Tag Archives: 1 Samuel 14-15

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2024 Bible Study — Contrasting the Faith of Jonathan with Saul’s Lack of Faith

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

Today I want to compare Jonathan’s faith from the first account in today’s passage with Saul’s faith from the final account in today’s story.  When Jonathan left the Israelite camp and headed over to scout out, and provoke, a Philistine camp, he laid out a test before God of what he should do.  He laid out before God that he and his armor bearer would attack if the Philistines arrogantly called them to come close, but would not do so otherwise.  Then when the Philistines gave him the response to attack, Jonathan gave credit to God for the victory he was about to have.  Then in the last account of today’s passage Samuel told King Saul that God commanded him to attack and completely destroy the Amalekites, killing all of them and destroying everything which belonged to them.  Saul attacked them and completely wiped them out, but he spared their king and kept the best of their sheep and cattle.  When Saul then met Samuel he claimed to have fully carried out God’s instructions.  Then when Samuel confronted him about the sheep and cattle, Saul blamed his soldiers…and claimed that they had only done so in order to offer them to God.  Finally when Samuel told him that he had not obeyed the Lord, Saul claimed the he had done so and only kept the sheep and cattle in order to sacrifice them to “the Lord your God.”  Notice, Saul did not say, “the Lord my God,” or, “the Lord our God.”  King Saul did not view God as his God (not even as his god).

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

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2023 Bible Study — To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

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

I was struck today by King Saul’s order to his army to bring the captured animals to a central location for butchering in order to ensure that the blood was drained from the animals before they were eaten.  In particular, his explanation for the order. which was that he did not want them to sin against God by eating meat with the blood still in it.  This appears to be King Saul attempting to faithfully follow God’s commands, and to ensure that his men do the same.  In fact, when we combine that with Saul seeking God’s guidance as to whether or not he should continue pursuing the Philistines, I believe that he was indeed seeking to serve God faithfully here.  However, it also bears a resemblance to what Saul did after he defeated the Amalekites later in the passage.  Samuel instructed Saul that he should defeat the Amalekites and destroy all of them and all that they had.  Instead of doing so, Saul had his army bring the best of their livestock back in order to hold a great sacrifice/celebration at Gilgal (I want to note that such a sacrificial ceremony would have been a huge feast and a celebration of Saul’s victory).   Samuel’s response is one which we should pay close attention:

To obey is better than sacrifice,

This phrase is indeed one which many today pay attention, but I am not sure that they get it.  This means that we should be more concerned with discipling out fellow believer (and being discipled by them) than in the amount which goes into the offering plate.

Which brings me to Saul’s other failure to keep the command which God gave him through Samuel.  Saul  also kept alive the king of the Amalekites.  I want to take notice that on several occasions the Old Testament tells us that Israel’s king took the king of Israel’s enemy captive rather than killing him.  In this case, Saul had all of the other Amalekites killed, but took the king captive.  Before killing the Amalekite king, Samuel points out that the king was more responsible for the crimes of the Amalekites than any other individual.  No explanation is given for Saul sparing the life of Agag, the king of the Amalekites, so we are left to draw our own conclusions.  To me, the most likely explanation is that King Saul felt greater kinship with King Agag than he did with the people over whom he ruled.  Thus Saul spared King Agag out of a misplaced sense of kinship.  This would be consistent with those in positions of power throughout history.  They often demonstrate greater concern for the interests of the ruling class of the enemies of the people over whom they hold authority than for the interests of those for whose interests they are theoretically responsible.

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

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2021 Bible Study No, It Is Not Better To Beg Forgiveness Than To Ask For Permission

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

I really struggled with what to write today.  I like the story of Jonathan going over and attacking the Philistine outpost accompanied by only his armor bearer.  So I thought I might write about that, but I could not figure out what to say.  I like the account of what happened when Saul commanded that no one in his army eat until they had complete victory and Jonathan did not hear so ate some honey. But again I was not quite sure what to write.  There are a couple of other things in this passage that I thought might be a good focus, but could not figure out how to start from them.

Finally, I looked closer at the interaction between Samuel and King Saul after the defeat of the Amalekites and knew that was the place to focus.  When Samuel arrives, Saul greets him by saying that he had done what God had instructed him to do.  I had never noticed before that King Saul actually thought he had done what God had desired.  He believed this despite the fact that Samuel had told him that God wanted him to kill all of the Amalekites and all of their livestock and King Saul had taken their king prisoner and plundered the best of their livestock.  After King Saul had made all of his excuses for not having done so, Samuel tells him the thing which we must always remember: “To obey is better than sacrifice.”  Really this runs directly counter to a saying which is common today.  The saying is, “It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask for permission.”  The point of that latter saying is that, if you know that they will refuse permission, don’t ask for permission, do it anyway and ask for forgiveness afterwards.  King Saul thought that because he was going to sacrifice the animals it was OK that he did not immediately kill them, that he could take advantage of this to further cement his position.

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

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2020 Bible Study — Waiting For God Before We Act

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.

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2019 Bible Study — Do The Lord’s Will Because Nothing Will Hinder The Lord

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.

This passage makes me feel bad that Jonathan never becomes king over Israel.  Jonathan displays both a strong faith in God and a knowledge of military tactics.  Of course, he also displays a sort of “better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission” attitude which might be a problem in a king.  In yesterday’s passage, Jonathan attacked a Philistine garrison, precipitating the war between the Philistines and Israel.  In today’s passage, he sneaks out of the Israelite camp and attacks an outpost of the Philistine army.  Jonathan justifies his plan to satisfy his Adrenalin craving, correctly, by stating that if God is with them nothing can hinder them.  However, he does not assume that God is with him.  He lays out a test for a sign from God.  Instead of trying to sneak up on the Philistines, he lets them see him and his armor bearer.  He stated in advance that if they threatened to kill the two of them if they came closer, that would be a sign that God did not approve his endeavor and he would return to camp.  But if the Philistines invited them up to fight that would be the sign that God was with them.  When the latter happened, Jonathan and his armor bearer went up and killed twenty of the Philistines.  This sowed confusion among the Philistines which Saul took advantage of to win a great victory.

When I started writing the previous paragraph I was going to go in a different direction, but this morning I read an article about the movie “Unplanned”. “Unplanned” is the story of a former employee of Planned Parenthood who has become an anto-abortion activist. This led me to focus on Jonathan’s statement that nothing can hinder the Lord. The producers of the movie “Unplanned” ran into many obstacles to releasing this movie: music companies refused them a license to use songs, the movie rating board gave the movie an R rating, Fox was the only network which accepted advertisements for the movie, etc.. Despite all of this, “Unplanned” had a per screen revenue higher than “Captain Marvel” (“Unplanned” only played on a little over 1,000 screens). The producers of “Unplanned” did not let the opposition to their movie deter them because they believed that God was with them. When the movie rating board gave them an R rating (which was given for the depiction of an abortion in the movie), they expressed that even the movie rating board was recognizing how horrific abortion really is. If we are doing God’s will, we should let nothing deter us because God will turn every obstacle into a blessing.

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2018 Bible Study — Obedience Is Better Than Sacrifice

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.

    We see in today’s passage that Saul chose the appearance of godliness over the actuality of doing what God commanded. After winning a decisive victory because of the actions of his son, Jonathan, Saul takes an oath placing a curse on any member of his army who eats before the enemy forces are completely destroyed. Two things come out of this. His men become tired and weak because they do not eat and Jonathan falls under his curse because he did not hear Saul’s curse and eats some honey which he comes upon.

I want to take note of something here which is not part of my main theme. We are told that those Hebrews who had joined with the Philistine army turned on the Philistines and sided with Saul when the battle started to go against the Philistines. This is significant because it sets the stage for the Philistines refusing to allow David to join their battle against Saul later on. In addition, I have long wondered if the writer used the word “Hebrews” to distinguish between those descendants of Jacob who did not choose to follow Saul as their king (and thus were not part of the nation of Israel) or to indicate that there were Hebrews in the land who were not descendants of Jacob.

Later, Samuel tells Saul that God has commanded that he completely destroy the Amalekites, including all of their livestock. Instead of doing so, Saul takes their king prisoner and allows his men to keep the best of their livestock. Despite having done this, when Samuel came to meet him Saul claimed to have followed God’s command. Saul truly believed that he had followed God’s command because he was bringing the best of the Amalekites livestock to where the Ark of the Covenant was to hold a great victory feast there while sacrificing them. I am not sure how he justified to himself not killing their king. We have a tendency to justify not acting according to God’s commands in the same way that Saul did, by proclaiming that we will use the “proceeds” to honor God. Samuel’s reply to Saul applies to us as well, “Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.”

Daily Bible Study

April 2, 2017 Bible Study–Are We Leading the Parade, or Are We Just In Front Of It?

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.

    There are several different things worth exploring in this passage: Jonathan’s impromptu attack on the Philistine camp, Saul’s ill-advised command and oath, and Saul’s war against the Amelekites. Jonathan demonstrated a simple, and practical, faith in God. He was willing to attack the Philistine camp because he trusted God (and probably a bit because he was cocky). He asked for guidance from God in what he was doing in as much of an impromptu manner as he set off on this mission in the first place, but he asked for guidance nevertheless. In his ill-advised command that no one in the Israelite army eat anything before evening Saul demonstrated his tendency to get caught up in the moment. In making this oath and command, Saul did not want his army to pause in taking advantage of the victory they had gained, but by doing so he reduced their efficiency.

    The story of Saul’s war against the Amelekites tells us a lot about Saul. In particular, we get that insight in Samuel’s rebuke of Saul for not following the command he was given from God, “Although you may think little of yourself…” The reason Saul did not order the destruction of all of the possessions of the Amelekites was that his army wanted those things. It may be that Saul did genuinely intend to sacrifice all of the goods they brought back at Gilgal, but even there it was in order to throw a big feast/party which would make the people happy and, theoretically, further cement their loyalty to Saul. This whole event shows us Saul’s insecurity, which first manifest when he hid among the baggage when Samuel wanted to first proclaim him king over Israel. Saul’s failure to lead the people to follow God’s commands when popular opinion went a different direction were his downfall. Saul did not kill Jonathan for violating his command not to eat before evening because of the backlash from his army (probably a good thing).
    Here he did not follow God’s command to completely destroy the Amelekites and their possessions because his army wanted to keep the best of their things (a bad thing). While in the short term a leader who follows the winds of popular opinion may be successful, in the long run, only a leader who follows the will of God will build an organization which lasts. There is a metaphor I have often heard to describe the difference between a false leader and a true leader. A false leader sees which way the people are going and gets out in front of them. They may even turn it into a parade. However, a true leader sees which way people should be going and calls them to follow him in that direction. Saul showed in his first act as king, the rescue of the people of Jabesh Gilead, that he was capable of being the latter. However, because of his insecurities he became the former. All too many leaders in the Church today are the former as well. If you wish to be the latter sort of leader you need to be willing to follow God’s direction even if no one follows you.