CHAPTER 15

(1079 B.C.)

AMALEK

¹Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint you to be king over His People, over Israel: now therefore hearken you unto the voice of the Words of the LORD. (We find that Saul was tested twice and failed under each test. The Philistine was Gods instrument in the first test; the Amalekite, in the second. The first test proved him to be carnal, for he waited on God, but not for God. The second test showed him to be disobedient, for he set his own will above Gods Will. In the first test, he failed to trust God; in the second test, to obey God. These two words, trust and obey, are keynotes in the Christian life, and are impossible to those outside that life Williams.)

²Thus says the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt (the Lord forgets neither wrongs nor rights, unless the wrongs are washed by His Blood, and then they are forgotten).

³Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (The key word is utterly destroy. Amalek, in Old Testament typology, is a type of the flesh. The flesh pertains to the Adamic nature or the sin nature. It characterizes mans own efforts to save himself, whether by good works, money, education, or religion. It is the bane of the Child of God. It is the source of the Christians greatest conflict. Paul said, For if you live after the flesh, you shall die [Rom. 8:13].)

SAULS INCOMPLETE OBEDIENCE

⁴And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.

⁵And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley.

⁶And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for you showed kindness to all the Children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.

⁷And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until you come to Shur, that is over against Egypt. (The Amalekites were the determined and cruel enemies of the people of God. They were the first to attack them in the desert [Ex., Chpt. 17]. When Israel was faint and weary, they attacked the feeble among them [Deut. 25:18]. Because of this hatred, God commanded their extinction, and urged His People not to forget that duty so soon as they were settled in Canaan [Deut. 25:19]. They did forget; but God did not forget.

In fact, God gave Amalek five hundred years respite for Repentance, but in vain. That nation, like the seven nations of Canaan, resisted every Divine impulse, and finally became so corrupt that, in the interests of humanity, love decreed its absolute extinction.)

⁸And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. (This has always been the problem of Christians. We desire to destroy everything that is vile and refuse; however, it is very difficult for us to destroy the best.

What do we mean by the best? It pertains to anything and everything which we trust, other than Christ and what Christ has done for us at the Cross. Anything that becomes the object of our faith, other than the Cross, no matter how good it might be in its own right, must be eliminated. Faith in everything else must be utterly destroyed.).

⁹But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. (And so we have here a perfect picture, not only of that time, but, as well, of modern Christendom. The only thing that God will accept is Jesus Christ and Him Crucified [I Cor. 1:23]. The Message of the Cross is easy to understand, but not easy to believe. Religious man still likes to hold on to his own particular efforts and works, whatever they might be, which God can never accept.)

JUDGMENT

¹⁰Then came the Word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying,

¹¹It repents Me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following Me, and has not performed My Commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night. (These words, as given by the Lord, simply mean that God had changed His Purpose or Plan concerning Saul. Had he been obedient, then his kingdom would have been established [13:13], but because he had been disobedient, and it seemed he was continuing to function in this capacity, his kingdom would not continue with him.)

¹²And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.

¹³And Samuel came to Saul (it probably took several days to reach Saul, because of the distance): and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the Commandment of the LORD (and so he had performed the Commandment of the Lord, halfway, as men generally keep Gods Commandments, doing that part which is agreeable to themselves, and leaving that part undone which gives them neither pleasure nor profit Smith).

¹⁴And Samuel said, What means then this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? (Unfortunately, in the modern Church, the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen are so constant that they are hardly noticed anymore.)

¹⁵And 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 your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. (The Holy Spirit says that Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the spoil [Vs. 9], but Saul said that it was the people who spared them, trying to absolve himself of blame!)

¹⁶Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell you what the LORD has said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on (the Message would not be too pleasant!).

¹⁷And Samuel said, When you were little in your own sight, were you not made the head of the Tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed you king over Israel?

¹⁸And the LORD sent you on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.

¹⁹Wherefore then did you not obey the Voice of the LORD, but did fly upon the spoil, and did evil in the sight of the LORD?

²⁰And 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.

²¹But 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 your God in Gilgal.

²²And Samuel said, Has 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. (It is much better to obey the Lord in the first place than to disobey and then to have to ask for forgiveness, trusting in the Sacrifice of Calvary. While forgiveness is always available [I Jn. 1:9], it is better to not need forgiveness!)

²³For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (the taproot of all sin is rebellion; witchcraft is the effort to manipulate the spirit world through demon spirits; how is that like rebellion? To rebel against Gods order, which is Christ and Him Crucified, is to take matters into ones own hands, which is the same as witchcraft), and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry (stubbornness is an intractable spirit that refuses to believe Gods Word). Because you have rejected the Word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.

SAULS HUMILIATION

²⁴And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the Commandment of the LORD, and your words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

²⁵Now therefore, I pray you, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD. (All these statements were falsehoods. Sauls professions of Repentance were false, for he thought only of the threatened punishment and his own honor. True Repentance is toward God and hence David said, I have sinned against Jehovah, while Saul said only, I have sinned.)

THE REJECTION OF SAUL

²⁶And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with you: for you have rejected the Word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel (to reject the Word of the Lord is to be rejected by the Lord).

²⁷And as Samuel turned about to go away, he (Saul) laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.

²⁸And Samuel said unto him, The LORD has rent the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbour of yours, that is better than you. (Even though David is not mentioned here, David is the one of whom the Holy Spirit speaks. Even though Saul would continue to serve for a period of time as king of Israel, in Gods mind the change had begun in the spirit realm at that moment.)

²⁹And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, that He should repent. (This was quoted by Samuel from the account of Balaam, as given in Numbers 23:19. The Divine title, the Strength of Israel, refers to the Lord, and is used here for the very first time in Scripture.)

³⁰Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray you, before the Elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD your God. (It seems that Saul was more concerned about how he looked in regards to the people than with God. So it is with the majority of that which is presently called the Church.)

³¹So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD (although Samuel turned again after Saul, it does not say that he joined him in his act of official worship, for as soon as possible he left him forever).

SAMUEL SLAYS AGAG

³²Then said Samuel, Bring you hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately (the Hebrew word rendered delicately should have been translated in bonds). And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past (Agag came trembling for his life).

³³And Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal. (The Passage means that Samuel commanded the execution to be carried out; he did not do it personally. In the spiritual sense, we love our Agags. The idea of hewing them in pieces is very distasteful; nevertheless, all works of the flesh, of which Agag was a type, must be hewed in pieces.)

³⁴Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.

³⁵And 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. (Saul, due to rebellion against God, was no longer the representative of Jehovah and, consequently, Samuel no more came to him, bearing messages and commands, and giving him counsel and guidance from God. The Lord had cut him off.)