1 Samuel

     One of the last leaders of Israel during the period of the judges is a priest named Eli.  He is performing his duties in the temple one day when he sees a woman who appears to be drunk.
     "No, my lord," the woman explains in 1 Samuel 1:15, "I am a woman oppressed in spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord."
     "Go in peace;" Eli replies in verse 17, "and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him."
     The request that Hannah has been making of the Lord is to have a child.  She promises to dedicate the son to the service of the Lord.  Within a year she and her husband Elkanah have their son.  When the child, Samuel, is old enough, Hannah takes him to the temple to help Eli.
     Eli is a faithful servant of God, but he fails to teach his sons to follow in his footsteps.  The Bible describes the sons as, "worthless men."
     In 1 Samuel chapter three the Lord reveals to young Samuel that the priesthood will be removed from the family of Eli and transferred to Samuel.
     Samuel, like Eli, is faithful to God.  But his sons, like those of Eli, are corrupt.  So in chapter eight the people demand a king.
     It has been about 400 years since the Israelites marched out of Egypt.  They have spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, followed by centuries of disobedience, oppression and liberation during the time of the judges.
     During most of this time they have done what God has told them not to, and not done what He has said to do.
     "Hear, O Israel!" Moses commands in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  "The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
     "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
     "And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
     But the Israelites have not been faithful in carrying out this command.
     "And when the Lord your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them," Moses says of the Canaanite people in Deuteronomy 7:2-5, "then you shall utterly destroy them.  You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.
     "Furthermore," God continues through Moses, "you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.
     "For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you.  But this you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire."
     The Israelites have not been faithful in obeying this instruction, either.  So it is little wonder that the kings who replace the judges as leaders of Israel do not pay much attention to God's admonition in Deuteronomy 17:16-17.
     "Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself," God says of the king, "nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, 'You shall never again return that way.'
     "Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself."
     It is also little wonder that the people don't accept the warning given through Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter eight.
     "This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you," God points out beginning in verse 11, "he will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots.
     "And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
     "He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers.  And he will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves, and give them to his servants.
     "And he will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants.
     "He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys, and use them for his work.  He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants.
     "Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day."
     "Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel," verse 19 adds, "and they said, 'No, but there shall be a king over us."

     The first king selected for Israel is a tall, handsome man named Saul.  Saul first encounters Samuel while searching for some lost livestock.  God has already told Samuel to expect Saul, and the prophet reveals to the young man what God has in store for him.
     "Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel," is Saul's reaction when Samuel first addresses him, "and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin?  Why then do you speak to me in this way?"
     In chapter 10 Samuel calls the people together to appoint the king.  As the prophet and future king both already know, the process of casting lots reveals that Saul has been chosen by God.  But Saul is nowhere to be found.  He is so modest that he is hiding by the baggage.
     The new king soon rises to his position by leading the Israelites to victory against the Ammonites.  Some time later he is faced with an attack by the Philistines.  Samuel tells the king to wait seven days at Gilgal so the prophet can come and offer a sacrifice on behalf of the Israelites.  When Samuel does not arrive on time, Saul decides to offer the sacrifice himself.
     Samuel arrives while Saul is offering the sacrifice, and the king tries to make excuses for his presumptuous action.
     "You have acted foolishly," Samuel points out in 1 Samuel 13:13.  "Now your kingdom will not endure," he adds in the next verse.
     In chapter 15 God sends Saul to punish the Amalekites, a group of people who had refused to help the Israelites on their way out of Egypt.  God specifically orders Saul to destroy everybody and everything.  But Saul decides to spare the king as well as anything that seems to be of value.
     "I regret that I have made Saul king," God tells Samuel in verse 11, "for he has turned back from following Me, and has not carried out My commands."
     On the way back from the victory Saul sets up a monument for himself at Carmel.
     "I have carried out the command of the Lord," he announces proudly when he meets Samuel at Gilgal.
     "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"
     "They have brought them from the Amalekites," Saul says as he shifts the blame to the people, "for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed."
     "Why...did you not obey the voice of the Lord...?" Samuel demands in verse 19.
     "I did obey," Saul argues, "...but the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal."
     "Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?" Samuel responds.  "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."
     Jesus quotes these words in passages such as Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 12:7 where He tries to explain to the Pharisees that God wants His people to follow His word and not the traditions of men.
     Saul's reign is down-hill after this second act of disobedience.  The brightest spots in the rest of the book of 1 Samuel come not through Saul but through David, the young man chosen by God to replace the disobedient king.  In chapter 17, for example, we find the story of David's defeat of the giant Goliath.
     As David rises, Saul declines.
     "But now your kingdom shall not endure," Samuel has already warned Saul in 1 Samuel 13:14 on the occasion of the first disobedience.  "The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you."
     God has offered Saul so much.  But the first king of Israel has chosen to reject the truth and follow a path of deception and excuses.  He seems so foolish.
     But are things any different for us?  God has offered to us the chance to be His children through Christ.  All He requires is that we do what He says in the way He commands.  What can we say when we choose to follow man-made traditions and offer excuses about how we are doing what God says when nothing could be further from the truth?
     Wouldn't it make more sense to simply follow the truth that God says will make us free?

Unless otherwise noted, "Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), (C) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.lockman.org)