yet too long, so far as his following was concerned, which, after the sacrifice, amounted to only about six

hundred men (1 Samuel 13:15). On the other hand, the only motive which, even politically speaking, could

have brought numbers to his ranks or fired them with courage, was a religious belief in the help of Jehovah,

of which Saul's breach of the Divine command and the defection of Samuel would threaten to deprive Israel.

But still there are questions involved in the Divine punishment of Saul which require most earnest attention,

not only for the vindication, but even for the proper understanding of this history. To the first question

which arises, why Samuel thus unduly delayed his journey to Gilgal, apparently without necessary reason,

we can, in fairness, only return the answer, that his delay seems to have been intentional, quite as much as

that of our blessed Lord, after He had heard of the sic kness of Lazarus, and when He knew of his death

(John 11:6, 14, 15). But if intentional, its object can only have been to test the character of Saul's kingdom.

Upon this, of course, the permanency of that kingdom would depend. We have already seen that Saul

represented the kind of monarchy which Israel wished to have established. Saul's going down to Gilgal to

offer sacrifices, and yet not offering them properly; his unwillingness to enter on the campaign without

having entreated the face of Jehovah, and yet offending Him by disobedience; his waiting so long, and not

long enough; his trust in the help of Jehovah, and yet his distrust when his followers left him; his evident

belief in the absolute efficacy of sacrifices as an outward ordinance irrespective of the inward sacrifice of

heart and will - are all exactly representative of the religious state of Israel. But although Israel had sought,

and in Saul obtained a monarchy "after their own heart," yet, as Samuel had intimated in Gilgal (12:14, 20- 22,

24), the Lord, in His infinite mercy, was willing to forgive and to turn all for good, if Israel would only "fear

the Lord and serve Him in truth." Upon this conversion, so to speak, of Israel's royalty into the kingdom of

God the whole question turned. For, either Israel must cease to be the people of the Lord, or else the

principle on which its monarchy was founded must become spiritual and Divine; and consequently any

government that contravened this must be swept away to give place to another. If it be asked, what this

Divine principle of monarchy was to be, we have no hesitation in answering, that it was intended to

constitute a kingdom in which the will of the earthly should be in avowed subjection to that of the heavenly

King. This was right in itself; it was expressive of the covenant-relationship by which Jehovah became the

God of Israel, and Israel the people of Jehovah; and it embodied the typical idea of the kingdom of God, to

be fully realized in the King of the Jews, Who came not to do His own will, but that of His Father in heaven,

even to the bitter agony of the cup in Gethsemane and the sufferings of Golgotha. Saul was the king after

Israel's own heart (1 Samuel 12:13); David the king after God's own heart, not because of his greater piety or

goodness, but because, despite his failings and his sins, he fully embodied the Divine idea of Israel's

kingdom; and for this reason also he and his kingdom were the type of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His

In what has been said the second great difficulty, which almost instinctively rises in our minds on reading

this history, has in part been anticipated. It will easily be understood that this great question had, if ever, to

be tested and decided at the very commencement of Saul's reign, and before he engaged in any great

operations, the success or failure of which might divert the mind. If to be tried at all, it must be on its own

merits, and irrespective of results. Still, it must be admitted, that the first feeling with most of us is that,

considering the difficulties of Saul's position, the punishment awarded to him seems excessive. Yet it only

seems, but is not such. Putting aside the idea of his personal rejection and dethronement, neither of which

was implied in the words of Samuel, the sentence upon Saul only embodied this principle, that no monarchy

could be enduring in Israel which did not own the supreme authority of God. As Adam's obedience was

tested in a seemingly small matter, and his failure involved that of his race, so also in the case of Saul. His

partial obedience and his anxiety to offer the sacrifices as, in his mind, in themselves efficacious, only

rendered it the more necessary to bring to the foreground the great question of absolute, unquestioning,

and believing submission to the will of the Heavenly King. Saul's kingdom had shown itself not to be God's

kingdom, and its continuance was henceforth impossible. However different their circumstances, Saul was

as unfit for the inheritance of the kingdom, with the promises which this implied and the typical meaning it

bore, as Esau had been for the inheritance of the first-born, with all that it conveyed in the present, in the

near, and in the distant future.