Sazd s first trial ana' transgress/am—The restric tions on which he held the sovereignty had (I 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 Jehovah, king of Israel, who not only gave all the laws, but 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 vvas put to the test brought out those defects in 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 Jehovah speaking through his ministers, or confine himself to it ; and in this respect he was not, what David, with many indi vidual and private faults and crimes, was— a man after God's own heart, a king faithful to the prin ciples of the theocracy.
Having organised a small standing- army, part of which, under Jonathan, had taken a fort of the Philistines, Saul summoned the people to withstand the forces which their oppressors, now alarmed for their dominion, would naturally assemble. 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. The number of chariots, 30,00o, seems a mistake ; unless we suppose, with Le Clerc, Haat they were not war-chariots but baggage-waggons (an improbable supposition), so that 3000 may be the true number. Apparently reduced to extremity, and the seventh day being come, but not being ended, the expiration of which Samnel had enjoined him to wait, Saul at least orderer-I sacrifices to be offered—for the expression (I Sam. xiii. 9) does not necessarily imply that he intruded into the priest's office (2 Sam. vi. 13 ; I 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 Ile 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 tbe war according- 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 to tbe text of the Sept. ver. x5, 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 insertion). Left to himself, Saul's errors multiplied apace. Jonathan, having assaulted
a garrison of the Philistines (apparently at Mich mash, I Sam. xiv. 3i, which, therefore, must have been situated near Migron in Gibeah, ver. 1, and within sight of it, ver. 15), Saul, aided by a panic of the enemy, an earthquake, and the co-operation of his fugitive soldiers, effected a great slaughter; mt by a rash and foolish denunciation, he (I) im peded his success (ver. 3o), (2) involved the people in a violation of the law (ver. 33), and (3), unless prevented by the more enlightened 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. This success against the Philistines was followed, not only by the retirement for a time within their own territory, but by other considerable successes against the other enemies of his country—Moab, Ammon, Edom, the kings of Zobah, the Amalekites, and the Philis tines, all of whom he harassed, but did not subdue. These wars may have occupied five or six years, till tbe tenth or eleventh year of Saul's reign, rather than the sixteenth, as marked in the Bible chronology.
Saul's second transgression.—Another trial was afforded Saul before his final rejection, the com mand to extirpate the Amalekites, whose hostility to the people of God was inveterate (Dent. xxv. 18 ; Exod. xvii. S-16 ; Num. xiv. 42-45 ; Judg. 13 ; vi. 3), and who had not by repentance averted that doom which had been delayed 55o years (I Sam. xiv. 4.8). They who represent this sen tence as unworthy of the God of the whole earth should ask on what principle the execution of a criminal under human governments can be de fended. If men judge that the welfare of society demands the destruction of one of their fellows, surely God, who can better judge what the interests of his government require, and has a more perfect right to dispose of rnen's lives, may cut off by the sword of his servants the persons whom, without any imputation of injustice, he might destroy by disease, famine, or any such visitation. It is more to our present purpose to remark, that the apparent cruelty of this commission was not the reason why it was not fully executed, as Saul himself confessed when Samuel upbraided him, I feared the people and obeyed their voice' (I Sam. xv. 24). This stubbornness in persisting to rebel against the direc tions of Jehovah was now visited by that final re jection of his family from succeeding him on the throne, which had before been threatened (ver. 23 ; xiii. 13, 14), and which was now significantly re presented, or mystically predicted, by the rending of the prophet's mantle. After this second and flagrant disobedience, Saul received no more public countenance from the venerable prophet, who now left him to his sins and his punishment ; neverthe less, he mourned for Saul,' and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king•(xv. 35).