Bible History Old Testament Vol. 4
Chapter 9
The War against Amalek—Saul’s Disobedience, and its Motives—Samuel Commissioned to Announce Saul’s Rejection—Agag Hewn in Pieces
THE successful war against the Philistines had secured Saul in possession of the throne. 1 Henceforth his reign was marked by wars against the various enemies of Israel, in all of which he proved victorious. 2 BHOTV4 72.1
These expeditions are only indicated, not described, in the sacred text, as not forming constituent elements in the history of the kingdom of God, however they may have contributed to the prosperity of the Jewish state. The war against Amalek alone is separately told (ch. 15), alike from its character and from its bearing on the kingdom which God would establish in Israel. Along with these outward successes the sacred text also indicates the seeming prosperity of Saul, as regarded his family-life. 3 It almost appears as if it had been intended to place before us, side by side in sharp contrast, these two facts: Saul’s prosperity both at home and abroad, and his sudden fall and rejection, to show forth that grand truth which all history is evolving: Jehovah reigneth! BHOTV4 72.2
Israel’s oldest and hereditary enemies were the Amalekites. Descended from Esau (Genesis 36:12, 16; 1 Chronicles 1:36; comp. Josephus Antiq. ii., 1, 2), they occupied the territory to the south and south-west of Palestine. They had been the first wantonly to attack Israel in the wilderness, 4 (Exodus 17:8, etc.), and “war against Amalek from generation to generation,” had been the Divine sentence upon them. BHOTV4 72.3
Besides that first attack we know that they had combined with the Canaanites (Numbers 14:43-45), the Moabites (Judges 3:22, 13), and the Midianites (Judges 7:12) against Israel. What other more direct warfare they may have carried on, is not expressly mentioned in Scripture, because, as frequently observed, it is not a record of the national history of Israel. But from 1 Samuel 15:33 we infer that, at the time of which we write, they were not only in open hostility against Israel, but behaved with extreme and wanton cruelty. Against this unrelenting hereditary foe of the kingdom of God the ban had long been pronounced (Deuteronomy 25:17-19). The time had now arrived for its execution, and Samuel summoned Saul in the most solemn manner to this work. It was in itself a difficult expedition. To be carried out in its full sweep as a “ban,” it would, in Saul’s then state of mind, have required peculiar self-abnegation and devotion. Looking back upon it from another stage of moral development and religious dispensation, and in circumstances so different that such questions and duties can never arise, 5 and that they seem immeasurably far behind, as the dark valley to the traveler who has climbed the sunlit height, or as perhaps events and phases in our own early history, many things connected with the “ban” may appear mysterious to us. But the history before us is so far helpful as showing that, besides its direct meaning as a judgment, it had also another and a moral aspect, implying, as in the case of Saul, self-abnegation and real devotedness to God. BHOTV4 73.1
Thus viewed, the command to execute the “ban” upon Amalek was the second and final test of Saul’s fitness for being king over God’s people. The character of this kingdom had been clearly explained by Samuel at Gilgal in his address to king and people (1 Samuel 12:14, 20, 21, 24). There is evidently an internal connection between the first (1 Samuel 13:8-14) and this second and final trial of Saul. The former had brought to light his want of faith, and even of simple obedience, and it had been a test of his moral qualification for the kingdom; this second was the test of his moral qualification for being king. As the first trial, so to speak, developed into the second, so Saul’s want of moral qualification had ripened into absolute disqualification—and as the former trial determined the fate of his line, so this second decided his own as king. After the first trial his line was rejected; after the second his own standing as theocratic king ceased. As God-appointed king he was henceforth rejected; Jehovah withdrew the sanction which He had formerly given to his reign by the aid of His power and the Presence of His Spirit. Henceforth “the Spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 16:14), and he was left, in the judgment of God, to the influence of that evil spirit to whom his natural disposition and the circumstances of his position laid him specially open (comp. Matthew 12:43-45). BHOTV4 74.1
In view of the great moral trial which this expedition against Amalek would involve, Samuel had been careful to make it clear that the call to it came by Divine authority, reminding the king that he had been similarly sent to anoint him (1 Samuel 15:1). From the circumstance that Saul seems to have marched against Amalek, not with a chosen host, but to have summoned the people as a whole 6 to execute the “ban,” we infer that he had understood the character of his commission. Moving from Telaim (“the place of lambs” 7), probably in the eastern part of the south country, he came to “the city of Amalek,” which is not named, where he “laid an ambush in the valley.” BHOTV4 74.2
Before proceeding farther, he found means to communicate with that branch of the tribe of the Kenites who, from ancient times, had been on terms of friendship with Israel 8 (Numbers 10:29; Judges 1:16). BHOTV4 75.1
In consequence they removed from among the Amalekites. Then a general slaughter began, which is described as “from Havilah,” in the south-east, on the boundaries of Arabia, to the wilderness of Shur “over against,” or eastward of Egypt. Every Amalekite who fell into their hands was destroyed, 9 with the notable exception, however, of Agag, 10 their king. And as they spared him, so also “the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of those of the second sort, 11 and the (wilderness-) fed lambs, and all that was good.” BHOTV4 75.2
The motives for the latter are, of course, easily understood; not so that for sparing Agag. Did they wish to have in his person a sort of material guarantee for the future conduct of Amalek,—or did it flatter the national as well as the royal vanity to carry with them such a captive as Agag,—or did they really wish a sort of alliance and fraternity with what remained of Amalek? All these motives may have operated. But of the character of the act as one of rebellion and disobedience there could be no doubt, in view of the direct Divine command (15:3). BHOTV4 75.3
If in the case of Saul’s first failure it was difficult to withhold sympathy, however clearly his sin and unfitness for the theocratic kingdom appeared, it is not easy even to frame an excuse for his utterly causeless disregard of so solemn a command as that of “the ban.” All Jewish history, from Achan downwards, rose in testimony against him; nay, remembering his proposal to kill even Jonathan, when he had unwittingly infringed his father’s rash vow, Saul stood convicted out of his own mouth! Nor was there any tangible motive for his conduct, nor anything noble or generous either about it, or about his after-bearing towards Samuel. Rather, quite the contrary. What now follows in the sacred narrative is tragic, grand, and even awful. The first scene is laid at night in Samuel’s house at Ramah. It is God Who speaketh to the aged seer. “It repenteth Me that I have made Saul king, for he has returned from after Me, and My Word he has not executed” (literally, set up). “And it kindled in Samuel” (intense feeling, wrath), “and he cried unto Jehovah the whole night.” BHOTV4 75.4
It is one of the most solemn, even awful thoughts—that of the Divine repentance, which we should approach with worshipful reverence. God’s repentance is not like ours, for, “the Strength of Israel will not lie, nor repent; for He is not a man that He should repent.” Man’s repentance implies a change of mind, God’s a change of circumstances and relations. He has not changed, but is ever the same; it is man who has changed in his position relatively to God. The Saul whom God had made king was not the same Saul whom God repented to have thus exalted; the essential conditions of their relationship were changed. God’s repentance is the unmovedness of Himself, while others move and change. The Divine finger ever points to the same spot; but man has moved from it to the opposite pole. But as in all repentance there is sorrow, so, reverently be it said, in that of God. It is God’s sorrow of love, as, Himself unchanged and unchanging, He looks at the sinner who has turned from Him. But, although not wholly unexpected, the announcement of this change on the part of Saul, and of his consequent rejection, swept like a terrible tempest over Samuel, shaking him in his innermost being. The greatness of the sin, the terribleness of the judgment, its publicity in the sight of all Israel, who knew of his Divine call, and in whose presence Samuel, acting as Divine messenger, had appointed him,—all these thoughts “kindled within him” feelings which it would be difficult to analyze, but which led to a “cry” all that long night, if perchance the Lord would open a way of deliverance or of pardon. With the morning light came calm resolve and the terrible duty of going in search of Saul on this errand of God. Nor did the stern Nazarite now shrink from aught which this might imply, however bitterly he might have to suffer in consequence. Saul had returned to Gilgal, as if in his infatuation he had intended to present himself in that place of so many sacred memories before the God Whose express command he had just daringly set aside. By the way he had tarried at Carmel, 12 where he “had set him up a monument” 13 of his triumph over Agag. And now as Samuel met him, he anticipated his questions by claiming to have executed Jehovah’s behest. BHOTV4 76.1
But the very bleating of the sheep and lowing of the oxen betrayed his failure, and the excuse which he offered was so glaringly untrue, 14 that Samuel interrupted him 15 to put the matter plainly and straightforwardly in its real bearing: “Was it not when thou wast small in thine own eyes thou becamest head of the tribes of Israel?”—implying this as its counterpart: Now that thou art great in thine own eyes, thou art rejected, for it was God Who appointed thee, and against Him thou hast rebelled. BHOTV4 77.1
Once more Saul sought to cloak his conduct by pretense of greater religiousness, when Samuel, in language which shows how deeply the spiritual meaning of ritual worship was understood even in early Old Testament times, 16 laid open the mingled folly and presumption of the king, and announced the judgment which the Lord had that night pronounced in his hearing. BHOTV4 77.2
And now the painful interest of the scene still deepens. If there had been folly, hypocrisy, and meanness in Saul’s excuses, there was almost incredible weakness also about his attempt to cast the blame upon the people. Evidently Saul’s main anxiety was not about his sin, but about its consequences, or rather about the effect which might be produced upon the people if Samuel were openly to disown him. He entreated him to go with him, and when Samuel refused, and turned to leave, he laid such hold on the corner of his mantle that he rent it. Not terrified by the violence of the king, Samuel only bade him consider this as a sign of how Jehovah had that day rent the kingdom from him. At last the painful scene ended. Saul gave up the pretense of wishing Samuel’s presence from religious motives, and pleaded for it on the ground of honoring him before the elders of his people. And to this Samuel yielded. Throughout it had not been a personal question, nor had Samuel received directions about Saul’s successor, nor would he, under any circumstances, have fomented discord or rebellion among the people. Besides, he had other and even more terrible work to do ere that day of trial closed. And now the brief service was past, and Samuel prepared for what personally must have been the hardest duty ever laid upon him. By his direction Agag was brought to him. The unhappy man, believing that the bitterness of death, its danger and pang were past, and that probably he was now to be introduced to the prophet as before he had been brought to the king, came “with gladness.” 17 So far as Agag himself was concerned, these words of Samuel must have recalled his guilt and spoken its doom: “As thy sword has made women childless, so be thy mother childless above (ordinary) women.” 18 BHOTV4 78.1
But for Israel and its king, who had transgressed the “ban” by sparing Agag, there was yet another lesson, whatever it might cost Samuel. Rebellious, disobedient king and people on the one side, and on the other Samuel the prophet and Nazarite alone for God—such, we take it, was the meaning of Samuel having to hew Agag in pieces before Jehovah in Gilgal. BHOTV4 78.2
From that day forward Samuel came no more to see Saul. God’s ambassador was no longer accredited to him; for he was no longer king of Israel in the true sense of the term. The Spirit of Jehovah departed from him. Henceforth there was nothing about him royal even in the eyes of men—except his death. But still Samuel mourned for him and over him; mourned as for one cut off in the midst of life, dead while living, a king rejected of God. And still “Jehovah repented that He had made Saul king over Israel—.” BHOTV4 79.1