Samuel was sent to sentence him. The prophet, after praying all night long for Saul, followed the victorious army, first to Carmel, a place in the south of Judah, whence, after setting up a stone in honour of his victory, Saul had gone on to the great gatheringplace at Gilgal, on the Jordan.

LESSON LXI.

THE SENTENCE UPON SAUL.

B.C. 1079.-I SAMUEL XV. 13-35.

And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD.

And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?

And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.

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.

And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?

And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?

And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, 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.

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.

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 is better than sacrifice,

And to hearken than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,

And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD,

He hath also rejected thee from being king.

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the

commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

Now, therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD.

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.

And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.

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.
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent:

For he is not a man, that he should repent.

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.

So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD. Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.

And Samuel said,

As thy sword hath made women childless,

So shall thy mother be childless among women.

And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.

Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.

And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death; nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.

COMMENT.-Saul, in the self-will that would submit to no guidance, came forth to meet Samuel, boasting how well he had fulfilled God's command, hoping to slur over his disobedience in the honour of the victory. But such a victory was no honour, and Samuel's simple question put him to shame in a moment. If he had really obeyed further than suited his own pleasure, what was the meaning of all the sounds of oxen and sheep with which the camp re-echoed? Saul, like a man resolved to show no misgivings, merely answered that it was the plunder of the Amalekites, of which the best had been reserved for a sacrifice. Observe, while Saul almost insolently ignores Samuel's right to find fault, he yet seeks excuse. It was the people, he said, not himself, that had taken the spoil. Moreover, it was for an offering to the "Lord thy God,”— though Samuel ought to have been gratified. With this answer

-as

the king was walking away as one who had done with the subject, but the grey-haired Nazarite held him back to hear God's message, and he sullenly stood still to listen. Then Samuel reminded him how in the days of his mean estate God had sought him out and raised him up to do His will, and how He had given him a special commission-which he had not fulfilled. Obstinate in argument, Saul still averred that he had done his work; he had killed the Amalekites, and made their king a captive, and that it was the people who had taken the plunder—and for a sacrifice. But there the great Levite's voice rose into the inspired chant of prophecy, as he spake the words that have been the warning of thousands ever since-namely, that no offering is so acceptable to God as obedience, and to do His will is far more than any outward sacrifice.

Multitudes have been like Saul, and have thought they could atone for missing the one duty they do not like by fine sounding gifts or observances that they do like; but to all God's answer is the same, that "to obey is better than sacrifice," and that "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry." The words might touch Saul the more, that he was at least zealous against idols, and had been exterminating the wizards and witches, who seem to have crept in from the Philistines, and used charms and spells to foretell the future. Great words were these, to be dwelt on again and again in Scripture, perhaps most notably in the 40th Psalm, where the singer, meaning to set forth his own desire to obey, has been inspired to express the purpose with which He who alone obeyed perfectly offered the one All-sufficient Sacrifice.

At the sentence that, as he had rejected God, so God had rejected him, Saul was overwhelmed; and, as the readiest way to put an end to the scene, owned that he had done wrong, but it was the people's fault. Would not Samuel return? He was evidently afraid that if Samuel's displeasure were known, the people would rise against him. But Samuel continued stern against his semblance of friendship and worship. Saul tried to hold him back, and thus rent his mantle. Then Samuel did turn, to assure him that this was a symbol of the way the kingdom should be rent from him, and given to one who was holier than he. Nor need he hope to change the doom by the mockery of an offering of the plundered

cattle. God, the Strength of Israel, was not a man to change His mind and purpose. Samuel repeated the very words with which Balaam had told Balak that his offerings of bullocks and rams could never bribe the Lord to break His covenant to Israel. Still, Saul, anxious to keep up his credit with the people, continued his entreaties, and Samuel, who had fulfilled his commission, and truly loved him so as to hope that he might yet be pardoned even if his sin were punished, did consent to return to hallow the festival at Gilgal. But first the spot must be purged by the death of the savage robber-chief, “the burner," whose life Saul had saved, not in kindness, but in vanity.

In those days a captive in war could only be á slave—generally, if royal, blinded or maimed, to hinder escape, like the seventy chiefs, without thumbs or great toes, who crept under Adonizedek's table for their food. Agag's tribe of desert robbers, his cities, wives and children, were all destroyed, and life could be of little value to him, as he evidently felt when he came towards Samuel "delicately " -ie. probably with the stately defiant tread of a Bedouin chief. "Surely the bitterness of death is past ;" he cared not what befell him now. Samuel would not parley with him, but simply as God's messenger pronounced sentence on his many cruelties, and (as Josephus makes clear) handed him over to the executioner. Then the sacrifice was held, and Samuel went back to the school of prophets at Ramah, never again to seek Saul-though he continued to mourn and pray for him with unwearying love. But there is a self-will which makes even the holiest prayers vain, or return again to the bosom of the intercessor.

LESSON LXII.

THE ANOINTING OF DAVID.

B.C. 1068.-I SAMUEL xvi. 1-13.

And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.

And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And

the LORD said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the LORD.

And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.

And Samuel did that which the LORD spake, and came to Beth-lehem, And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?

And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.

And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD'S anointed is before him.

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the LORD chosen this.

Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the LORD chosen this.

Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The LORD hath not chosen these.

And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise,

anoint him: for this is he.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David * from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.

COMMENT.-It would seem as if Samuel's affection for Saul was so strong that he could not bear to think of that "neighbour" better than he, whose success he had been forced to predict, for it needed almost a rebuke to rouse him to take the first step towards the appointment of the "man after God's own heart." He was to fill a horn with the sacred oil, and go to Bethlehem to anoint the chosen king from among the sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who was the grandson of Boaz and Ruth, and was descended in a direct line from Salmon and Rahab, the faithful woman of Jericho, from Nahasson, the prince of the tribe of Judah, and from Pharez, the son of Judah himself. Thus the sceptre was to be given to the lion tribe of Judah, the sceptre that should never depart till Shiloh should come.

* Beloved.