Saul's first failure was not when he impatiently offered a burnt offering (1 Sam. 13:88And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. (1 Samuel 13:8), &c.). This intrusion into the priest's office was open to the eyes of all; the most untaught of the people would know that the functions of the priesthood did not pertain to royalty. The first proof of his unfitness comes in guise of a human virtue, or quality not a little esteemed, and the unobservant reader of his life would fail to discern under the amiable exterior a heart without confidence in God, and consequently disobedient. When he should have appeared before all Israel to be publicly inducted into his high position, we may say his coronation, he was not to be found, but hidden among the stuff (ch. 10:22). This to human eyes had the appearance of modesty, a very lovely feature in any character; but it must be judged in the light of its surroundings.
Three very notable circumstances had just before transpired whose significance was unperceived by the most interested, for they were tokens confirmatory of his call to the throne. First, two men tell him that the asses are found, brought home, not by his diligence, but by the providence of. God. Then three men meet him with offerings, going up to God to Bethel; and of these Saul has his portion as the anointed king. After that he comes to the hill of God, and there a company of prophets meets him with rejoicings. Saul himself comes under the immediate power of the Spirit of Jehovah, he prophesies and is turned into another man. “All these signs came to pass that day.” They were foretold by Samuel, and were witnesses of the truth of his word. A godly man would surely have recognized the hand of God and sought to understand. But no lasting good effect was produced in his soul; much less could he read in them the deeper intimations of God's goodness in store for Israel. For do we not read in them that Israel who had strayed away from God should be found and brought back to their home? Yet not Saul found his father's asses, neither was it he who shall give even a passing image of Israel's future restoration; this was reserved for David. Saul only scattered and caused deeper ruin. Again, when Jacob, the banished from his home, was nearing it, he was led to Bethel, and there becomes a worshipper; so should Israel return and worship God with meat offerings and drink offerings. The “going up to God to Bethel” reminded of past mercy and is the pledge of future restoration. And though at the time of this typical prediction the hill of God was held by the Philistines—they had a garrison there—it did not prevent God giving to Saul this foreshadowing of blessing which might have been his own (see 13:13, 14), but which will surely come to pass in a day yet future. But the sketch of blessing is not yet complete: the picture is crowned by a company of prophets, who, are exulting “with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them.” How the tide of blessing swells as it rolls on! First, two men; then three; last a company of prophets. First, restoration, then worship, then exultation and. the presence of the Spirit of Jehovah. And the day is not far distant when the true King shall come to His throne, and shall be met with songs, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he that cometh in the Name of Jehovah.” And then will the Spirit be poured out upon all flesh (cf. Joel 2). And when this prophecy is fulfilled, it will be said of the whole nation, as was said of Saul, that it was turned into another man.
Alas! Saul had neither eyes nor ears for God's teachings, and these foreshadowings of grace were lost upon him. And having no faith he failed to reap the immediate blessing. All were to him mere circumstances. He was only a natural man; even his acquaintances had no high thought of him from his previous life, for when he prophesied they were amazed, and said, “What is this that is come to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” These indications of grace, vouchsafed to him at the outset of his career, found no response in his heart, and, as the sequel of his life proves, not simply from want of attention to the teachings of God—as many a saint may now lament in his own case—but from utter incapacity to understand his own position, and to know the mind of God. Hence his hiding among the stuff was but the shrinking of a common man from this sudden and unlooked-for elevation to the throne. It is the index of his soul. Utterly dark as to Israel's condition before God—save perhaps as to the outward aspect—and ignorant of God's mercy, confidence in Him was foreign to his heart. With the timidity of nature the anointed Saul shrinks from the place to which he was called. The timidity of the flesh is not so offensive to us as its boldness, but both are mere nature, and opposed to God. Neither of these appeared when David was called.
Saul held his peace, when the children of Belial derided him (ch. 10:27). Apparently he would wait till God should by some public act confirm him yet more in his position. Nor has he long to wait. God had already touched the hearts of a band of men who followed him to his home in Gibeah; and next gives him victory over Nahash, the Ammonite, which would be all the more impressive because of the circumstances of Jabesh-gilead, and the cruel condition of life Nahash would impose upon the inhabitants. God puts His seal upon Saul by this victory; for the Spirit of God had come upon him, and his message to the people was made effectual by the fear of Jehovah falling upon them, so that three hundred and thirty thousand men come at his call. But in all this there was no test of obedience; Saul was only clay in the hand of the Potter. On this as on other occasions when the Spirit came upon him, he was turned into another man. Yet this remarkable first victory sheaved how God would be with him if he were obedient.
At this point a most important moral question is settled. Israel has a king, and he is crowned with victory; but how does Israel now stand before God? This question has its solemn answer in ch. 12. There Samuel reminds the people of past mercies. When their fathers sinned and came under the power of their enemies, they cried to God, they did not ask for a king, and God sent deliverers. Now, says Samuel, When ye saw Nahash the king of the children of Ammon come against you, ye did not cry to God, but said to me, “Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your God was your King.” They were worse than their fathers. Jehovah thundered upon them, and in terror they own their sin, “We have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king.”
God, while vindicating His own title to be King, allows their choice to stand—for the accomplishment of His own purpose. At the same time by the mouth of the prophet He declares their responsibility and the danger of this new position. Priesthood had connected them with God from Aaron to Eli; that link subsists no longer. The people have chosen royalty not as a new link between God and Israel, but to be like the nations. Such choosing was their sin, it was in truth rejecting God. Nevertheless royalty, was God's purpose, and is henceforth to be the connecting link between God and His people. For so He will be exalted in Israel, and in the world. But the establishment of a king must be in God's way, and the man must be of His choosing. This necessity is proved by the failure of man's way and of mane king. The divine principle of God acting upon man, is ever “first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual.” Christ's exaltation in the earth is dependent—if we may use such a word—upon the utter inadequacy of man to meet the purposes of God's glory.
Samuel tells the people the consequences of disobedience, “If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.” The continuance of the king here depends upon the people not doing wickedly; afterward, in David's line, the prosperity of the people depended upon the king's doing that which was right in the sight of Jehovah. Saul never connected the people with Jehovah. But God would make this people His own by no mere human tie, so that His purposed glory in them might be beyond the reach of human failure, or Satanic power. Saul's advent to the throne is but the solution of man's problem, “Is he fit to govern?” and the answer is, “Not fit.” God brings in His Man, His own Son, and when that Perfect One sits upon His throne, then Israel's blessing will be perfect. The difference between man, and God's own Son, is shadowed in Saul and David. Yet David was but a failing man, though so highly exalted as to be chosen the type of Him who will soon fill the earth with His glory. A glimpse, and only a glimpse, is given in the united glories of David and Solomon, nothing like it before, nor will be, till the reality comes, and then will be seen how immeasurably short of it was the glory of the images seen ages before.
Now established by his victory over Nahash—for the carnal heart of Israel would think more of that than of the anointing oil—Saul is, in a manner, left to himself. After two years he is put into the crucible and tested. Is there any gold? Nay, all is dross! Is this the man to be king? Nay, all is failure! In the energy of faith Jonathan, not Saul, smites the garrison of the Philistines at Geba. They are aroused, and Israel is in a strait; there is no faith in Saul to meet the emergency. The people are scattered; for him God is nowhere. No wonder if his difficulties made him too impatient to wait for the prophet. He had lost the sense that the people were God's Israel, and he calls them “Hebrews,” the name applied by the Philistines. Impossible for such a one to answer to God's mind concerning Israel. Here in his first trial he is found wanting, and the kingdom goes from him. God has found another whom He has commanded to be captain over His people.
Though sentence is pronounced, judgment waits till the cup of iniquity is full. God lingers over the fallen king, and another and a graver opportunity is afforded. Can he retrieve his position and avert the threatened judgment? Nay, he only increases his guilt. Growing opposition to all that bore evidence of God marks his course ever after. What a lack of intelligence in his rash curse upon any that might take food at a time when to eat was specially needed! God at that very moment was working by Jonathan. Saul mars the victory of faith, and threatens death to the man of faith. In intent he slays his son. Is not this opposition to God? It may be called ignorant opposition; but Satan, who was leading the wretched king to his doom, was not ignorant of the dishonor to God if Jonathan were slain. The people deliver him, and though Saul had said, “Thou shalt surely die, Jonathan,” they say, “As Jehovah liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground.” The power of the people and the authority of the king are in conflict, and the people prevail. The determination of the people to save Jonathan proves that Saul's authority was gone. King now only in name, he submits. His enmity against Jonathan after that was nearly as great as his hatred of David, when he was brought forward. But the appearance of David closed the trial of Saul.
Remark that in ch. 14:45 is given the first instance in scripture of the democratic element rising and overcoming constituted authority; and in this instance we can truly say, Vox populi, vox Dei. But to argue from this that the source of human authority lies with the people is contrary to the word of God. Consider the circumstances here—Saul was not God's choice; ruin was settled down upon the people; only one man of faith in Saul's army; this public witness Saul would destroy. God will maintain the testimony for Him, and as Sovereign Ruler uses the people to save Jonathan. He steps aside from his ordinary course to preserve His witness, and convicts Saul of sin; makes him feel powerless, and verifies the prophet's word that the kingdom is taken from him.
One other instance we may point to where authority collapses before the energy of the mob. It was when the voices of the people, led by their priests, prevailed against Pilate. And I would say to Christians, those who seem to favor the uprising of the “masses” in this present day, that if the first of these two instances be the manifest interposition of God in the exceptional circumstances of that day, the second is no less the power of Satan who rules far more by the “masses” than by kings. Ever since the cross, the vox populi has borne the impress of the prince of this world.
We have said another and a graver opportunity was afforded to Saul. It is the last, like all the preceding, misused, leaving a heavier weight of guilt upon his soul. He has a direct command to utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are consumed. A little while before when God was at least showing how deliverance was to be obtained for Israel, when Jonathan and his armor-bearer through faith overthrew the garrison of the Philistines, Saul showed himself to be without intelligence, without faith, and without the sphere of blessing. Now to all these he adds positive disobedience. The man who afterward so persistently sought the life of David, whom he knew to be God's chosen, spares the life of Agag, whom God told him to destroy. And when charged by Samuel with disobeying God, he affirms that the people—not he—took the spoil. Yet he tried to excuse them under the plea of piety; the sheep and the oxen were spared “to sacrifice unto Jehovah thy God.” Samuel will not accept this excuse. Saul was responsible, and he far more in this case than the people, for the command (ch. 15:3) was direct to him. To offer sacrifices to Jehovah is good, but when it is presented as an excuse for disobedience, it is positive sin. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” In the end, after all his protestations, Saul confesses, “I have sinned,” and in extenuation pleads his fear of the people. Poor king!—he admits his authority is gone. What the value of his confession is, appears from his wish that Samuel should honor him before the people. Self was uppermost. “What will the people think of me?” that was his care. Samuel acceding to his wish only confirmed his rejection: it was too late for any more warning. In his eagerness to retain Samuel he rends the prophet's mantle, a circumstance used by the prophet to repeat his words, that the kingdom was rent from him; and from that moment Saul is given up. Samuel returns to his home at Ramah, and came no more to see Saul until the day of his (Saul's) death. That was a fearful hour. The powers of darkness were present in the witch of Ender but held in check by the presence of the prophet. That hour brought the sentence of immediate death, and blank despair, upon the soul of the wretched king.