Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Saul, commanded to destroy Amalek, spares King Agag and the better livestock: therefore he is rebuked by Samuel, and deprived of the kingdom. He, verse 20, excuses himself, and finally coldly says: I have sinned; so that Samuel may show him royal honor before the people. Samuel, verse 32, orders King Agag to be cut in pieces, and continually mourns Saul's fall until his death.
Vulgate Text: 1 Kings 15:1-35
1. And Samuel said to Saul: The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people Israel; now therefore listen to the voice of the Lord. 2. Thus says the Lord of hosts: I have reviewed all that Amalek did to Israel, how he opposed him in the way when he came up from Egypt. 3. Now therefore go, and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that he has; spare him not, and covet not any of his things; but slay both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
4. So Saul commanded the people, and numbered them as lambs: two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. 5. And when Saul had come to the city of Amalek, he laid ambushes in the torrent. 6. And Saul said to the Kenite: Go, depart, and get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for you showed mercy to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. And the Kenite departed from the midst of Amalek.
7. And Saul smote Amalek from Havilah until you come to Shur, which is over against Egypt. 8. And he took Agag the king of Amalek alive, but all the common people he slew with the edge of the sword. 9. And Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the flocks of sheep and of the herds, and the garments, and the rams, and all that was beautiful, and would not destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed.
10. And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying: 11. It repents Me that I have made Saul king; for he has forsaken Me, and has not fulfilled My words in deed. And Samuel was grieved, and he cried unto the Lord all night. 12. And when Samuel rose early to go to Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel that Saul had come to Carmel, and had set up for himself a monument, and returning had passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.
13. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him: Blessed are you by the Lord; I have fulfilled the word of the Lord. 14. And Samuel said: What is then this bleating of the flocks, which sounds in my ears, and the lowing of the herds, which I hear? 15. And Saul said: They have brought them from Amalek; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the herds, that they might be sacrificed to the Lord your God; but the rest we have slain.
16. And Samuel said to Saul: Let me tell you what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said to him: Speak. 17. And Samuel said: When you were small in your own eyes, were you not made head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18. And the Lord sent you on a journey, and said: Go, and kill the sinners of Amalek, and you shall fight against them until you have destroyed them. 19. Why then did you not listen to the voice of the Lord, but turned to the prey, and did evil in the sight of the Lord?
20. And Saul said to Samuel: Indeed I did listen to the voice of the Lord, and have walked in the way by which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and Amalek I have slain. 21. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, as the firstfruits of those things that were slain, to offer sacrifice to the Lord their God in Gilgal.
22. And Samuel said: Does the Lord desire holocausts and sacrifices, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices; and to hearken rather than to offer the fat of rams. 23. Because it is like the sin of divination to rebel; and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey. Because therefore you have rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has also rejected you from being king.
24. And Saul said to Samuel: I have sinned, because I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and your words, fearing the people, and obeying their voice. 25. But now bear, I beseech you, my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord. 26. And Samuel said to Saul: I will not return with you, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king of Israel.
27. And Samuel turned about to go away; but he laid hold upon the skirt of his cloak, and it rent. 28. And Samuel said to him: The Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you. 29. Moreover the Triumphant One in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance; for He is not a man that He should repent. 30. Then he said: I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God.
31. So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the Lord. 32. And Samuel said: Bring here to me Agag the king of Amalek. And Agag was presented to him, very fat and trembling. And Agag said: Does bitter death separate thus? 33. And Samuel said: As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed him in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
34. And Samuel departed to Ramah; but Saul went up to his house in Gibeah. 35. And Samuel saw Saul no more till the day of his death; nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, because the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel.
Verse 1: The Lord Sent Me to Anoint You
THE LORD SENT ME (not so much by local movement, for Samuel did not go to Saul, but Saul came to Samuel to consult him about the donkeys, as by an internal prompting), TO ANOINT YOU AS KING. St. Chrysostom, Homily 4 on the Epistle to the Philippians: "For this reason priests, kings, and prophets were anointed; because oil had the symbol of divine kindness." And how great this kindness should be in kings he adds, saying: "If anyone wishes to praise a prince, he will attribute nothing so becoming to him as mercy. For the characteristic of authority is to show mercy." And after much: "Precious is a merciful man; indeed to show mercy is to be God."
St. Gregory says: "King Saul is commanded to destroy the Amalekites, so that if he fulfilled the Lord's command by the slaughter of that same nation, he might untie the knot of his former disobedience."
NOW THEREFORE LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD. God had commanded three times to completely destroy Amalek: first, Exodus 17:14; second, Deuteronomy 25:17; third, here, to show how earnestly and completely He wished it to be done; therefore the guilt of Saul, who violated this commandment of God, was grave. Whence Rupert, book 1 on Deuteronomy, chapter 4: "It is therefore not surprising or unjust that for such a fault Saul was irrecoverably rejected, because he dared to violate what had been commanded by law once and again, indeed even a third time, with such gravity."
Tropologically, let the king and ruler obey God and his own Superiors, if he wishes his subjects to obey him. He therefore implies, as if to say: God made you king and ruler: therefore be grateful and obedient to your God, and rule according to His will.
Verse 2: I Have Reviewed All That Amalek Did to Israel
I HAVE REVIEWED ALL THAT AMALEK DID TO ISRAEL. The Chaldee says, I have remembered; Origen, homily 19 on Numbers, I have reconsidered; the Hebrew, I have visited; the Septuagint, now I will take vengeance. For God stores away the sins of men in His most tenacious memory, to avenge them in due time; unless they are blotted out by the man through repentance.
Hear Jeremiah, chapter 17:1: "The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen, with a diamond point, engraved on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars." Wisely St. Augustine on Psalm 101, verse 8: "Let God not seem to you so merciful that He does not also seem just." And shortly after: "When you have treasured up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, will you not find just the one whom you despised as kind?" St. Jerome, or whoever the author is, on Lamentations 3:12: He has bent His bow. "In a bow, the farther the string is drawn, the more forcefully the arrow will fly from it; so the day of final judgment, the longer it is delayed before it comes, the more severe the sentence will proceed from it when it comes."
St. Lawrence Justinian gives the reason in The Tree of Life, chapter 4, saying: "The divine wrath proceeds with slow step to Your vengeance, and compensates the slowness of punishment with its gravity. For the Most High is a patient repayer; because those whom He tolerates for a long time so that they may convert, He condemns more harshly when they do not convert: and the longer He waits for them to amend, the more gravely He will judge if they have neglected to do so." Wherefore the Psalmist says: "I will sing of mercy and judgment to You, O Lord," Psalm 101:1.
Verse 3: Kill From Man to Woman, and Child and Infant
KILL FROM MAN TO WOMAN, AND CHILD AND INFANT. God, who is the Lord of the life and death of all, had commanded the Amalekites to be completely destroyed, not only the people, but also the cattle; and thus their memory to be abolished: but this memory continued in their descendants (even though they themselves had not committed the injury), therefore He commanded them to be utterly cut off: especially because they had adopted their parents' hatred against the Jews, and imitated their other sins. For this reason Samuel killed Agag king of Amalek, saying at verse 33: "As your sword has made women childless, so among women your mother shall be childless." The children also, on account of original sin, were subject to death, and for them an early death was a benefit rather than a punishment; lest if they grew up, they would sin more gravely, and therefore be more harshly punished in hell.
Whence St. Ambrose, book 2 On Cain, chapter 9: "The longevity granted to Cain was a punishment." For it is better for sinners to die quickly, lest they increase their guilt and their hell. Whence the same St. Ambrose, in the book On the Prayer of David: "By living, we contract losses of innocence; by death we attain the end of error. Gain therefore is acquired by death, but by the use of life, as for wretched debtors under the name of usury, the interest of guilt is increased."
This is what Balaam prophesied: "The beginning of nations is Amalek, whose end shall be destroyed," Numbers 24:20. Wherefore St. Chrysostom, homily 25 on Genesis, asking why God restricted the age of men to 120 years, answers that He did it out of mercy, lest by living longer, they should longer feel the miseries of this life, and by pursuing desires, sin more gravely, and therefore be more harshly punished. And Origen, homily 1 on Numbers: "It is a sign of God's goodness to destroy kingdoms hostile to the wicked, and by warring with His own nation to overthrow peoples."
But the proper and principal reason why God so severely commanded the Amalekites to be destroyed was that they had tried to turn the people of the Hebrews, recently joined to God at Sinai, and as it were a novice in faith and religion, following God in the pillar of cloud as their leader going before them through all things into the promised land, away from Him; indeed they had tried to overthrow this entire work of God. For they were descendants of Esau, who accordingly, seeing so great a Hebrew army, feared that the prophecy would now be fulfilled, Genesis 25:23: "The elder shall serve the younger," that is, the descendants of the elder Esau shall serve the descendants of the younger Jacob; therefore they feared they would be brought under the yoke by the Hebrews and forced to serve them. Therefore, fighting as if for their freedom, they tried every extreme against the Hebrews.
From this learn how gravely God bears and punishes those who scandalize novices in the faith or religion, and strive to turn them away from it. For they kill, as it were, God and Christ being born in them; and therefore they are as it were God-killers and Christ-killers. For this crime therefore God commanded the Amalekites with all their possessions to be utterly cut off, and to be made cherem, that is, anathema, indeed to be established for all future ages as a living and perpetual example of God's fierce wrath and vengeance, like Sodom and Gomorrah. So Abulensis.
AMALEK, that is, the Amalekites descended from Amalek the grandson of Esau, who tried by every means to impede the journey of the Hebrews to the holy land; and therefore they were cut down by Joshua, Exodus 17. Mystically, from Origen and St. Gregory, Bede says: "Amalek, who resisted Israel after they crossed the Red Sea, represents those sins which after the water of Baptism oppose us, lest we arrive at the promised kingdoms of the heavenly fatherland: all of which we are commanded to destroy, and not to spare."
Moreover, Amalek in Hebrew means the same as "a people that licks"; whence it denotes the gluttonous and carnal: likewise demons, says St. Gregory: "For their way is to lick, that is, to soothe the mind to sin by the blandishment of the flesh; for they aim to lick as with the touch of the tongue, when they touch the mind with light suggestions."
Verse 4: Two Hundred Thousand Footmen and Ten Thousand Men of Judah
Some add the reason that it was forbidden by God to number the people directly; therefore the soldiers were numbered here not individually, but by lambs which each one brought individually. But this is frivolous, and equally false regarding soldiers, for they are commonly numbered throughout Scripture. The meaning therefore is what was given at the beginning.
Moreover, he fittingly compares soldiers to lambs, to note both the simplicity, readiness, and obedience of soldiers, in that like lambs they follow their king; and their gentleness, unity, and harmony, in that just as gentle lambs walk in a flock, and where one leads, the rest follow, so too the soldiers of Saul were united, so that wherever he went before, all would follow. Excellently Tertullian, in his book To the Martyrs contending with the devil: "Let him find you fortified and armed with harmony, because your peace is war for him."
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND. Less accurately Josephus has: forty thousand; the corrected Septuagint, four hundred thousand.
AND TEN THOUSAND MEN OF JUDAH. These are counted separately, because they were stronger and more warlike, says Hugh, Abulensis, and Dionysius.
Verse 6: And Saul Said to the Kenite
AND SAUL SAID TO THE KENITE. The Kenites were descendants of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law; and therefore his friends and friends of the Hebrews; and they were religious and pious men: therefore Saul calls them out from among the Amalekites, lest they be involved in the common destruction of the nation.
FOR YOU SHOWED MERCY TO ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, WHEN THEY CAME UP FROM EGYPT. When, where, and how? Some respond: when Jethro received Moses fleeing from Egypt into Midian, nourished him, and betrothed his daughter Zipporah to him as wife, Exodus 2:20. So Rabanus, Hugh, and the Author of the Traditions attributed to St. Jerome. But this mercy was shown to Moses alone, not to all the children of Israel, since they were still living in Egypt, before the exodus from it.
Therefore third and genuinely, this happened when Hobab the son of Jethro, the Kenite, came to Moses and the Hebrews wandering in the desert, and directed them by his counsel, and helped them in all things. Whence Moses said to him when he wished to return to Midian to his own people, Numbers chapter 10, verses 29 and 31: "Do not leave us; for you know in what places we should pitch camp through the desert, and you will be our guide," not to show them the way to Canaan: for the Angel showed this, going before the camp in the pillar of cloud, as the guide of the way; but to show them where in the desert there are springs for drinking, pastures for feeding the cattle, and wood for fire and construction. For this desert was near Midian from which Hobab came. Whence he knew well enough this desert and its springs, pastures, and forests. So Abulensis, Hugh, Dionysius, Mendoza, and others.
Verse 9: And Saul and the People Spared Agag
AND SAUL AND THE PEOPLE SPARED AGAG, either from pride, to triumph over him, says Serarius; or rather from avarice, to extort from him a huge ransom and hidden treasures, says Lyranus: just as the Spaniards a hundred years ago, having captured Atahualpa king of America, extorted as ransom a room full of gold; but when he could not fill it as full as he had promised, he was killed by them; or finally from human compassion toward the king, says Abulensis. Whence Josephus says Saul spared King Agag's life because of the excellence of his body and the similarity of royal fortune; but perversely: for God in verse 3 had commanded him with all his people to be killed. Therefore Saul was disobedient to God, preferring his own cupidity or compassion to God's judgment and command.
AND GARMENTS. In Hebrew misnim, which Pagninus translates "fat ones," as if misnim by metathesis were the same as miscemanim, that is, "fat." Rabbi Solomon translates "doubled," that is, those that are doubled in flesh and fatness, that is, of the fat ones. Others translate "yearlings," from shanah, that is, year. Our translation rightly renders "double," namely of garments: for these were the better and more beautiful ones.
Verse 11: It Repents Me That I Made Saul King
IT REPENTS ME THAT I MADE SAUL KING. He speaks anthropopathically, that is, in human fashion: for properly in God, since He is immutable, most wise, conscious and prescient of all future things, as well as most blessed, no sorrow or repentance falls. Whence at verse 29 it is said of Him: "Moreover the Triumphant One of Israel will not spare and will not be moved by repentance; for He is not a man that He should repent." God therefore repents when He changes His decrees because of the faults of men; when He retracts His benefits, when He revokes His gifts from the ungrateful and unworthy, for example, when He here strips and deprives Saul of the kingdom which He had conferred upon him, because of his disobedience. So St. Gregory, Theodoret, Procopius, and others.
AND SAMUEL WAS GRIEVED, AND HE CRIED OUT TO THE LORD ALL NIGHT, to obtain pardon for Saul, but in vain; both because Saul remained obstinate in his crime and was unrepentant, indeed he excused and defended it, as is evident from verse 20 and following; and because even if Saul had truly repented of his crime, God would indeed have restored His grace to him, but not the kingdom. For already, because of his second disobedience so clear, He had absolutely and irrevocably decreed to deprive him of the kingdom, and to transfer it to David. For Samuel himself narrates that God answered this to Samuel on that night, verses 16 and 17.
Verse 12: Samuel Rose in the Night to Go to Saul
AND WHEN SAMUEL HAD RISEN IN THE NIGHT TO GO TO SAUL IN THE MORNING. See here and imitate the prompt obedience, vigilance, and energy of Samuel rising at night, so that he might accomplish the matter in the morning.
IT WAS REPORTED TO SAMUEL THAT SAUL HAD COME TO CARMEL, etc. The Hebrew clearly reads: It was reported to Samuel saying: Saul came to Carmel; and he set up a monument for himself, and turning around he passed on and went to Gilgal. So the Septuagint, the Chaldee, Vatablus, and others. Moreover, "hand" is used metonymically for a notable work of the hand, or something manufactured, namely a triumphal arch. Vatablus says a trophy, for the victory won over the Amalekites.
Verse 13: Blessed Are You by the Lord
BLESSED ARE YOU BY THE LORD, that is, from the Lord or in the Lord's sight; the Chaldee, before the Lord, as if to say: God loves you greatly, and follows you with great favor, and heaps you with His blessings, that is, gifts and benefits. Saul flatters Samuel by praising him, to hide his own disobedience, or certainly to close Samuel's mouth, lest he rebuke him.
Verse 15: The People Spared the Best Sheep and Cattle
FOR THE PEOPLE SPARED THE BEST SHEEP AND CATTLE, TO SACRIFICE THEM TO THE LORD. Saul veils his disobedience under the appearance of religion and sacrifice, when in reality its cause was avarice. For, as was said at verse 9, he kept the better things for himself and killed the worse; he did however offer and sacrifice to God some portion and firstfruits of the spoil: but even if he had sacrificed everything to God, he would not have escaped the crime of disobedience and the offense against God, as Samuel reproaches him in what follows.
Verse 17: When You Were Small in Your Own Eyes
WHEN YOU WERE SMALL IN YOUR OWN EYES, WERE YOU NOT MADE HEAD (king) IN THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL? Note here the fruit of humility. For because of it God raised Saul to the kingdom. For He "exalts the humble, humbles the proud," as Sacred Scripture frequently proclaims. St. Gregory presses the phrase "in your own eyes," as if to say: He who clearly knows himself, becomes lowly in his own estimation; for pride arises from blindness and ignorance of oneself. The same Gregory, homily 7 on the Gospel, thus explains clearly and powerfully, as if to say: "When you saw yourself as small, I made you great above the rest; but because you see yourself as great, you are esteemed as small by Me." Whence he concludes: "He who gathers virtues without humility, carries dust in the wind."
Verse 19: Why Did You Not Listen to the Voice of the Lord?
WHY THEN DID YOU NOT LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD? As if to say: Why did you not persist in your original humility? For thus you would equally have persisted in your original obedience: but because you were exalted to the kingdom, you fell from humility, and equally fell from obedience; that is, you became proud, and thence disobedient. Excellently St. Bernard, epistle 253: "True virtue knows no end, is not closed by time; charity never fails. The just man never thinks he has comprehended, never says: Enough; but always hungers and thirsts for justice; so that if he were to live forever, he would always strive to be as just as he can, always try with all his strength to advance from good to better; for he devotes himself not for a year, or for a time like a hireling, but for eternity to the divine service, according to that saying: I have inclined my heart to do Your justifications forever," Psalm 118:112.
The root therefore of Saul's fall was that he was too attached to his own judgment, and did not submit it to God's judgment and will. For he judged it better to keep the spoil of Amalek for his own and his people's use, than to destroy it without profit. But God judged and willed the contrary. Avarice and cupidity for such rich spoils from Amalek were added, indeed preceded. Wherefore St. Chrysostom says Saul fell because he did not surrender his whole heart to God; but partly to God, partly to his own affections and desires; while on the contrary David had surrendered his whole heart to God, and therefore was a man after God's own heart: therefore God, having removed Saul, made him king.
Verse 20: But I Did Listen to the Voice of the Lord
AND SAUL SAID TO SAMUEL: BUT I DID LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF THE LORD. Here Saul excuses and defends the crime of disobedience; by which excuse he greatly increases it, and confirms and further kindles the wrath of God against himself: for if he had acknowledged the crime and repented, he would have obtained pardon, though not the kingdom, as was said.
AND I DESTROYED AMALEK (the Amalekites). Moreover, that not all the Amalekites were killed, but some who were absent or had escaped in flight, and who grew again in number, is evident from the fact that David later invaded them, as is said in chapters 29 and 30.
Verse 22: Obedience Is Better Than Sacrifices
OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICES, as if to say: It is better to do what God commanded, omitting sacrifices that He did not command, than, omitting what He commanded, to offer voluntary sacrifices, or even prohibited ones, as Saul did in offering the sheep and oxen of the Amalekites, all of whom God had commanded to be slain in battle, not sacrificed in the temple. For He abhorred them as things accursed.
You will say: Religion, whose office is to offer sacrifices to God, is more excellent than all moral virtues; therefore it also excels obedience. For religion deals most immediately with God, and renders to Him due worship, adoration, and sacrifice: but obedience deals with the precepts of God and Superiors, and fulfills them. I answer, religion in itself is a better and greater virtue than obedience. Obedience however is called better because it is more necessary, and in practice is to be preferred to religion. For what God has commanded must absolutely be done, and He must be obeyed; but acts of religion, such as sacrifices, are voluntary; therefore they must yield to obedience. For what is voluntary must yield to what is necessary, and counsel to precept. "Obedience therefore is better than sacrifices," that is, as the Hebrew has it, it is better to obey than to offer sacrifices; for to offer sacrifices is voluntary and spontaneous. So St. Gregory, Theodoret, Angelomus, Bede, and others.
Add: Although, by reason of its object, religion is a more excellent virtue than obedience; nevertheless obedience, even when freely undertaken, especially when continuous and perpetual, as happens in monasteries, in many respects excels religion. First, because, as St. Gregory says, book 35 of the Moralia, chapter 10: "By sacrifices the flesh of others is slain, by obedience one's own will is slain." Therefore as much as the will of man excels sheep and oxen, so much does obedience excel sacrifices.
Second, because through obedience our will is conformed to the divine will, which is most holy, and the norm and rule of all virtue and sanctity. Therefore to it properly belongs what God says through Isaiah, chapter 62, verse 4: "You shall be called My will in her."
Third, because obedience makes the will a kind of living and perpetual sacrifice to God; but in sacrifices the dead flesh of animals is offered to God. Therefore obedience is indeed a mystical, but most noble holocaust, which devotes the whole man to God. Whence St. Jerome on Isaiah chapter 43: "I did not demand offerings from you, nor did I seek incense, etc. But obedience, which is a sacrifice, of which David says in Psalm 50: A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit." Therefore in this sacrifice, the will is immolated and dies as a victim; but nevertheless it lives, and therefore it is dead, and at the same time alive; namely dead to itself, and living to God and the divine will. For this lives and operates in it.
Therefore St. Thomas, II-II, Question 186, article 7, teaches that the religious state is nothing other than a holocaust, because it hands over all things to its God; and he who has dedicated himself to this state has offered to his Creator both all interior and all exterior things.
Finally, obedience brings with it faith, hope, charity, religion, and all other virtues, as Jerome Plati rightly shows, book 3 On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 9. For a similar reason God says: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." Hence St. Gregory, and from him St. Bernard, treatise On the Order of Life: "Obedience alone is the virtue that implants other virtues in the mind and guards them once implanted." Wherefore as the same says elsewhere: "Christ lost His life, lest He lose obedience: being made obedient unto death, even death on the cross."
Verse 23: Rebellion Is Like the Sin of Divination
FOR REBELLION IS LIKE THE SIN OF DIVINATION; AND STUBBORNNESS IS LIKE THE WICKEDNESS OF IDOLATRY. In Hebrew, because the sin of divination is rebellion, and the iniquity of Teraphim is to break away; or to tear oneself from God's will and command. Vatablus: because obstinacy is the sin of sorcery, and to harden one's mind is the sin of idolatry.
Note: Samuel speaks of disobedience, not sudden and passing, for which a man soon repents in order to obey; but of confirmed and obstinate disobedience, so as to be rebellion, such as Saul's was. Second, he properly speaks of disobedience, not in a general sense, by which someone transgresses some commandment of the Decalogue or similar law; but in a special sense, by which someone does not wish to obey God, who through Himself or through a prophet sent by Him commands a particular person to do something, as Saul did, refusing to kill the sheep and oxen of Amalek, which God had commanded him through Samuel. For this disobedience is proper and precise, by which someone does not wish to obey God, but spurns, transgresses, and violates His command; which is a grave injury and contempt of God.
The disobedient person therefore is like a diviner, because he conjectures about the will of God from the false concepts and fictions of his own reason and judgment; just as a diviner conjectures about the future from the chattering and flight of birds. Indeed he sets his own judgment before the will of God that has been revealed and made known to him, as if it were wiser and better than the divine: and therefore he esteems himself wiser, more prudent, and better than God. Wherefore he denies God's omniscience, omniprudence, and omnibenevolence; and therefore tacitly denies that God is God, and makes himself and his own judgment and desire his God, and his own idol.
AND STUBBORNNESS IS LIKE THE WICKEDNESS OF IDOLATRY. For just as an idol is a false god, Teraphim is a false oracle; so the disobedient person, setting his own judgment and will before the divine, worships it as his trusted idol, and consults and follows it as his oracle of prudence, though false and deceptive.
Moreover, it is not said here that disobedience is sorcery, or idolatry, or a sin equal to them; but that it is similar to both. For in itself a graver crime is sorcery or idolatry, by which someone consults and worships a demon or idol as God, to the injury of the true God, than disobedience, by which someone merely does not obey God's commands. Yet it is similar to both of them. For, as St. Gregory says: "Rebellion is like the sin of divination; because as if despising the divine altar, they receive answers at the altars of demons, when they believe the deceptive and proud inventions of their own heart, and oppose themselves by contrary thinking to the salutary counsels of their Prelates. And stubbornness is said to be similar to the crime of idolatry; because certainly no one would persist in the obstinacy of disobedience, if he did not carry in his heart the figment of his own purpose, as an idol."
BECAUSE THEREFORE YOU HAVE REJECTED THE WORD OF THE LORD, THE LORD HAS REJECTED YOU FROM BEING KING, because you spurned, or rejected the word of the Lord, He spurned, or rejected you, from being king. Just and fitting is this punishment of Saul, that he who would not submit to his God should be deprived of the kingdom given by Him, lest any of his subjects be subject to him, but rather rebel against him, just as he rebelled against God: just as Adam, disobedient to God by eating the forbidden fruit, found the animals, indeed his own members and all his senses, disobedient and rebellious to him.
THAT YOU SHOULD NOT BE KING. Some think that Saul is here deprived of the kingdom by God, so that he was no longer king, but David was king of Israel; for he was anointed king by Samuel in the next chapter. Others better judge that Saul is here deprived of the kingdom as it were in the first act, not the second, that is, he is cast down from the royal power, but is nevertheless permitted its use and administration for his lifetime. Or rather, that the deprivation of the kingdom is declared to him, whose actual execution would be carried out shortly after in his defeat and death.
Verse 24: I Have Sinned
AND SAUL SAID TO SAMUEL: I HAVE SINNED. This repentance of Saul was not true and sincere, proceeding from true sorrow of heart for having offended God, but was merely lip-service and verbal, emanating from fear of losing the kingdom and of public disgrace. For this is what he himself, explaining his mind, says at verse 30: "I have sinned, but now honor me before the Elders of my people and before Israel;" lest they reject me as one rejected by God through you, and actually cast me from the kingdom.
And St. Bernard, sermon 16 on the Song of Songs: "Did it profit Saul that at Samuel's rebuke he confessed he had sinned? Blameworthy without doubt was that confession which did not wash away the guilt. For how would the master of humility despise a humble confession? And He, for whom it is certainly innate to give grace to the humble, could by no means have failed to be appeased; if the humility that sounded on his lips had shone in his heart."
Verse 25: Bear, I Pray, My Sin
BUT NOW BEAR, I PRAY, MY SIN. "Bear" means suffer, tolerate, overlook, forgive, pardon, condone. So Josephus, the Chaldee, Pagninus, Vatablus, and others.
Verse 27: He Seized the Hem of His Cloak
BUT HE SEIZED THE HEM OF HIS CLOAK, WHICH WAS TORN. "He," namely Samuel, say some Rabbis, seized his own cloak, or indeed Saul's cloak, and tore it, to signify that the kingdom had been torn and separated from him. But I say, "he," namely Saul, seized the cloak of Samuel, and as Samuel resisted, it was torn, to signify the tearing and separation of the kingdom from Saul and his posterity. So the Septuagint, Josephus, and St. Augustine, book 17 of the City of God, chapter 7.
Verse 28: He Has Given the Kingdom to One Better Than You
AND HE HAS GIVEN IT, that is, He has decreed to give it: for an act that is begun and destined, not perfected, is signified. So "He has torn," that is, He has decreed to tear, "the kingdom of Israel from you," to give it to "one better than you," namely David.
Verse 29: The Triumphant One of Israel Will Not Spare
MOREOVER THE TRIUMPHANT ONE OF ISRAEL WILL NOT SPARE. The Chaldee says, it is decreed upon you by the Lord of the victories of Israel, as if to say: The absolute and irrevocable sentence of God has been passed upon you, that you should be deprived of the kingdom. He calls God "the triumphant one in Israel" to sting Saul, as if to say: You are proud and triumph in your victories against Amalek and other enemies, and therefore rebel against God; but know that those victories are not yours, nor gained by your strength, but granted to you by God. He Himself is the king and "triumphant one in Israel," who, fighting for Israel His faithful people, causes them to conquer and triumph over their enemies.
Verse 30: I Have Sinned, but Now Honor Me
AND HE SAID: I HAVE SINNED; BUT NOW HONOR ME (as a king) before the elders of my people, and before Israel, that is, before the rest of the people of Israel, lest they despise me as scorned by you and strip me of the kingdom. You see here that Saul's repentance was human, and extorted by fear of losing the kingdom.
Verse 31: Samuel Returned and Followed Saul
SO SAMUEL RETURNED AND FOLLOWED SAUL. Samuel yielded to Saul's request, lest he drive him to despair or fury; and to protect his honor before the people, lest they should despise him and drive him from the kingdom. He granted Saul this small consolation, so that he might bear the deprivation of the kingdom more lightly, and lest he should fall into worse things.
You ask, when did this wretched fall of Saul occur? Some judge that it occurred in the third year of Saul's reign, from the fact that in chapter 13, verse 1, he is said to have reigned over Israel for two years; which many understand thus, that he reigned innocently, justly, and uprightly for two years, and consequently fell in the third year. But there is another more genuine meaning of that passage, as was said there.
Others think differently: the probable opinion of our Salianus is that Saul fell in the seventh year of his reign, so that in the eighth year of his reign David was anointed king by Samuel, as is said in the next chapter; and then Saul still reigned for ten years. For in total he reigned eighteen years, since Samuel before him had judged Israel for 22 years. For thus the years of Saul and Samuel joined together make 40, which Paul attributes to them, Acts 13. Whence it follows that this fall of Saul occurred in the year 29 from the death of Eli, and from the beginning of the leadership of Samuel, who immediately succeeded Eli.
Verse 32: Bring Agag the King to Me
AND SAMUEL SAID: BRING AGAG THE KING TO ME, so that the one whom Saul refused to kill, I may kill, and thus fulfill God's will in the vengeance and anathema of the Amalekites.
AND AGAG WAS BROUGHT TO HIM, VERY FAT AND TREMBLING -- from fatness, so fat that he walked with a trembling and unsteady step. For in Hebrew it is Agag Maadanoth, which the Chaldee translates "Agag the delicate"; Pagninus, Vatablus, and others, "Agag of delicacies," that is, Agag fattened and swollen with delicacies, and therefore tremulous. Less correctly, therefore, some explain it as if to say: Agag was presented to Samuel with delicacies, that is, walking daintily, with a regal and proud gait. Others say he was rejoicing at death, because he preferred death to servitude; or as R. Kimchi says, because he hoped for life from the kindly Samuel. Others translate it as "with bonds." Thus those who depart from the Vulgate go off in various directions.
Moreover Haman, the enemy of the Jews, hanged by Ahasuerus (Esther chapter 3, verses 1 and 10), is said to have been of the lineage of Agag. Hence Josephus (Antiquities, book 10, chapter 6), the Hebrews, the Chaldee, Lyranus, Cajetan, Serarius, and Rupert (book 8 On the Victory of the Word of God, chapter 4) judge that he was descended from this Agag king of Amalek. Hence also Haman is called Bugaeus in Esther chapter 12, as if Benagagaeus or Bengogaeus, that is, "son of Agag" or "son of Gog." For the Septuagint, at Numbers 24:7, call Agag by aphaeresis "Gog," or Bugaeus, as if Gogaeus. It is probable, however, that it was the same one, both because this one was famous and no other of this name is found in Scripture; and because this one was proud, self-indulgent, and cruel, just as Haman was, so that he seems to have transfused these his morals together with his seed into him.
AND AGAG SAID: DOES BITTER DEATH SEPARATE THUS? -- as if to say: O how bitter is this impending death to me, a man of delicacy and raised in delights, and how unworthy of my royal state, abounding in wealth, honors, and pleasures. For I had hoped to end my life amid the same things to which I had been accustomed. So Abulensis. This is what Ecclesiastes says, chapter 41, verse 1: "O death, how bitter is the memory of you to a man at peace among his possessions, to a man at rest, and whose ways are directed in all things."
For in Hebrew sar, that is "departed," in the Qal form is taken in the Hebrew manner for the Hiphil, that is, "causes to depart"; or, as our translation renders it, "separates." The meaning therefore is: Must I die by so bitter, miserable, and violent a death? Must the soul be separated from the body, the senses from their delights, Agag from his kingdom? Or as Serarius translates: "The bitterness of death has turned toward me," as if to say: It is over for my life, a bitter and harsh death awaits me.
Tropologically St. Gregory says: "The recently converted, when they are separated from their accustomed pleasures, feel sorrow like death." Whence they are assailed by this temptation: Does the bitter death of penance and holy life thus separate me from my delights? "Because in them carnality is by no means killed without great tribulation. For as if seeing the austerities to which it must submit, the sensuality says to the mind: Do you spurn joyful things for such sad ones?"
Verse 33: As Your Sword Has Made Women Childless
AND SAMUEL SAID: AS YOUR SWORD HAS MADE WOMEN CHILDLESS, SO AMONG WOMEN YOUR MOTHER SHALL BE CHILDLESS -- as if to say: I will make your mother a widow without children by killing you, because you have made many women widows by killing their sons. You will be justly killed, because you unjustly killed others. For by the eternal law of God it is decreed that the murderer be killed.
Note that the self-indulgent, such as Agag was, are often cruel; because they spend upon themselves all the love they have, and therefore toward others they express nothing but hatred; indeed they defraud and despoil others, so that they may have more to indulge themselves with. For they desire all things for themselves, and nothing for others.
What Philo Biblicus writes is fiction, namely that God ordered Samuel to grant Agag a reprieve during the following night; during which Agag therefore made his wife pregnant, and from that was born a son named Edab, who was supposedly that Amalekite who claimed to David that he had killed Saul (chapter 31), so that by the son of Agag, by God's just judgment, Saul was slain -- because he himself had not slain Agag, as God had commanded. For this is the punishment of retaliation.
AND SAMUEL CUT HIM IN PIECES (not by himself, as Serarius holds, but through his men, says Josephus) BEFORE THE LORD, as if sacrificing the criminal as a victim of anathema to divine justice; and this not from cruelty, but from zeal for just vengeance; such as Phinehas had in killing the fornicating prince (Numbers 25), and Elijah in killing the priests of Baal (3 Kings 18).
Tropologically, when fighting against pride and vices, we must cut them in pieces bit by bit, and leave nothing of them that may stir up new war against us. So Bede.
Verse 35: Samuel Did Not See Saul Again
That is, Samuel no longer visited Saul, did not go to him as a matter of honor as he had done before, did not converse with him, did not direct, admonish, or rebuke him as he had been accustomed to do. That this is the meaning is clear from the Hebrew: for otherwise Samuel later saw Saul among the prophets prophesying (chapter 19, verse 24).
SAMUEL MOURNED FOR SAUL, because he grieved that Saul, whom he had anointed, was being deprived of the kingdom, and that Israel was being deprived of so strong and fortunate a king; and he did not know who and what kind of person would succeed him. He feared Saul would be deprived not only of the kingdom, but also of his life and eternal salvation; for although here he is only stripped of the kingdom by God, nevertheless "He has rejected" and in Hebrew "God has rejected you" implies that he was abandoned by God, about to fall into greater crimes, and to die and be damned in them, as indeed seems to have happened. He mourned, and at the same time while mourning he prayed for Saul, that he might either be restored to the kingdom, or at least not fall into further evils. For he hoped that God's decree concerning Saul's rejection was not entirely absolute and irrevocable, but was a threat, and could be bent and changed by prayers. Hence God, in the following chapter, verse 1, asserts that it is absolute, and forbids him to mourn Saul any longer, but to anoint David as king in his place.
Note here and imitate the mercy and charity of Samuel toward Saul, who was disobedient to him and to God. St. Gregory says: "What does it mean that he mourns for one whom he disdains to see, except that even with the zeal of rectitude, holy Teachers have the affection of great charity; and the greatness of that charity is shown, because he is said to mourn for the rejected king? With what affection then do they mourn the hidden sins of the elect, who have learned to mourn so tenderly for the rejected and reprobate? For the intensity of the mourning is shown, because it is added: How long will you mourn for Saul?"