of what we know him to be, and not because we can solve the awful problems of existence, "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?". (Rev_15:3, Rev_15:4; cf. Psa_36:6)
II FACTS AND PRINCIPLES THAT SHOULD WEIGH WITH US IN OUR THOUGHTS UPON GOD"S "TERRIBLE ACTS." It is not possible to find a perfect solution of all the acts ascribed to God, or even those known, without question, to result from his appointments. But some light shines around the "clouds and darkness," and here and there a rift in the awful covering appears.
1. There is an awful as well as a mild aspect of the Divine nature. Christianity is no doubt mildness, tenderness, peace, love all that is precious to the sorrowing, perplexed spirit. The tendency of some, however, is to overlook the significant fact that all this becomes real to us in virtue of the awful sufferings and death of the Son of God. The fact, and
2. the evident necessity of the fact, for otherwise it would not occur, of his unutterable woes is perhaps the most stupendous of all terrible acts known by man. There was the love that gave him for man; yes, and the awful righteousness which had so originally constituted the moral relations of men to a holy God that love could only effect its work through a catastrophe, on which angels must have gazed with perplexity, and possibly pain, greater than any we know when contemplating a ruined Amalek or a world swept by deluge. It is an imperfect Christianity which eliminates the majesty of righteousness in Law. He who said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," is the same who one day will say, "Depart." "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." The "wrath of the Lamb" is as real as his love.
3. The events which confound our thought are not confined to the Scripture record. Who shall estimate the pains of death experienced during the succession of catastrophes incident to the history of our globe? It is probable that the number of Amalekites who fell under the judgment of God was less than the sum of young and old who in one day experience the "pains of death" by the ordination of God. The destruction caused by the deluge, the fire on Sodom, the waters on the Egyptians, is not greater in the number of lives cut off than what befell the thousands cut off by events not mentioned in the Bible. What though the events the sweeping calamities of famine, plague, earthquake, and flood, and the daily sufferings and death of thousands of young and old be the outcome of law! God is the Author of that law, and, therefore, the events are in a significant sense his, as truly as were the ruin of Sodom and the doom of the Amalekites. No doubt the sum of enjoyment in the lives of creatures cut off by catastrophes was far in excess of the sum of misery experienced in the cutting of them off, and so a philosopher can still rest in the benevolence of God. Sudden destruction is not identical with a whole existence given up only to anguish.
1. So far as we can see, the great woes that come by ordinary law and by special command are alike subordinate to an ulterior issue. Although we speak of some events occurring by the action of natural law,e.g. earthquakes, floods, famines, and plagues, yet those in which the specific command appears are also according to law. The difference lies in the fact of the Divine origin of the arrangement which issues in destruction being brought out and emphasised. The laws that work ruin in fire and tempest and flood are subordinate to the higher laws involved in the perfect economy of the world. Laws involving incidental disasters subserve the
2. conservation of the whole system of which they are a part. The laws which bring destruction to men who have sinned, and because they have sinned, are subordinate to the moral laws that govern man"s relation to God. They are so interrelated, in these instances, as to be parts of one great system, and to subserve the final supremacy of the law of righteousness on which the health and well being of the world depend. It is a Divine ordination, and is incorporated with the physical and mental constitution of man, that the sin of the fathers shall be visited, not to the exclusion from woe of the parent, but intensifying it, on the third and fourth generation. We see this law at work every day. Awful as it is, we can even now see its value as subservient to the righteousness which alone makes men blessed; for it is a most potent check to vice. Irrespective of their own immoral condition, the cutting off of the Amalekites for the sin of their ancestors is analogous to the shortened lives, the wretched health, the filthy poverty, and other miseries which are the inevitable lot of the offspring of the desperately vicious; and this for ulterior issues.
3. Nations have no posthumous existence. For individuals judgment is often reserved till another life. Nations, if visited with judgment at all, must suffer here. In the instruction of the individual, the fact of the coming punishment of the individual sinner bears an important part as a deterrent. In the instruction of nations as such, the signal and conspicuous punishment of a people also plays an important part. This use of national judgments is constantly recognised in the language of Scripture. "The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations" (Isa_52:10): "Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men". (Psa_9:20) At the same time the judgments which on earth come on nations as such do not necessarily foreclose hope to the young and innocent among them of a personal salvation from the woe due to the personally guilty in another life.
1. God is the only true Judge of the actual demerits of a guilty nation. We cannot rightly estimate the intrinsic evil even of our own personal sins. "The Judge of all the earth" must decide what is appropriate punishment for national crime; for he only knows the degree of enmity in the minds of Sodomites and Amalekites. None but he can see the intricate bearings of their sin and of their continued existence as a people. He also knows best what blessed deterrent influence will arise to mankind from the conspicuous character of the judgment executed.
2. The means by which judgment is executed appear to be determined by conditions known to God. Judgment works inwardly through the conscience and the mental faculties in general. They bear the curse of the sin committed. It also works externally by the pressure against the sinner of the order of nature, which is in league with righteousness, and ultimately makes "the way of transgressors hard." Nations have not a very lively conscience. The force of Divine judgments usually comes from without. The instrumentality used is evidently connected with the actual presence of forces which, acting in a natural way under the preordained direction of the Omniscient, become "his arm." Doubtless there were physical conditions of earth and atmosphere which rendered destruction by a deluge both natural and yet conspicuously of God. The Sodomites were destroyed not by water, nor slow plague, nor famine, but by the natural combustible materials close at hand. The Amalekites were not left to die out by internal anarchy, or famine, or pestilence, but were given up to the action of that international hostility which was as real an element of destruction close at hand as was the volcanic force at Sodom. He who in his vast prevision, seeing the coexistence of the vices of antediluvians with certain fluvial conditions of a portion of the earth, and the coexistence of the sin of Sodom with certain volcanic conditions, used them for this purpose, may have also given full freedom to the play of national sentiment in the minds of Israel coexisting at that juncture with the fit time for the execution of a purpose to obliterate a guilty nation. Had pestilence or earthquake carried them off, it would have been God"s act as truly as when the soldiers of Saul were the executioners of a decree. The employment of an executioner gives no right, but the reverse, to others to go and do the same.
3. The form of punishment on communities under the Old Testament dispensation is evidently suggestive of the danger of antagonism to Christ.
The sin of Amalek was that of deliberate attempt to destroy the people of Exo_17:8-16; Deu_25:17-19. That means to prevent the realisation of salvation in the "seed of Abraham." If Amalek knew, as is certainly possible, the lofty claims of Israel, the crime was most fearful. That in the mind of God and of Israel such was the nature of the sin is seen in the discrimination made in favour of the Kenites because they showed kindness to Israel (ver. 6). It is at all events clear that God would have men learn that it was the sin of obstructing his purposes of mercy for mankind that was so obnoxious in his sight. The terrible national destruction which this sin brought on is a clear intimation of the "destruction from the presence of the Lord" which must come on the individuals who set themselves in antagonism to Christ and his purposes of mercy to the world. A more terrible sin than that cannot be conceived; a more terrible act of judgment cannot be imagined than that which will come when Christ shall say, "Depart from me, ye cursed". (Mat_25:41) "It is a fearful thing," even under the gospel dispensation, "to fall into the hands of the living God" after a life of deliberate antagonism to the very Saviour he has sent to redeem us. Although, therefore, there may be much in the recorded "terrible acts" of God which weighs on our spirit and demands of us reverence and humility, still we are not without some gleams of light to sustain our faith both in the sacred records and the righteousness which never fails.
General lessons:
1. We see how judgment does surely come, though for generations it seems to linger.
2. It becomes us to inquire whether we by any conduct of ours areimpeding the march of God"s people.
3. We see how God remembers, and causes his servants to remember, actsof kindness rendered to the weary on their way to the promised rest.
4. It is a painful duty to have to be executors of God"s judgments; yetwhen men in national and domestic affairs are really called to it, let them subordinate personal sentiment to solemn duty.
5. In all our painful thoughts over the woes that come on the universe,involving the young and old, let us seek grace to "be still," and to wait for the passing away of the night and the coming of the light that shall turn weeping into joy; for it will come.
HOMILIES BY B. DALE. Vers. 1-9. (GIBEAH.)
A probationary commission.
1. The fidelity of Saul to the principle of his appointment, viz. obedience to the will of Jehovah, was once and again put to the test. He had been tried by inaction, delay, and distress, which became the occasion of his being tempted to distrust, and the use of his power for his own safety, in opposition to the word of God. (1Sa_13:11) He had been tried by enterprise, encouragement, and the expectation of brilliant success, which became the occasion of his being tempted to presumption in entering rashly upon his own ways, and adopting "foolish and hurtful devices" for conquest and glory, independently of the counsel of God. (1Sa_14:19, 1Sa_14:24) He must now be tried by victory, power, and prosperity. Having chastised his enemies on every side, (1Sa_14:47) his assured success becomes the final test of his character and fitness to rule over Israel.
2. The temptations of Saul may he compared with those of others, and especially with the three temptations of Christ (Mat_4:1-10; Luk_4:1-12) which are "an epitome of all the temptations, moral and spiritual, which the devil has contrived for man from the day of his first sin unto this very hour." The antecedents in both cases, the circumstances under which the temptations occurred, the principles to which they appealed, the inducements which they presented, the means afforded for their resistance, and their result, are all suggestive. Where the first king of Israel failed the last King of Israel prevailed, and whilst Saul was rejected, Jesus was perfected, and "crowned with glory and honour". (Luk_22:28, Luk_22:29; Heb_2:10, Heb_2:18)
3. The commission of Saul to execute judgment upon the Amalekites was brought to him by Samuel, whose authority as the prophet of the Lord he never called in question, however much he may have acted contrary to his directions. After Saul exhibited a determination to have his own way, Samuel seems to have exerted little influence over him. At the battle of Michmash the high priest Ahiah was his only spiritual counsellor. It became more and more evident that he wished to establish a "kingdom of this world," like the surrounding heathen kingdoms, in opposition to the design of God concerning Israel, which the prophet represented and sought to carry into effect; and it was inevitable that, with such contrary aims, a conflict should arise between them. "The great prophet"s voice brings him a new commission from his God, and preludes it by a note of very special warning: "The Lord sent me," etc. This tone of adjuration surely tells all. It speaks the prophet"s judgment of his character, of prayers and intercessions, of days of watching and nights of grief for one he loved so well, as he saw growing on that darkening countenance the deepening lines of willfulness. The prophet sees that it will be a crisis in that life history with which by God"s own hand his own had been so strangely entwined? The commission was
I DIVINELY APPOINTED (ver. 1).
1. When a communication enjoining the performance of any action comes unquestionably from God. it should be unhesitatingly obeyed. His authority is supreme, his power is infinite, and his commands are right and good. It does not follow that everything he directs men to do in one age is obligatory on all others in every age. But some things he has undoubtedly enjoined upon us all.
2. When such a communication is made with peculiar directness and solemnity, it should be obeyed with peculiar attention and circumspection, for important issues are involved in its faithful or faithless observance. "if thou hast failed in other things, take heed that thou fail not in this.
3. When special privilege and honour have been bestowed upon men by God they are placed under special obligations of obedience to him. "Though thou wast little in thine own sight," etc. (ver. 17).
II JUSTLY DESERVED by those against whom it was directed (ver. 2) sinners the Amalekites" (ver. 18).
1. Some sins are marked by an unusual degree of criminality and guilt. Like the people of Israel, the Amalekites were descendants of Abraham; (Amalek being the grandson of Esau Gen_36:12, Gen_36:16) but they attacked them at Rephidim on their way through the desert, and strove to annihilate (Exo_17:8-16) they lay in wait for them secretly and subtly, and smote the hindermost, the feeble, the faint and weary, and "feared not. (Deu_25:17-19) Their conduct was ungenerous, unprovoked, cruel, and utterly godless.
2. Special sins are perpetuated in families and nations and increase in intensity. The Amalekites were hereditary, open, and deadly foes of Israel (Num_14:45; Jud_1:3:13 6:3) They lived by plunder, andwere guilty of unsparing bloodshed (ver. 33). Some fresh act of cruelty may have shown that they were "ripe for the judgment of extermination.
3. Sinners long spared and persisting in flagrant transgression bring uponthemselves sudden, signal, and overwhelming destruction. If judgment is pervaded and limited by mercy, mercy has also limits beyond which it does not pass, and they who despise it must perish. Men may forget what God has spoken; (Exo_17:14) but he remembers it, and fulfils his word at the proper time. "Injuries done to the people of God will sooner or later be reckoned for." Impenitent sinners "treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath". (Rom_2:5) It accumulates like a gathering thundercloud or an Alpine avalanche, (Luk_11:50, Luk_11:51) and it frequently comes upon them by ways and means such as they themselves have chosen. The Amalekites put others to the sword and spared not; they must themselves be put to the sword and not be spared. The moral improvement of inveterate sinners by their continuance on earth is sometimes hopeless, and their removal by Divine judgment is necessary for the moral improvement and general welfare of other people with whom they are connected, and teaches valuable lessons to succeeding ages.
III FULLY EXPRESSED (vers. 3, 18). The will of God is made known in different forms and with various degrees of clearness, and some men, whilst acknowledging their obligation to obey it, have sought to justify themselves in the neglect of particular duties on the ground of their not having been fully directed. But this could not be the case with Saul, whose commission was
1. Imperative; so that there could be no excuse for evasion. "Go and smite Amalek.
2. Plain; so that its meaning could not be mistaken, except by the most inattentive and negligent of men. "Utterly destroy (devote to destruction). Fight against them until they be consumed.
3. Minute; so that no room was left for the exercise of discretion as to the manner or extent of its fulfilment. It required simple, literal obedience, such as is now required in many things. "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
IV ZEALOUSLY COMMENCED (vers. 4, 5, 7). The "journey on which he was sent" (ver. 18) was entered upon by Saul with something of the same energy and zeal which he had formerly displayed against the Ammonites, but the deterioration which had since taken place in his character by the possession of power soon appeared.
1. The work to which men are called in the way of duty sometimes bears aclose affinity to their natural temperament and disposition.
2. Men may appear to others, and even to themselves, to be very zealous for the Lord whilst they are only doing what is naturally agreeable to themselves. "Come with me," said Jehu, "and see my zeal for the Lord". (2Ki_10:16, 2Ki_10:31) "But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel." Saul of Tarsus, like Saul of Gibeah, appeared to be fighting for God when he was really fighting against him.
3. The real nature of their zeal is manifested when the requirements of God come into collision with their convenience, pleasure, ambition, or self-interest. Then the hidden spring is laid bare.
V UNFAITHFULLY EXECUTED (vers. 8, 9). "Spared Agag, and the best of the sheep," etc., "and would not destroy them." "He hath turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments" (ver. 11).
1. There may be the performance of many things along with the neglect or refusal to perform others of equal or of greater importance. Saul was "a type of those who are willing to do something as against the world and on behalf of Christ, but by no means willing to do all that they ought to do." Herod "did many things, and heard John gladly", (Mar_6:20) but he would not give up his ruling passion.
2. Disobedience in one thing often manifests the spirit of disobedience in all things. It shows that the heart and will are not surrendered to the Lord, and without such a surrender all else is worthless. In Saul"s sparing Agag and the best of the sheep, etc, we have "a melancholy example of sparing sins and evils that should be slain, and sheltering and harbouring them under false pretences by unworthy pleas and excuses.
3. The love of self is the supreme motive of those who refuse to obey God. Saul was actuated by covetousness (ver. 19), worldly mindedness (Mat_4:9; 1Jn_2:15, 1Jn_2:16) and vainglorious pride, which are only different forms of the love of self. "Behold, he set him up a monument, and is gone about (as in a triumphal procession), and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal" (ver. 12), intending probably to make a display of the royal captive for his own glory; perhaps to make him a tributary prince and a source of profit. "Pride arising from the consciousness of his own strength led him astray to break the command of God. His sin was open rebellion against the sovereignty of the God of Israel; for he no longer desired to be the medium of the sovereignty of Jehovah, or the executor of the commands of the God king, but simply wanted to reign according to his own arbitrary will" (Keil). D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 11, 14 Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that…
1Sa_15:2-3
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel.
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National sins and national punishments
We turn from Saul to the case of those against whom he was sent. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Then God does remember sin. He not only notices it, but remembers it. A lengthened period had transpired since the Amalekites had thus manifested their sympathy with the enemies of Israel, by throwing hindrances in the way of Gods chosen people as they came out of Egypt to Canaan. And, to all appearance, their sin might have been regarded as consigned to oblivion. But God had declared that it should not be forgotten. (Exo_17:14, Deu_25:17-19.) Upon the oblivion of four centuries there broke the awful tones of Almighty Justice: I remember that, which Amalek did From that Infinite Mind there had been no obliteration of the crime; clear as the day on which it had been committed, that sin stood out to view. I remember. Divine forbearance with generation after generation had been long, but upon them that forbearance had been lost, and it is evident they had not profited by it. They still remained the foes of Israel; their conduct as a nation was marked by excessive cruelty; and it was a horrible notoriety which their king had obtained for the multitudes of mothers whom, in his bloodthirstiness, his sword had rendered childless. In the determination on the part of God now to punish, the utterance of which was prefaced by those emphatic words, I remember, we are distinctly taught the lesson that the conduct of nations is a point to which the eye of God is directed, and that it is the matter for which His just penalty will be reserved. Whole nations come within the reach of His rod. By the individuals composing a community, and whose personal welfare or woe is necessarily identified with the condition of the community, there is a great danger that national sin should be regarded rather as an abstraction than as a reality, rather as an ideal than a substantial criminality. But it is not thus that God, in the incident before us, deals with it. He affixes it, as a substantive charge, upon the community. We have a rule here to which we find no exception. But nowhere does this rule meet with so fearful an exemplification as in the case of that very people whose guardian God showed Himself to be in this act of visiting Amaleks transgression--that very Israel on whose behalf He was now standing up to repel insult and to avenge injury. I remember--read it in those seventy years exile from the land which had been given for an inheritance--that long and dreary period, during which Zions history was thus announced in plaintive tones by the prophet, How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! etc. I remember--read it in its reiterated and double-telling tones in that second destruction which succeeded a second opportunity given to the Hebrew people of a sound national repentance and reformation--that second opportunity which was lost when formalism was substituted for spiritual religion. Hark to the words of mingled compassion and judgment which fall from His lips as He stands over against the city and wasps, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, etc. If national sin brings with it national calamity, then the lengthening out Of our prosperity must depend on the caution which is exercised, lest any sin should be permitted and indulged, until it shall become distinctive of our national character. Is there nothing among ourselves over which there floats, audible to the men who seek the best welfare of their country and deprecate its woe, the sound of that sentence, I remember? Are not its murmurs to be heard at this moment, amid political excitements and difficulties of administration? I remember the Sabbaths which are systematically broken by those who take their pleasure on my holy day. I remember the intemperance of those who rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them. I remember the want of truthfulness in the manner of conducting business, the unjust advantages taken of the buyer, the false representations made by the seller, although my word has declared that a false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight. I remember the concealed iniquity of men who, with a fancied impunity, perpetrated the foulest crimes, reckless of every consideration but that of inconvenient exposure. Our patriotism, to be effective, must be of the right stamp; and to prove itself of this stamp it must itself consent to learn its lessons from that chief source of all instruction, the Scriptures--confirmed, as the sacred teachings are, by the dispensations of Divine Providence There may be a diversity in the manner in which individuals may have been guilty, in reference to the sum total of the public guilt. Some may have been the direct actors, and others may have been partakers in their sins. From all which has been stated it will follow--
1. That it is a duty constantly incumbent upon us, as members of the community, to inquire into our personal relation to that public criminality of which God says, I remember it, and to make it the matter of our individual repentance and humiliation. If personally, and through Gods grace, these things cannot be described as committed by me, yet do I give any sanction to them in others? Do I protest against them? Do I exert my influence to lessen their amount?
2. The sins of nations, which call down wrath, being thus the accumulation of the sins of individuals, those will do most to prevent public calamity, to ensure national prosperity, and thus will do most for their country, who make a stand for God against that which would displease Him; who, in their own immediate spheres, seek, in dependence upon His grace, to yield to His authority, and to illustrate His religion; and who let their light so shine before men that they may see their good works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven. Personal religion is the best patriotism. The fear of God pervading mens hearts is the surest provision against national calamity, because it is the opposite of national sin. Go, then, and exercise your civil privileges, your social rights, in the fear of the God of nations. Set Him at your right hand. (J. A. Miller.)
The commission of judgment
The Amalekites are supposed by some to have descended from Amalek grandson of Esau (Gen_36:12) But against this view it may he forcibly objected:
1. That a nation so powerful and so widely diffused, could scarcely have sprung up in so short a period;
2. That the seat of Esau and his posterity was much more easterly than the realm of the Amalekites; and
3. That it is not easy to suppose such near relatives of Israel exposed to such a doom, while Edom and Moab were so scrupulously spared on account of their relationship. But it is not improbable that a brave and warlike chief like Esau might, through his family, wield a powerful influence among the desert tribes, and even supply them with a name. The matter, however, is not of importance, compared with the consideration of their crime and its punishment. The assault of the Amalekites was an offence of high aggravation. It was made when Israel had newly entered on their wanderings (Exo_17:8-16); and as the first onset of enemies it was marked by singular audacity, and attended with peculiar danger to Israel. They were ringleaders They broke the peace, and inaugurated a hostile dealing with the people. Moreover, their attack was entirely unprovoked. Besides the manner of attack was treacherous and cruel (Deu_25:17-19), he smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary. Hence, in Deu_25:18, the real point of the charge against Amalek is this: he feared not God.
There was something peculiarly daring and insolent in his conduct. He seems to have deliberately chosen the earliest period of assaulting them, undismayed by the terrible doings of the past, and undeterred by the pledged protection and guidance of the future. It was an eager and determined defiance of the God of Israel. Such an attitude and bearing must be providentially taken notice of. The sovereign Lord will set Himself right at once with the nations. His counsel shall stand. The daring sinners have despised His covenant with Israel; He will meet this by another covenant regarding them. Their destruction is decided by oath. Such is the whole case against Amalek. It might seem as if the bare statement of it were enough to vindicate the Divine dealing with them. But inasmuch as ungodly men have inveighed against this dealing, and have drawn from it dark colours wherewith to sketch a gloomy caricature of the Most High; and, particularly, inasmuch as natural feeling even in the good is ever liable to a relapse into disloyal sympathy with offending fellows, a few further remarks on the subject may do some useful service.
1. Whatever objection may be raised against the dealings of God in the case of Amalek applies equally to innumerable similar cases. Take, for example, the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake in 1755. Here we find actually occurring substantially the same woe that was denounced against Amalek. There is the same sudden, violent, widespread, indiscriminate ruin. The only differences are these: The destruction affected only a portion of the people; and the instrument employed was a blind material force, instead of an army of rational and moral beings. But these affect not the real identity of the two cases. On the question of justice, or of mercy, they fall into the same category. He who impeaches the justice of Amaleks overthrow must be prepared in consistency to carry his condemnation over the whole breadth of Gods providential government. To slay a great criminal, fierce, malignant, and strong, was in one view an act of self-defence, in another, an act of retribution; and to do it at the command of a holy God was a teat and a training of the highest spiritual affections of a creature.
2. No individual Amalekite suffered more than he deserved. To this it will be immediately answered: This is impossible, for children were involved in the doom of adult sinners. We own the fact, and the difficulty growing out of it. We are persuaded, moreover, that no reasoning of man shall ever fully dissipate the mysterious darkness that hangs about the death of infants. But the mystery and gloom refer mainly to the fact, not to the matter of its occurrence. It is indeed a sad and awful thing to see young buds torn violently from the stem of life by the rude hand of war. But, alas! the hand of other spoilers has made larger havoc. Disease has filled, by millions, more infant graves than war. Will they who cavil at the commanded slaughter of the sword explain and vindicate the larger mortality of disease? They call the ills of infancy natural. It is a gross mistake. They are unnatural, abnormal, manifestly punitive. And when we say punitive, we approach nearer a solution of the great problem--instead of, as some affirm, adding to its gloom. For whether does it present, most difficulty, to view this wide-wasting death of yet irresponsible beings as the infliction of pure sovereignty, or as the result of violated law! Is it not clear that when we interpose the idea of a federal relationship, a principle of representation, by which sin transmits its doom, as by natural descent it transmits its virus, to each rising generation, we have advanced a step outwards from the dark nucleus of the difficulty.
3. The visitation of vengeance was a valuable means of moral influence. To Israels heart it was fitted to carry impressive conviction of Gods immovable determination to carry out, His purposes of love, to be their bulwark against surrounding heathenism, and to preserve them for the glories and the happiness of the future. To Israels conscience it was fraught with most powerful stimulus--awfully reminding them of the lofty supremacy, unswerving veracity, and unsparing righteousness of their God. And so this dreadful sentence of extermination is most useful. The Lord has need of it. It is one of a series of judgments that lift their terrible tops in sight of hostile heathenism, and stand as sentinels of God around the sacred people. Human life is a sacred thing. But He surely knows this full well who has so carefully hedged it about, who marks even a sparrows fall, and who has in gratuitous tenderness left yet to this abode of rebels its music and its flowers. And the honour of that mighty Lord, the safety of His people, the accomplishment of His grand remedial designs, are immeasurably more sacred. (P. Richardson, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 14
CHAPTER X X I.
THE FINAL REJECTION OF SAUL
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1Sa_15:1-35.
HERE we find the second portion of God's indictment against Saul, and the reason for his final rejection from the office to which he had been raised. There is no real ground for the assertion of some critics that in this book we have two accounts of Saul's rejection, contradictory one of the other, because a different ground is asserted for it in the one case from that assigned in the other. The first rejection (1Sa_13:13-14) was the rejection of his house as the permanent dynasty of Israel, but it did not imply either that Saul was to cease to reign, or that God was to withdraw all countenance and co-operation with him as king. The rejection we read of in the present chapter goes further than the first. It does not indeed imply that Saul would cease to reign, but it does imply that God would no longer countenance him as king, would no longer make him his instrument of deliverance and blessing to Israel, but would leave him to the miserable feeling that he was reigning without authority. More than that, as we know from the sequel, it implied that God was about to bring his successor forward, and thereby exhibit both to him and to the nation the evidence of his degradation and rejection. It is likely that the transactions of this chapter occurred when Saul's reign was far advanced. If he had not been guilty of fresh disregard of God's will, though David would still have been his successor, he would have been spared the shame and misery of going out and in before his people like one who bore the mark of Cain, the visible expression of the Divine displeasure.
Throughout the whole of this chapter, God appears in that more stern and rigorous aspect of His character which is not agreeable to the natural heart of man. Judgment, we are told, is His strange work; it is not what He delights in; but it is a work which He cannot fail to perform when the necessity for it arises. There is a gospel which is often preached in our day that divests God wholly of the rigid, judicial character; it clothes Him with no attributes but those of kindness and love; it presents Him in a countenance ever smiling, never stern. It maintains that the great work of Christ in the world was to reveal this paternal aspect of God's character, to convince men of His fatherly feelings towards them, and to divest their minds of all those conceptions of indignation and wrath with which our minds are apt to clothe Him, and which the theologies of men are so ready to foster. But this is a gospel that says. Peace! peace! when there is no peace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does indeed reveal, and reveal very beautifully, the paternal character of God; but it reveals at the same time that judicial character which insists on the execution of His law. That God will execute wrath on the impenitent and unbelieving is just as much a feature of the Gospel as that He will bestow all the blessings of salvation and eternal life on them that believe. What the Gospel reveals respecting the sterner, the judicial, aspect of God's character is, that there is no bitterness in His anger against sinners; there is nothing in God's breast of that irritation and impatience which men are so apt to show when their fellow-men have offended them; God's anger is just. The calm, settled opposition of His nature to sin is the feeling that dictates the sentence "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." The Gospel is indeed a glorious manifestation of the love and grace of God for sinners, but it is not an indiscriminate assurance of grace for all sinners; it is an offer of grace to all who believe on God's Son, but it is an essential article of the Gospel that without faith in Christ the saving love and grace of God cannot be known. Instead of reducing the character of God to mere good-nature, the Gospel brings His righteousness more prominently forward than ever; instead of smoothing the doom of the impenitent, it deepens their guilt, and it magnifies their condemnation. Yes, my friends, and it is most whole- some for us all to look at times steadily in the face this solemn attribute of God, as the Avenger of the impenitent It shows us that sin is not a thing to be trifled with. It shows us that God's will is not a thing to be despised. There are just two alternatives for thee, O sinner, who art not making God's will the rule of thy life. Repent, believe, and be forgiven; continue to sin, and be lost forever.
The transaction in connection with which Saul was guilty of a fresh disregard of God's will was an expedition which was appointed for him against the Amalekites. This people had been guilty of some very atrocious treatment of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai, the details of which are not given. Nations having a corporate life, when they continue to manifest the spirit of preceding generations, are held responsible for their actions, and liable to the penalty. Saul was sent to inflict on Amalekite retribution that had been due so long for his perfidious treatment of Israel on the way to Canaan. In the narrative, various places are mentioned as being in the Amalekite territory, but their exact sites are not known; and indeed this matters little, all that it is important to know being that the Amalekites were mainly a nomadic people, occupying the fringe between Canaan and the desert on the south border of Palestine, and doubtless subsisting to a large extent on the prey secured by them when they made forays into the territories of Israel. Saul gathered a great army to compass the destruction of this bitter and hostile people.
In reading of the instructions he received to exterminate them, to ''slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass," we shudder to think of the fearful massacre which this involved. It was an order similar to that which the Israelites received to exterminate the inhabitants of Canaan, or that to destroy the Midianites, during the lifetime of Moses. Though it seems very horrible to us, in whose eyes human life has become very sacred, it probably excited little feeling of the kind in the breasts of the Israelites, accustomed as they were, and as all Eastern nations were, to think very little of human life, and to witness wholesale slaughter with little emotion. But there is one thing in the order that we must not overlook, because it gave a complexion to the transaction quite different from that of ordinary massacres. That circumstance was, that the prey was to be destroyed as well as the people In the case of an ordinary massacre, the conquering people abandon themselves to the license of their passions, and hasten to enrich themselves by appropriating everything of value on which they can lay their hands". In the case of the Israelites, there was to be nothing of the kind. They were to destroy the prey just as thoroughly as they were to destroy the people. They were to enrich themselves in nothing. Now, this was a most important modification of the current practice in such things. But for this restriction, the extermination of the Amalekites would have been a wild carnival of selfish passion. The restriction appointed to Saul, like that which Joshua had imposed at Jericho, bound the people to the most rigid self-restraint, under circumstances when self-restraint was extremely difficult. The extermination was to be carried into effect with all the solemnity of a judicial execution, and the soldiers were to have no benefit from it whatever, any more than the jailer or the hangman can have benefit from the execution of some wretched murderer.
Now, let it be observed that it was in entirely disregarding this restriction that a chief part of Saul's disobedience lay. ''Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly." The sparing of King Agag seems to have been a piece of vanity with Saul, for a conqueror returning home with a royal prisoner was greatly thought of in those Eastern lands. But the sparing of the prey was a matter of pure greed. Observe how the character of the transaction was wholly changed by this circumstance. Instead of wearing the aspect of a solemn retribution on a sinful nation, on a people laden with iniquity, all the more impressive because the ministers of God's vengeance abstained from appropriating a vestige of the property, but consigned the whole, like a plague-stricken mass, too polluted to be touched, to the furnace of destruction - instead of this, it just appeared like an ordinary unprincipled foray, in which the victorious party slew the other, mainly to get them out of the way and enable them without opposition to appropriate their goods. It was this consideration that made the offence of Saul so serious, that m.ade his breach of the Divine order so guilty. Had he no knowledge of the history of his people? Did he not remember what had happened at Jericho in the days of Joshua, when Achan stole the wedge of gold and the Babylonian garment, and, in spite of the fact that the rest of the people had behaved well and that God's purpose in the main was amply carried out, Achan and all his family were judicially stoned to death? How could Saul expect that such a flagrant violation of the Divine command in the case of the Amalekites, perpetrated not on the sly by a single individual, but openly by the king and all the people, could escape the retribution of God?
Such then was Saul's conduct in the affair of Amalek. The next incident in the narrative is the communication that took place regarding it between the Lord and Samuel. Speaking after the manner of men, God said. It repented Him that He had set up Saul to be king. That these words are not to be explained in a strictly literal sense is evident from what is said in 1Sa_15:29 : "The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for He is not a man that He should repent." The intimation to Samuel was equivalent to this: that God was now done with Saul. He had been weighed in the balances and found wanting. He had had his time of probation, and he had failed. He was joined to his idols, and must now be let alone. This last and very flagrant act of disobedience settled the matter. "My Spirit shall not always strive with man."
How did Samuel receive the announcement? "It grieved Samuel, and he cried to the Lord all night.'' It is the same word as is translated in Jonah, "It displeased Jonah." But there is nothing to show that Samuel was displeased with God. The whole transaction was disappointing, worrying, heart-breaking. Doubtless he had a certain liking for Saul. He admired his splendid figure and many fine kingly qualities. It was a terrible struggle to give him up. The Divine announcement threw his mind into a tumult. All night he cried unto the Lord. Doubtless his cry was somewhat similar to our Lord's cry in Gethsemane, "If it be possible, let this cup pass." If it be possible, recover Saul. And observe, Samuel had good cause to raise this cry on account of the man who would naturally have been Saul's successor. He must have had great complacency in Jonathan. If Saul was to be set aside, why should not Jonathan have the crown? On whose head would it sit more gracefully? In whose hand would the sceptre be held more suitably? But even this plea would not avail. It was God's purpose to mark the offence of Saul with a deeper stigma, and attach to it in the mind of the nation a more conspicuous brand, by cutting off his whole family and transferring the crown to a quite different line. It took the whole night to reconcile Samuel to the Divine sentence. How very deeply and tenderly must this man's heart have been moved by regard for Saul and for the people! In the morning, his soul seems to have returned to its quiet rest. His mood seems now to have been, ''Not my will but Thine be done!"
Next comes the meeting of Saul and Samuel. Samuel seems to have expected to meet Saul at Carmel - the Carmel of Nabal (1Sa_15:2) - but, perhaps on purpose to avoid him, Saul hastened to Gilgal. And when they met there, Saul, with no little audacity, claimed to have performed the commandment of the Lord. That this plea was not advanced in simple ignorance, as some have thought, is plain enough from Samuel's reception of it and his rebuke. "What meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen in my ears?" Facts are stubborn things, and they make quick work of sophistry. Oh, says Saul, these are brought as a sacrifice to the Lord thy God; they are an extra proof of my loyalty to Him. Saul, Saul, is it not enough that thou didst allow the selfish greed whether of thyself or of thy people to overbear the Divine command? Must thou add the sin of hypocrisy, and pretend that it was a pious act? And dost thou imagine that in so doing thou canst impose either on Samuel, or on God? O sinners, you do miscalculate fearfully when you give to God's servants such false explanations of your sins! How long, think you, will the flimsy material hold out? In the case of Saul, it did not even enable him to turn the corner. It brought out a fact which he must have trembled to hear: that Samuel had had a communication about him from God the very night before, and that God had spoken very plainly about him, And what had God said? God had proceeded on the fact that Saul had disobeyed his voice, and had flown upon the spoil to preserve what God had commanded him to destroy. "Nay," says Saul, "it was not I that did that, but the people, and they did it to sacrifice to the Lord thy God in Gilgal." The excuse hardly needed to be exposed. Why did you let the people do so? Why did you not fulfill God's command as faithfully as Joshua did at Jericho? Why did you allow yourself, or the people either, to tamper with the clear orders given you by your King and theirs? ''Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Moral conduct is more than ceremonial form. ''Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He also hath rejected thee from being king."
This terrible word pierces Saul to the quick. He is thoroughly alarmed. He makes acknowledgment of his sin in so far as he had feared the people and obeyed their words. He entreats Samuel to forgive him and turn again with him that he may worship God. He shows no evidence of true, heartfelt repentance. And Samuel refuses to return with him, and refuses to identify himself with one whom God hath rejected from being king. But Saul is deeply in earnest. He tries to detain Samuel by force. He takes hold of his mantle, and holds it so firmly that it rends. It is a symbol, says Samuel, of the rending of the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, to be given by God to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou. And this is God's irreversible sentence. Your day of grace is expired, and the Divine sentence is beyond recall. One more appeal does Saul make to Samuel. Again he owns his sin, but the request he makes shows clearly that what he is most anxious about is that he should not appear dishonoured before the people. It is his own reputation that concerns him. "Honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people and before Israel and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God." Samuel yields. The abject wretchedness of the man seems to have touched him. But it is not said that Samuel worshipped with him. Samuel would no doubt continue firm to his purpose not to identify himself with Saul as king, or give him any moral support in his attitude of disobedience. So far from that, Samuel openly superseded him in dealing with Agag; he went out of his way, and did an act which could not but appear a frightful one for a venerable prophet of the Lord. It is the voice of the real king that sounds in the command, "Bring ye hither to me Agag, the king of the Amalekites." We seem to see the royal prisoner advancing cringingly before that imperial figure, in whose eye there is a look, and in whose face and figure there is a determination, that may well make him quail. ''Surely," says Agag, imploringly, "the bitterness of death is past." Spared by the king, I am not to fare worse from the prophet. Samuel knew him a merciless destroyer. ''As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women." And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. ''Cursed be he that doeth the work of God deceitfully, and cursed be he that withholdeth his sword from shedding of blood." It is a scene of terror. The swift retribution executed on the one king was but the sign of the slower retribution pronounced upon the other. In the one case the doom was rapid; in the other it was deferred; in both it was sure. And have we not here a sad picture of that retribution which is sure to come on the impenitent sinner, and in the procedure of Samuel a foreshadowing of Him who cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, who will one day speak to His enemies in His wrath and vex them in His hot displeasure? Have we not here a foretaste of the opening of the sixth seal, when the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, shall say to the mountains and rocks. Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall he able to stand''?
And oh! how little in that day will those plausible excuses avail with which men try to cover their sins to themselves, and it may be to others. How will the hail sweep away the refuges of lies! How will the real character of men's hearts, the true tenor of their lives, in respect they have set aside God's will and set up their own, be revealed in characters that cannot be mistaken! The question to be determined by your lite was, whether God or you was King. Which did you obey, God's will or your own? Did you set aside God's will? Then you are certainly a rebel; and never having repented, never having been washed, or sanctified, or justified, your portion is with the rebels; the Father's house is not for you!
And now the breach between Samuel and Saul is final. ''Samuel came no more to visit Saul until the day of his death; nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul; and the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel."
Saul is cut off now from his best means of grace - he is virtually an excommunicated man. Was it hard? Do our sympathies in any degree go with him? To our compassion he is entitled in the highest degree, but to nothing more. Saul's worst qualities had now become petrified. His willfulness, his selfishness, his passionateness, his jealousy, had now got complete control, nor could their current be turned aside. The threat of losing his kingdom - perhaps the most terrible threat such a man could have felt - had failed to turn him from his wayward course. He was like the man in the iron cage in the ''Pilgrim's Progress," who gave his history: "I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit and He is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger and He has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent."
It is a terrible lesson that comes to us from the career of Saul. If our natural lusts are not under the restraint of a higher power; if by that power we are not trained to watch, and check, and overpower them; if we allow them to burst all restraint and lord it over us as they will, - then will they grow into so many tyrants, who will rule us with rods of iron; laugh at the feeble remonstrances of our conscience; scoff at every messenger of God; vex His Holy Spirit, and hurl us at last to everlasting woe!
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 10, 13 “Samuel also said to Saul.” “This verse is not…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES—
“Samuel also said to Saul.” “This verse is not to be connected chronologically with chap. 12, but continues the narrative of chaps. 13 and 14. The solemn reminder of Saul’s royal anointing, and of Samuel’s Divine mission to that end, refers not to 1Sa_11:15, but to 1Sa_9:15; 1Sa_10:1, It points to the fact that the following commission is a Divine command communicated by the appointed organ, the prophet of God, and that the bearer of the royal office has here to perform a theocratic mission with unconditional obedience. The me stands first (such is the order of the Hebrew) in order to give prominence to the official authority, as bearer of which Samuel must have felt obliged by Saul’s past conduct to assert himself over against him.” (Erdmann.) “Several years had been passed in unsuccessful military operations against troublesome neighbours, and during these years Saul had been left to act in a great measure at his own discretion as an independent prince. Now a new test is proposed of his possessing the character of a theocratic monarch in Israel; and in announcing the duty required of him, Samuel brought before him his official station as the Lord’s vicegerent, and the peculiar obligation under which he was laid to act in that capacity. He had formerly done wrong, for which a severe rebuke and threatening were administered to him. Now an opportunity was afforded him of retrieving that error.” (Jamieson.)
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1Sa_15:2. “I remember.” Bather, “I have looked upon” (Keil), or “I have considered, or noted.” (Erdmann.) “Amalek.” The Amalekites were a wild, warlike, desert-people, dwelling south and south-west of Judea, in Arabia Petrea, descended from the same ancestor as the Edomites, and took their name from Esau’s grandson Amalek (Gen_36:12-16; 1Ch_1:36). God’s command goes back to their first hostilities (Exodus 17), which were often afterwards repeated in their alliance with the Canaanites (Num_14:40 s.q.), with the Moabites (Jdg_3:13), and with the Midianites (Jdg_7:12), the Amalekites, according to 1Sa_15:33, having newly made an inroad, with robbery and murder, into the Israelitish territory.” (Erdmann.)
1Sa_15:3. “Utterly destroy.” Literally, “put everything under the ban.” “The ban, of which we have here a notable instance, was an old custom, existing probably before Moses, but formulated, regulated, and extended by him. In its simplest form it was the devotion to God of any object, living or dead.… When an Israelite or the whole congregation wished to devote to God anything—man, beast, or field—whether for the honour of God or to get rid of an injurious or accursed thing, it was brought and offered to the priest, and could not then be redeemed (Lev_27:28); if living, it must be put to death. A deep consciousness of man’s sin and God’s holiness underlay this law. The wicked thing, contrary to the spiritual theocratic life of God’s people, must be removed, must be committed to him who was ruler and judge of God’s people. And so the custom had a breadth of use as well as of meaning which it never had in other ancient nations.… To spare the devoted thing was a grave offence, calling down the vengeance of God. In later times the ban was, doubtless under prophetic direction, softened, and in the New Testament times the infliction of death had quite ceased.” (Translator of Lange’s Commentary.)
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Sa_15:1-3
THE SENTENCE AGAINST AMALEK
I. National sins may bring national retribution long after the individuals who committed the sins have left the world. Both history and revelation teach us that God deals with nations as a whole as well as with men individually, and that the sin of one generation may bring penalty upon another. If a man deals a murderous blow to another and is not brought to justice until long after the crime has been committed, the judge will not overlook the crime because it was not committed yesterday, or a few days or weeks ago—however long the transgressor may go unpunished the penalty of the transgression hangs over him until he has undergone the punishment which it deserves. The words of God in this chapter show that he proceeds on the same principle in relation to nations. Many ages had passed away since “Amalek laid wait for Israel in the way, when he came up out of Egypt,” and the men who were guilty of the deed had long since left the earth. Yet the mention of it here shows that the sentence here passed upon the nation had special reference to that national sin which had been committed so long ago. At the same time we must remember that the Amalekites of the time of Saul were possessed by the same spirit of hatred to Israel as their forefathers were—although no reference is here made to their later attacks upon the Hebrew people, we know from other passages (See critical Notes) that the Amalekites now were no less cruel and murderous in disposition than their forefathers in the days of Moses. If a man was brought to the bar of a human judge for a crime committed in his youth, and it was proven that he has since lived for years the life of a peaceable citizen, it might seem hard to make him now suffer for a deed done so long ago, but if during the intervening years he had been adding crime to crime he will deserve to have all his misdeeds taken into account when the day of reckoning comes. So it was with Amalek at this time. The present character of the nation was such that it fully deserved the sentence here passed upon it even if the ancient sin had not been remembered by God. When our Lord pronounced His terrible woe upon the Jewish nation of His day (Luk_11:47-52), and foretold that “the blood of all the prophets would be required of that generation,” He expressly declares that this terrible retribution would fall upon them because they “allowed the deeds of their fathers,”—in other words, because they were animated by the same spirit and were guilty of the same sins. It was doubtless the same in the case of the Amalekites.
II. The authority from which all national retribution proceeds. “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts.… now go and smite Amalek.” Whoever or whatever may be the instrumental cause of national judgment for national sin, God is the original and first cause. It is He who sets his servants “over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant (Jer_1:10). The executioners of His will may be entirely unconscious that they are carrying out the designs of a Supreme Ruler of the universe in following the devices of their own hearts, but they are doing it as really as if they were knowingly obeying a Divine command. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amo_3:6). When we hear that a monarch or a government has declared war against a nation, we judge of the righteousness or unrighteousness of the act from what we know of the character of the man or the number of men who are responsible for it. If we know them to be men who are lovers of humanity—if we know that they are pre-eminently just and benevolent, and incapable of being actuated by any unworthy motives, we shall conclude that they have strong and sufficient reasons for the step, and that although it must bring much sorrow and suffering, they believe that it will prevent more misery than it occasions. In this light we ought to look at all the wars which were commanded or sanctioned by Divine authority in the early ages of the world. If a human monarch or human government had given such a command as we here find given to Saul, we should be bound to look at the command through what we knew of his character and disposition, and if we knew him to be a man of integrity and benevolence to conclude that he had good ground for taking such a step. We cannot do less when we read such a sentence as that here issued against Amalek. We know that God loves the creatures whom He has made—that He is a God of peace, and that He desires “peace on earth.” If the men of the ancient world could rest assured that the Judge of all the earth would and could do nothing but right (Gen_18:25), he who possesses the New Testament record ought not to have the shadow of a doubt that all His dealings with men have at all times been actuated by the purest love and the highest wisdom; and that however stern and terrible some of them seem to us, they are in reality dispensations of mercy. In looking at the acts of the most perfect of human kind, we could not be certain of the perfect purity and wisdom of them all; but the same inspired Book which records these acts of retributive justice reveals to us so much of the Divine character as to make it certain that the final verdict of all His creatures will be—“Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints” (Rev_15:3).
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
There are some particular precepts in Scripture given to particular persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and vicious were it not for such precepts. But it is easy to see that all these are of such a kind as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case, and of the actions, and both constitutes and shows that not to be unjust or immoral which, prior to the precept, must have appeared and really have been so; which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable morality. If it were commanded to cultivate the principles, and act from the spirit of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty, the command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing an external action: for instance, taking away the property or life of any. For men have no right to either life or property, but what arises solely from the grant of God; when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either; and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either.—Bp. Butler.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 1 Samuel 15
1 Samuel 15
(with 1Ti 1:19)
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The story of Saul is among the saddest which Scripture anywhere contains.
I. Notice first the singular elements of nobleness which are to be traced in his natural character, so that his moral stature did not altogether belie the stateliness of his outward frame. There is nothing which so often oversets the whole balance of a mind, which brings out faults unsuspected before, as a sudden and abrupt elevation from a very low to a very high position. But Saul gives no token that the change has wrought this mischief in him. The Lord’s anointed, Israel’s king, he bides his time, returns with a true simplicity to humblest offices in his father’s house. He would gladly, and that out of a genuine modesty, hide and withdraw himself from the people’s choice. Slights and offences done to himself he magnanimously overlooks. He ventures his life far for the people whom he rules, as one who has rightly understood that foremost in place and honour means also foremost in peril and toil. Saul is clear from every charge of that sin which left the darkest blot upon David’s life; seems very sparingly to have allowed himself that licence which almost all Oriental monarchs have so largely claimed. There was in him also a true capacity for loving. Of David we are told he "loved him greatly." Even at his worst, what glimpses of a better mind from time to time appear! The deep discords of his spirit are not incapable of being subdued into harmonies, as sweet bells jangled or out of tune which for an instant, though, alas! but for an instant, recover their sweetness. And, most noticeable of all, the love which he could feel he could also inspire. If then there was a shipwreck here, they were not paltry wares, but treasures of great price, which went down into the deep.
II. The history of Saul brings home to us these facts: (1) That the life we now live is a life of probation; that God takes men and puts them in certain conditions to try them. We are each upon our trial as certainly as Saul was upon his. (2) All the finer qualities of Saul display themselves at the outset of his career; they gradually fade and fail from him, pride meanwhile, and defiance of God coming in their room, until at last of and caprice, and jealousy, and envy, and an open contempt all the high qualities which he once owned, only the courage, last gift to forsake a man, often abiding when every other has departed—until this only remains. (3) We learn from Saul not to build on any good thing which we have in ourselves. Let us bring that good thing to God and receive it back from God, with that higher consecration which He alone can give.
R. C. Trench, Shipwrecks of Faith, p. 31.
References: 1Sa 15:1-9.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p.179. 1Sa 15:1-24.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 343. 1Sa 15:3.—S. Baring-Gould, Plain Preaching to Poor People, p. 109; J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p. 135. 1Sa 15:10-35.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 302.
1Sa 15:11
I. Saul’s character is marked by much that is considered to be of the highest moral excellence—generosity, magnanimity, calmness, energy, and decision. He is introduced to us as a "choice young man and a goodly," and as possessed of a striking personal presence, and as a member of a wealthy and powerful family. It is probable from the sequel of Saul’s history that the apparent nobleness of his first actions was connected with some wrong principles and feelings, which then existed only in their seeds, but which afterwards sprang up and ripened to his destruction.
II. Sight prevailed over the faith of Balaam; a more subtle, though not a rare, temptation overcame the faith of Saul: wilfulness, the unaccountable desire of acting short of simple obedience to God’s will, a repugnance of unreserved self-surrender and submission to Him. By wilful resistance to God’s will, he opened the door to those evil passions which till then, at the utmost only served to make his character umamiable, without stamping it with guilt. Derangement was the consequence of disobedience. The wilfulness which first resisted God next preyed upon itself, as a natural principle of disorder; his moods and changes, his compunctions and relapses, what were they but the convulsions of the spirit when the governing power was lost?
III. In contemplating the miserable termination of his history, we observe how clearly the failure of the Divine purpose which takes place in it is attributable to man. No one could be selected more suitable in talents or conduct for maintaining political power at home than the reserved, mysterious monarch whom God gave to His people; none more suitable for striking terror into the surrounding nations than a commander gifted with his coolness and promptitude in action. But he fell from his election because of unbelief, because he would take another part, and not the very part which was actually assigned him in the decrees of the Most High.
J. H. Newman, Sermons on the theory of Religious Belief, p. 146.
References: 1Sa 15:11.—Parker, vol. vi., p. 330; R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth, p. 93; J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons, No. 63. 1Sa 15:14.—J. Edmunds, Fifteen Sermons, p. 111.
1Sa 15:20-21
It will appear somewhat startling to any one who first notices it how very little is said in the Bible about truthfulness. The reason is that truthfulness is not a strictly religious duty; it is a duty which is entirely independent of faith in God or Christ, a duty which is so absolutely necessary to the very existence of society, that without reverence for it no community could last for a day. The word of God passes by those things which men can find out for themselves, and does not insist on those duties which the common interests of commerce and security and comfort are sure to enforce.
I. It is most important to notice with regard to this passage in Saul’s life that, taking the words as they stand, there was probably no absolute falsehood in them. Nothing is more probable than that the people did take of the spoil to sacrifice unto the Lord, and that at any rate it was very nearly true that Saul had utterly destroyed the Amalekites. And yet, after all, in God’s sight, with all this semblance of veracity, the unhappy king stood up as a convicted liar, who, with his reddening cheek and his stammering tongue, was being put to shame before all his people. He did not dare to lie outright. He would not quite confess his guilt, but he dressed up a lie in the garb of truth, and took his chance of getting off his punishment by a paltry subterfuge.
II. Saul is only a type of a million others who have done the like again and again in all times. It is the hardest thing in life to be true, and the rarest. To state the simplest fact with perfect simplicity, to explain our most innocent motive with exact honesty, are feats which will often baffle the most sincere among us. Truth is not natural. It is not common. It is not easily learnt; only by watchfulness and prayer can it be learnt at all. The first temptation was but a piece of cheating; the traitor Judas acted a lie when he gave his Master that false kiss in Gethsemane, and ever since then falsehood has been Satan’s chosen weapon for plucking Christ’s children out of their Saviour’s hands and robbing them of that heaven where only the true can live.
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 43
1Sa 15:22
We can hardly read the history of Saul without some feeling of pity. He was no tyrant, who made himself king and ruled the people against their will. On the contrary, he was chosen by God Himself, was anointed by God’s prophet, and became king at the express desire of the people. He was a brave and noble man, too; he led the Israelites against their enemies, and, by God’s help, was victorious over them. There were, indeed, terrible blots on his character; his persecution of David for mere jealousy was base and wicked cruelty; nevertheless, when we read his sad history, we cannot fail to be moved with pity for one who was so great and so unhappy.
I. The words of the text contain a lesson which Saul had never learned. He served God and appeared zealous in His cause so far as the way of doing this suited his own pleasure and purposes, but whenever self had to be denied and God’s will made the rule of action instead of his own, then he rebelled. In fact, Saul never really worshipped God at all, he worshipped self, and he never learned this great truth: that obedience to God is the only thing pleasing in His eyes.
II. Saul stands to us as a type of those who profess to be Christians and act in a measure as Christians, and who, nevertheless, follow their own ways, just as if they were under no Christian vows at all. They have never learnt the great Gospel lesson of obedience, nor seen that obedience to God requires self-denial and discipline of ourselves. Faith and obedience are necessary parts of each other; there can be no obedience without faith, and faith without obedience is dead.
III. We have been received as the soldiers of Christ, and this comparison of a Christian to a soldier will show us very well what our obedience ought to be, for a soldier has no will of his own; his first and principal lesson is that of obedience; whatever service of danger he may be called upon to perform, he has no choice but to obey. This is the kind of obedience we are to yield; not an occasional act, but a constant battle against ourselves and against the evil nature that is in us, and a constant striving to root out all desires and thoughts which are contrary to the will of God.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 1st series, p. 195.
I. All obedience belongs primarily to God. The one Fountain of all good must be the single centre of all service. Thus far obedience is an instinct. The creature owes it to its Creator, the preserved to the Preserver, the family to the one great Parent of us all.
II. The question is not whether we will obey God. God is far too strong and absolute a God for that. Every creature which He has ever made shall and will obey Him. The question is only how we obey, and when. Shall it be a violent compulsion or a voluntary act of filial devotion? The true motive, the essence, of obedience God tells us when He says, "Love is the fulfilling of the law." "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." To love is to obey, and the measure of the obedience is the degree of the affection. That affection is generated only by close contact with the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Obedience does not consist in isolated acts; it is an atmosphere, it is a necessity, it is the breathing of a new existence, and it is the beginning of immortality.
IV. There is no happiness like the happiness of obedience. Adam was made to rule. The Fall has altered it, and now every man’s dignity and every man’s joy is in service. Man never fulfils his destiny but when he obeys. Therefore, in His great mercy, God has so placed every one of us, from the greatest to the least, that we have some one over us whom we have to obey. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 228.
References: 1Sa 15:22.—Dawson, Sermons on Daily Life and Duty, p. 286; H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii., p. 390; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 118; J. Harrison, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 49; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 686, and Evening by Evening, p. 294; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xv., p. 55; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 34; S. Leathes, Truth and Life, p. 115; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 21.
1Sa 15:23
I. At the end of 1 Samuel 8, we find all arranged by the Divine command for a king being appointed over Israel, and at the beginning of chapter ix. we first read of Saul. His bodily stature and personal beauty prepossess us in his favour, and as the story goes on his good sense and modesty increase the prepossession. When chosen to the kingdom, we find him with a band of men whose hearts God had touched; and when the children of Belial said, "How shall this man save us?" he held his peace. We can hardly conceive a more promising commencement to a reign, or one more calculated to gather power and work deliverance for Israel. Saul’s is just the character of many a young man, full of high and noble feeling, modest, and distrustful of self, coming from a religious home or the influence of religious impressions, and placed in a post of responsibility, of activity. All is promise; we look for high distinction of the best kind, and for bright and blessed deeds for God and for good.
II. In the thirteenth chapter it appears that during the first two years of Saul’s reign the man of grace in him had been waning, the man of nature had been waxing stronger. The tendency of the man was to emancipate himself from God’s law and make himself supreme, to follow his own bent and natural impulse, to the setting aside of God’s positive commands. Saul desired to be his own master, and he was left to himself by God. (1) The first thought which occurs to us is this: in this its first king, as in a mirror, behold Israel itself. Israel, like Saul, has turned to his own way. Because he hath rejected the Lord, the Lord hath also rejected him from being king. (2) The second thought is: in this character, behold multitudes among ourselves reflected. How many there are with whom everything for time and for eternity trembles in the balance, and the question is whether they will serve the Lord in life or whether they will not. How many follow the example of Saul. They live for the world, and by degrees God’s grace is quenched; there is remorse behind and misery before, death inexorable and coming on with rapid strides, and eternity a dismal blank, the thought of which carries terror to the soul.
III. This picture of ourselves should teach us two especial cautions: (1) against forgetfulness of God; (2) against self-will.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. ii., p. 44.
Reference: 1Sa 15:23.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 16.
1Sa 15:24
No man, surely, should dare depend upon God’s temporal favours or upon the friendship of the best of men after reading of the sin and punishment of Saul, who failed so sadly at last, though he was made king of Israel by the especial providence of God, and though he had the constant affection and intercession of so good a man as Samuel. If men will not labour to keep their own hearts in the right place, it is not either in God or man to do them good against their will.
I. It was not for any one act of disobedience that the Almighty rejected Saul; it was on account of the temper and disposition which he showed in acting as he did, and which made him particularly unfit to be king over such a people as the Israelites. Saul’s commission was above all things to put down that spirit of mistrust and rebellion which prevailed among his subjects, instead of which he allowed himself to be carried away by mere heathen feelings and to act as a mere heathen prince.
II. Saul’s way of excusing himself to Samuel proves his heart to have been in the wrong, to have been, indeed, utterly destitute of the sincere love of God. If he might but have preserved his kingdom, the loss of God’s approbation would have made little or no difference to him. The temptation which led him wrong was his regarding the praise and favour of the people more than the praise and favour of God.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iv., p. 124.
References: 1Sa 15:24.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 113; Parker, vol. vii., p. 71 (see also J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 138).
1Sa 15:24, 1Sa 15:30
We have here the confession of a backsliding man, going down the slope of sin at the same time that these godly words were on his lips. Saul was on the incline, and these words, spiritless and untrue, only precipitated him further.
It was one of those strange reactions of which the experience of every man is full that he who began in shyness committed his first great recorded sin in presumption.
Saul’s confession had not reality. There was no religion in it. It was simply remorse, the child of fear. It curried favour with man, and it sought to appease God for a temporal end. Notice some of the marks of a spurious confession. (1) It does not isolate itself, as true confession always does. (2) It seeks honour from men rather than from God. (3) It gives a religious cloak to sin. "He did it to sacrifice to the Lord."
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 7th series, p. 85.
References: 1Sa 15:32.—J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 425. 1Sa 15:32-35.—G. B. Ryley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 260. 1Sa 15:35.—R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth, p. 93.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v10 1 Samuel
1 Samuel
SAUL REJECTED
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1Sa 15:10 - 1Sa 15:23.
Again the narrative takes us to Gilgal,-a fateful place for Saul, There they ‘made Saul king before the Lord’; there he had taken the first step on his dark way of gloomy, proud self-will, down which he was destined to plunge so far and fatally. There he had, in consequence, received the message of the transference of the kingdom from his house, though not from himself. Now, flushed with his victory over Amalek, he has come there with his troops, laden with spoil. They had made a swift march from the south where Amalek dwelt, passing by Nabal’s Carmel, where they had put up some sort of monument of their exploit in a temper of vain-glory, very unlike the spirit which reared the stone of help at Eben-ezer; and apparently they purpose sacrifices and a feast. But Samuel comes into camp with no look of congratulation. Probably the vigorous old man had walked that day from his home, some fifteen miles off, and on the way seems to have picked up tidings of Saul’s victory and position, which ought to have reached him from the king himself, and would have done so if Saul’s conscience had been clear. The omission to tell him was studied neglect, which revealed much.
Samuel had ‘cried unto the Lord all night,’ if perchance the terrible sentence might be reversed; and his cries had not been in vain, for they had brought him into complete submission, and had nerved him to do his work calmly, without a quiver or a pang of personal feeling, as becomes God’s prophet.
I. We must go back a step beyond this passage to understand it. Note, first, the command which was disobeyed. The campaign against Amalek was undertaken by express divine direction through Samuel’s lips. It was the delayed fulfilment of a sentence passed in the times of the Conquest, but not executed then. The terrible old usages of that period are brought into play again, and the whole nation with its possessions is ‘devoted’. The word explains the dreadful usage. There are two kinds of devotion to God: that of willing, and that of unwilling, men; the one brings life, the other, death. The massacre of the foul nations of Canaan was thereby made a direct divine judgment, and removed wholly from the region of ferocious warfare. No doubt, the whole plane of morals in the earlier revelation is lower than that of the New Testament. If Jesus has not taught a higher law than was given to ‘them of old time,’ one large part of His gift to men disappears. The wholesale destruction of ‘babe and suckling’ with the guilty makes us shudder; and we are meant to feel the difference between the atmosphere of that time and ours. But we are not meant to question the reality of the divine command, nor His right to give it. He slays, and makes alive. His judgments strike the innocent with the guilty. In many a case, and often, the sin is one generation’s, and the bitter fruit another’s. The destruction of Canaanites and Amalekites does not change its nature because God used men to do it; and the question is not whether the Israelites were fiercely barbarous in their warfare, but whether God has the right of life and death. We grant all the dreadfulness, and joyfully admit the distance between such acts and Jesus Christ; but we recognise them as not incongruous with the whole revealed character of the God who is justice as well as love, as parallel in substance, though different in instrument, with many of His dealings with men,-as the execution of righteous sentence on rank corruption, and as sweetening the world by its removal. Most of the difficulty and repugnance has been caused by forgetting that Israel was but the sword, while the hand was God’s.
II. Note the disobedience. Partial obedience is complete disobedience. Saul and his men obeyed as far as suited them; that is to say, they did not obey God at all, but their own inclinations, both in sparing the good and in destroying the worthless. What was not worth carrying off they destroyed,-not because of the command, but to save trouble. This one fault seems but a small thing to entail the loss of a kingdom. But is it so? It was obviously not an isolated act on Saul’s part, but indicated his growing impatience of the divine control, exercised on him through Samuel. He was in a difficult position. He owed his kingdom to the prophet; and the very condition on which he held it was that of submission to Samuel’s authority. No wonder that his elevation quickened the growth of his masterfulness and gloomy, impetuous self-will,-traits in his character which showed themselves very early in his reign! No wonder either that such a king, held in leading-strings by a prophet, should chafe! The more insignificant the act in itself, the more significant it may be as a flag of revolt. Disobedience which will not do a little thing is great disobedience. Nor was this the first time that Saul had ‘kicked,’ like another Saul, ‘against the pricks,’ Gilgal had seen a previous instance of his impetuous self-assertion, masked by apparent deference; and the inference is fair that the interval between the two pieces of rebellion had been of a piece with them. Trivial acts, especially when repeated, show deep-seated evil. There may be only a coil of the snake visible, but that betrays the presence of the slimy folds, though they are covered from sight among the leaves. The tiny shoot of a plant, peeping above the ground, does not augur that the roots are short; they may run for yards. Nor can any act be called small, of which the motive is disregard of God’s plain command: ‘He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.’ Saul had never much religion. He had never heard of Samuel till that day when he came to consult him about the asses. It was a wonder to his acquaintances to find him ‘among the prophets’; and all his acts of worship have about them a smack of self, and an exclusive regard to the mere externals of sacrifice, which imply a shallow notion of religion and a spirit unsubdued by its deeper influences.
Such a man habitually acts in disregard of God’s will; and that is great sin, though it be manifested in small acts. It is to be remembered, too, that the excepting of the best of the spoil from the general destruction, changed the whole character of the transaction, and brought it down from the level of a solemn act of divine justice, of which Saul and his army were the executors by divine mandate, to that of a mere cattle-lifting foray, in which they were but thieves for their own gain. The mingling of personal advantage with any sort of service of God, ruins the whole, and turns it into mere selfishness. Samuel, in 1Sa 15:19, puts the two sides of this ‘evil in the sight of the Lord’ as being disobedience and swooping down on the booty, like some bird of prey.
III. Note Saul’s excuses. Throughout the whole interview he plays a sorry part, and is evidently cowed by the hated authority and personality of the old man; while Samuel, on his side, is curt, stern, and takes the upper hand, as becomes God’s messenger. The relative positions of the two men are the normal ones of their offices, and explain both Saul’s revolt and the chronic impatience of kings at the interference of prophets. Here we have Saul coming to meet Samuel with affected heartiness and welcome, and with the bold lie, ‘I have performed the commandment of the Lord.’ That is more than true obedience is quick to say. If Saul had done it, he would have been slower to boast of it. ‘Those vessels yield the most sound that have the least liquor.’ He ‘doth protest too much’; and the protestation comes from an uneasy conscience. Or did he, like a great many other men who have no deep sense of the sanctity of every jot and tittle of a divine law, please himself with the notion that it was enough to keep it approximately, in the ‘spirit’ of the precept, without slavish obedience to the ‘letter’? In a later part of the interview {1Sa 15:20} he insists that he has obeyed, and tries to prove it by dwelling on the points in which he did so, and gliding lightly over the others.
‘Samuel had reason to believe the sheep and oxen above Saul’; and there is a tone of almost contempt for the shuffling liar in his quiet question: ‘What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?’ There was no answering that; so Saul shifts his ground without a blush or a moment’s hesitation. ‘The people spared.’ It is a new character for him to appear in,-that of a weak ruler who cannot keep his unruly men in order! Had he tried to restrain them? If he had, and had failed, he was not fit to be a king. If he had not, he was a coward to shift the blame on to them. How ready men are to vilify themselves in some other direction, in order to escape the consciousness of sin, which God is seeking to force home on them! No doubt the people were very willing to have a finger in the affair; but so was he. And if the cattle was their share, Agag, who could be held to ransom, was his; and the arrangement suited all round. As to the purpose of sacrificing at Gilgal, perhaps that was true; but if it were, no doubt the same process of selection, which had destroyed the worthless and kept the best, would have been repeated; and the net result would have been a sacrifice of the least valuable, and ‘the survival of the fittest’ in many a pasture and stall.
But note Saul’s attitude towards Jehovah, betrayed by him in that one word: ‘the Lord thy God,’ No wonder that he had been content with a partial and perfunctory obedience, if he had no closer sense of connection with God than that! There is almost a sneer in it, too, as if he had said, ‘What needs all this fuss about saving the cattle? You should be pleased; for this Jehovah, with whom you profess to have special communication, will be honoured with sacrifice, and you will share in the feast.’ If the words do not mean abjuring Jehovah, they go very near it, and, at all events, betray the shallowness of Saul’s religion. Samuel, in his answer, reminds him of his early modesty and self-distrust, and of the source of his elevation. He then sweeps away the flimsy cobwebs of excuses, by the curt repetition of the plain, dreadful terms of Saul’s commission, and then flashes out the piercing question, like a sword, ‘Wherefore then didst thou not?’ The reminder of past benefits, and the reiteration of the plain injunctions which have been broken, are the way to cut through the poor palliations which men wrap around their sins.
It speaks of a very obstinate and gloomy determination that, in answer, Saul should reiterate his protestation of having done as he was bid. He doggedly says over again all that he had said before, unmoved by the prophet’s solemn words. He is steeling his heart against reproof; and there is only one end to that. Sin unacknowledged, after God has disclosed it, is doubly sin. The heart that answers the touch of God’s rebukes by sullenly closing more tightly on its evil, is preparing itself for the blow of the hammer which will crush it. ‘He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.’ Let us beware of meeting God’s prophet with shuffling lies about our obedience, and of opposing to the words which are loving though they pierce, the armour of impenetrable self-righteousness and conceit.
IV. Note the punishment. To the vain talk about honouring God by sacrifice, Samuel opposes the great principle which was the special message committed to every prophet in Israel, and which was repeated all through its history, side by side with the divinely appointed sacrificial system. In the intensity of his spiritual emotion, Samuel speaks in lyric strains, in the measured parallelism which was the Hebrew dress of poetry, and gives forth in words ‘which will live for ever’ the great truth that God delights in obedience more than in sacrifice. Whilst, on the one hand, he lifts the surrender of the will, and the consequent submission of the life, high above all mere ritual, on the other hand, by the same process, he sinks the rebellion of the will and the stubbornness of the nature, unsubdued either by kindness or threats, as Saul was showing his to be, to the level of actual idolatry.
‘Rebellion is divination,
And stubbornness is idols and teraphim.’
Then comes the stern sentence of rejection. Why was Saul thus irrevocably set aside? Was it not a harsh punishment for such a crime? As we have already remarked, Saul’s act is not to be judged as an isolated deed, but as the outcome of a deep tendency in him, which meant revolt from God. It was not because of the single act, but because of that which it showed him to be, that he was set aside. The sentence is pronounced, not because ‘thou didst spare Amalek,’ but because ‘thou didst reject the word of the Lord.’ Further, it is to be remembered that the punishment was but the carrying out of his act. His own hand had cut the bond between him and God, and had disqualified himself for the office which he filled. Saul had said, ‘I will reign by myself.’ God said, ‘Be it so! By thyself thou shalt reign.’ For the consequence of his deposition was not outward change in his royalty. David indeed was anointed but in secret, so Samuel consented to honour Saul before the people. All the external difference was that Samuel never saw him again, and he was relieved from the incubus of the prophet’s ‘interference’; that is to say, he ceased to be God’s king, and became a phantom, ruling only by his own will and power, as he had wished to do. How profound may be the difference while all externals remain unchanged! When we set up ourselves as our own lords, and shake off God’s rule, we cast away His sanction and help in all the deeds of our self-will, however unaltered their outward appearance may remain. But God left him to ‘walk in his own ways, and be filled with the fruit of his own devices,’ by no irrevocable abandonment, however the decree of rejection from the kingship was irrevocable. The gates of repentance stood open for him; and the very sentence that came stern and laconic from Samuel’s lips, rightly accepted, might have drawn him in true penitence to a forgiving God. His subsequent confession was rejected because it expressed no real contrition; and the worship which he proceeded to offer, without the sanction of the prophet’s presence, was as unreal as his protestation of obedience, and showed how little he had learned the lesson of the great words, ‘To obey is better than sacrifice.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Saul's Victory over Amalek. His Disobedience and Rejection
Saul's Victory over Amalek. His Disobedience and Rejection
Amalek had attacked Israel at Rephidim (Exo_17:8) and opposed their entrance into Canaan (Num_14:45 : cp. Deu_25:7; They are mentioned as allies of the Midianites in Jdg_7:12. The Amalekite nomads probably occupied a large tract of the wilderness S. of Judah. This chapter evidently comes from a different source from the preceding, which concludes the history of Saul. It forms the connexion between the history of Saul and that of David. We have no means of determining to what part of Saul's reign it belongs.
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3. Utterly destroy] lit. 'devote' (to Jehovah). The first idea of the word (herem) is that the object is dedicated to Jehovah, and so forbidden to common use: see Jos_6:18. We meet with the same root in harem (the women's apartments), and haram (the sacred enclosure at Mecca): cp. Lev_27:29.
4. Telaim] probably the same as Telem (Jos_15:24), a town in S. Judah. Men of Judah are thus summoned to the expedition.
5. A city of Amalek] RV 'the city of Amalek,' i.e. the capital.
6. Kenites] see on Jdg_4:17. They formed a nomad tribe, living partly in and partly outside Palestine.
7. From Havilah until thou comest to Shur] cp. Gen_25:18. Havilah was the eastern boundary of the district inhabited by the Amalekites, but its position is uncertain. Shur (Wall) was originally the name of the wall built to protect the eastern frontier of Egypt, and was then applied to the neighbouring part of the desert (Exo_15:22).
8. The Amalekites subsequently sack Ziklag (1 Samuel 30); but from this time onwards they cease to be formidable.
11. It grieved Samuel] RV 'Samuel was wroth.' He was annoyed at the course events were taking: cp. 2Sa_6:8; Jon_4:1. It is characteristic of the Bible that it mentions the failings of its heroes and saints.
12. Carmel] a town in Judah, 7 m. S. of Hebron. It lay directly in Saul's way on his return from smiting the Amalekites. A place] RV 'a monument' (to commemorate his victory): cp. 2Sa_18:18.
17. RM 'Though thou be little in thine own sight, art thou not head of the tribes of Israel?' i.e. the excuse, even if genuine, was not valid.
22, 23. These words are in poetic form, as we can see by the parallelism. See Intro. to Psalms.
22. For the views expressed in this v. cp. Psa_40:6; Psa_51:16-17; Isa_1:11.; Jer_6:20; Hos_6:6; Amo_5:21; Mic_6:6. The Israelite was not left to imagine, like the heathen, that sacrifices were what God chiefly desired.
23. Samuel goes behind Saul's pretended motive, sacrifice, to his real disobedience. Iniquity] RV 'idolatry.' Idolatry] RV 'teraphim': see on 1Sa_19:13.
24, 25. Saul's feeling was not true repentance, but merely a desire to propitiate Samuel and secure his apparent adhesion: see 1Sa_15:30.
32. Delicately] RM 'cheerfully.' Surely the bitterness, etc.] Since Saul had spared his life, Agag thought he was secure.
35. Came no more to see Saul] As a prophet he had no longer any message for the rejected king, although as a man he mourned for the failure of a career that had once seemed so promising.
The execution of Agag seems to us mere butchery; but, to both Samuel and Saul, Agag, like the rest of Amalek, had been put under the 'ban,' and hence his death, even in cold blood, was a religious necessity. According to the ideas of the time, Saul had had no right to give any 'quarter.' Nor is it right to judge the ancient Hebrews by what are happily our higher standards of conduct.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v11 (See Scofield "Zec 8:14").
repenteth
(See Scofield "Zec 8:14").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 8. War with Amalek: Saul’s Disobedience and Rejection
8. War with Amalek: Saul’s Disobedience and Rejection
CHAPTER 15
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1. The commission to destroy Amalek (1Sa 15:1-9)
2. Saul’s disobedience and rejection (1Sa 15:10-23)
3. Saul’s confession (1Sa 15:24-31)
4. The doom of Agag (1Sa 15:32-35)
From verse 48 in the previous chapter we learn that Saul smote the Amalekites. Samuel is sent by Jehovah with a new message to Saul telling him to smite Amalek again and to destroy utterly all that they have. It involves another task for Saul. He had been fully established as king and is therefore called upon to discharge his responsibilities and prove that he is fit for the position which he held. Amalek is the great foe of God’s people and typifies, as we have seen in our annotation on Exodus (chapter 17), the flesh and its lusts. Israel should have war with Amalek from generation to generation, and the remembrance of Amalek was to be completely blotted out. Even so the flesh is always the enemy of the children of God. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.” It is enmity against God. With this enemy Saul was to war and to destroy them utterly. But Saul at heart was nothing but an Amalekite. He gathers his army to do what Jehovah had demanded. The Lord gives Amalek into his hands. Then comes the significant “but.”--”But Saul and his people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them, but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.”
“The lesson is a deeply solemn one, and wider in application than perhaps we would easily allow. If Amalek stands here as elsewhere for the lusts of the flesh, alas, is it not true that we measure our judgment of these often more by our own tastes than by the simple letter of the Word of God? How easy it is to judge the multitude of things, and spare the worst of all, the Agag! And things which minister to the lusts of the flesh are unhesitatingly allowed, if only they are not what to common estimate would be considered vile. Our judgments, how apt are they to be those of the world at large rather than of God,--in the light of nature rather than of the sanctuary!” (Numerical Bible)
Then the Lord, who had been the silent witness of all this, told Samuel about it. A night of sorrow and of prayer followed for the man of God. How he must have pleaded with the Lord for unhappy Saul! Samuel and Saul meet. Strange words which came from the lips of disobedient Saul: “Blessed be thou of the LORD! I have performed the commandment of the LORD.” It was a falsehood. He then hears the sentence. “When thou wast little in thine own sight thou becamest the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee King over Israel!” And now he had become great in his own sight and little in the sight of the Lord. Solemn are the prophet’s words to him. “Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, He hath also rejected thee from being king.” This was the irrevocable sentence of Jehovah. Alas! Saul’s confession but reveals his true character once more. He sinned and transgressed against the voice of the Lord, because he feared the people and hearkened to their voice. Such a one was unworthy to be king over the Lord’s people. It is a sad spectacle, the unrelenting Samuel and the deposed king. And Samuel deals with Agag in judgment as he deserved it.
The statement “and Samuel saw Saul no more until the days of his death” is taken by critics in connection with chapter 19:24 as an indication of the diversity of the sources from which the books of Samuel have been derived. But it is incorrect. Samuel did not come to see Saul again, though Saul prophesied before Samuel. However chapter 28:11-19 must be connected with Samuel’s final word to Saul in this chapter.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The Unauthorized Action of Saul
The Unauthorized Action of Saul
v. 1. Samuel also said unto Saul, in delivering to him the Lord’s commission, The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over His people, over Israel; now, therefore, hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. As the king of Israel by God’s direct selection, Saul was bound to carry out the commands of God, the real King of His people.
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v. 2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the almighty Ruler of armies, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, during the desert journey, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt, Exo 17:8-14. The Amalekites were a roving desert-people, descendants of Esau’s grandson, Gen 36:12; Gen 36:16, and very decidedly hostile to Israel.
v. 3. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, as devoted to the Lord, in a campaign of annihilation, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. The entire people with all their possessions were placed under the ban, as being destined for destruction.
v. 4. And Saul gathered the people together, summoning them for service in war, and numbered, mustered, them in Telaim, in the southern country, midway between Beersheba and the Dead Sea, two hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand men of Judah, for there was need of a mighty army in conquering a strong confederation of Bedouin tribes.
v. 5. And Saul came to a city of Amalek, evidently their largest camp, and laid wait in the valley, set an ambush before venturing an attack.
v. 6. And Saul said unto the Kenites, a small tribe of nomads friendly to Israel, with whom they had come up from the wilderness under the leadership of Hobab, Jdg 1:16, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt, Num 10:29. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
v. 7. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, all along the southern boundary of Canaan, well into Arabia Petrea, that is over against, east of, Egypt.
v. 8. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword, so that the power of their confederation was broken for many years.
v. 9. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings, those of the second brood, commonly considered the best, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them, taking them, instead, as their booty; but everything that was vile and refuse, which had little or no value, that they destroyed utterly. Partial obedience is equivalent to total disobedience, and such a course of action inevitably brings upon the transgressors God’s punishment.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17 the words of Yahweh
the words of Yahweh
"the message of Yahweh"
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completely destroy all that they have ... kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey
These two phrases mean the same thing. The second phrase gives specific details about what they are to destroy completely. (See: Parallelism)
Do not spare them
This negative statement emphasizes the completeness of the destruction. (See: Litotes)
translationWords
Samuel
Saul (OT)
Yahweh
send
anoint
king
people of God
Israel
word of God
Yahweh of hosts
Amalek
cow
ewe
camel
donkey
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17 15:1-35 After Saul failed to obey God and completely…
15:1-35 After Saul failed to obey God and completely destroy the Amalekites, God rejected him in even stronger terms than before (cp. 13:8-14).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.