Meet Saul - 1st Samuel 9

Israel has decided that they want a king, and I think it’s because they want to become like the nations around them, the powerful ones. They don’t want to be the way that God wants them to be, they want to be like the other nations, powerful militarily, rich, financially prosperous. Ironically, if they had lived the way that God wanted them to live, they wouldn’t have had to devote resources to the military, and they would have been prosperous like they were promised in the law of Moses. But they didn’t want it that way, they wanted it their own way, they wanted to be seen and envied by other nations. I think that that was the main difference between the way God wanted them to do it and the way they wanted to do it. God’s way meant taking care of everyone, they wanted to be rich themselves and at best, didn’t care if it affected others, and at worst, they wanted a system in which they could become rich by exploiting the vulnerable of their community. God’s way would have had them be humble and only powerful if absolutely necessary, but I think that they wanted other nations to fear them, they wanted respect, honor of other nations. These are the only reasons that I could come up with that would have made their outcome different. Because if they said “we don’t want to be conquered militarily, therefore we need a king and a strong military,” God’s response to that would be “I always deliver you when you are righteous.” But that would require them to be righteous to be delivered, and they didn’t want to do that anymore. Ironically, just because they would have a standing army doesn’t guarantee victory to them, maybe that’s what they thought would happen, and we see repeated that that’s not the case. How many times do we do that though? We don’t want to do it God’s way, we want to live our lives our way and we want God to bless us while we do it. It’s interesting to think about, sometimes we are blessed when we aren’t doing things right and sometimes blessings are withheld even when we are doing things right. It seems like a game but I know God doesn’t play games, so it’s hard to reconcile.

God has agreed to give them a king, and so here we get Israel’s first king, and I really like this story. So there’s a man from the tribe of Benjamin who loses a bunch of really good, female donkeys so he sends his son Saul out to the hills to find them. TB notes that Saul is about 40 years old at this time. Verse 2 describes Saul as “a choice young man and a goodly.” The word “Goodly” is referenced to mean “talents” but both the IM and TB say that this word is in reference to his appearance and both state that the use of this word here means that he was the most handsome man in all of Israel, and he was the tallest. TB notes, “notice that God gave to Israel the exact kind of person with the characteristics that people prefer when left to their own inclinations to determine: he was charismatic, tall, handsome, strong, and part of a prosperous and influential family; outwardly he had everything. The men would have liked him, and the women would all have like d to be with him. The Lord knew that Israel would take one look at Samuel’s anointed king and revel in their newfound hope, certain that they had done the right thing by insisting on having a king like their neighbors.” The IM is a bit kinder to Saul, noting that he was not only good looking for also “honest reliable, considerate of his parents, and altogether a very promising person for the great task ahead.”

Anyway, the donkeys are lost so Saul takes a young servant with him and they go look for these donkeys, and after several days, they don’t find them. Saul says that they’ve been gone too long and doesn’t want his father to worry so he wants to head back to the house. The servant tells Saul that they are near a town that has “an honorable man; all that he saith cometh surely to pass.” They are hoping that this man of God can tell them where to go to find these donkeys. Interestingly, probably because we don’t have a paid clergy, it was customary at that time to bring gifts and money to the people to talked to God, and since Saul didn’t have any gifts for the man, he didn’t know what they would give him. Fortunately, the servant happened to have a “fourth part of a shekel of silver: that will I give to the man of God, to tell us our way.”

We find out in the next few verses that this honorable man is actually a seer, not just a “man of God.” They walk up to this town, to the well and asks if there is a seer there, and the woman answers that yes there is a seer there but they need to hurry because the seer is about to make a sacrifice and the people are going to eat. They go into the city and Samuel is walking out to go to the feast and they meet there together on the road. But what they don’t know is that Samuel was expecting them. The day before, God had told Samuel that the next day, about the same time, he was going to send a man to him from the tribe of Benjamin that would be the “captain” over Israel, that would save them from the Philistines. TB notes that this word “captain” meant like “prince” which indicates “soon-to-be king pending a coronation.” God promised Samuel that he was going to encounter the man God wants to be king around 24 hours later and here Saul just walks up to him on the road. I love instances like this where by some “coincidence” people manage to find the one that God wants them to meet miles away, sometimes thousands of miles away from where it’s logical. Just like Moses walking into Jethro’s camp and Ruth walking into Boaz’s field, here we find Saul walking up to Samuel on his way to a feast. Like, imagine the preparation that had to go into that encounter. God would have arranged for the donkeys to escape, dictated where Saul and the servant went to look for them, make Samuel aware to look out for the new king at the exact time, made sure the servant had that shekel and not because Samuel needed the money, but because if the servant hadn’t had that money they probably would have just turned around and gone home. The preparation that goes into those meetings is staggering and God does it all the time to accomplish His purposes.

Saul and the servant see an old man leaving the city and ask if he knows where they can find the seer, and Samuel answers that he is in fact the seer and that he wants them to go with him to the feast. But he also throws in “don’t worry about the lost donkeys, those were found already.” I couldn’t even imagine hearing that, like what else is there as confirmation of seership? Maybe I’m too easily persuaded, because I suppose that Satan could work that miracle as well, but man, that’s powerful. Samuel continues “and on whom is all the desire of Israel?” I didn’t understand this but TB says that at this point all of Israel knew that they were getting a king and were desperately curious to find out who it was going to be, so all Israel desired to know who the king was and Samuel answers his own question, “Is it not on thee, and on all thy father’s house?” Samuel is saying, “all Israel wants to know who the new king is, and it's you.”

Saul must have been shocked, he’s been thinking about donkeys the last several days and here he is being told by the judge of all Israel that God has chosen him to be their new king, I couldn’t even imagine. Saul answers Samuel, saying basically, “I’m just a nobody from Benjamin, from the least important family in the whole tribe, how could you choose me?” This makes it sound like Saul is being humble but TB suggests that this is just the custom of the ancient middle east to feign humility because in fact, Saul’s family ruled the tribe of Benjamin and they had servants, they definitely weren’t the least important family there.

Regardless of whether Saul’s humility was real or performative, Samuel took them to the feast, sat Saul in the place of honor and fed him the best and most prestigious food. They spent the day together and afterward, Samuel has Saul send the servant home and they journeyed to the city together and Samuel taught Saul the word of God. I’m curious to know what Saul’s spiritual preparation looked like before hand, how he acts and how must emphasis he puts on turning the people to righteousness. I’m also assuming that Saul will be the political leader of Israel but not the spiritual leader, but we’ll see if that’s true. The IM notes “though Saul had, at first, a great regard for the law of Moses and for God,” he later fell. So we’ll see what that looks like.