I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 14-15.

The New Living Translation, which I primarily use for these studies, uses the Septuagint to translate 1 Samuel 14:18 as “Then Saul shouted to Ahijah, ‘Bring the ephod here!’ For at that time Ahijah was wearing the ephod in front of the Israelites.”  However, in the notes they mention that the Hebrew reads “Then Saul shouted to Ahijah, ‘Bring the Ark of God.’ For at that time the Ark of God was with the Israelites.”  Now you may ask why that is significant.  It shows us that Saul sought to make God the center of his kingship.  Here, and again at the end of the battle when he had this soldiers bring the beasts they were going to butcher to eat to be ritually killed so as to meet God’s dietary commands, Saul turned to God.  Yet, here we also see the root of Saul’s failure.  When he saw how things were going with the Philistine army, he decided that he did not have time to wait for the Ark to be brought, he did not have time to wait for God.  This follows what happened in yesterday’s passage where Saul became impatient waiting for Samuel to come to offer the sacrifices and did so himself.  We need to wait for God, even when it seems that we do not have time to do so.