1 Samuel 13

1. Saul reigned one year, etc. The former part of this verse is either wanting or altered, in the ancient versions. The words in the Hebrew form the peculiar phrase always used to denote the age of a king at his accession, and the length of his reign: only, as the margin of the Hebrew Bible suggests, some of the numbers are lost. If rendered here as elsewhere, the passage would read, “Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign, and he reigned . . . two years over Israel”: see 2

Sam. ii. 10; v. 4, etc. In Acts xiii. 21, a round number, forty years, is given as the length of Saul’s reign. The second verse begins a new portion of the narrative, some years after Saul’s accession. Of the earlier years (ten or fifteen) of Saul’s reign, we have no account.

5 thirty thousand chariots, etc. There is doubtless an error in the number here, and in 1 Chron. xix. 7. The small nation of the Philistines is here said to have many more chariots than are elsewhere found belonging to the most powerful monarchs. Thus Pharaoh pursued the Israelites with six hundred chariots, even “all the chariots of Egypt”; and Solomon, in the height of his glory, had not more than fourteen hundred chariots. Some versions, with the margin of the Hebrew Bible, read “three thousand”; but this number seems still too large.

8 the set time. See x. 8. Samuel came within the time appointed (10), though not at its commencement. He may have delayed his coming in order to test Saul’s obedience.

12 and offered a burnt offering. Saul would not venture to engage the enemy without offering a sacrifice; and yet he presumed to offer sacrifice himself, though he was neither priest nor prophet.

14 thy kingdom shall not continue. The perpetuity of the kingdom is forfeited now; personal rejection does not follow until after fresh disobedience; xv. 10-23.

a man after His own heart. See Acts xiii. 22. Saul was a man “after the people’s own heart” (ix. 2), their ideal king. But the Divine ideal is different.

15. Gibeah. The Hebrew here (as well as in ver. 16, and in xiv. 5) is “Geba”; the same place from which the Philistine garrison had been expelled (3).

six hundred men. So that, by hastening the sacrifice, he had not kept the people together (11).

19 no smith. A similar policy was pursued by the Chaldeans (2 Kings xxiv. 14; Jer. xxiv. 1; xxix. 2); and Porsenna bound the Roman people to use no iron, except in tilling their fields (Pliny, Nat. Hist., 34, 14).

22 there was neither sword nor spear. They had, however, slings, and probably bows and arrows as well as the ox-goads.

23. Michmash. This seems to have been a narrow defile north of Gibeah, still called Mukhmas, in which were the lofty rocks mentioned in xiv. 4, 5; forming a kind of military key to the surrounding country: see Isa. x. 28, 29.