The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 137

On the contrRry, they were born in these and abound in them. Saul and his career were remarkably differenced from anything which could be called commonplace. And while t~e world continues, they _must needs st_and among th_e foremost examples for impressiveness, of grand opportumty and splendid prospects grievously missed one! dis- honoured. Our chapter is itself but a summary, the concluding snatch of a stran"e, eventful, solemn life, to the condemning faults of which, in its course, the present t~~t p,,iuts. And we, following a similar plan, will pass beneath our eye, in brief summary the prominent facts, the moral qualities, and the opportunities of Saul ; the troubled current on which they are hurried along, the dark abyss in which at last they are lost. Let us notice- !. SAUL'S SUMMONS FROM OBSCURITY TO THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY AND THE FULL IJLABE OF DAY. What we have to notice, especially about this, is that undoubtedly it was the doing of an upper power, of a special providence, of no purpose nor seekin" of the man who was thus elevated, nor even of the contrivance or others. It was so~e- thing outside of the individual life and outside the national life. No calculation of coincidence could count upon it nor account for it. fn the presence of it, the man who disbelieves Providence and providences, and special and particular providences, because they make too large a demand on his fund of belief, prefers parsimoniously to spare expenditure in one direction, in order to lavish unscrupulous, disproportionate outlay in another. What he can. believe, this he drains to the dregs in one of its resources, because he will not draw a fair measure of it from another. Of him it may well be sai<l that the heart that refuses a healthy faith is that which grows the most abundant crop of credulity. The kingdom of God's people-only known as yet for a kingdom, inasmuch as he himself was its King-bas reached one of its great crises. Moses foresaw it, and, strange to say, foreshadowed and sketched the legislation adapted to it. The special ministers, consisting of individual and local judges, have had their day. The majority of the nation dawns consciously upon it. The nation compares its composite, federal, fraternal constitution with the unity and cohesion of other nations, foes around; and, blessed though it is in comparison of them, yet deliberately estimates the balance as unfavourable to itself. Nay, ::iamuel himself, at this time by a moral force and growth the one judge and prophet of nearly the whole people, seems raised up at the moment to suggest that that embodiment of authority in one person-" a king that might judge us, and go out before us, an<l fight our battles "---was quite within the range of possibility in the midst of themselves. In fact, the national voice, in a remarkable way and with a remarkable unanimity, bad pronounced for this. But no man, no name even, was before them for king. 'l'hey express no wish, ask no choice, solicit no help nor advice from Samuel on this particular point, but seem to leMo it entirely with him (1 S11m. viii. 22), and he leaves it entirely with God. Saul, howover, a young me.n whose only known distinction e.t present is of tallness and bodily" goodli- ness," by e. little cha.in of circumstances e.s uncertain from one to another as they were trivial in themselves, finds himself in the presence of Samuel, the seer of tho tribes. The supreme Seer of the nation, God himself, has already instructed Samuel; and the issue is that Saul, "of the smallest of the tribes of Israel," his "family the least of a.II the families of the tribe of Benjamin" (1 Sam. ix. 21), is called to be kin~ over all God's people I This was "the Lord's doing, and marvellous was it in the eyes" of Saul, at all events, e.s we are expressly told. II. SAUL'S CONVERSION. It was a conversion of the old day, of the olcl Church, also of the old yet ever new Spirit. How stirred the heart, the thoughts, the amazement of Saul at the new future which had been so suddenly presented before him I We may well understand that he could not, did not, te.ke it in all at once. But bis heart was to know a greater stirring, a deeper moving. "God gave him another heart" beforo ever he got back to his earthly father's house again. "The Spirit of God camo upon him" (1 Sam. x. 9, 10). The great facts of conversion for the old day, for the old Church, and for all time are intrinsically the same, and are two-God's gift of another heart and of his Spirit therewith. And what transporting experience that must havo been for him, when "all the signs" which had been given hil!I by Samuel "came to pass;" and when "he prophesied" among the company of prophets that met him; ancl whe11, at his formal anointing, "all the people shouted, God save the king : "allll when, 11t the close of that solemn day, he wont to Gibeab, and" there went with him a 128 THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [en. x. 1-14.