(4) Victory Over the Ammonites. In the meantime the Ammonites, whose invasion had hastened the appointment of a king, having be sieged Jabesh in Gilead, and Nahash, their king, having proposed insulting conditions to them, the elders of that town, apparently not aware of Saul's election (t Sam. xi:3), sent messengers through the land imploring help. Saul acted with wisdom and promptitude. summoning the people en masse, to meet him at Bezek: and having at the head of a vast multitude totally routed the Am monites (verse 11), he obtained a higher glory, by exhibiting a new instance of clemency, whether dictated by principle or policy.
(5) Renewal of the Monarchy. He and the people betook themselves, under the direction of Samuel, to Gilgal, there with solemn sacrifices to reinstall the victorious leader in his kingdom ( t Sam. xi:t4). At Gilgal Saul was publicly anointed, and solemnly installed in the kingdom by Samuel, who took occasion to vindicate the purity of his own administration—which he vir tually transferred to Saul—to censure the people for their ingratitude and impiety, and to warn both them and Saul of the danger of disobedience to the commands of Jehovah (I Sam. vii).
(6) Saul's First Trial and Transgression. The restrictions on which he held the sovereignty had (t Sam. x:25) been fully explained as well to Saul as to the people, so that he was not ignorant of his true position as merely the lieutenant of Je hovah, king of Israel, who not only gave all the laws, hut whose will, in the execution of them, was constantly to be consulted and complied with. The first occasion on which his obedience to this constitution was put to the test brought out those defectsin his character which showed his unfitness for his high office, and incurred a threat of that rejection which his subsequent conduct confirmed (I Sam. xiii :13). Saul could not understand his proper position, as only the servant of Jeho vah speaking through his ministers, or confine himself to it; and in this respect he was not, what David, with many individual and private faults and crimes, was—a man after God's own heart, a king faithful to the principles of the theocracy.
Having organized a small standing army, part of which, under Jonathan, had taken a fort of the Philistines, Saul summoned the people to with stand the forces which their oppressors, now alarmed for their dominion, would naturally as semble. But so numerous a host came against
Saul, that the people, panic-stricken, fled to rocks and caverns for safety—years of servitude having extinguished their courage, which the want of arms, of which the policy of the Philistines had deprived them, still further diminished. Appar ently reduced to extremity, and the seventh day being come, but not being ended, the expiration of which Samuel had enjoined him to wait, Saul at least ordered sacrifices to be offered—for the ex pression (t Sam. xiii :g) does not necessarily imply that he intruded into the priest's office (2 Sam. v1:13; t Kings iii:2-4), though that is the most obvious meaning of the text. Whether that which Saul now disregarded was the injunction referred to (i Sam. x :8), or one subsequently addressed to him, this is evident, that Saul acted in the full knowledge that he sinned (xiii:12); and his guilt, in that act of conscious disobedience, was probably increased by its clearly involving an assumption of authority to conduct the war ac cording to his own judgment and will. Samuel having denounced the displeasure of Jehovah and its consequences, left him, and Saul returned to Gibeah (the addition made in the text of the Sep tuagint, verse 15, where after 'from Gilgal,' the clause, 'and the rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the enemy from Gilgal to Gibeah,' etc., being required apparently by the sense, which, probably, has been the only authority for its in sertion). Left to himself, Saul's errors multi plied apace. Jonathan, having assaulted a gar rison of the Philistines (apparently at Michmash, I Sam. xiv:3i, which, therefore, must have been situated near Migron in Gibeah, verse 2, and within sight of it, verse 15), Saul, aided by a panic of the enemy, an earthquake, and the co operation of his fugitive soldiers, effected a great slaughter ; but by a rash and foolish denunciation, he (t) impeded his success (verse 30), (2) in volved the people in a violation of the law (verse 33), and (3), unless prevented by the more en lightened conscience of the people, would have ended with putting Jonathan to death for an act which, being done in invincible ignorance, could involve no guilt.