FIRST QUARTER. LESSON I. JANUARY 2, 1876. SAUL REJECTED. 1 SAMUEL 15:10-23. [B. C. 1087.] CONNECTION. So long as Samuel could personally direct them the affairs of the commonwealth prospered; but when, in his old age, the duties of government devolved upon his two sons, these latter proved venal and corrupt, and the people began to murmur for a more settled form of government, and bade Samuel make them a king, to judge them like the nations. They doubtless felt, too, that their guerilla warfare was of little avail against the powerful monarchies with which they had to contend, and desired a more complete military organization, and therefore they cried that their king might go before them and fight their battles. Samuel pointed out all the disadvantages of a despotic rule, but the people were importunate, and the Lord at last commanded the aged judge to hearken unto their request, and to anoint a king. The choice, directed by divine inspiration, fell upon one Saul, a young man of good presence and commanding stature, and descended from one of the chief families of the tribe of Benjamin. He was at first privately anointed by Samuel, by whom he was sent to the School of the Prophets, that he might receive that training and feel those influences of religion and patriotism that should fit him for his high station. Later on, a solemn assembly of all the tribes was held at Mizpah. The tribe of Benjamin was designated by lot from all the rest, and Saul was received as king. The monarch-elect did not enter at once upon his func tions, and the whole authority of the state was really still exercised by Samuel; but an occasion shortly presented itself in which Saul was able to prove his fitness to wield the sovereign power (1 Sam. 11 chap.). This act of promptitude and vigor completely established the young king in his position, and Samuel thereupon called the people together at Gilgal, and having given an account of his own stewardship, resigned the administration into the hands of Saul. Palmer. After the events narrated in Chaps. 11 and 12 a break occurs in the history, and Saul next appears no longer an ardent youth, but mature in years, and the father of a brave young warrior, Jonathan. He violates the law of God at Gilgal by him. self offering up the sacrifices which were necessary, and which Samuel ought to have offered, and thus manifests that spirit of disobedience which seems to have been his greatest sin. For this he is rebuked by Samuel. He receives the rebuke with meekness, but he very soon makes an ill-timed vow at Gibeah that his men shall not taste food until the close of the day. Had it not been for this the defeat of the Philistines might have been much more signal, as the soldiers were too faint to pursue the advantage they had gained; it also led them into direct disobedience of the Mosaic precept, for they fell upon the spoil so eagerly in their hunger that they eat the slaughtered animals while the blood is still in them, and Jonathan comes very near losing his life, having in ignorance of his father's order tasted a little honey. His military career after this is successful, until he falls into the act of disobedience recorded in the lesson. There is hardly any nation which has not had some especial public enemy, generally a near neighbor, which it was held to be a peculiar duty of patriotism to hate and to destroy. We need not name in. stances: it were difficult to find exceptions; and the reading and observation of every one will supply examples. Such sentiments between nations have generally their origin in bitter wars and ancient wrongs. Israel had many ordinary enemies, but the one marked out in this distinctive manner as the public enemy was the Amalekites. This people had some kinds of settlements in the Sinai peninsula and in the country south of Palestine and west of Edom; and being a people of semi-nomade habits, they appear to have been in the habit of wandering with their flocks over the intervening countries. With this location they came much in contact with the Israelites, always hostilely, during the forty years' wandering. They opposed the Israelites after they had crossed the Red Sea, on their march to Sinai. They opposed and repulsed them also when they advanced to enter the Promised Land on the south; and besides these recorded instances, there was probably a long succession of aggravating petty contests between them during the long intervening period of wandering, respecting which we have no account. It is, therefore, not wonderful that, according to ancient usage, the people of Israel solemnly doomed the Amalekites to utter destruction whenever they should be able to wreak upon them all the fierce wrath which fired their hearts. This was in fact the same doom upon a nation which we have formerly seen inflicted upon a town in the case of Jericho. This doom, incurred by the Amakelites in presence of the miracles, and the manifest tokens of the divine presence which attended Israel's march 10 Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, 11 It repenteth1 me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath3 not performed my command ments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night. 12 And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel,4 and, behold, he set him up PARALLEL PASSAGES.— .1Verse 35. Heb. 10:38. Verses 3, 9. 1 Sam. 13:13. of mystery through the wilderness, had been not only unprovoked assaults upon Israel in the time of their weakness, but such acts of defiance of the Power by which they were seen to be protected that the honor of his own great name, no less than his official guardianship of the chosen people, procured the Lord's sanction of this devotement. It had not yet been executed. The Amalekites still kept up their ancient hostility to the Israelites; they had not by repentance sought to avert the execution of the sentence which hung over their heads, but rather derided the impotent hatred which had so long left unexecuted the threatened doom. They had thus kept their sentence alive, had not suffered it to sleep by lapse of time. It is more than probable, and more natural, that the Amalekites themselves had never suffered this hostility to sleep or their doom to be forgotten. That they were forward, on every occa sion that offered, to join in any aggressive warfare against Israel, we know. It is also easily understood that they allowed little peace to the southern Israelites settled on their borders, or to those who travelled, or were out with the flocks. Saul was commanded, through Samuel, to march against the Amalekites, and execute to the letter the ancient doom of devotement-of utter extermination-against them and theirs. If he had power to execute it- and power was given to him—whatever was spared became, according to the tenor of the old vow, as much "an accursed thing" as in the days of Jericho. Saul undertook the task; but he executed it entirely according to his own judgment of what was expedient and proper. He felt no objection as to any cruelty in the command, for he executed it fiercely upon all the people of the Amalekites who came within the scope of his expedition; he destroyed them utterly, with the edge of the sword. But the king Agag, who fell into his hands, he spared, being the very person most obnoxious to destruction, as being, officially at least, the chief offender. Kitto. Gen. 6:6, 7. 2 Sam. 24: 16. Jer. 18:8, 10. 21 Kings 9:6. 41 Kings 18:42. 11. It repenteth me. - Repentance in God is not, as in us, a change of mind, but a change of method or dispensation. He does not alter his will, but wills an alteration. The change was in Saul. Henry. That this repentance of God does not express any changeableness in the divine nature, but simply the sorrow of the divine love at the rebellion of sinners from verse 29. Keil. - The Lord's change of conduct towards Saul was similar to the change in our conduct which springs from repentance; though by means of all he accomplished his own wise and righteous purposes. Scott. He is turned back from following me. This was Saul's real sin. He would no longer be the follower and serv ant of the Lord, but would be absolute ruler in Israel. Pride arising from the consciousness of his own strength led him astray to break the command of God. What more God said to Samuel is not com. municated here, because it could easily be gathered and supplied from what Samuel himself proceeded to do. And it grieved Samuel. Samuel was deeply agitated by this word of the Lord. "It burned (in) him," not on account of the repentance to which God had given utterance at having raised up Saul as king, nor merely at Saul's disobedience, but at the frustration of the purpose of God in calling him to be king in consequence of his disobedience, from which he might justly dread the worst results in relation to the glory of Jehovah and his own prophetic labors. Keil. - Many grave thoughts seem to have presented themselves at once to Samuel and disturbed his mind, when he reflected upon the dishonor which might be heaped upon the name of God, and the occasion which the rejection and deposition of Saul would furnish to wicked men for blaspheming God. For Saul had been anointed by the ministry of Samuel, and he had been chosen by God himself from all the people, and called by Him to the throne. Calvin. Cried unto the Lord all night. Praying for Saul to be forgiven. But it was in vain. This is evident from what follows, where Samuel maintains the cause of his God with strength and decision, after having wrestled with God in prayer. Keil. 12. Came to Carmel.-Not the famous mountain so called, but a city in the south part of the tribe of Judah, mentioned Josh. 15:55, which seems to have given name to the territory around it. Dr. Wells. He set him up a place. Meaning either that he encamped there for the night, or that he erected a triumphal arch in celebration of his victory. Dr. Wells. — The vainglorious character of Saul was evinced in his homeward march by his setting up a monument of his exploit at Carmel, thus appro priating to himself all the honor of the success, a thing most offensive under the peculiar principles of the Hebrew government, and such as no other king ever ventured to do. Compare the spirit which this evinces with the constant and heartfelt dependence upon God, and the formal ascription of all honor a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. 13 And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed1 be thou of the LORD: I have2 performed the commandment of the LORD. 14 And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 15 And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites : for3 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. PARALLEL PASSAGES. -1Jer. 17:2. 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. 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? 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. 19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst 2Prov. 18:13; 30:13. Verse 9-21. 4Ch. 9:21. and glory to him, evinced in the Psalms and the history of David, a far greater conqueror than Saul - Gone about gone down to Gilgal. He had marched in great state to Gilgal, for that seems to be intimated in the manner of expression, "He is gone about and passed on, and gone down," with a great deal of pomp and parade. Henry. - Gilgal was in the Jordan valley near Jericho. 13. Blessed be thou of the Lord. - Perhaps Saul was in some degree conscious of having done wrong, and he therefore addressed Samuel in this respectful language in order to conciliate his good will and to ward off the rebuke which he feared. Some, however, think that he was so insensible of having committed any fault that he was disposed to boast of his obedience, and expected to be congrat ulated and commended by the prophet. Scott. -I have performed, etc. It might seem from this confident address to the prophet that Saul expected praise and not reproof for what he had done; but as appears from the prophet's answer, while the sinner neither saw nor heard his sins, they cried aloud in the ears of God. We cannot but notice here the strange blindness of a carnal and worldly heart. We are all too apt, like Saul, to mistake a part for the whole of our duty, and even to pride ourselves in such a partial obedience, as if it was uniform and complete. Wogan. 14. What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep? etc. Saul would needs have it thought God was wonderfully beholden to him for the good service he had done; but Samuel shows him God was so far from being a debtor to him that he had just cause of action against him, and produces for evidence the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oren, which perhaps Saul appointed to bring up the rear of his triumph, but Samuel appeals to them as witnesses against him. It is no new thing for the plausible professions and protestations of hypocrites to be contradicted and disproved by plain and undeniable evidence. Many boast of their obedience to the command of God; but what mean then their indulgence of the flesh, their love of the world, their passions and uncharitableness, and their neglect of holy duties, which witness against them? Henry. 15. The people spared. This was a mean excuse, to throw all the blame upon the people when he himself was principally at fault, and when he had it in his power to govern the people better. Bp. Patrick. -So that it was not Saul, but the people, who had transgressed the command of the Lord, and that with the most laudable intention, viz. to offer the best of the cattle that had been taken as a thankoffering to the Lord. The falsehood and hypocrisy of these words lay upon the very surface; for even if the cattle spared were really intended as sacrifices to the Lord, not only the people, but Saul also, would have had their own interests in view, since the flesh of thank-offerings was appropriated to sacri. ficial meals. Keil. 16-20. Then Samuel said, etc. Samuel overrules, or rather overlooks, his plea, and proceeds In God's name to give judgment against him. He delivers his message faithfully. He reminds him of the honor God had done him in making him king (verse 17). He lays before him the plainness of the orders he was to execute (verse 18). - The Lord sent thee on a journey. So easy was the service and so certain was the success that it was rather to be called a journey than a war. He shows him how inexcusable he was in aiming to make a handle of this expedition, and to enrich himself by it (verse 19). See of what evil the love of money is the root; but see what is the sinfulness of sin, and that in it which above anything else makes it evil in the sight of the Lord,-disobedience. Henry. fly upon the soil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord. 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. 21 But1 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. PARALLEL PASSAGES.-1Verse 15. 22, 23. Gal. 5:20. Rev. 21:8. Ch 13:14. 22 And Samuel said, Hath2 the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and ́ sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey3 is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, 4 and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.5 Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king 2Ps. 50:8, 9; 51:16, 17. Prov. 21:3. Is. 1:11-17. Jer. 7: Eccl. 5:1. Hos. 6:6. Mark 12:33. Rev. 22:15. 52 Cor. 6:16. 20-21. Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. But Saul persisted that he had obeyed, seeng that, as he now insinuated, the spoil had only been reserved for sacrifice to Jehovah. This we take to have been a gross attempt to bribe the Lord, under a most offensive misconception of his nature and character, to acquiesce in the exemption he had made. For although stated as an original motive, it is palpably an after-thought suggested by the stringency of Samuel's rebuke. This is proved out of Saul's own mouth: when the prophet met this subterfuge by the indignant and noble rebuke, "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," the king shifted his ground, and urged that the army would not consent to the destruction of the spoil, that is, would not forego the beneficial Interest they had in the distribution of it,-which is quite different from the reason previously given. Kitto. 22. Hath the Lord as great delight, etc. A careful conformity to moral precepts recommends us to God more than all ceremonial observances. Obedience is enjoined by the eternal law of nature, sacrifice only by a positive law. God is more glorified and self more denied by obedience than by sacrifice. It is much easier to bring a bullock or lamb to be burnt on the altar than to bring every high thought into obedience to God and the will subject to his will. Henry.-Submission to the authority of God must be essential to true religion under every dispensation; but there is a great difference between the submission of a holy and that of a sinful creature. External obedience even to moral precepts is good in the sight of God only when it springs from a willing submission of the soul to the divine authority. Scott. - To obey is better than sacrifice. By saying this, Samuel did not reject sacrifices as worthless; he did not say that God took no pleasure in burnt-offerings and slain-offerings, but simply compared sacrifice with obedience to the command of God, and pronounced the latter of greater worth than the former. Keil.-To tear off the cloak of hypocrisy, with which Saul hoped to cover his disobedience, it was quite enough to affirm that God's first demand was obedience, and that observing his word was better than sacrifice; because "in sacrifices a man offers only the strange flesh of irrational animals, whereas in obedience he offers his own will, which is rational or spiritual worship." Keil. 23. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, etc. The word rendered "witchcraft" signifies the following of divinations and enchantments, which were superstitions forbidden with the severest penalties under the law, and were justly looked upon as a renouncing of God in having recourse to other real or imaginary powers in opposition to him. When, therefore, a crime is said to be "as the sin of witchcraft," the meaning is that it is a fault of so heinous and provoking a nature that the obstinate commission of it is altogether inconsistent with all true principles of religion, and, in effect, a total renunciation of them. The word "iniquity," in the latter part of the verse, is iniquity towards God, the forsaking of his worship, the denying him his true honor, the turning from him to false gods, or joining them with him; and therefore it is expressed by two words together, iniquity and idolatry. Dr. S. Clarke.- God asks the homage of the heart, the pure and perfect submission of the human will. No substitute for this can possibly be accepted. Neither apology nor confession on the part of Saul could avail to change the divine purpose. Saul had shown himself untrue to his Supreme Sovereign and utterly unfit to be king over the Lord's people. It, therefore, only remained for Samuel to rebuke his sin sharply, to testify to him that the Lord had that day rent the kingdom of Israel (in purpose) from him and given it to a neighbor better than he; and then to tear himself sadly yet firmly away from Baul and leave him to his wretched doom. Yet as if to administer one last rebuke tɔ Saul by giving him an example of what he should have done, he commands, "Bring ye hither to me Agag, the king of Amalek." "" Agag," we read, " came to him delicately," the sense of which Hebrew word may perhaps be with joy, assuming that his peril of death was past. Yet Fuerst gives the word the sense, in chains. The Septuagint has it "trembling." The first named sense [i. e. with joy] seems most probable, because in harmony with what follows. Then the aged Samuel, rising to the stern demands of God's fearful retributions, proclaims, "As thy sword has made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women," and then "hewed the guilty king in pieces before the Lord," the final clause "before the Lord" signifying that God was solemnly present to that scene, and that it was done in faithful though stern fulfilment of God's command. It was the moment for God's eternal justice to be vindicated. There was no element in Saul's character equal to such an emergency: there was none in Samuel's that could shrink from fulfilling God's high behest. The contrast is a lesson in moral sublimity. Cowles. - Nothing can be love to God which does not shape itself into obedience. We remember the anecdote of the Roman commander who forbade an engagement with the enemy, and the first transgressor against whose prohibition was his son. He accepted the challenge of the leader of the other host, met, slew, spoiled him; and then, in triumphant feeling, carried the spoils to his father's tent. But the Roman father refused to recognize the instinct which prompted this as deserving the name of love. Disobedience contradicted it and deserved death. F. W. Robertson. LESSON II. JANUARY 9, 1876. DAVID ANOINTED KING. 1 SAMUEL 16:1-13. 1 And the LORD said unto Samnel,1 How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil,3 and go, I will send thee to Jesse, the Beth-lehem 1Ch. 15:35. Jer. 7:16; 11: 14; 14:11. 2Ch. 15:23. $2 Kings 9:1. CONNECTION. Although the rejection of Saul on the part of God, which was announced to him by Samuel, was not followed by immediate deposition, but Saul remained king until his death, the consequences of his rejection were very speedily brought to light. While Samuel, by the command of God, was secretly anointing David, the Spirit of Jehovah was departing from Saul. Keil. It is a remarkable fact that while Saul thus incurred the divine displeasure for the wilflness of his conduct, there is no reason to question that his popularity was great with the people and his power continually increasing. He had many qualities which the multitude admired; and even the very qualities which drew down the anger of the divine King upon him were not such as an Oriental people regard with much disfavor in their sovereign, or deem to be unbecoming the kingly character. It was while thus powerful and popular, his throne sustained by the consummate military talents of his cousin Abner, and the continuance of his race guaranteed by several noble sons, at whose head was Jonathan,-it was at such a time, in his pride of place, that the hand of the prophet in the sentence which he declared wrote "Ichabod" upon all that he had and all that he hoped for. The king knew this was no vain word. He seemed to take it lightly at first; but, nevertheless, the iron entered his very soul, rankling and cankering there. He became irritable, suspicious, and despairing, and occasionally fell into a gloom of mind bordering close upon madness. Kitto. - From this point (1 Sam. 16) onward, the historic thread runs on the life of David, not of Saul. David is the primary character, Saul only the secondary. Whatever is said of Saul is here because of its relations to David; what is said of David is here for its own sake, to give us a full and connected view of his experiences during the interval of his being anointed and his being ultimately inaugurated as king of Israel. Around David the chief interest of the sacred story naturally gathers. Coroles. 1. How long wilt thou mourn? It was sad that the first king should make such a failure; that one of so much early promise should break down so utterly, and that, too, on the very first principle of true picty, implicit obedience to God. Cowles. - Samuel on his part was deeply concerned at what had passed. Let those who ascribe all this to the ill-will of the prophet at Saul's not proving that sub. |