1 Samuel 15

1 Samuel 15:1-9

In this chapter we have the final rejection of Saul from being king, for his dissentations. Here is, 1. The commission God gave him utterly to destroy the Amalekites, ver. 1—3. 2. Saul’s preparation for it, ver. 4—5. 3. His success, and partial revocation of this commission, ver. 7—9. 4. His examination before Samuel, and sinuous part upon him for his dissentations, ver. 10—31. 5. The spring of Agag, ver. 32, 33. 6. Samuel’s final forward to Saul, ver. 34, 35. 1. Samuel also said unto Saul, ‘The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over lirael: now therefore’ hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD. 2. Thus saith the LORD of hoists, ‘I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, ‘how he laid near for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. 3. Now go, and smote Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but that they both man and woman, infant and sickling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 4. And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foremen, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and said wait in the valley. 6. ¶ And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, left I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindreds to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah, until thou comest to Shur, that is over-against Egypt. 8. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 9. But Saul and the people spared at 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. Though Saul had been threatened, he had not yet been utterly rejected; but now the critical moment comes, when his fate is to be determined. 1. Samuel is sent from God to remind him by whose favour he reigned, and to exhort him to distill obedience, particularly in the expedition for which he must now prepare. Amalek had behaved cruelly to God’s Israel, when they came from Egypt, and God had long threatened to blot out their remembrance from under heaven; and now God remembers their old iniquities, and Saul must be the executioner of divine justice, nor spare any thing which breathed, but utterly destroy man and beast. Note, (1.) God will certainly remember the injuries done his people, especially the discouragements put in the way of young converts. (2.) Though God is patient, even towards the vessels of wrath, yet their desolations are determined, and their ruin certain. (3.) God will not want executioners of justice, when the measure of a nation’s sins is full. 2. Saul instantly proceeds, and is followed by a numerous army of two hundred thousand men, besides ten thousand of Judah, whose small proportion some ascribe to envy, others to the necessity of guarding their borders, as most exposed during the absence of the army. When he arrived in the enemies country, he sent a friendly message to the Kenites, who for the convenience of passurage had gone thither, to come up, lest they should fall in the promiscuous ruin, which they immediately did; and the reason of this kindness he gives in the friendship they had shown to Israel when they came from Egypt. Note, (1.) Kindnesses done to God’s people shall often be recompened in this world, but certainly in the reformation of the just. (2.) They are in danger of slaying with sinners in their plagues, who by choice take up their residence among them. (3.) We cannot make too much haste to separate ourselves from the communion of the ungodly. 3. No sooner were the Kenites in safety, than the Amalekites begin to feel the sword. The ambush in the valley succeeds, their army is routed, the capital taken, the country ravaged

aged from end to end, and the king himself a prisoner. But Saul, through false pity, or covetousfeels, spaced him from death, with the belt of the cattle, and utterly destroyed the red, though some, it seems, with their effects, escaped by flight, and for a little while longer preferred the dying name of Amalek. Note, (1.) Partial obedience detects the hypocrite. (2.) Covetousfeels is often its own punishment. He made a bad bargain, who, to secure the cattle of Amalek, lull the kingdom of Israel.

10. Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying, 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 preferred 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, and behold, he set him up 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, Bieffed it thou of the LORD: ‘I have performed the commandment of the LORD. 14. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the bowing of the oxen which I bear? 15. And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the belt of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. 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 waft little in thine own fight, waft 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 finners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be confirmed. 19. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but ‘didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the fight of the LORD? 20. And Saul said unto Samuel, Yes, 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. 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. 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 it better than sacrifice; and to interfere, than the fat of rams. 23. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry: be said thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

1 Samuel 15:10-23

We have here the interview between Samuel and Saul returning from his victory, which made his bright day clofe with darkened.

1. God informs Samuel of Saul’s disobedience, his repentance that he had made him king, and the removal of the crown from his family, determined thereupon. Note, Repentance with God signifies not a change of mind, but of his methods of dealing with men.

2. Samuel is bitterly afflicted herewith, and spends the night in prayers and tears, to gain the reversion of the sentence, but in vain. Note, The ruin of sinners is the bitter grief of God’s faithful mindless.

3. According to appointment he goes to Carmel, to meet Saul, and not finding him there, where he had staid no longer than to erect a trophy of his victory, he follows him to Gilgal.

4. Saul comes to meet him, with great confidence boasting his obedience, and blessing Samuel for the prosperous undertaking on which he had sent him. Note, They who are trumpeters of their own good works, will soon discover the vanity of their periences.

5. Samuel’s ears are more attentive to the bleating of the sheep, than the boasting of the king; and he upbraids him for the falseness and folly of his conduct, of which his spoils afforded such incontestable evidence.

6. Saul seeks to excuse the fact he cannot deny, by laying the fault on the people, pretending to defuse God’s glory in the sacrifice of the cattle, and the honour of Israel in shewing them the captive king; but his plea was false as frivolous: none would have dared to act without his orders, and his own profit and glory was at the bottom of his pretended piety. Note, (1.)

In vain do we vanish our expensive sacrifices, and keep up the outward pomp and form of religion, if pride, lust, and covetousness are in possession of the heart; our very heathful services are an abomination. (2.) They who seek to exculpate themselves by accusing others who were partners, or tempests in their guilt, they themselves utterly unhumbled under it.

7. His plea is rejected, and his excuses confound. Samuel, as commanded of God, delivers his message, and having his authority, claims an audience. He reminds him of the exaltation to which, from his low estate, God had brought him, and which should, in gratitude, have kept him obedient; the orders he received, on the present occasion, were plain and express, so that the affluent must be wilful and deliberate; wherefore he expoundates with him on the inexcusableness of his conduct, and the greatness of his sin. Note, (1.) Though it be a terrible message, God gives us against the sinner, we must not fear to deliver it plainly and faithfully. (2.) The more God’s mercy hath been flown us, the more ungrateful are our ill returns.

8. Saul interrupts the prophet in his message, with repeated assertions of his obedience; though his own acknowledgments give the lie to his possessions. Note, They who are hardened in sin and formality, will not be beat out of their vain confidence by the plainest confutation.

Lastly, Samuel blames him with an appeal to his own conscience; the most costly services bear no proportion with dutiful obedience; rebellion against God’s express command, was criminal as witchcraft, and stubbornness in maintaining his innocence an aggravation of his iniquity like unto idolatry itself. Therefore, as the just reward of such transgression, he denounces his doom, God hath rejected him from being king, and cut off the entail of the government from his family. Note, (1.) Obedience to God is the most acceptable sacrifice we can offer; a heart submissive to his holy will is better than a hecatomb. (2.) All disobedience is spiritual idolatry, as it sets up the will of the creature above the will of God. (3.) Let kings know, that though they have no superior on earth, they have a King of kings; and rebellion against him by sin will be villed with condign punishment.

24. And Saul said unto Samuel, ‘I have sinned: for I have transgreffed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because ‘I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. 25. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD. 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. 27. And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. 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. 29. And also the strength of Israel will not lie, nor repent; for he is not a man that he should repent. 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. 31. So Samuel turned again after Saul, and Saul worshipped the LORD.

1 Samuel 15:24-31

Such evidence Saul can no longer withstand. Therefore,

1. He confesses his sin, yet in such a way as makes him appear more solicitous to gain Samuel’s favour, than God’s forgiveness, and more amount to save his credit with the world, than his conscience from the guilt of his iniquity; his confession is neither humbling nor sincere, and he still endeavours to extenuate his fault, with urging his tears of the people. Note, (1.) To confess the guilt we cannot conceal is no proof of real penitence. (2.) They who are more afraid of the shame of their sins before men, than of the guilt of them before God, are strangers to true conviction of the evil of sin.

2. Samuel refuses to return with him, and repeats God’s determined purpose concerning him. As he was turning to go from him, Saul seized the skirt of his garment to stay him, and it rent in his hand; this the prophet immediately interprets the rending his kingdom from him, and takes occasion thence to confirm the irreversible decree of God. The Strength, or Faster of Israel, the God who protected his people, and to whom they were indebted for every success, was incapable of fullhood or change of mind; yet when Saul pleaded his honour before the people, whom such an abrupt departure of the prophet might have exasperated against him, Samuel turned again, changing his mind, or receiving a divine notice to alter his resolution; and since Saul was, for a time, to continue in possession of the throne, he would not lessen his authority; and he had also another commission to execute, in the death of Agag, whom Saul had spared. Note, (1.) We are guilty of no lie, when we see cause to alter

1 Samuel 15:32-35

We have, 1. Samuel executing justice upon Agag. He commands Agag to be brought, and he appears dressed like a king, delicately, or as the Vulgate translation, and the Septuagint add, yet trembling, between fear and hope, flattering himself that the bitternes of death is past, but he soon finds his sad mistake; Samuel reproaching him with his former crothers, denounces the just presence of retaliation upon him, and with the sword himself, or some other by his orders, hears him in pieces before the Lord, as a sacrifice to divine justice. Note, (1.) Should kings will meet an avenging God. (2.) Death is bitter to the sinner, but to the believer in Jesus, he being removed from his conscience, the bitternes of death is past. (3.) Many promile themselves life and peace, who do not see the dart of death, like this sword of Samuel, ready to pierce them to the heart. 2. Samuel takes his final leave of Saul, and never came to see him more, to the day of his death; that is, he never visited him as a friend, though he might afterwards undelignedly see him, as he did at Ramah, chap. xix. 24. yet he mourned for him, under the knife of his terrible situation, and the ruin which hung over him, God having utterly rejected him. Note, It is bitter to nature to see those we love in the ways of death and hell; we cannot but mourn over them.