by the message of the bones of two of the oxen from the herd which he was driving. Saul thus acted with wisdom and promptitude, summoning the people, en masse, to meet liim at Bezek ; and having, at the head of a vast multitude, totally routed the Ammonites (ver. 11) and obtained a higher glory by exhibiting a new instance of clemency, whether dictated by principle or policy — " Novum imperium inchoantibus utilis demen- tia; fama" (Tacitus, Hist, iv, 63), " For lowliness is young ambition's ladder" — he and the people betook them- selves, under the direction of Samuel, to Gilgal, there with solemn sacrifices to reinstall the victorious leader in his kingdom (1 Sam. xi). If the number set down in the Hebrew text of those who followed Saul (ver. 8) can be depended on (the Sept. more than doubles them, and Josephus outgoes even the Sept.), it would appear that the tribe of Judah was dissatisfied with Saul's election, for the soldiers furnished by the other tribes Avere 300,000, while Judah sent only 30,000 ; whereas the population of the former, compared with that of Judah, appears, from other passages, to have been as about five to three (2 Kings xxiv,9). Yet it is strange that this remissness is neither punished (1 Sam. xi, 7) nor noticed. At Gilgal Saul was publicly anointed and solemnly installed in the kingdom by Samuel, who took occasion to vindicate the purity of his own administra- tion— which he virtually transferred to Saul — to cen- sure the people for their ingratitude and impiety, and to warn both them and Saul of the danger of disobedi- ence to the commands of Jehovah (ch. xii). The effect of this military success was instantaneous on the peo- ple ; the punishment of the murmurers was demanded, but refused by Saul, and the monarchy was inaugu- rated anew (xi, 1-15). It should be observed, however, that, according to 1 Sam xii, 12, the affair of Nahash preceded and occasioned the election of Said. He be- came king of Israel. But he stiU so far resembles the earlier judges as to be virtually king only of his own tribe, Benjamin, or of the immediate neighborhood. Almost all his exploits are confined to this circle of ter- ritory or associations.
These were the principal transactions that occurred during the first decade of Saul's reign (which we vent- ure to assign as the meaning of the first clause of ch. xiii — " the son of a year was Saul in his reigning ;" the emendation of Origen, " Saul was thirty years old," be- ing required by the chronology, for he seems, at the next event, to have been forty years old) ; and the subse- quent events happened in the second decade, which may be the meaning of the latter clause.
3. Saul's First Trial and Transgi-ession. — Samuel, who had up to this time been still named as ruler with Saul (1 Sam. xi, 7, 12, 14), now withdrew, and Saul be- came the acknowledged chief. The restrictions on which he held the sovereignty had (x, 25) been fully explained as well to Saul as to the people, so that he was not ignorant of his true position as merely the lieu- tenant of Jehovah, king of Israel, who not only gave all the laws, but whose will, in the execution of them, was constantly to be consulted and complied with. The first occasion on which his obedience to this constitu- tion was put to the test brought out those defects in his character which showed his unfitness for his high office, and incurred a threat of that rejection which his subsequent conduct confirmed (xiii, 13). Saul could not understand Ids proper position, as only the servant of Jehovah speaking through his ministers, or confine himself to it; and in this respect he was not, what Da- vid with many individual and private faults and crimes was— a man after (iod's own heart, a king faithful to the principles of the theocracy.
In the twentieth j-ear of his reign (as the age of .Jonathan evidently requires; the text being corrupt; see Keil, ad loc.) Saul began to organize an attempt to shake off the Philistine yoke which pressed on his coun- try ; not least on his own tribe, where a Philistine of- ficer had long been stationed even in his own field (I
SAUL
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Sam. X, 5 ; xiii,3). Having collected a small standing arm}', part of which, under Jonathan, had taken a fort (or slain the officer) of the Philistines, Saul summoned the people to withstand the forces which their oppress- ors, now alarmed for their dominion, would, upon this signal, naturally assemble. But so numerous a host came against Saul that the people, panic-stricken, tied to rocks and caverns for safety — years of servitude hav- ing extinguished their courage, which the want of arms, of which the policy of the Philistines had de- prived them, still further diminished. The number of chariots, 30,000, seems a mistake ; unless we suppose, ■with Le Clerc, that they were not war -chariots, but baggage -wagons (an improbable supposition), so that 3000 may be the true number. Apparently reduced to extremity, and the seventh day having come, but not being ended, the expiration of Avhich Samuel had en- joined him to wait, Saul at least ordered sacrilices to be oflFered — for the expression (ver. 9) does not necessarily imply that he intruded into the priest's office (2 Sam. vi, 13; 1 Kings iii, 2-4), though that is the most obvi- ous meaning of the text. Whether that which Saul now disregarded was the injunction referred to (1 Sam. X, 8) or one subsequently addressed to him, this is evi- dent, that Saul acted in the full knowledge that he sin- ned (xiii, 12) ; and his guilt, in that act of conscious dis- obedience, was probably increased by its clearly involv- ing an assumption of authority to conduct the war ac- cording to his own judgment and will. But just after the sacrifice was completed Samuel arrived and pro- nounced the tirst curse on his impetuous zeal (ver. 5-14). Samuel, having denounced the displeasure of Jehovah and its consequences, left him, and Saul returned to Gib- eah (the addition made to the text of the Sept. ver. 15, where, after "from Gilgal," the clause, '• and the rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the enemy from Gilgal to Gibeah," etc., being required apparently by the sense, which, probably, has been the onh' authority for its insertion). Left to himself, Saul's errors multi- plied apace. See Samuel.