The War against Amalek - Saul's Disobedience, and its Motives -Samuel commissioned to announce Saul's

Rejection - Agag Hewn in Pieces. (1 SAMUEL 14:47-52; 15)

THE successful war against the Philistines had secured Saul in possession of the throne.136 Henceforth his

reign was marked by wars against the various enemies of Israel, in all of which he proved victorious.137

These expeditions are only indicated, not described, in the sacred text, as not forming constituent elements

in the history of the kingdom of God, however they may have contributed to the prosperity of the Jewish

state. The war against Amalek alone is separately told (ch. 15), alike from its character and from its bearing

on the kingdom which God would establish in Israel. Along with these outward successes the sacred text

also indicates the seeming prosperity of Saul, as regarded his family -life.138 It almost appears as if it had

been intended to place before us, side by side in sharp contrast, these two facts: Saul's prosperity both at

home and abroad, and his sudden fall and rejection, to show forth that grand truth which all history is

evolving: Jehovah reigneth!

Israel's oldest and hereditary enemies were the Amalekites. Descended from Esau (Genesis 36:12, 16; 1

Chronicles 1:36; comp. Josephus' Antiq. 2., 1, 2), they occupied the territory to the south and south-west of

Palestine. They had been the first wantonly to attack Israel in the wilderness,139 (Exodus 17:8, etc.), and "war

against Amalek from generation to generation," had been the Divine sentence upon them.

Besides that first attack we know that they had combined with the Canaanites (Numbers 14:43-45), the

Moabites (Judges 3:22, 13), and the Midianites (Judges 7:12) against Israel. What other more direct warfare

they may have carried on, is not expressly mentioned in Scripture, because, as frequently observed, it is not

a record of the national history of Israel. But from 1 Samuel 15:33 we infer that, at the time of which we write,

they were not only in open hostility against Israel, but behaved with extreme and wanton cruelty. Against

this unrelenting hereditary foe of the kingdom of God the ban had long been pronounced (Deuteronomy

25:17-19). The time had now arrived for its execution, and Samuel summoned Saul in the most solemn manner

to this work. It was in itself a difficult expedition. To be carried out in its full sweep as a "ban," it would, in

Saul's then state of mind, have required peculiar self-abnegation and devotion. Looking back upon it from

another stage of moral development and religious dispensation, and in circumstances so different that such

questions and duties can never arise,140 and that they seem immeasurably far behind, as the dark valley to

the traveler who has climbed the sunlit height, or as perhaps events and phases in our own early history,

many things connected with the "ban" may appear mysterious to us. But the history before us is so far

helpful as showing that, besides its direct meaning as a judgment, it had also another and a moral aspect,

implying, as in the case of Saul, self-abnegation and real devotedness to God.

Thus viewed, the command to execute the "ban" upon Amalek was the second and final test o f Saul's

fitness for being king over God's people. The character of this kingdom had been clearly explained by

Samuel at Gilgal in his address to king and people (1 Samuel 12:14, 20, 21, 24). There is evidently an internal

connection between the first (1 Samuel 13:8-14) and this second and final trial of Saul. The former had

brought to light his want of faith, and even of simple obedience, and it had been a test of his moral

qualification for the kingdom; this second was the test of his moral qualification for being king. As the first

trial, so to speak, developed into the second, so Saul's want of moral qualification had ripened into absolute

disqualification -and as the former trial determined the fate of his line, so this second decided his own as

king. After the first trial his line was rejected; after the second his own standing as theocratic king ceased.

As God-appointed king he was henceforth rejected; Jehovah withdrew the sanction which He had formerly

given to his reign by the aid of His power and the Presence of His Spirit. Henceforth "the Spirit of Jehovah

departed from Saul" (1 Samuel 16:14), and he was left, in the judgment of God, to the influence of that evil

spirit to whom his natural disposition and the circumstances of his position laid him specially open (comp.

Matthew 12:43-45).