Samuel’s activity as judge having come to its close, the first verse of our chapter begins a new subject. It is important to notice at the beginning of this new division of the book that Saul does not represent the flesh’s premeditated opposition to the work of God, but much rather the efforts of the flesh to accomplish this work-the flesh introduced into a position of testimony. This makes Saul infinitely more responsible and his activity more guilty than if he entered the scene as an enemy of God and of His anointed. Christendom, of which we are part, occupies the same position, with the consequence that the teachings of these chapters are of solemn bearing in the present day.
This chapter could be entitled: The foolishness and the weakness of the flesh. After a first victory, won by Jonathan (vs. 3), a victory which we will consider once again in the next chapter in order to present a well-rounded picture of this man of God, the Philistines are moved. “Saul blew the trumpet throughout the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear. And all Israel heard say, Saul has smitten the garrison of the Philistines, and Israel also has become odious to the Philistines. And the people were called together after Saul to Gilgal.”
Addressing the Lord’s people, the king calls them Hebrews. The Philistines or the enemy nations surrounding Israel spoke no differently (cf. ch. 14:11), and this title proves that Saul was trusting in the gathering of the nation as being equal to the Gentiles, and that he understood little better than the latter the people’s relation with their God. It is more or less the same in our day, where men fail to apprehend the true relationship of the people of God, of the church, to Christ. How can it be otherwise? Can the flesh understand the relationship of intimacy and affection that the Spirit has established between the Bridegroom and the bride? From this ignorance have issued all the so-called religious systems that constitute Christendom and that replace living relationships which the flesh cannot know.
Saul attributes Jonathan’s victory, faith’s victory, to himself (1 Sam. 13:4). When God acts through His instruments at the beginning of a revival, as was seen during the Reformation, and gains the victory over the enemy, all those who profit by this victory not belonging to the family of faith do not fail to attribute the victory to their own merit and vaunt themselves in it.
Never does the flesh seek to gather souls around Christ: it makes itself the center. This is how Saul acted in seeking to frighten the people by these words: “Israel also has become odious to the Philistines.” In 1 Samuel 11:7 he had constrained the tribes to follow him by threats, here through fear. The result of this way of acting is to gather Israel after himself (1 Sam. 13:4), but the moral consequences are not long in following. Those who put themselves under the flesh’s leadership in order to find some measure of security soon feel that they have no security at all. Their distress is undiminished; they follow Saul “trembling” (1 Sam. 13:7), Seeking shelter, they go over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead (1 Sam. 13:7), leaving the land properly called Canaan in order to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the enemy. This lack of faith causes them to forget the only thing which was important: it was not Saul who dwelt in the midst of the people, and their cause was not resting in his hands.
Finally Saul came down to Gilgal, where Samuel had previously made an appointment with him in these terms: “Thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and, behold, I will come down unto thee, to offer up burnt offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings: seven days shalt thou wait, until I come to thee and inform thee what thou shalt do” (1 Sam. 10:8).
The difficult circumstances he was passing through remind Saul of the necessity of following Samuel’s directions. At the end of two years he remembers the prophet’s injunction. Saul, we are told, “waited seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed.” The flesh can imitate faith up to a certain point, but no further; the flesh draws back from the consequences of its own inactivity; nothing is more difficult or more impossible for the flesh than to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Its patience is often impressive and may even impress Christians, but it ends at the moment when faith is required, the faith that does not reckon with difficulties or impossibilities, for faith cleaves to God who is above all these things. The natural man can walk a long time in a path of patience and in appearance act according to this principle, but he does not realize his own weakness and incapacity and, lacking a relationship with God, he cannot seek resources other than in himself when he is really put to the test.
After the seven days Samuel had not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from Saul (1 Sam. 13:8). The people did not find sufficient authority to guard them and defend them in the man who had gathered them through tactics of fear. Then Saul loses patience; he does not know the patience of faith which is “strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory.” His patience stops where faith should begin. When the people scatter, when man’s support fails him, everything fails this poor king. His flesh, driven to action, immediately usurps the place which belongs to the prophet, reversing and trampling under foot the order established by God. Saul says: “Bring hither to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And he offered up the burnt offering. And it came to pass, as soon as he had ended offering up the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came” (1 Sam. 13:9-10).
God’s help arrives at the moment when the flesh has just attempted to come to its own rescue. What use is this help to him therefore? Saul is not an unbeliever and does not openly despise Israel’s God; he knows that a sacrifice is necessary in order to approach Him; far from despising the prophet, he “went out to meet him, that he might salute him” (1 Sam. 13:10). But being a man according to the flesh, he was absolutely unable to act otherwise than he had done. Nevertheless, he is extremely responsible. “What hast thou done?” Samuel asks him—the same question that God had addressed to Cain! As always, the flesh has excellent reasons for acting, and consequently for disobeying: “Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou didst not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines were assembled at Michmash” (1 Sam. 13:11). The flesh has an excuse, even a pious excuse, for its disobedience; “The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to Jehovah” (1 Sam. 13:12).
And Samuel tells Saul: “Thou hast done foolishly.” Man’s wisdom, reasonings, counsels, and decisions are foolishness to God, because they are disobedience. “Thou hast not kept the commandment of Jehovah thy God, which He commanded thee” (1 Sam. 13:13). Obedience is the first, the only characteristic of faith. Without it there is no faith. It is allied to dependence. Who could offer a sacrifice well-pleasing to God but Samuel, here a type of Christ?
This is why God responds to Saul’s sacrifice by rejecting him as king! Kingship according to the flesh, responsible although established by God, has just proven not only that it is incapable of maintaining itself, but also that man has no other resource but grace. This is what God wanted to demonstrate. Then, He establishes kingship according to grace, after His own heart. “Jehovah has sought Him a man after His own heart, and Jehovah has appointed him ruler over His people” (1 Sam. 13:14).
Gilgal, the place where the flesh is judged, had become through Saul’s unfaithfulness the place where the flesh was affirmed. Samuel leaves it and goes to Gibeah of Benjamin, the only place where, in the person of Jonathan (cf. 1 Sam. 13:2), faith is still maintained in Israel.
Saul appears insensible to the seriousness of his deed; he continues in the same path by numbering the people who are with him (1 Sam. 13:15). Ravagers out of the camp of the Philistines were invading the entire land of Israel, and the people had no weapons: “For the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears.” And all Israel went down to the Philistines to sharpen their farming tools or to sharpen an ox goad. If we depend on the world to furnish our weapons, we will find ourself resourceless for combatting it. Our weapon is the Word. How can we use it against the world, if we consent to give the world the right to teach the Word to us and to dispense the Word to us? In this way the world has the means in its hands to bring us into bondage, and it will not leave us any portion of this Word except that which poses no threat to itself. And just so, children of God are all too often found without arms in the face of enemies who attack their faith.