1 Samuel 15:17

The chapter opens with the LORD’s command, given through Samuel, that Saul should attack Amalek and utterly destroy it, people and livestock alike (1 Samuel 15:1–3). Saul won the battle, but he and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and oxen and all that was good (1 Samuel 15:8–9). The LORD told Samuel that he regretted making Saul king (1 Samuel 15:10–11). When Samuel arrived, Saul’s first excuse was that the people had spared the best animals to sacrifice to the LORD (1 Samuel 15:15). These seven verses are the rest of that meeting, the point in 1 Samuel 15 where Saul’s reign is decided.

Samuel begins with a reminder in the form of a question: “When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?” The word for little, qâṭân, means small, young or insignificant, always measured against something else. Here it is Saul’s own measure of himself. When Samuel first spoke to him of the kingdom, Saul protested that he was a Benjamite, of the smallest tribe of Israel, and that his family was the least in Benjamin (1 Samuel 9:21).

The question expects the answer yes, and it names who raised him. The LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of Israel’s God, took Saul from obscurity and set him over the whole nation. To anoint, mâshach, is to smear or rub with oil, and in its consecrating use it set a person apart for an office. In Israel prophets, priests and kings were anointed, and Samuel had anointed Saul with oil at the start of his reign (1 Samuel 10:1). The kingdom was the LORD’s gift, so Saul answered to the LORD for it. Israel’s king was meant to be the LORD’s servant, bound by the covenant and subject to the word of the prophet, as the law for kings had already laid down (Deuteronomy 17:14–20).

Samuel’s reminder goes to the root of the trouble. The humility that marked Saul at the start has given way to pride and self-will, and pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18). God keeps the same rule all through Scripture. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:12), and God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). In the very next chapter he chooses David, and tells Samuel that the LORD looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

For us, to be little in our own sight is to know that every strength, gift and success we have comes from God. It is a humble dependence on him, and it sits comfortably with confidence in the abilities he gives. Paul learned that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness, so that when he was weak, then he was strong (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Samuel restates the command so that it stands plainly beside what Saul did. “And the LORD sent thee on a journey”. The word for journey, derek, is a road, from a root meaning to tread, and it is used figuratively for a course of action. Saul’s campaign was a mission the LORD gave and a path the LORD laid out for him.

The command was to “utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites”. The word for sinners, chaṭṭâʼ, names people: a criminal, or one accounted guilty. God names the Amalekites as guilty, and their long record of hostility gives the reason for the sentence. To utterly destroy, châram, is to devote something by a ban, especially to destruction, and here the ban covered everyone and everything Amalek had. Then comes “fight against them until they be consumed”. The verb kâlâh means to end, be finished, perish or consume, and the fighting was to go on until Amalek came to its end. The psalmist says that God has commanded his precepts to be kept diligently (Psalm 119:4), and the command Saul received was as clear as a command can be.

Verse 19 asks why. “Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD”. The verb shâmaʻ means to hear, and it carries the sense of attention and obedience, a hearing that leads to doing. Saul had heard the command and understood it, so his failure lay in his will. The voice he disregarded was the LORD’s own, which made his disobedience an offence against God himself.

“But didst fly upon the spoil”. The verb ʻîyṭ means to swoop down upon, the way a bird of prey drops on its victim, and it pictures the greedy haste with which Saul and his men fell on the plunder. The spoil, shâlâl, is the goods taken in war. This spoil was under the ban, so in seizing it Israel took what had been given over to the LORD for destruction, and the swoop shows a heart that put gain first. The same swoop shows itself today whenever someone grabs at what God has forbidden: cutting corners in business for profit, indulging sinful pleasures, clinging to possessions when God calls for generosity, or chasing ambition at the cost of integrity.

“And didst evil in the sight of the LORD”. The word for evil, raʻ, means bad, and evil in the moral sense, and the word for sight, ʻayin, is the eye. Saul could call his choice practical, or even devout, since the animals were meant for the altar, and the LORD’s eye judged it evil. God judges by his revealed will and by the heart. Proverbs says the same, that the LORD prefers righteousness and justice to sacrifice (Proverbs 21:3).

Saul’s reply begins, “Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD”. The verb for “said”, ʼâmar, is the ordinary word for speaking, and the “Yea” is emphatic, “indeed” or “surely”. Saul answers Samuel’s question in Samuel’s own words, with the same verb shâmaʻ, and he claims full obedience. He may have been trying to convince Samuel, and he may have half convinced himself.

His defence is built from partial truths. “I have gone the way which the LORD sent me” uses derek, the same word as “journey” in verse 18, with yâlak, to walk. He did march to Amalek and fight, so the road was right, and the course of action the LORD set for that road was the part he abandoned. “I have brought Agag the king of Amalek” is offered as part of his obedience, and it is the plainest admission of disobedience in the verse. Agag was a king, melek, under the same ban as his people, and Saul brought him home alive. Saul may have wanted him as a trophy to lead in triumph, or as a hostage or a piece in politics, and Scripture leaves the reason unstated. Finally, “I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites” uses châram, the very verb of the command. Many Amalekites had died, and yet with their king alive and the best of their flocks in Israel’s hands, Saul was stretching the word of the command to fit what he had done.

Jesus asks why people call him Lord, Lord, and leave undone what he says (Luke 6:46), and James writes that whoever keeps the whole law and stumbles in one point is guilty of all (James 2:10). Partial obedience is disobedience in God’s eyes.

Verse 21 shifts the blame. “But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen”. Saul names the people, and the people did share in the wrong, since the failure to keep the decree was a common one. The spoil, shâlâl, is again the plunder of war. “The chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed” uses the word chêrem, the thing devoted, set apart from common use and given over to God, usually for destruction. They took the best of it, the very things most plainly meant for the ban.

“To sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal”. To sacrifice, zâbach, is to slaughter an animal, usually as an offering. Saul gives a pious reason for keeping what God had condemned, as though a good intention could make a disobedient act holy. Moses had told Israel to keep God’s command whole, adding to it and taking from it alike forbidden (Deuteronomy 12:32), and Jesus quoted the prophet against people who honour God with their lips while their hearts are far from him (Matthew 15:8–9). Saul also says “the LORD thy God”, as if he were speaking of Samuel’s God, which may hint at how far he had drifted from the God he was meant to obey.

Gilgal deepens the sorrow of it. It was Israel’s first camp after crossing the Jordan into the land (Joshua 4:19). There the new generation was circumcised, the LORD rolled away the reproach of Egypt, and Israel kept its first Passover in the land (Joshua 5:2–10). A place of covenant renewal and faithful worship was now to host a sacrifice taken from disobedience.

Samuel answers with a question of his own: “Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?” The word for delight, chêphets, means pleasure, delight or desire. Burnt offerings, ʻôlâh, were burned whole on the altar, and sacrifices, zebach, covered a wider class, including peace offerings that the worshipper shared in eating. Both were costly, and both were given by God himself in the law of Moses. The question has an obvious answer, and Samuel gives it.

“Behold” calls Saul to look and listen. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” Better, ṭôwb, is the ordinary word for good, used here to rank one thing above another. To obey is shâmaʻ once more, the verb of Samuel’s charge in verse 19 and of Saul’s claim in verse 20. To hearken, qâshab, is to listen attentively, with action following. The fat, cheleb, was the richest part of the animal and was offered to God as the best of the sacrifice. The two lines say the same thing twice, in the manner of Hebrew poetry, and so they make a saying that is easy to remember. Saul came with the best of Amalek’s flocks, and Samuel tells him that the finest part of the finest ram weighs less with the LORD than an ear that listens to him and a will that does what it hears.

The prophets after Samuel come back to this again and again. Through Hosea the LORD says, “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). David says that the sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:16–17), and Micah asks what the LORD requires of his people and answers with justice, mercy and a humble walk with God (Micah 6:6–8). The law had told Israel to follow the LORD and obey his voice (Deuteronomy 13:4), and through Jeremiah the LORD gives the same charge, “Obey my voice” (Jeremiah 7:23).

Samuel now names Saul’s sin for what it is. “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft”. The word for rebellion, mᵉrîy, carries the sense of bitterness and so of open defiance against a rightful authority. Witchcraft is qeçem, divination or sorcery, and the word for sin, chaṭṭâʼâh, means sin and is also used for the sin offering. The law had forbidden divination and every such practice as an abomination to the LORD (Deuteronomy 18:10–12).

“And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry”. Stubbornness, pâtsar, is obstinacy, a refusal to yield to a command. Iniquity, ʼâven, means nothingness, trouble or wickedness, and idolatry is tᵉrâphîym, the household idols or images that stood for a turning away from the worship of the LORD alone. Saul’s stubborn insistence on his own way set up his own will in the place that belonged to God.

Then comes the sentence: “Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” The verb mâʼaç, to reject, spurn, despise or cast off, stands twice, and the two halves of the sentence answer each other. Saul cast off the dâbâr, the word of the LORD, and the LORD cast him off from being melek, king. The judgment fits the sin exactly. It ended God’s favour on Saul’s reign and on any dynasty after him, and in the next chapter the LORD sends Samuel to anoint another king (1 Samuel 16:1), one who would have the wholehearted obedience Saul lacked.

Saul was anointed king, and he lost the kingdom through pride and disobedience. Jesus is the King who humbled himself. Though he was God, he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,” and he obeyed even to death on a cross (Philippians 2:6–8). He was anointed by the Spirit to preach good news to the poor, heal the brokenhearted and set captives free (Luke 4:18–19). He came down from heaven to do the will of the one who sent him (John 6:38), and doing that will and finishing his work was his meat (John 4:34).

In him obedience and sacrifice meet. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and his offering of himself was itself the doing of the Father’s will (Hebrews 10:5–10). He learned obedience and became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:8–9). By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, and by the obedience of one many are made righteous (Romans 5:19). Saul kept back what lay under the ban, and Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13) by bearing that curse himself. Through his death he destroyed the power of death (Hebrews 2:14), and he disarmed principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). Where Saul was rejected, God raised Christ and set him far above every rule and authority (Ephesians 1:20–22), and all of it comes from God’s love for the world (John 3:16).

Saul spared what God had condemned, and those who belong to Christ are called by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13) and their earthly members (Colossians 3:5). Our wrestling is against spiritual powers of wickedness, beyond flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12), and in Christ we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). Offered through him, our own lives become a living sacrifice that God accepts (Romans 12:1).

This passage shows us a God who lifts up the small, who speaks plainly, and who delights to be heard. Saul received a kingdom when he thought little of himself, and the same God still gives grace to the humble. The LORD told Saul exactly what he wanted, and he has told us in his word what pleases him, so the obedience he asks of us is an answer to a voice we have already heard.

The passage also shows how readily disobedience dresses itself up, in a half-truth, in blame laid on others, in an offering at a holy place. The LORD sees through all of it, and he prizes a listening heart above the richest gift we could bring. That would be a heavy word on its own, for every one of us has fallen short of it. The King Saul failed to be has come. Jesus obeyed perfectly, offered himself as the sacrifice the Father willed, and by his obedience many are made righteous. His own words gather it up: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The obedience God delights in is the answer of people he has already loved and saved.