It is a homely and daily picture that this 1 Sam. 9 supplies of a man like Saul, dwelling with his father Kish, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power. Another point of similar interest is, that Saul found his occupation in pursuing the objects which this circle produced; until Samuel was commissioned to declare the purpose of God respecting him, and “to anoint him as captain over the Lord's inheritance.” Nor should this link of connection between the two, however different from each other, be overlooked, as affording sonic moral lessons of great moment to a servant of God.
There is considerable beauty in what Samuel said to Saul, when this link of association was severed by his exaltation to the throne of Israel and his heart was lifted up by the favor of God. Then Samuel said, “When thou wast little in thine own sight, vast thou not made the head of the tribes?” &c. A fallen nature, because it is such, always uses the mercies of God for self-exaltation, and therefore against the giver; and these are some of the lessons presented in the history of Saul, when invested by God with kingly power, and seated on the throne of Israel. While he was “little in his own eyes,” every relative duty that sprung up around him was of more importance and consideration than himself. Thus the asses of his father, which were lost, served him for an object as readily as when a few years after the Lord sent him to smite Amalek, and better done.
Indeed the sketch given of Saul as “a choice young man and a goodly, who from his shoulders and upward was higher than any of the people” falls singularly on the mind in connection with his diligent search after “his father's asses” through the land of Benjamin, except as we remember the secret, “when thou wast little in thine own eyes.”
The father was a rule to Saul in abandoning the pursuit as much as in undertaking the search in obedience. So when they were come to Zuph, Saul said to his servant, “Let us return, lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for us.” “Little in thine own eyes” stands thus connected with ready obedience to the will of another and in self-denying devotedness of heart, be the occasion small or great, the missing asses of Kish, or Agag the king of the Amalekites.
But God had His own intentions respecting Saul and makes the object of Saul's search a link of introduction to the prophet Samuel for the establishment of kingship in the earth. The details of this and the following chapter are remarkable as spewing him how entirely God holds every one and all the circumstances in His own hand, so that His will is the controlling power over Samuel and the sacrifice in the high place. Saul and his servant, and the young maidens going out to draw water—all are truly great by being little in their own eyes, and God everything and everywhere, from the prophet downward, for the Lord had told Samuel in his ear the day before about Saul. “Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance?”
More remarkable still are the instructions given to this first king, the anointed of the Lord, to suit him for the place and responsibilities into which he had been inducted; and this is in truth always the way of our God to us in the varying character of His grace.
Saul's first lesson was “when thou art departed from me [Samuel] to-day, then thou shalt find two men by Rachel's sepulcher, in the border of Benjamin by Zelzah.” As pertaining to the tribe of Benjamin, this should have been an open volume to Saul, for what was Rachel and what her sepulcher to the instructed heart but the “place of the mother's sorrow” Ben-oni; yet the birth-place of Jacob's hope, and therefore his father called his name Benjamin, or “the son of my right hand?” Like Abraham, who from the altar on Mount Moriah received his son Isaac back again from the dead in a figure, as a type of the true son in death and resurrection; so here, in Ephrath, Jacob and Rachel do but give out the two names which make up the person of Christ, who by His own cross and the empty sepulcher was the Man of sorrow and the Son of the Father's right hand. What deep but precious lessons were those for the first king over Israel to learn in communion with the ways of God till the true anointed one, great David's greater Lord, should come! Not merely as to kingship were these secrets whispered forth from Rachel's sepulcher, but also as to the redemption of the people, over whom Saul was to reign in figure, till the promised and covenanted blessings should be established in Jerusalem the city of the great king, and the “whole world be filled with the glory of God.”
Samuel's next instructions to Saul were “thou shalt go on forward from thence, and come to the plain of Tabor, and there shall meet thee three men going up to God to Bethel.” The Lord was thus setting Saul in the ways of His own steps, that he might learn who the God was with whom he had to do, and see that all His paths drop fatness. What should Bethel have been to a true Israelite, the descendant of Jacob, to whom God appeared when he fled from the face of his brother Esau—that memorable night when Jacob took of the stones, and put them for his pillow, and lay down in that place to sleep—that night, when he received the directions for his faith by the ladder set up on the earth, but whose top reached to the heavens, and on which the angels of God were seen ascending and descending? What unmistakable signs were these, and links of connection too, between the heavens and the earth by angelic agencies thus made known to Jacob, and bound up in his person! Beyond all this however was the Lord Himself, who stood above it, and said, “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it, and thy seed.” Jacob thus becomes the heir of promise, and with the assurance that “in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed;” confirmed too by the declaration “I will not leave thee till I have performed that of which I have spoken to thee.” Connected by grace with such promises and blessing, what could Jacob say in accordance with the Lord's mind but “this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven?” Perfectly in keeping with the occasion was the further act of the patriarch, when he awoke early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow and changed it into a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. To crown all, he changed the name of the city Luz, or “separation” (guided by faith), into that of Bethel, or the house and meeting place of God.
All seemed to promise fair with Saul at the first, as be traveled over these paths, and halted at these resting places of grace and of the veiled but promised glory to the land and people through the seed. Moreover, “men were going up to God to Bethel, and were carrying three kids, and another three loaves of bread, and another a bottle of wine. Besides this they were to salute Saul, and give him two loaves of bread. The oil which Jacob poured out upon the pillar has gained additional significance by these sacrifices; and the kids, with the bread and the wine, were the suited confession on the part of the godly that the people, who had commenced their history across Jordan at Gilgal in the book of Joshua, had been since met by the angel of the Lord at Bochim, or the place of failure and weeping, in the book of Judges. Nevertheless this confidence is maintained to faith by Bethel, and the God of Jacob, who cannot deny Himself, and these confessions of the conscience are met by the assurance to the heart, thou “art the same, and thy faithfulness endureth throughout all generations.”
Samuel had likewise told Saul, “after that thou shalt come to the hill of God where is the garrison of the Philistines.” Nothing is more valued by the soul which has been led along the highway of Jehovah, God Almighty, in olden times, or in the new revelation which He has made of Himself to us, as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, than to find ourselves associated with His purposes, and moreover by grace “workers together with God” now in the ways by which He is accomplishing them. Saul was thus carried outside himself and his father's house, and the strayed asses which he diligently sought in the land of Benjamin, and became identified with the sepulcher of Rachel, and the vastness of God's thoughts in the son born, the Ben-oni and the Benjamin, if he can only read these lessons aright, with the prophet Samuel, and the Jehovah of Israel.
The plain of Tabor, and the three men going up to God to Bethel, had been crossed by Saul, and became the living witnesses to him that there was the same unchangeable God for to-day, as had been known by their father Jacob at Bethel. Moreover, they saluted Saul, and further associated him with themselves by act and deed in the gift of the two loaves of bread, which he was to receive at their hands. We may remark here that all these steps were previous to Saul's arrival at the hill of God, where the Philistines lay in garrison; and were the requisite strongholds for faith in communion with God, by which alone a successful conflict with the enemy could be maintained.
These principles are the same for Christian conflict with “the wicked spirits in the heavenly places,” however different the objects of our faith and communion may be, and assuredly are, in the Father and the Son, by the Holy Ghost, It is a wonderful word to us in Eph. 6, “finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” And again, as to the panoply for the Christian champion, “put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” The will of our God is entirely different too, “for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies.” Still, whatever the range of the enemy's power, whether larger or smaller, or whatever the varying character of the conflict before Christ came, or since His exaltation into the heavens at the right hand of God, the enemy is the same, and the watch-word of the entire army of the faithful is “our sufficiency is of God.” “The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee” was the word of Samuel to Saul, and “go in this thy might,” whether to him or to Gideon, was only to prove that God would make a way for Himself through the thickest or the mightiest of His foes, and for the faith that followed Him.
Besides the sepulcher of Rachel and the plain of Tabor and the hill of God with the garrison of the Philistines, a company of prophets coming down from the high place were to meet Saul, having a psaltery, and a harp, and a tabret, and a pipe before them; and they were to prophesy. With these also Saul was to be identified; for Samuel had said “the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man.” It is at this point, and not till then, that Samuel could say, “let it be, when all these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serveth thee, for God is with thee.” We may note here that the principles of God since the fall of man are the same, however different in their application, or varied in their character. In the world that now is God called out Abram, the head of the family of faith, to walk with Him, and Bethel was the place of the altar where the Almighty God appeared to him; just as the mount was the meeting place between the Lord and Moses, or Gilgal in the days of Joshua, and mount Zion in the time of David.
In the instance of Saul (the first king between Jehovah and His people), it is important to see that three great ends were reached in reference to himself personally: he was turned into another man, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and God was with him. All that God could then do, short of effectual calling perhaps, had been done for Saul and a marvelous catalog it is! He had been instructed in “the matter of the kingdom,” and anointed as the king of Israel, led about and taught the sources of strength for a man of faith in “the living God;” had a view of the enemy's garrison where it ought not to be, and by the Spirit of prophecy guided, with others that prophesied, to look into the bright future of Jehovah's ways, with the Israel whom He loved. It is not till grace and goodness have done their utmost that responsibility begins, whether as to the kingdom or this king. “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done? wherefore, when I looked for grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” Grace in fact creates our responsibilities, whether then or now, and supplies what is needful for their fulfillment, so that there need be no discouragement as these increase, provided the flesh in us is kept under the death which has passed upon it judicially by God at the cross of Christ. The Spirit of the Lord upon Saul, or in a David—Jesus Himself with the disciples—men full of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, or a man in Christ now, show plainly enough the manner and the measure of the grace of God through Christ, and the increasing responsibilities, as knowing “that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God;” so that “ye are the epistle of Christ, known and read of all men.” But Saul's responsibility, and how he acquitted himself, is our present subject of study, and instruction. God had done what His prophet had spoken, “and it was so, when he had turned his back to go from Samuel that God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day.” Saul, who had been thus identified with the interests of Jehovah and His people, and the company of prophets, was to be further associated with Samuel who was the link between God and the nation of Israel; if he could walk with Him in this character.
Samuel said to him, “thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and behold, I will come down unto thee to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice peace offerings; seven days shalt thou tarry till I come to thee and show thee what thou shalt do.” The place of Samuel before God, as well as his relation to the people was to be respected, nor is another to intermeddle therewith, though this other be the king of Israel. The Lord had early called Samuel to Himself, and had used him as the reprover of Eli the high priest, in the days when the ark was taken captive by the Philistines and the glory was departed. At Mizpeh he had gathered all Israel together, and Samuel prayed for them to the Lord. And as he was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon them, and discomfited them, and they were smitten. So when Saul and his servant were directed by the young maidens of the city to the high place that they might find Samuel, and ask the seer about the lost asses, they were told “the people will not eat until he come, because he doth bless the sacrifice: and afterward they eat that be bidden.” What pertained to Samuel was made plain and clear to Saul; and the less had been anointed and blessed by the greater. He was to tarry seven days at Gilgal, till “Samuel came to sacrifice to the Lord.”
“And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.” “And he tarried seven days.... but Samuel came not, and the people were scattered from him.” Here is the moment of trial for Saul: can he own the real link between Jehovah and Israel to be in Samuel; and leave all his new anxieties and cares there—or will he step out of his own place by intruding into Samuel's, and incur the displeasure of God? How easily is the line of individual responsibility traversed! “Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them? and Jesus said, ye know not what spirit ye are of.” “And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings: and he offered the burnt offering. And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end, behold, Samuel came and said, What hast thou done?” Saul attempts to give a good reason for doing a bad thing; and this in truth is what disobedience always demands where the thing in question is not confessed as a sin. He excuses himself upon the ground which fallen nature must take (the seeing of the eye), and regards only the people, his misgivings respecting Samuel, and his fears concerning the Philistines: and these are the three things which carry him away from God. “Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down upon me to Gilgal;” and this is the conclusion of the natural heart when guided by its own fears. Another thing comes to light, which accompanies such a condition of soul, “I have not intreated the face of the Lord: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.” What is this lesson to us, but a proof that the active restlessness of human nature, whether by the reasonings of the mind or the hopes and unbelief of the heart, unsettle faith, and prevent Saul from waiting upon the God of Israel, as the newly appointed king, in the hour of danger; or waiting for Samuel to offer the sacrifices appointed between Jehovah and his people? Then “Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever.”
How often the hour for the establishment of the proffered blessing is lost through inadvertence, and becomes the moment of forfeiture and defeat, and of Satan's power! At this very point it is, when the kingdom and the king were about to be confirmed by burnt offerings and peace offerings forever, that Saul breaks down and like the first man Adam, who gave place to the last Adam, so the first king must be set aside to make room for the Second or true David. Sorrowful words follow from the lips of Samuel, who (instead of being in the place of offering, and blessing the sacrifices, and the people, and their king) becomes the prophet of woe to Saul: “but now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.”
(To be continued)