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Saul Rejected as King
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plying with the conditions of coming into the divine favor, or they
may, by their own actions, place themselves outside of the favoring
condition. Saul’s disobedience changed his relationship with God,
but the conditions of acceptance with God had not changed. With
Him there “is no variation or shadow of turning.” (
James 1:17
).
With an aching heart the prophet set out the next morning to
meet the disobedient king. Samuel cherished a hope that Saul might
repent and be restored to the divine favor. But Saul, corrupted by his
disobedience, came to meet Samuel with a lie on his lips: “Blessed
are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the
Lord.”
When the prophet asked the pointed question, “What then is
this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen
which I hear?” Saul answered, “They have brought them from the
Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the
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oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly
destroyed.” In order to shield himself, he was willing to blame the
people for his sin of disobedience.
The message of Saul’s rejection had to be delivered in the hearing
of Israel’s army when they were filled with pride over a victory
accredited to the heroics and generalship of their king, for Saul had
not associated God with the success of Israel in this conflict. When
the prophet saw the evidence of Saul’s rebellion, he was stirred with
indignation that he had led Israel into sin. With mingled grief and
anger he declared, “I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.
... When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the
tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?”
He repeated the Lord’s command to destroy Amalek and demanded
the reason for the king’s disobedience.
Saul Proves His Rebellion
Saul persisted in self-justification: “But I have obeyed the voice
of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me,
and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed
the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen,
the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to
sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”