The Sheep Interrupt Saul's Account of Obedience

The Hebrew puts “me” first for emphasis: it was me the LORD sent to anoint you. “The voice of the words” is a doubled phrase, and voice, qol, will become the chapter’s key word. By verse 14 another voice will be answering this one.

“I remember” translates paqad, to attend to or call to account, the same verb rendered “numbered” in verse 4. Deuteronomy 25:17–18 fills in what Amalek did: it struck the stragglers at the rear, the faint and weary, on the march out of Egypt. The first battle Israel fought after the Red Sea was against Amalek (Exodus 17:8–16).

“Utterly destroy” is the verb charam, to put under the ban, as at Jericho (Joshua 6:17–21). What was banned belonged wholly to God and could not be kept as plunder, which is the point the rest of the chapter turns on. Camels are named because Amalek was a herding people of the desert fringe (Judges 6:5).

Telaim means “lambs”, an apt muster point for a campaign that will end in an argument about spared lambs. It is probably the Telem of Joshua 15:24, in the Negev. The count is paqad again, the verb God used in verse 2. Judah is numbered apart, as at Bezek (11:8).

“The valley” is a nachal, a wadi or seasonal streambed, typical of the Negev, where a force could lie hidden below the level of the plain. “A city” is a telling detail for a mostly nomadic people, perhaps a fortified camp or trading post.

The Kenites were the clan of Moses’ father-in-law (Judges 1:16; 4:11) and had settled in the Negev near Arad. “Kindness” is chesed, loyal goodness remembered across generations, the word that will bind David and Jonathan in 20:14–15. Amalek’s old hostility and the Kenites’ old kindness are both remembered.

“From Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt” repeats the phrase that marked out the territory of Ishmael’s descendants (Genesis 25:18). Shur, meaning “wall”, was the desert frontier facing Egypt. The line sketches the whole range of the southern wilderness.

Agag may be a royal title rather than a personal name; Balaam foretold a king “higher than Agag” (Numbers 24:7). Esther calls Haman “the Agagite” and his enemy Mordecai a descendant of Kish (Esther 2:5; 3:1), so the quarrel of this chapter echoes centuries later. “All the people” cannot be exhaustive: David raids Amalekites in 27:8 and chapter 30.

“Would not” is literally “were not willing”. “Fatlings” renders an obscure word that may mean second-born or well-fed animals. “Vile” is nemibzah, despised, from the verb used of the men who “despised” Saul at his election (10:27). What they despised, they destroyed.

The formula “the word of the LORD came” is the language that opens prophetic books. It first gathered around Samuel when the word was rare in Eli’s day (3:1, 21). The same word that made him a prophet now speaks the end of the king he anointed.

“Turned back from following me” is literally “turned from after me”, the phrase Samuel used for keeping faith in 12:14 and 20. “It grieved Samuel” is stronger in Hebrew: Samuel burned with anger. The text does not say at whom, and the all-night crying follows.

This Carmel is a town in Judah south of Hebron, the home of Nabal in 25:2, not the northern mountain. “Set him up a place” is literally “a hand”, a monument; Absalom’s pillar is called “Absalom’s place”, the same word, in 2 Samuel 18:18. Saul marks his victory in stone before reporting it.

“I have performed” is the verb heqim, to carry out or establish, the very verb God used in verse 11 when he said Saul had not performed his commandments. Saul’s greeting answers the divine verdict word for word without knowing it has been given.

“Bleating” in Hebrew is qol, the “voice” of the sheep, and “lowing” is the voice of the oxen. Verse 1 told Saul to hearken to the voice of the LORD. Samuel now hears a different voice, and it tells him more than the king does.

Saul’s pronouns do the work: “they have brought”, “the people spared”, but “we have utterly destroyed”. Credit is shared, blame is handed on. He also calls the LORD “thy God”, Samuel’s God, a phrase he will use again in verses 21 and 30.

“Stay” is heref, “stop” or “enough”, the verb of Psalm 46:10, “Be still”. Samuel cuts the explanation off. Saul’s reply is a single Hebrew word, dabber, “speak”, and it is the last time in the chapter he lets someone else finish.

“Little in thine own sight” recalls Saul’s own protest at his first meeting with Samuel: “Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel?” (9:21). “Head” is rosh, the top of the body, set against the smallness he once claimed.

“The sinners the Amalekites” uses chatta’im, the word for the men of Sodom, “sinners before the LORD exceedingly” (Genesis 13:13). “Until they be consumed” sets the finishing point of the task, which Saul stopped short of.

“Didst fly upon the spoil” is the swooping verb of 14:32, when the starving army fell on Philistine livestock. “Didst evil in the sight of the LORD” is the refrain of the Book of Judges (Judges 2:11). Samuel describes the king in the terms used for Israel at its worst.

Saul hands Samuel’s own vocabulary back: obeyed the voice, gone the way, the LORD sent me. The last clauses make a distinction the command never allowed. He has “brought” Agag and “destroyed” the Amalekites, as though their king were not one of them.

“The chief of the things” is reshit, the word for firstfruits, the first and best portion given to God (Deuteronomy 18:4). Saul presents the spoil as an offering, but under the ban everything already belonged to God. He was proposing to give God what was already his.

Samuel’s answer turns into poetry, two balanced lines. The fat was the portion burned wholly for God (Leviticus 3:16, “all the fat is the LORD’s”), so Samuel sets obedience above the very best of sacrifice. The prophets pick up the theme (Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6–8).

“Idolatry” translates teraphim, household images, the word for the figure Michal will lay in David’s bed (19:13). “Witchcraft” is qesem, divination, and “stubbornness” a rare word for pushing or insisting. “Rejected” runs both ways, as in 8:7, where Israel had rejected God as king.

“Transgressed the commandment” is literally “crossed over the mouth of the LORD”. Saul puts Samuel’s words beside the LORD’s. His confession uses the same two Hebrew words David will use when Nathan confronts him, chatati, “I have sinned” (2 Samuel 12:13); the difference lies in what each goes on to say.

“Pardon” is nasa, to lift or carry away. “Turn again” is shuv, and the chapter keeps turning: Saul turned back from God (verse 11), Samuel will not turn back (verse 26), turns to go (verse 27), and at last turns again (verse 31).

Samuel repeats the sentence of verse 23 almost word for word, adding only “over Israel”. Repetition makes it a verdict rather than a reaction. “I will not return” refuses the exact request, shuv for shuv.

The Hebrew says only “he laid hold”; the Greek and a Qumran scroll supply “Saul”. The mantle, me’il, is the garment Hannah made for Samuel every year as a boy (2:19), and Saul will recognise Samuel by it at Endor (28:14). “Skirt” is kanaf, the corner David will cut from Saul’s robe in 24:4.

Ahijah will tear a new garment into twelve pieces to show the kingdom torn from Solomon (1 Kings 11:30–31), using the same verb. “Neighbour” is re’a, a fellow or companion. At Endor the word returns with a name: “given it to thy neighbour, even to David” (28:17).

“The Strength of Israel” translates netsach, a unique title meaning endurance or pre-eminence. The line echoes Balaam: “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent” (Numbers 23:19).

“Honour me” is from kabed, weight or glory, the word hidden in Ichabod, “no glory” (4:21). Saul’s third “thy God” in the chapter comes here: he asks to worship Samuel’s God with Samuel standing beside him in front of the elders.

The book gives no reason for Samuel’s change of mind. The next verse may supply one, since there is unfinished business with Agag that Samuel will not leave undone. “Worshipped” means Saul bowed down, prostrate on the ground.

“Delicately” translates ma’adannot, an uncertain word. It may mean cheerfully, or it may mean in fetters, since the same word describes the “bands” of the Pleiades in Job 38:31. The Greek has Agag come trembling and saying “Surely death is bitter”, a very different man.

Samuel speaks two balanced lines, a sentence shaped so that the punishment mirrors the crime. “Hewed in pieces” renders a verb found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The old prophet carries out with his own hands the ban the young king left unfinished.

Ramah and Gibeah of Saul lay only a few miles apart in the hills of Benjamin. Each man goes home, and the short distance between them makes the next verse sharper.

Samuel does not go to see Saul again, though Saul will come to him at Naioth (19:22–24) and seek him after his death at Endor. “Mourned” is the word for grieving the dead, used here of a man still living. In 16:1 the LORD asks how long it will go on.