1 Samuel 13:1–22

Original Meaning

Philistine Wars Renewed (13:1–4)

THE OPENING VERSE has suffered textually, and it leaves us without the chronological details of Saul’s reign. None of the textual witnesses give us his age at the beginning of his reign, and when we come to the question of the length of his reign, we are likewise in the dark. The Hebrew says only “two years,” which is doubtlessly incomplete. It is also possible the historian has simply inserted the regnal formula for King Saul, choosing to omit the specifics because they are not known to him. In this case the lack of details would be intentional rather than because of textual corruption.2 Regardless of the reason for the incomplete reference to Saul’s reign in verse 1, it seems ironic that it heralds Saul’s flawed reign.3 The regnal formula introducing Saul is as defective as the king himself!

Jonathan appears for the first time with little fanfare. He is not identified specifically as Saul’s son until verse 16. Yet he will play a significant role in the rest of 1 Samuel as the crown prince and expected heir to the throne. Here he is the brave and courageous commander of a military division and the one who initiates the war with the Philistines. His skirmish with a Philistine outpost escalates into the full-fledged war that everyone is expecting and for which Saul has been anointed king.

Saul Offers up the Burnt Offering at Gilgal (13:5–15)

Bridging Contexts

THE ANATOMY OF SIN. The chapter contains the first of two confrontations between Saul and Samuel, in which the prophet announces Yahweh’s rejection of Saul, first as father of an eternal royal dynasty (13:13–14) and then as king of Israel (15:10–35, esp. 15:23, 26). This text leaves the following questions begging for answer: What is Saul’s sin? Does he have a chance, or is he ill-fated from the start?

Many biblical scholars have attempted to address the problem of the rejection of King Saul. Speculation on precisely why Saul is rejected has given rise to a number of different answers. In one recent attempt to address the question, David Gunn argues that Saul is not primarily responsible for his fate. Rather, his problems stem from a combination of “his own inner inadequacy as a human being” and his being “brought low essentially by external forces or circumstances.”16 Gunn suggests instead that Saul is “essentially an innocent victim of God,” and that in this narrative we are encountering “the dark side of God.”17

In a similar vein, Walter Brueggemann avers that Samuel himself appears unprincipled in this narrative and that the text raises questions about the character of Yahweh. Saul acts out of innocence and is simply a character in a narrative in which the cards are stacked in favor of David.18 More recently, David Jobling has suggested that Saul’s flaw is his inability to assert himself as king. He is incapable of freeing himself from the old order and therefore cannot be the bearer of the new order. Rather than being guilty of some sin per se, he is not allowed to function as a real king, partly because of his own ambiguity about kingship.19

These scholarly attempts to interpret 1 Samuel 13 are honestly trying to deal with difficult questions, primarily the way in which the chapter relates to other passages around it and the apparent inconsistency between offense and punishment. However, they fail to give due weight to the causes for Saul’s rejection highlighted by the text itself, namely, the failure to keep the command of Yahweh. On the surface of the narrative, Saul’s offense is a failure to wait for Samuel’s arrival before consecrating battle. But more generally, this is tantamount to disobeying Yahweh’s instructions as given through Samuel (see 13:13), which in turn exposes Saul’s larger problem: He fails to accept the structure of authority established for him by Yahweh and his prophet Samuel at the time of his appointment (13:14).20 This unfortunately is a pattern that will be repeated in chapter 15.

Thus, Saul’s guilt derives from his determination to usurp power rightly belonging only to Yahweh and his servant, Samuel. More generally, this text presents us with a portrait of Israel’s first king, who has received all the blessing and empowerment any of us could hope to receive from God. Yet when pressed on every side by the approaching Philistine army, Saul is still inclined to disobey God’s command.

It would be easy to illustrate this pattern from numerous parallels in biblical history. Indeed, in many respects, this is the anatomy of sin. First comes the tyranny of the urgent, the encroaching pressure from surrounding circumstances. This is followed by the insecurity and self-doubt arising from a lack of total reliance on God. Finally, there follows the rebellion itself—the pitiful human attempt to take matters into our own hands, which is tantamount to usurping, or at least presuming upon, the authority of God. This is the picture of sin demonstrated in the Garden of Eden as the paradigm of human failure, and as we all know too well, at least in our most honest moments, it is a pattern repeated many times in our own lives.

The results of Saul’s failure are devastating. A quick glance back to 1 Samuel 11 highlights a striking contrast. In that text, the Israelites similarly confront a neighbor threatening military conflict, the Ammonites. There too we see Saul, leading his people in battle as he was prepared and anointed to do and serving his function as king of Israel. But in that conflict, Saul was empowered by the Spirit of Yahweh and led his people to a courageous and decisive victory (11:6–11). Here in 1 Samuel 13 we have no “Spirit-language.” Though we are not told specifically that the Spirit of Yahweh has departed, one wonders about the “Ichabod” principle (1 Sam. 4:21). Has the glory of Yahweh departed? Has his Spirit been withdrawn?

Certainly in this initial conflict with the Philistines, the people act cowardly rather than with the bold aggressiveness of the Ammonite war (cf. 11:11 with 13:6–7). Saul himself is far from bold and assertive in his leadership. The text is clear in the value it places on obedience to Yahweh’s word.

Contemporary Significance

FAITHFUL OBEDIENCE. Modern Christians would do well to learn the subtle lessons of faithful obedience that lie just beneath the surface of this text. Saul was blessed with the Spirit of God and was assured that he was “in the right place at the right time.” He even exemplified God’s power in his life during the war with the Ammonites, which was a similar situation as the one he faces here. But even all this is not enough to make him faithful in obedience to God’s word through Samuel in the midst of the Philistine crisis. When threatened with apparent defeat and with his enemies pressing from every direction, he personally takes charge. He functions as a king would function in other nations in the ancient world. Against the explicit directives of God, he trusts his own ability to lead and to win the favor of God.

Consider the features of Saul’s actions that contribute to what we have called the anatomy of sin. (1) Saul allows the circumstances of his current crisis to overtake him. He may have been tempted to trust in his army for defense of the country. But his troops are terrified, are hiding in caves and cisterns, and are running from the field of battle in the opposite direction (13:6–7). Saul realizes that “all the troops with him were quaking with fear” (13:7b), and it appears as if all is lost (13:11). But God’s promise included victory over the Philistines. Indeed, Saul has been anointed as the prince who will deliver Israel from the power of this long-standing enemy (9:16). It is for just such a time as this that Saul has been made king. The circumstances of the moment swallow Saul and his vision of what God has in store for him.

(2) Saul commits himself to partial obedience. He fails to follow his commitments to God through to the end. He has been instructed to wait seven days for Samuel’s arrival, at which time the prophet will make proper sacrifices to prepare for the war. Our text states explicitly that Saul “waited seven days, the time set by Samuel” (13:8). In this, Saul is obedient. But when Samuel does not arrive at the expected time, Saul proceeds to make other arrangements. He takes matters into his own hands in an attempt to ensure he will be victorious.

(3) Finally—and with this we arrive at the heart of the matter—when Samuel confronts Saul with this infraction, he fails to accept responsibility. He continues the kind of recrimination we have come to expect (and use ourselves!) since the Garden of Eden. He begins by trying to place partial blame on his troops and on Samuel himself (13:11): “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time….” He finishes by maintaining that he had no alternatives: “I felt compelled” (13:12). This is an oft-repeated refrain: “I had no other choice, because you and others were not supportive!” Unfortunately this is the same defensive reaction Saul will use on other occasions when instead he should have admitted guilt and pled for mercy.

His punishment as announced by the prophet Samuel may seem harsh and unfair. But Samuel recognizes something in Saul that will recur in the subsequent narratives. Saul is content to depend on his own resources rather than lean on God’s Word. This text is about learning to trust God when you see your own resources slipping away. But it is also about learning to trust God even when you think your resources are sufficient, when you think you can handle it alone. That is perhaps when we need to look to him more completely.

Wesley addressed the apparent inequity of the punishment with the question: But was it not hard to punish so little a sin so severely? In his answer, he states that disobedience to an express command, though in a small matter, is actually a great provocation. “And indeed, there is no little sin, because there is no little God to sin against. In general, what to [humans] seems a small offense, to him who knows the heart may appear a heinous crime.”21

Original Meaning

Saul Offers Up the Burnt Offering at Gilgal (13:5–15)

TENSIONS IN THE hills around Bethel mount, and war seems imminent.4 When the Philistines muster what seems like insurmountable odds, many of Saul’s troops begin to scatter (13:5–7). Saul has been directed by Samuel to wait seven days, after which the prophet will arrive, offer the appropriate sacrifices, and commission Saul and the troops to enter the battle (10:8).5

Regardless of how we interpret Samuel’s condemnation in verses 13–14, this episode illustrates the way Israelite kingship was intended to function. The king was not free to initiate warfare whenever and against whomever he wished. He had to answer to a higher authority. He could only receive marching orders from Yahweh and his prophet—in this case, Samuel. Thus, the text demonstrates the unique nature of the Israelite version of ancient Near Eastern monarchy as well as the unique nature of prophecy in Israel.6 Standing beside every Israelite king was to be a prophet speaking God’s word for the situation. The degree to which the king obeyed or rejected that prophetic word was the determining factor in the Bible’s evaluation of his reign. In a sense, Yahweh remained Israel’s king, represented by his prophet, who ordered Yahweh’s anointed one.

Unable to hold his army together and desperate to get things underway, Saul offers the sacrifice himself (13:9). Both David and Solomon would later make similar sacrifices without receiving the slightest reprimand (2 Sam. 24:25; 1 Kings 3:15). So why the criticism of Saul here? Saul’s offense is not the mere fact that he offers a sacrifice but that he disobeys God’s word through the prophet Samuel.7 No sooner has Saul finished than Samuel appears to announce his folly: “You acted foolishly” (13:13).

The prophet’s speech contains an interesting wordplay centering on a verb that can mean both “command” and “appoint” in 13:13–14 (ṣwh). Yahweh commanded Saul to wait for Samuel. But now he will appoint a new king to take Saul’s place. As McCarter has said, this subtle play on words in Samuel’s final speech “unobtrusively but effectively directs our attention toward one central theme, viz. the relationship between kingship and obedience to Yahweh.”8 Saul has failed to keep his “appointment” (or command) as king, and therefore Yahweh will appoint a replacement.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that this prophetic condemnation is a final rejection of Saul and his reign. Rather, Saul has lost the opportunity to establish an eternal dynasty. He himself will keep the throne, but it will not pass to his descendants and endure forever, as eventually will be promised to David (2 Sam. 7:15–16).9 Instead, Yahweh will give the kingdom to “a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14).

The term “heart” connotes “will” or “choice” in this context and emphasizes Yahweh’s freedom in selecting a replacement for Saul rather than continuing Saul’s line.10 While this phrase primarily emphasizes Yahweh’s choice of David, it also connotes something positive about David’s character over against Saul’s. The new king will genuinely act in accordance with Yahweh’s wishes in a way that Saul does not. He will exhibit a certain “like-mindedness” with Yahweh.11 Though both kings are said to have been chosen by Yahweh (David here and Saul in 8:22; 10:24), the circumstances of Saul’s selection were clearly different, marred by the insolent demand of the people. The implication is that David is chosen on the basis of different criteria, that is, divine criteria unencumbered by the exigencies of human demands. “David was Yahweh’s choice in a way that Saul, given in response to the people’s request, was not.”12

Philistine Strategic and Tactical Advantages (13:16–22)