Holy Bible

Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel. 1 Samuel 15:2, 3 National sins and national punishments J. A. Miller. 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 God's 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. ( Exodus 17:14 , Deuteronomy 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 Amalek's 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 Zion's 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 God's 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 men's 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 P. Richardson, B. A. The Amalekites are supposed by some to have descended from Amalek. grandson of Esau ( Genesis 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 ( Exodus 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 ( Deuteronomy 25:17-19 ), "he smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary." Hence, in Deuteronomy 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 Amalek's overthrow must be prepared in consistency to carry his condemnation over the whole breadth of God's 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 Israel's heart it was fitted to carry impressive conviction of God's 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 Israel's 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 sparrow's 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. ) It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king. 1 Samuel 15:11-23 Saul rejected Charles E. Jefferson. The story is graphic and pathetic. This is Saul's victory and also his defeat. Our defeats are often wrapped up in our victories. Some of our most dismal failures are hidden from us by the glare of a partial and disastrous success. Saul succeeded and failed. He conquered Agag, but disobeyed God. And so the glory of his victory is lost in the darkness of his defeat. A man may conquer the greatest of earth's kings, but his life is a consummate failure if he disobeys the King of kings. And so, instead of praising Saul's victory let us meditate on Saul's sin. His sin was the sin of disobedience, the sin by which our first parents fell. In Saul's defence of his sin we possess a study of conscience unsurpassed in the literature of the world. Samuel on hearing of Saul's disobedience goes to meet him. Saul is the first to speak. "Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord." Was he honest in saying this? he may have been. Other men have lied as outrageously and still believed themselves to be speaking the truth. The heart is deceitful above all things and is oftentimes unconscious of its own deceitfulness. To be sure he has preserved the life of Agag, but then imprisonment is a heavier punishment to a proud king than death itself. The people have been destroyed. This is the one thing essential. No danger can come from a king in chains. Saul has whittled down tire Divine commands a little, but only a little; and who is so foolish as to think that God will notice the swerving of a heir's breadth from what He commands? And reasoning thus we sometimes pare off the edges of God's commandments, blissfully unconscious that we are doing anything positively wrong. To be sure, we are not keeping God's commandment to the letter, but He does not expect us to keep it so. It is enough if we kill the Amalekites. There is no need of killing Agag. We take delight in slaying the Amalekites, but we are opposed to killing Agag. And later on we discover to our sorrow that Agag is the chief of the Amalekites and that ruin lurks in the survival of anything which God commands us to destroy Saving Agag costs many a child of God his crown. "I have performed the commandment of the Lord," so Saul says, and while he speaks his sentences are punctuated by the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep. A man's conscience may be so drugged that it will not cry out against him, but some outside voice is sure to break forth in condemnation. God never leaves Himself without a witness. And if the animals are dumb, then the inanimate earth will speak. Abel's blood will cry even from the ground. Saul had said nothing about the sheep, and so the sheep supplied what Saul had forgotten to mention. In their innocence they bleated out Seal's guilt. The universe is so constructed that a guilty man cannot hide his sin. You assert your innocence, and yet my senses take knowledge of the evidences of your guilt. You say you do not drink too much; what meaneth, then, this reddening of the eyes and trembling of the hand? You say your heart is clean; what meaneth then this rottenness that trickles now and then into your talk? You say you are an honest man; what meaneth then this style of living which runs beyond the limits of your income? You say you are a Christian; what mean these scores of duties unperformed, bleating evidences of your unfaithfulness? "And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites." Mark that word "they." We might have expected it. When a man is driven into a corner, the most convenient trapdoor through which he can make his escape is that little word "they." Conscience, when stirred, endeavours to shift responsibility. "They did it." So says every man not brave enough to face the consequences of his own misdeeds. Why do you not, O preacher, preach spiritual and Scriptural sermons? Do not begin your answer with, "Well, my people!" And why, O Christian man and woman, do you not inaugurate that reform which your town needs? Please do not say anything about the people. Let each man bear his own responsibility without flinching. But even those of us who are most ready to make a scapegoat of the people do not wish to be too hard on them. We would be merciful and considerate. We can see reasons why the people act as they do. "The people spared the best of the sheep." Only the best There was good reason for that. Why destroy the best of the sheep? Why cause unnecessary destruction? Extravagance certainly is not pleasing to God. We have used the same argument many a time We believe in saving the best of the sheep. We are so afraid of being reckless that we drop into disobedience. We would rather disobey God than kill one extra sheep. We are as afraid of killing good sheep as Judas was of wasting precious ointment and for the same reason. Many of God's commands sound reckless, and so we curb His Divine impetuosity by our prudence. We do not hesitate to kill the best sheep for our own banquets, but when it comes to killing them for God that is quite another matter. But the people in this case bad not preserved the sheep for selfish uses. They had kept them with lofty and beautiful intentions. "The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God." To put these sheep to religious uses is certainly better than to slay them indiscriminately in the fury of war. God said to slay both ox and sheep, but it matters not to Him how they are slain. So Saul reasoned and so do we reason. There is a streak of the Jesuit in us all. If the end is good, we will not be too punctilious about the means. God cares for results. Methods are of comparative unimportance. The church must meet its expenses. It matters little how we raise the money, providing we raise it. It makes no difference how we get people to church, providing we get them. The Bible must be defended. It matters little what arguments are used, providing the blessed Book is saved. The sheep are to be slain. It matters little how or where they are slain, whether on the altar or on the side of one of God's hills. It must be acknowledged that God in His word lays tremendous emphasis on the How, but if we are only zealous to increase His glory we feel confident He will not scrutinise too closely our spirit and methods. This is Saul's apology. It gives us a full length portrait of the man. While he speaks we feel we are looking on a soul going to pieces, a moral character in the process of disintegration, a king degenerating into a slave. Every sentence which he speaks tarnishes the gold in his crown and falls like a blow upon his sceptre, which first shivers and tinnily breaks. It is the sacrifice of the will which is pleasing to God. Obedience is the queen of the virtues. Disobedience is the mother of sins. It is the vine, and other sins are only branches. Because of disobedience Saul lost his crown, and so shall we, if like him disobedient, lose the inheritance which is ours. ( Charles E. Jefferson. ) Saul rejected Monday Club Sermons. On the top of the Hartz Mountains in Switzerland the figures of travellers, in certain states of the atmosphere, take on a gigantic size to the eye of an observer below, and every movement they make is exaggerated. In the career of King Saul, as it is presented to us in Scripture, we see the figure of a man raised to a dizzy height, his actions prelected, as it were, upon the clouds, so that all mankind may learn from them the desired lesson that Jehovah reigns, and that it is an evil end bitter thing to sin against him. Note — I. SAUL'S ELEVATION. If ever man was king by Divine right, it was Saul. Never were greatness and royalty more suddenly thrust upon one than in this ease. The priest and prophet, Samuel, gave him his title of king. II. SAUL'S DISOBEDIENCE. This was seen plainly on two occasions: the first, when he sacrificed at Gilgal, contrary to an express command; the second, when he refused to smite Amalek utterly, and offer all the spoil to Jehovah. But these occasions simply brought to the surface an underlying state of disobedience which only waited its tempting inducements to appear. But before this last outward disobedience there had been a slowly increasing departure from the living God in the heart of the king, so that, when the wicked and justly punished Amalekites were put under the ban he was not equal to the occasion and he yielded to the temptation of the hour. The devoting of the whole nation to destruction was no arbitrary act of barbarism that assumed to be under Divine appointment, but a literal and genuine visitation from heaven upon those who richly deserved it. The phrase "utterly destroy" is in the original "put under the ban." This ban was an old custom, originating before the time of Moses, but formulated and regulated by him, as were so many other social customs amidst which Israel grew up. In its simplest form it was the devotion to God of any object, living or dead. III. THE GROUND OF SAUL'S REJECTION. It is stated in the briefest language. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath rejected thee from being king. The rejection was already an accomplished fact in the Divine purpose, although its execution was for a time delayed. In this complete rejection we are instructed in God's ways by seeing that it proceeded on no technical and superficial grounds, as if the Almighty was an austere man, reaping where He had not sowed, and eager to secure a reason for condemning His servant. Even under the old dispensation, how spiritual was God's claim; how identical with that which rests on us today. The sacrifices of God have always been a broken spirit and a contrite heart. Outward acts have never been accepted in place of an inward submission and penitence. IV. THE FALSE REPENTANCE OF SAUL. It had much of the appearance of a godly sorrow that leads to peace. It surely was sorrow. It showed an aroused and alarmed conscience. Saul comprehended himself; saw the conflict within between his better and worse nature. Again and again he awoke to his sin and folly with bitter tears in after days, but never reached the point where he could say, in the wonderful words of his successor, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned." V. THE MYSTERY OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. Who can understand his errors, or those of any man in ancient or modern times, delineated in the Bible or in our own literature? Who can find the key to a sinful life, and unlook all its mysteries and incongruities? What is sin but an irrational, abnormal, strange thing, making everyone's life at points an enigma, and best described as a mystery in its origin, development, and results in eternity? Who shall attempt to fathom the connection between wrong-doing and punishment, and foresee the consequences of single transgression? Who is to say what a sin is in its real nature, and what its results ought to be in a holy government? We cannot tell when our characters have become so consistent in evil that God passes judgment on us, and tears from our hands all that He gave us, and for which we are called to live. God has left the consequences of sin in the unseen future, like the shadows of mountains when the sun is behind us. This may be because He wishes us to be more afraid of sin than of its results. This man, whose downfall was the result of his own misdeeds, was, in the hands of Providence, a scourge for Israel, sent to them, as we read, in God's anger. The career of a sinner can be understood only when we see to what uses it is put in the world's discipline. If we are obedient to God He will turn our lives into a blessing upon men. If we rebel, He still can use us. turning our actions into scourges. To each of us is offered a kingdom, invisible but real, as old as eternity. ( Monday Club Sermons. ) Saul's disobedience and rejection W. G. Craig, D. D. The intoxication of power is upon him, impelling him directly in the teeth of the Divine warning. He is occupying dangerous ground. Our passage shows the turning point in Saul's history. I. LET US OBSERVE THE OCCASION WHICH BROUGHT ABOUT THE CRISIS. God had given him a commission to ban the Amalekites, the ancient enemies of Israel. The crisis in Saul's life had come. He fails to meet it, in the spirit of a true man of God. His soul finds temptation in a moment when power and success and human adulation have intoxicated him; he yields to the snare, and falls to rise no more. At the turning point of his life he is weighed in the balances and found wanting. The whole sad transaction and all its terrible consequences are summed up in one word — disobedience to positive Divine command. It breaks upon us at once. It is complete and fully manifested in a single transaction. But definite steps led up to it. It can be accounted for. It should have been avoided. II. AS THE DISOBEDIENCE WAS COMPLETE AND INEXCUSABLE, SO THE PUNISHMENT WAS PROMPT, DEFINITE, AND FINAL. "God hath rejected thee from being king over Israel." Successive steps led to its accomplishment. God caused Samuel to withdraw from him. He took his good Spirit away, and allowed an evil spirit to come upon him. He was left to his own rash, self-willed, and self-pleasing nature. He was allowed to work out his own destruction and the ruin of his dynasty, while God quietly but diligently prepared a better man to take his place on the throne of Israel. A great and solemn principle emerges here — the basis-principle upon which all right and enduring relations to God must rest, — to wit, obedience. There can be no happy relations between a sovereign Creator and dependent creatures upon any other scheme, even though that sovereign Creator be properly viewed as a tender Father. The whole question needs to be restated with firmness. The sentimentality of a spurious faith, which claims heaven and yet the right to please self, is a travesty upon the word of God and upon every serious utterance of human consciousness. And yet this sentimentality is seeking to interpret the preaching of salvation by the cross in the interest of selfish indulgence, and is going far to justify the sneer of the enemy, "that morals are divorced from religion;" for what are any Christian morals worth that do not mean obedience to the living God? Let Saul's sad fall by reason of disobedience warn us at thin point. In conclusion we may draw out a few brief lessons. 1. The danger of a halfway surrender to God, a consecration which has its reservations. Such a course is an insult to God. It is the very worst spirit of bargain making. It marks off a section of our individuality, into which God has no right to come with His demands. Saul was willing to serve God in being a king if he would have his way when the spoil was at hand. He was quite willing to fellowship Samuel and have his endorsement if he could sacrifice when he pleased. But this spirit brought him to a bad end. 2. See how disobedience demoralises the spirit and sets it upon unworthy shifts His character drooped lower and lower as he sought his way out from the consequences of disobedience by unworthy shifts. When we have sinned it is better to be open and ingenuous with God and man, and. while sorrowing for the sin, meekly receive the consequences in the full purpose of immediate amendment. 3. The folly of those in authority, as parents, pastors or teachers, yielding to the tastes and entreaties of the young, the wayward, or the undisciplined for the privilege of doing that which is wrong either in itself or in its tendency. Saul pleaded that he yielded to the wishes of the people when he saved the best of the spoil. So with many now in the place of solemn and responsible authority. But this is simple weakness where we have the right to expect strength. This weakness does not lesson the guilt before God. ( W. G. Craig, D. D. ) The commission given to Saul R. G. B. Ryley. The command given to Saul was unmistakable and imperative. And this was to be in fulfilment of the legacy of judgment and vengeance left to the people by Moses long before. In Moses' words you have hints of the real character and life of the Amalekites that are to be associated with Samuel's words, in which he calls them "the sinners, the Amalekites." Here you have their character of bloodthirsty, treacherous marauders. The days of old needed the destruction of such as the Amalekites; and if Israel had to do the work it was needful that they should be utterly destroyed. It was better for the world to be without such sinners, and it was required, for Israel's sake, that Saul and his people should have no gain from the conquest. God often does thus with the ill-gotten wealth of wicked nations. Where are all the riches of the mighty monarchies of old? Where is the bloodstained wealth of the ruined Roman Empire? Who can tell? God swept, it, away, for a curse — the curse of conquest and oppression — was upon at Consider, Saul's violation of the law of obedience. Saul gave himself to spoilation; the attempted shelter under fear of the people belied itself; his repeated words "that they had brought the spoil to sacrifice to the Lord thy God" were an attempt to justify sin by profession of good intention, and to degrade religious service of God into formal acts of ceremonial observance. The answer to all his excuses and explanations was simple and as imperative as the commands he had neglected, "Because thou hast rejected the Word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king." There are many lessons taught us in these things, among which, let us note the following, for they touch solemn matters in the life of each of us. I. IT IS EVIDENT THAT A PROFESSEDLY GOOD OR CREDITABLE INTENTION WILL NOT JUSTIFY A BAD ACT. It is true that, the real character of any act is in the intention of the doer; but you cannot judge acts as though they were isolated, and to be taken each on its own merits. The intention that is behind one act may itself be a depraved spiritual act or represent a spiritual state that; God hates. II. NOR CAN GOD BE HONOURED IN ONE WAY AT THE COST OF DISHONOURING HIM IN ANOTHER. Obedience to one command that is built out of the ruins and breach of another, must be dis. pleasing to God. If we do, we shall add to non-performance of some duties the vitiating of those we do observe. III. SO, ALSO, ARE WE TO LEARN THAT OFFERINGS TO GOD ARE ABOMINATION IF THEY DO NOT EXPRESS OBEDIENT LOVE. For they may represent "pride, vain-glory, or hypocrisy" they may be a service of self that is all the more real for being hidden under the veil of Divine honour, or they may be a following of custom, or a sensuous dependence upon superstitious services for acceptance with the Lord. God's supreme demand is loving obedience: the submission of the heart, the sacrifice of the will. the offering up of self, the fasting from the self-willed indulgence of our own thoughts and intents. ( R. G. B. Ryley. ) Saul rejected J. Parker, D. D. What are the lessons with which the narrative is charged? I. THE DANGER OF MISTAKING PARTIAL FOR COMPLETE OBEDIENCE. "Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord." 1. God requires literal obedience. 2. God's language never exceeds Gods meaning. 3. Conscience is seen most clearly in minute obedience. II. THE POSSIBILITY OF GIVING A RELIGIOUS REASON FOR AN ACT OF DISOBEDIENCE. I. The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen. to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God" 1. One duty must not be performed on the ruins of another. It was a duty to sacrifice, but sacrifice must not be offered upon

Benson Commentary 1 Samuel 15:1 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. 1 Samuel 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 Exodus 17:14 , I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven: and again, 1 Samuel 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, Deuteronomy 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. 1 Samuel 15:2 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. 1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15:3 . Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, &c. — This heavy sentence was pronounced against them long before, ( Exodus 17:14 ,) and renewed at the Israelites’ entrance into Canaan, with a charge not to forget it, ( Deuteronomy 25:19 ,) and now ordered to be put in execution. Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling — We are to consider these orders of God, given in Scripture, for the slaying the innocent with the guilty, even children and sucklings, who could have done no harm, in the same light as we do a plague or earthquake, or any other of God’s judgments in the earth, whereby the guiltless are cut off with the guilty; the reason of which, perhaps, may be, that the guilty, in such calamities, are more grievously afflicted and punished, by the cutting off their harmless children, than they would be by any thing that could befall themselves. And God can, and certainly does, crown elsewhere the innocent with happiness, great enough to reward them amply for the evils that fall upon them here. And, without doubt, every infant, however much its death may be lamented by its parents, receives a great favour and blessing from God by having death bestowed upon it in its infancy; as it is taken away from all the miseries of this life, in order to be made perfectly and eternally happy. The reason, perhaps, of God’s ordering the beasts to be all killed, upon this and some other occasions of this sort, was, that the neighbouring nations might know that these terrible executions of the Israelites upon some particular nations, did not proceed from any views of profit or interest to themselves, but were done in obedience to the commands of the Lord of all, to punish those whose iniquity was full. For, had the Israelites been allowed to spare the cattle (which were then the chief riches of the nations) on these occasions, they would have appeared rather as the murderers of these people, for the sake of their riches, than the ministers of God’s wrath, to punish nations whose abominations made them ripe for destruction. 1 Samuel 15:4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. 1 Samuel 15:5 And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. 1 Samuel 15:5 . Saul came to a city of Amalek — Or, to the city of Amalek. For the metropolis of the kingdom seems to be here meant, the name of which some have thought was Amalek. And laid wait in the valley — Or fought them in the valley; for they came out to give him battle. 1 Samuel 15:6 And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 1 Samuel 15:6 . Saul said unto the Kenites — A people descended from, or nearly related to, Jethro, who anciently dwelt in rocks near the Amalekites, ( Numbers 24:21 ,) and afterward some of them dwelt in Judah, ( Jdg 1:16 ,) whence it is probable they removed (which, dwelling in tents, they could easily do) and retired to their old habitation, because of the wars and troubles wherewith Judah was annoyed. Ye showed kindness — Some of your progenitors did so, and, for their sakes, all of you shall be spared and kindly treated. You were not guilty of that sin for which Amalek is now to be destroyed. When destroying judgments are abroad, God takes care to separate the precious from the vile. It is then especially dangerous to be found in the company of God’s enemies. The Jews have a saying, Wo to a wicked man and to his neighbour. 1 Samuel 15:7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. 1 Samuel 15:7-8 . To Shur — That is, from one end of their country to the other; he smote all that he met with: but a great number of them fled away upon the noise of his coming, and secured themselves in other places, till the storm was over. Destroyed all — Whom he found. Now they paid dear for the sins of their ancestors. They were themselves guilty of idolatry and numberless sins, for which they deserved to be cut off. Yet, when God would reckon with them, he fixes upon this as the ground of his quarrel. 1 Samuel 15:8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 1 Samuel 15:9 But 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 every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. 1 Samuel 15:9 . Would not utterly destroy them — As they had been commanded of God, but took them as a prey to themselves. Every thing that was vile, they destroyed — All that was not worth the keeping. Thus they obeyed God as far as they could, without inconvenience and loss to themselves, which is a striking instance of the baseness of human nature, when governed by covetousness, or any such like grovelling affection or appetite. 1 Samuel 15:10 Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying, 1 Samuel 15:11 It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night. 1 Samuel 15:11 . It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king — Repentance, properly speaking, implies grief of heart, and a change of counsels. Understood in which sense, it can have no place in God. But it is often ascribed to him in the Scriptures when he alters his method of dealing with persons, and treats them as if he did indeed repent of the kindness he had shown them. He is turned back from following me — Therefore he did once follow God, otherwise it would have been impossible he should turn back from following him. He cried unto the Lord all night — To implore his pardoning mercy for Saul and for the people. 1 Samuel 15:12 And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. 1 Samuel 15:12-13 . Behold, he set him up a place — That is, a monument or trophy of his victory; perhaps a column, or barely a large heap of stones, as was the custom of those early ages. I have performed the commandment of the Lord — He makes so little account of the fault he had committed, that he even boasts of his performance. 1 Samuel 15:13 And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD. 1 Samuel 15:14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 1 Samuel 15:15 And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. 1 Samuel 15:15 . They — That is, the people; have brought them from the Amalekites — Thus he lays the blame upon the people, whereas they could not do it without his consent, and he should have used his power to overrule them. To sacrifice unto the Lord thy God — This was a plausible pretence; but as the Lord had given express command that nothing should be saved, no more for himself than for them, this excuse could be no more than an instance of mean hypocrisy. 1 Samuel 15:16 Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. 1 Samuel 15:17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel? 1 Samuel 15:18 And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. 1 Samuel 15:18-19 . The Lord sent thee on a journey — So easy was the service, and so certain the success, that it was rather to be called a journey than a war. Wherefore didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord? — The command was as plain as words could make it; and there was no reason but his own base covetousness why it was not obeyed. 1 Samuel 15:19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD? 1 Samuel 15:20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 1 Samuel 15:20-21 . Have brought Agag the king — To be dealt with as God pleaseth. Strange stupidity! to imagine such a partial obedience could be pleasing unto God. But the people took of the spoil — It was a mean thing to throw all the blame on the people, whom he ought to have governed better; and it was worst of all to pretend religion for his disobedience. The things which should have been utterly destroyed — Here he shows that he was conscious he had not done as he was commanded. 1 Samuel 15:21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal. 1 Samuel 15:22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22 . Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice — A most divine admonition this, and inculcated by all the following inspired writers, by David, Solomon, and the prophets; as the reader may see by consulting the margin. Obedience to God is a moral duty, constantly and indispensably necessary; but sacrifice is but a ceremonial institution, sometimes unnecessary, as it was in the wilderness; and sometimes sinful, when it is offered by a polluted hand, or in an irregular manner. Therefore thy gross disobedience to God’s express command is not to be compensated with sacrifice. To hearken — That is, to obey. The fat of rams — Then the choicest part of all the sacrifice. 1 Samuel 15:23 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. 1 Samuel 15:23 . For rebellion — Disobedience to God’s command; is as the sin of witchcraft — Or the using divinations, and consulting familiar spirits, is as plainly condemned, and as certainly damnable and destructive. Stubbornness — Contumacy, persisting in sin, justifying it, and pleading for it; is as iniquity and idolatry — Or, rather, the iniquity of idolatry, the highest degree of wickedness. The meaning is, that as Saul had wilfully disobeyed the command of God, he was guilty of rebellion against him; and that wilful, peremptory disobedience to any command of God is, for the nature of it, a most heinous sin, though the matter in which it is manifested be ever so small. The Lord hath rejected thee from being king — That is, hath pronounced the sentence of rejection; for that he was not now actually deposed by God, plainly appears in that not only the people, but even David, after this, owned him as king. Indeed, he continued to be king till the day of his death. He was only actually rejected and deposed when he was slain in battle. But the expression may chiefly respect his posterity, to whom God would not suffer the kingdom to descend. 1 Samuel 15:24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. 1 Samuel 15:24-25 . I have sinned — It does by no means appear that Saul acts the hypocrite herein, in assigning a false cause of his disobedience. Rather, he nakedly declares the thing as it was. Pardon my sin — Neither can it be proved that there was any hypocrisy in this. Rather, charity requires us to believe, that he sincerely desired pardon, both from God and man, as he now knew he had sinned against both. 1 Samuel 15:25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD. 1 Samuel 15:26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15:26 . I will not — This was no lie, though he afterward returned, because he spoke what he meant; his words and his intentions agreed together, though afterward he saw reason to change his intentions. Compare Genesis 19:2-3 . This may relieve many perplexed consciences, who think themselves obliged to do what they have said they would do, though they see just cause to change their minds. Hath rejected thee, &c. — But he does not say, he “hath rejected thee from salvation.” And who besides hath authority to say so? 1 Samuel 15:27 And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. 1 Samuel 15:28 And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou. 1 Samuel 15:28-29 . The Lord hath rent the kingdom from thee — Hath declared his firm resolution of laying aside thy family, and will soon actually take away thy life and thy kingly power. Also the Strength of Israel — Who is perfectly able to bring to pass all his purposes, and to make good all his declarations; will not lie — He gives God his title, to show the reason why he neither can nor will lie. For lying generally proceeds from a man’s weakness and inability to accomplish his designs, as he thinks, without it. But God needs no such artifices: he can do whatsoever he pleaseth by his absolute power. Nor repent — Change his counsel and purpose, which is also an effect of weakness and imperfection, either of wisdom or power. So that this word is not here used in the sense it is 1 Samuel 15:11 , and in several other passages, as Genesis 6:6 ; Exodus 32:14 ; 2 Samuel 24:16 ; Jeremiah 26:19 ; in all which, and many others, it signifies a change of God’s proceedings, and of his method of dealing with persons. 1 Samuel 15:29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent. 1 Samuel 15:30 Then he said, I have sinned: yet 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. 1 Samuel 15:31 So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD. 1 Samuel 15:31 . So Samuel turned again — 1st, That the people might not, upon pretence of this sentence of rejection, withdraw their obedience from their sovereign; whereby they would both have sinned against God, and have been as sheep without a shepherd. 2d, That he might rectify Saul’s error, and execute God’s judgment upon Agag. 1 Samuel 15:32 Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. 1 Samuel 15:32-33 . Agag came unto him delicately — Hebrew, ????? , magnadannoth, in delights, or ornaments; that is, he came not like an offender, expecting the sentence of death, but in the garb, and gesture, and majesty of a king. And Agag said — Or, For Agag said; this being mentioned as the reason why he came so. Surely the bitterness of death is past — I, who have escaped death from a warlike prince and his soldiers in the fury of battle, shall certainly not suffer it from a prophet in time of peace. As thy sword hath made women childless — By this it appears that he had been a tyrant; and guilty of many bloody actions; and was now cut off, not merely for the sins of his ancestors four hundred years ago, but also for his own merciless cruelty. Samuel hewed Agag in pieces — This he doubtless did by a divine instinct, and in pursuance of God’s express command, which had been sinfully neglected and disobeyed by Saul, but is now executed by Samuel. It is not said that Samuel cut Agag in pieces with his own hand; perhaps he only commanded him to be slain by proper officers. In those days, however, it was no unusual thing for the greatest persons to perform these executions. But no private persons are authorized to make such instances as these precedents for taking the sword of justice into their own hands. For we must be governed in our own conduct by the laws of God, and not by extraordinary examples. Before the Lord in Gilgal — That is, before the altar of the Lord, where they had been praying and offering sacrifices. 1 Samuel 15:33 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 in Gilgal. 1 Samuel 15:34 Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul. 1 Samuel 15:35 And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel. 1 Samuel 15:35 . Samuel came no more to see Saul — That is, to visit him, in token of respect or friendship; or, to seek counsel from God for him. Otherwise he did see him afterward, 1 Samuel 19:24 . Though indeed it was not Samuel that came thither with a design to see Saul, but Saul went thither to see Samuel, and that accidentally. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul — For his impenitence and rejection. He still had so much love to him, or to his country, as to lament the sad condition into which he was fallen. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary 1 Samuel 15:1 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. CHAPTER XXI. THE FINAL REJECTION OF SAUL 1 Samuel 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 ( 1 Samuel 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 made 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 1 Samuel 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 ( 1 Samuel 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! 1 Samuel 15:14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? CHAPTER XXIII. DAVID'S EARLY LIFE* (*A few paragraphs on the Life of David are reproduced from the author's book “David, King of Israel.") 1 Samuel 15:14-23 . BEFORE we enter at large into the incident of which these verses form the record it is desirable to settle, as far as we can, the order of events in the early life of David. After being anointed by Samuel, David would probably return to his work among the sheep. It is quite possible that some years elapsed before anything else occurred to vary the monotony of his first occupation. The only interruption likely to have occurred to his shepherd life would be, intercourse with Samuel. It is rather striking that nothing is said, nothing is even hinted, as to the private relations that prevailed in youth between him and the venerable prophet who had anointed him with the holy oil. But it cannot be supposed that Samuel would just return to Ramah without any further communication with the youth that was to play so important a part in the future history of the country. If Saul, with all his promising qualities at the beginning, had greatly disappointed him, he could only be the more anxious on that account about the disposition and development of David. The fact that after David became the object of the murderous jealousy of Saul, it was to Samuel he came when he fled from the court to tell what had taken place, and to ask advice ( 1 Samuel 19:18-19 ), seems to indicate that the two men were on intimate terms, and therefore that they had been much together before. Whether David derived his views of government from Samuel, or whether they were impressed on him directly by the Spirit of God, it is certain that they were the very same as those which Samuel cherished so intensely, and which he sought so earnestly to impress on Saul. God's imperial sovereignty, and the earthly king's entire subordination to him; the standing of the people as God's people, God's heritage, and the duty of the king to treat them as such, and do all that he could for their good; the infinite and inexhaustible privilege involved in this relation, making all coquetting with false gods shameful, dishonouring to God, and disastrous to the people, - were ruling principles with Samuel and David alike. If David was never formally a pupil of Samuel's, informally he must have been so to a large extent. Samuel lived in David; and the complacency which the old prophet must have had in his youthful friend, and his pleasure in observing the depth of his loyalty to God, and his eager interest in the highest welfare of the people, must have greatly mitigated his distress at the rejection of Saul, and revived his hope of better days for Israel. As David grew in years, but before he ceased to be a boy, he might acquire that local reputation as "a mighty valiant man and a man of war" which his friend referred to when he first mentioned him to Saul. In him as in Jonathan faith gendered a habit of dash and daring which could not be suppressed in the days of eager boyhood. The daring insolence of the Philistines, whose country lay but a few miles to the west of Bethlehem, might afford him opportunities for deeds of boyish valour. Jerusalem, the stronghold of the Jebusites, was but two hours distant from Bethlehem, and on the part of its people, too, collisions with Israelites were doubtless liable to occur. It may have been now, or possibly a little later, that the contest occurred with the lion and the bear. The country round Bethlehem was not a peaceful paradise, and the career of a shepherd was not the easy life of lovesick swains which poets dream. It was at this period of David's life that Saul's peculiar malady took that form which suggested the use of music to soothe his nervous irritation. His courtiers recommended that he should seek out a cunning player on the harp, whose soothing strains would calm him in the paroxysms of his ailment. Obviously, it was desirable that one who was to be so close to a king so full of the military spirit as Saul should have a touch of that spirit himself. David had become known to one of the courtiers, who at once mentioned him as in all respects suitable for the berth. Saul accordingly sent messengers to Jesse, bidding him send to him David his son, who was with the sheep. And David came to Saul. But his first visit seems to have been quite short. Saul's attacks were probably occasional, and at first long intervals may have occurred between them. When he recovered from the attack at which David had been sent for, the cunning harper was needed no longer, and would naturally return home. He may have been but a very short time with Saul, too short for much acquaintance being formed. But it is the way of the historians of Scripture, when a topic has once been introduced, to pursue it to its issues without note the events that came between. The writer having indicated how David was first brought into contact with Saul, as his musician, pursues the subject of their relation, without mentioning that the fight with Goliath occurred between. Some critics have maintained that in this book we have two accounts of David's introduction to Saul, accounts which contradict one another. In the first of them he became known to him first as a musician sent for in the height of his attack. In the other it is as the conqueror of Goliath he appears before Saul. It is the fact that neither Saul nor any of his people knew on this occasion who he was that is so strange. According to our view the order of events was this: David's first visit to Saul to play before him on his harp was a very short one. Sometime after the conflict with Goliath occurred. David's appearance had probably changed considerably, so that Saul did not recognize him. It was now that Saul attached David to himself, kept him permanently, and would not let him return to his father's house ( 1 Samuel 18:2 ). And while David acted as musician, playing to him on his harp in the paroxysms of his ailment ( 1 Samuel 18:10 ), he went out at his command on military expeditions, and acquired great renown as a warrior ( 1 Samuel 18:5 ). Thus, to turn back to the sixteenth chapter, the last two verses of that chapter record the permanent office before Saul which David came to fill after the slaughter of the Philistine. In fact, we find in that chapter, as often elsewhere, a brief outline of the whole course of events, some of which are filled up in minute detail in the chapter following. Having thus settled the chronology, or rather the order of events in David's early history, it may be well now to examine more fully that period of his life, in so far as we have any materials for doing so. According to the chronology of the Authorized Version, the birth of David must have occurred about the year before Christ 1080. It was about a hundred years later than the date commonly assigned to the Trojan war, and therefore a considerable time before the dawn of authentic history, at least among the Greeks or the Romans. The age of David succeeded what might be called the heroic age of Hebrew history; in one sense, indeed, it was a continuation of that period. Samson, the latest, and in some sense the greatest of the Jewish heroes, had perished not very long before; and the scene of his birth and of some of his most famous exploits lay within a very few miles of Bethlehem. In David's boyhood old men would still be living who had seen and talked with the Hebrew Hercules, and from whose lips high-spirited boys would hear, with sparkling eye and heaving bosom, the story of his exploits and the tragedy of his death. The whole neighbourhood would swarm with songs and legends illustrative of the deeds of those mighty men of valour, that ever since the sojourn in Egypt had been conferring renown on the Hebrew name. The mind of boyhood delights in such narratives; they rouse the soul, expand the imagination, and create sympathy with all that is brave and noble. We cannot doubt that such things had a great effect on the susceptible temperament of the youthful David, and contributed some elements of that manly and invincible spirit which remained so prominent in his character. But a much more important factor in determining his character and shaping his life was the religious awakening in which Samuel had so prominent a share. Not a word is said anywhere of the manner in which David's heart was first turned to God; but this must have been in his earliest years. We think of David as we think of Samuel, or Jeremiah, or Josiah, or John the Baptist, as sanctified to the Lord from his very childhood. God chose him at the very outset in a more vital sense than He afterwards chose him to be king. In the exercise of that mysterious sovereignty which we are unable to fathom, God made his youthful heart a plot of good soil, into which when the seed fell it bore fruit an hundredfold. In strong contrast to Saul, whose early sympathies were against the ways and will of God, those of David were warmly for them. Samuel would find him an eager and willing listener when he spoke to him of God and His ways. How strange are the differences of young persons, in this respect, when they come first under the instructions of a minister or other servant of God! Some so earnest, so attentive, so impressed; so ready to drink in all that is said; treasuring it, hiding it in their hearts, rejoicing in it like those that find great spoil. Others so hard to bring into line, so glad of an excuse for absence, so difficult to interest, so fitful and unconcerned. No doubt much depends on the skill of the teacher in working upon anything in their minds that gives even a faint response to the truth. And in no case is the aversion of the heart beyond the power of the Holy Spirit to influence and to change. But for all that, we cannot but acknowledge the mysterious sovereignty which through causes we cannot trace makes one man so to differ from another; which made Abel so different from Cain, Isaac from Ishmael, Moses from Balaam, and David from Saul. Was David at any time a member of any of the schools of the prophets? We cannot say with certainty, but when we ponder what we read about them it seems very likely that he was. These schools seem to have enjoyed in an eminent degree the gracious power of the Holy Spirit. The hearts of the inmates seem to have burned with the glow of devotion; the emotions of holy joy with which they were animated could not be restrained, but poured out from them, like streams from a gushing fountain, in holy songs and ascriptions to God; and such was the overpowering influence of this spirit that for a time it infected even cold-hearted men like Saul, and bore them along, as an enthusiastic crowd gathers up stragglers and sweeps them onward in its current. It seems highly probable that it was in connection with these institutions, on which so signal a blessing rested, that the devotional spirit became so powerful in David afterwards poured out so freely in his Psalms. For surely he could not be in the company of men who were so full of the Spirit without sharing their experience and pouring forth the feelings that stirred his soul. We all believe in some degree in the law of heredity, and find it interesting to trace the features of forefathers, physical and spiritual, in the persons of their descendants. The piety, the humanity, and the affectionateness of Boaz and Ruth form a beautiful picture in the early Hebrew history, and seem to come before us anew in the character of David. Boaz was remarkable for the fatherly interest he took in his dependants, for his generous kindness to the poor, and for a spirit of gentle piety that breathed even through his secular life. Was it not the same spirit that dictated the benediction, " Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble"? Was it not the same interest in the welfare of dependants that David showed when "he dealt among the people, even the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as to the men, to everyone a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine? Ruth again was remarkable for the extraordinary depth and tenderness of her affection; her words to Naomi have never been surpassed as an expression of simple, tender feeling: "Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee; for wh