XIII.
(1 Samuel 13:1-21) Saul’s Reign — The Gallantry of Saul and Jonathan — The new King’s attempt to Rule as an Absolute Sovereign — His Disregard of the Most High — He and his House are Rejected as Kings of Israel — The Philistine War.
EXCURSUS E: ON THE CITY OF GILGAL (1 Samuel 13).
On the south-west bank of the River Jordan, a little to the north-east of the old famous Canaanitish fortress-city of Jericho, was pitched the fortified camp of Joshua at the time of the Israelitish invasion. From this place of arms his armies went forth to the conquest of the cities of Ai and Jericho, in the immediate neighbourhood, the first important captures in the promised land.
Gilgal then seems to have been the first spot where the conquering Israelites established themselves. Out of the fortified camp of Gilgal grew the city bearing the same name. During the whole period of the conquest of the land under Joshua, it seems to have been the regular place of assembly for the chiefs of the tribes, and to have been a kind of head-quarters for the host of Israel. There, too, the festival and sacred meetings appear at first certainly to have been held. (Comp. Joshua 5:10; Joshua 9:6; Joshua 10:6-7; Joshua 10:9; Joshua 10:15; Joshua 10:43; Joshua 14:6; Judges 2:1.)
Ewald considers that, from the notices preserved in the Books of Samuel, in the days of that famous judge-seer it was one of the most sacred places in Israel, and the town centre of the whole people, and that its importance dates from the days of the conquest under Joshua. Although after the establishment of the monarchy, and the permanent fixing the seat of government and the residence of the sovereign at Jerusalem, where was also erected the Temple, Gilgal declined in importance, still, centuries later, in the times of Amos and Hosea, it appears to have been a sacred place, held in high regard by the people. (See Amos 5:5; Hosea 4:15; Hosea 9:15.)
EXCURSUS F: ON THE SIN AND REJECTION OF KING SAUL (1 Samuel 13).
The conduct of Samuel in the matter of his separation from Saul has been often called into question. The old prophet, in his dealings with the king, has been accused of harshness and precipitancy, and even Saul’s punishment by the Most High has been looked upon as severe and disproportioned to the offence. Instead of conceding or denying these hasty conclusions, it will be well to consider what this offence was which alienated the prophet, and brought so terrible a judgment on the great first king of Israel and his royal house.
The existence of Israel, and their prosperity as a people, was based alone on the peculiar favour and protection of the Eternal God. Out of the peoples of the globe, He chose them for a special purpose. They were to keep burning the lamp of the knowledge of the Most High amid the darkness of the idolatry and sin of the world. As long as they were faithful the Lord sustained them against all their adversaries. He enabled them to win a beautiful land; He maintained them securely there; to use the language of their own records, they dwelt safe under the shadow of the Almighty wings. God would have led them higher, and ever higher, had they for their part remained true and loyal. In a great crisis of their history the Eternal chose out Saul from among them, and made him ruler and His own vice-gerent on earth of His chosen people.
Now, as we have said, the conditions of the existence and prosperity of Israel were the favour and help of the invisible King. With these they prospered, and went on from strength to strength; without these their power withered away at once; the moment the Glorious Arm was removed Israel at once sank to the level, or even below the level, of the other peoples of the earth.
King Saul possessed many rare and noble qualities. He was brave to a fault, simple, modest, even deeply religious. He was gifted, too, with prudence and moderation, and was undoubtedly a wise and able general, but when raised to the throne, and in possession of supreme power, he totally mistook the position of Israel. He thought it had won its own way to freedom, and the possession of the rich and fruitful land in which they dwelt, and that it could, by the exercise of prudence and valour, maintain itself in its conquests, and even rise to be one of the powerful monarchies of the world. In other words, without despising or making light of the true King who had in truth raised up Israel from slavery, and made it an independent nation, Saul considered that the people over whom he had been called to rule could, if necessary, do without this supernatural assistance.
Acting upon this false conception of the true position of Israel, he reserved to himself the right to act in certain emergencies without the advice of the Eternal, communicated through that great prophet, who in those days was the mouth-piece of the Most High, or if he judged it better for the interest of the people, even in direct opposition to this supernatural advice or even positive commands. In other words, when King Saul failed to see the wisdom or policy of the “word of the Lord,” communicated to him by the accredited seer of the Eternal, he declined to follow its dictates.
The Inspired compiler of this book has chosen out of the records of the first king’s reign two memorable instances of this strange and obstinate self-will on the part of the king: the first, the declining to wait for the prophet at Gilgal till the specified time for his coming had expired; the second, the refusal to destroy the Amalekite king and the rich plunder taken from him.
To the superficial reader the special acts of Saul which are cited in these books as the immediate occasion of the separation of the prophet and the king, and of the doom pronounced upon Saul and his house, may seem trivial — quite incommensurate with the fatal consequences; they were, no doubt, as the great German commentator Ewald suggests, isolated cases, which received their true significance from a long series of connected events — instances which were selected as perhaps the best known of Saul’s permanent disposition towards the invisible Guardian of Israel. [May not such considerations, applied to other events chronicled in Holy Writ, assist us in understanding much that is now dark and difficult — for instance, the terrible woe which followed on the plucking and eating of the forbidden fruit in Eden? It is likely that, owing to their rebellious and self-willed spirit, the father and mother of our race were banished from a life for which their self-will rendered them utterly unfit. The sin, of which we possess such ample details in the early Genesis story, was probably a solitary instance of the self-will and disobedience of our first parents to a loving and generous Creator. Many difficulties in the Bible story are capable of explanation, if we adopt some such considerations as these which we have lightly sketched out here.]
King Saul was fully and fairly tested. No doubt, the want of faith and implicit trust — the first requisite for a true child of Israel — which led to the disobedience of Gilgal, had been manifested before, on other and less conspicuous occasions. This was in the face of the people, and the long-suffering of the Eternal could not pass over so glaring and public a manifestation of the king’s intention to loosen the links which bound together in Israel the visible and the invisible. It was a fatal example, which might only too quickly have been followed by many. So the prophet and friend of Saul at once pronounced the doom; but even then, Saul might have repented, and, had he chosen, might again have won the old favour and love of the Eternal King; but we know he did not choose, alas for Saul! The heart grieves over the fatal blindness of the gallant and patriotic king. Gilgal taught him nothing. We feel that the alienation between Israel’s visible and invisible Kings grew with each succeeding year, till again, in the matter of the Amalekite booty, a still more public manifestation of Saul’s determination never to submit his will to God’s will drove the reluctant Samuel to pronounce in still more fateful words the doom of the disobedient, and to close for ever his friendship with the unhappy sovereign. The words of the great seer — the friend of God — uttered under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord, when he finally determined to bid farewell to Saul, sum up the sin and its punishment. (See 1 Samuel 15:22-23.)