Why then didst thou not hearken to the voice of Jehovah, but didst fall upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of Jehovah?
God had ordered Amalek destroyed, but Saul came home with the king alive and the best animals still bleating behind him. Samuel's question is not looking for information — it is a charge, and it names both what Saul did and how God saw it.
Saul faced no shortage of men, no hard fight, no crisis forcing his hand. That is why he has no excuse to offer.
In this final test of Saul it is important to observe that there were no difficulties in the path of obedience. The resources at his command were abundant, and the victory was an easy one. The temptation to disobey came wholly from within. The commandment tested his heart, and it is the heart that the word of God lays bare.
The verse does not say Saul forgot or misunderstood. It says he pounced — older translations read "fly upon the spoil" — and one writer sees greed, not worship, behind his explanation.
Samuel tells him plainly he did not obey the Word of God, but dared to "pounce on the spoil." God had no trouble seeing that the motive was not a real desire to sacrifice to Him. It was greed. Israel knew that if they offered peace offerings to God, the offerer would get a good share for himself.
Saul's plan was not just to keep good livestock. It was to keep them and call it worship. That mix draws God's strongest answer.
Disobedience that comes from carelessness or indifference is bad. Disobedience that is sheer willfulness is worse. Worst of all is willful disobedience that dresses itself in a cloak of pretended devotion and zeal for the Lord's interests. This is what Saul was now guilty of, and so God met it in the strong, drastic way we hear from Samuel's lips.
In the verses that follow, Saul defends himself twice. Both defences fall apart.
Even after being exposed, Saul insists that he did obey the Lord. He took Agag the Amalekite king captive, and he utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But why had he spared Agag? Was that obedience to God's word? Partial obedience is not obedience at all. Then a second time he tries to excuse the sparing of the sheep and oxen. He blames the people, while insisting that they did it to sacrifice these to the Lord. But God had given the orders to him. So he was responsible to give the same orders to the people, and to see that they obeyed. God is right to hold him responsible for the whole matter.
The penalty looks heavy for livestock. But the animals were not what was at stake.
God thought otherwise. A principle was at stake. How could Saul rule a kingdom if he did not obey God? How could he expect others to obey him if he did not obey? If his subjects could improve on Saul's decrees, where would his authority be? Saul's action in thinking he could improve on God's decree was inexcusable. In one blow he destroyed his kingdom.
Saul destroyed everything worthless and kept everything valuable. One writer turns that sorting on the reader's own heart.
Amalek is spared, because the flesh is spared. The confused and disturbing clash of voices in the camp comes from the thing that was spared, the thing that should have been judged… He thought there was a best side and a worst side to weigh, just as you do. He would not defend the worst, but he pleaded for the best and spared it… Something "good" from this flesh of mine for God! Something I can excuse. A corner in my heart on which I write, "This is reserved from judgment."
- Command. The order was plain and the victory was easy. Nothing outside Saul pushed him; the pull to disobey came from inside.
- Grab. God calls it a pounce. Greed came first, and the plan to sacrifice came after.
- Cover. Willful disobedience dressed as zeal for God is the worst form of it, and it gets the strongest answer.
- Blame. Partial obedience is not obedience. Blaming the people moved nothing, because the man who got the order owned the result.
- Cost. A king who overruled God's decree could not expect his own decrees to stand. The kingdom went with the disobedience.
And Saul said to Samuel, I have indeed hearkened to the voice of Jehovah, and have gone the way which Jehovah sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
Saul comes back from battle and answers Samuel's charge with a flat claim of obedience. Yet Agag, the king of Amalek God told him to destroy, stands there alive. So the verse asks how a man can claim full obedience while the proof against him stands at his side.
Saul's speech moves fast, and the speed itself tells us something. One writer tracks the shifts: a boast, then the excuse of this verse, then a confession:
As Samuel comes to meet him, Saul says: "Blessed are you of the LORD; I have performed the commandment of the LORD." How prompt he is to boast about himself! In verse 20 we will see him excusing himself, and in verse 24, accusing himself with the same quickness. This quickness is stamped on everything.
But the animals he kept alive are standing there while he speaks. What he spared answers for him:
Saul seems (though it may be hypocrisy) delighted to meet Samuel, and apparently is unaware of having disobeyed God. He goes out with the bold profession, "I have performed the commandment of the LORD." The prophet might weep in secret over the rejection of the proud king. Even so, he deals with him faithfully. He asks about the spared flocks and herds, and they give the lie to the king's claim that he had obeyed the commandment of the LORD. How often do the spared things of the flesh and its desires contradict our bold claim to have put to death everything in us that belongs to the earth!
Saul now hands the fault to his soldiers. He also dresses the act up as religion, and his choice of words gives him away:
He softens his sin by saying it was to sacrifice that they spared the animals. By giving the act a religious motive he thought to escape the guilt of his conduct and its penalty. He says to Samuel, "the LORD your God." But the man of God will have none of it. Again Saul tries to shift the responsibility for his act onto the shoulders of the people: "The people took of the spoil," he says.
A king who blames his subjects has turned his own office upside down:
No doubt they were quite willing to spare them, but that did not relieve Saul from his responsibility as king. What king yields to his people, or obeys them? It is always the reverse. Samuel, however, does not dispute this, or speak of it to Saul. There is another King who had given His command. It was to Him that Saul must give an account.
Saul's excuse is not that the order was too harsh. It is that he kept the animals for God — and that, one writer argues, is the worst form disobedience can take:
Disobedience that comes from carelessness or indifference is bad. Disobedience that is pure wilfulness is worse. Worst of all is the kind that comes from wilfulness and then dresses itself up. It wears a cloak of pretended piety and zeal for the Lord's interests. That is what Saul was guilty of here. It explains the strong, drastic way God met it through the lips of Samuel.
Saul split the spoil in two: the worthless he destroyed, the good he kept. One writer turns that sorting into a test for us:
How could anything be good which was bound up with Amalek? And yet, apply this principle to the flesh and the world. Saul failed to carry it out according to God's mind about Agag and the land of the Amalekites. How common Saul's sin looks today!
Saul's answer is the answer of a man who has never seen himself as guilty. One writer shows what that self-image costs him:
Saul was the outwardly moral and religious man, but also a self-righteous man. So we get expressions like these: "I have performed the commandment of the LORD" — "I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me." How could this man value grace? Impossible. A heart unbroken, a conscience unconvinced, can never enter into the meaning of the word grace.
- Spared — Saul kept the best and destroyed the worthless; nothing tied to Amalek was good, so the sorting itself was the sin.
- Said — Saul claimed obedience with the animals he spared standing beside him. What we keep alive contradicts what we claim to have killed.
- Shifted — he blamed the people and spoke of "the LORD your God," but a king answers to the King who gave the order.
- Screened — Saul kept the spoil "to sacrifice." Disobedience dressed as piety is worse than disobedience from carelessness or plain self-will.
- Sealed — a man who boasts, excuses, and confesses by turns never breaks. An unbroken heart cannot value grace.
But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Jehovah thy God in Gilgal.
Samuel has caught Saul in the act: the animals God ordered destroyed are still alive. His reply is not a denial but an explanation: the people took them, and the plan was worship.
Saul does not say "I spared them." He hands the act to his subjects. But that defence costs him more than it saves.
All of Saul's excuses were empty, or worse. As Adam did with Eve, the king put the people forward to shelter himself. What was he raised up for, if not to lead the people? Was it not for the king to hold back lawlessness, rather than for them to entangle him in disobedience? Had it come to this, that the people commanded him? Such a confession could have only one result. His kingship was gone.
The record itself does not divide the guilt the way Saul does.
The Spirit of God says "Saul and the people"; Saul says "the people," and that it was for God that they spared. But our excuses, even when true, only condemn us. Saul, having no faith and not looking to God, feared the people more than God. What a slave the unbeliever is! If he is not the slave of the enemy, he is the slave of the people he seems to govern.
One small pronoun in Saul's sentence gives him away.
Twice he speaks to Samuel of "the LORD your God" (vv. 21, 30). All sense of relationship to God, and of having to do with Him for himself, seems to have left him. Unhappy man!
The stated reason is sacrifice, and it sounds generous. Saul keeps nothing for himself; the animals go to God. Mackintosh weighs what such a plea is worth.
It is useless to fall back on the plausible plea of "sacrifice to the Lord." What a miserable refuge for disobedient hearts! As if the Lord would accept a sacrifice from someone walking in open rebellion against His commandment. How many since Saul's day have tried to cover a disobedient spirit with the plausible cloak of "sacrifice to the Lord."
The verse calls these animals "the things devoted to destruction" — already handed over to judgment. Saul's men killed the worthless and kept the best. Ridout sees the same instinct in the way we handle our own evil.
It was the best of the Amalekites' possessions that were spared. They rejected everything worthless. How often people denounce the coarser sins of human nature and reject them without mercy, while still keeping up a respectable outward show! No one thinks of making room in doctrine for drunkenness and the lower vices. Yet people plead hard that we should spare other things and dedicate them to the Lord's service: whatever appeals to refined taste in ritual service, or legal formalism, or an unequal partnership with the unconverted in the work of God. But how can anyone dedicate something unclean to Him? There is only one way to dedicate evil to God, and that is to hand it over to the sword of judgment.
Saul even names the place: Gilgal. That detail makes the offer worse.
"In Gilgal," notice! Of all places, that was where he proposed to offer the fruit of self-will to God. It was Israel's first camping ground, the place where Israel used the sharp knives of circumcision. That is a lasting lesson: self-judgment is vital for everyone who would have dealings with God. Later the people understood the place no better than their first king had. They made Gilgal one of the chief centres of their sin against God.
Samuel's answer reaches far past this battlefield.
Samuel does not dispute this or discuss it with Saul. There is another King who had given His command. It was to Him that Saul must give an account. Did He delight in sacrifices as much as in obedience, even if they devoted all the cattle to Him? Then comes that famous, searching word: "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." It tests many a plausible claim to devotedness or service. How often people plead that we should spare something of our sinful nature and devote it to the Lord!
- Blame shifted. Saul says the people took the spoil; by admitting they overruled him, he admits he was no longer ruling.
- God borrowed. He offers sacrifice to "the LORD your God" — Samuel's God. His own sense of relationship with God had drained away.
- Piety as cover. The stated aim was worship. Disobedience wore the cloak of sacrifice, and God will not accept such an offering.
- The best kept back. Saul destroyed the worthless and kept the best, then called it devoted to God. Evil has only one true dedication — the sword of judgment.
- Obedience wanted. God wanted obedience, not fat rams. The same test still exposes every plea to spare something and call it service.
And Samuel said, Has Jehovah delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, As in hearkening to the voice of Jehovah? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, Attention than the fat of rams.
Saul came back from the war with Amalek claiming he had obeyed — while the animals God told him to destroy bleated behind him, spared, he said, for sacrifice. Samuel's reply asks what God delights in, and it costs Saul his throne.
Saul offered God something costly instead of the one thing God asked for. One writer treats Samuel's answer as a rule for every believer, not just for a king:
"What means then this bleating of the sheep in my ears?" A searching question! It is useless to fall back on the plausible matter of "sacrifice to the Lord." A miserable resource for disobedient hearts! As if the Lord would accept a sacrifice from someone walking in open rebellion against His commandment. How many since Saul's day have tried to cover a disobedient spirit with the plausible cloak of "sacrifice to the Lord." … The Lord does not seek offerings, but obedience: the submissive heart and the yielding spirit will glorify Him more than the cattle on a thousand hills. … God does not look at the amount of the sacrifice, but at the spirit from which it springs.
Samuel's answer sounds harsh until you weigh what kind of disobedience he was facing:
Disobedience that springs from carelessness or indifference is bad. Disobedience that is sheer wilfulness is worse. Worst of all is disobedience that springs from wilfulness and then dresses itself in a cloak of pretended piety and zeal for the Lord's interests. That is what Saul was now guilty of, and this is why God met it through Samuel's lips in such strong and drastic terms.
Samuel's next sentence names disobedience as rebellion, and rebellion as witchcraft — divination, the consulting of hidden powers. That comparison sets worship without obedience in shocking company, and it is not an isolated idea in Scripture:
Sacrifice without obedience — a solemn truth — is no better than idol worship. The first mark of faith is obedience. Paul had received his apostleship "to bring about the obedience of faith … among all the nations" (Rom. 1:5). And there are many things God prefers to sacrifice. "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice," He says, "the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6). "Go and learn," the Lord said to the Pharisees, "what this means: 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice'" (Matt. 9:13).
The penalty seems harsh until you remember the office Saul held:
God thought otherwise. A principle was at stake. How could Saul rule a kingdom if he did not obey God? How could he expect to be obeyed if he himself did not obey? If his subjects could improve on Saul's decrees, where would his authority be? Saul's idea that he could improve on God's decree was unpardonable. In one blow he destroyed his kingdom.
Saul's story does not stop at the spared cattle. It ends years later with the king consulting a medium. One writer reads the two scenes as one story:
Samuel's solemn words to Saul could stand as the heading over this whole account: "Rebellion is as the sin of divination." Saul had spared the spoil of Amalek against the Lord's commandment. The two parts, so far apart in time and in outward character, are really one. On the day he failed to wipe out Amalek, Saul never imagined where it would lead. The cattle he spared "to sacrifice to the LORD" — in disobedience to His word — would develop into the incantations of a woman with a familiar spirit. We do not realise the unity that underlies all evil. When one link of obedience to God is cut, the soul puts itself into Satan's hands. So it was with our first parents. To disobey God is to listen to Satan.
The verse does not condemn sacrifice. It puts sacrifice below obedience — and in Christ the two come together:
God took no pleasure in those sacrifices. In contrast, Jesus Christ presented Himself to God to do His will. That will required a sacrifice that could take away sin. It is beautiful to see Jesus, on coming into the world, presenting Himself to obey, and saying to His Father, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God."
God sets believers apart for that same obedience:
It is the character of the believer's sanctification — sanctified to obedience and to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
- Asked — God asked for one thing; Saul gave Him something else and called it worship. Sacrifice offered in place of obedience is a pretence of honouring God.
- Excused — The worst disobedience is not careless but wilful, wearing a cloak of piety. Good intentions do not improve on a command God gave.
- Named — Samuel calls it rebellion, and rebellion is like divination. Worship without obedience stands no higher than idolatry.
- Opened — Cut one link of obedience and the soul opens a door to Satan. The cattle Saul spared end in the incantations of a medium.
- Answered — Where Saul failed, Christ came saying, "Behold, I have come to do your will." In Him obedience and sacrifice meet, and He is the pattern for all who follow Him.
For rebellion is [as] the sin of divination, And selfwill is [as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He hath also rejected thee from being king.
God told Saul to destroy Amalek completely, but he came back with the best of the flocks and the captured king, saying the animals were for sacrifice. Samuel refuses the excuse and gives the disobedience two names: divination and idolatry.
Older translations read "witchcraft" and "stubbornness" here, where the ESV reads "divination" and "presumption." One reference work separates the Hebrew word for witchcraft from the word used in this verse.
The word kashaph means "to use magical formulas or incantations," "to practise sorcery." A witch was not allowed to live. In 1 Samuel 15:23 the word is qesem, divination.
The verse's second charge is self-will. One writer points out the irony: Saul had worked to stamp out witchcraft himself.
Samuel stripped the disobedience bare and revealed its true character as God saw it. "Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness (that is, self-will) is as iniquity and idolatry." In his better days Saul recognised the evil of witchcraft and tried to suppress it (1 Samuel 28:3-9). No one seems to have set up a carved image during his reign. But now he is told that his self-will was the equivalent of both witchcraft and idolatry. Why? Because it displaced God for something else. A creature was challenging the supremacy of God.
Saul planned to turn the spared spoil into an offering.
For Saul, sacrifice is better than obedience. But, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." Sacrifice without obedience — a solemn truth — is no better than idol worship. The first mark of faith is obedience.
One writer sorts disobedience into grades.
Disobedience that springs from carelessness or indifference is bad. Disobedience that is sheer wilfulness is worse. Worst of all is disobedience that springs from wilfulness but then dresses itself up. It wears a cloak of pretended piety and zeal for the Lord's interests. That was what Saul was now guilty of, and that is why God met it so strongly and drastically through the lips of Samuel.
Another writer names what hides behind the word "sacrifice."
It is far better to have the will in subjection to God than to load His altar with the costliest sacrifices. When the will is in subjection, everything else falls into its right place. But for someone whose will is in rebellion against God to talk of sacrificing to Him is nothing but deadly delusion. God does not look at the size of the sacrifice, but at the spirit it springs from. What is more, everyone who talks about sacrificing to the Lord in Saul's spirit has an Agag of some sort hidden away, under some selfish aim. It may be the best of the sheep, or something else attractive to the flesh, which has more hold on them than the service or worship of God.
Saul had spread the blame onto the people. The second half of the verse ends that.
There is nothing vague now, no mixing him up with the people. The guilty king is convicted and singled out for the fresh sentence from the Lord: "Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king."
This was not the first warning Saul had received.
In earlier days at Gilgal the LORD had said to Saul through Samuel, "Your kingdom shall not continue." Now the final blow has been struck: "God has rejected you."
One writer explains why God ordered Amalek's complete destruction.
Amalek pictures "the lusts of the flesh" which war against our souls. God will not allow such things to be spared. It is important that we take sides with God against these desires. They dishonour God and harm our own souls. Saul won the victory over Amalek, but he spared their king, Agag, and the best of the livestock. If we spare our own sinful desires, we are in no condition to lead others.
The same test comes in quieter forms, wherever we act on our own judgement without a word from God.
No temptation is more subtle than this. Circumstances seem to call for action, but God has given no word, no sign of His will. Yet if we act without knowing God's will, we are certainly doing our own. And this is the essence of sin. Nothing in man is right except obedience.
- Displaced. Self-will ranks with divination and idolatry for one reason: it puts something else in God's place and challenges His supremacy.
- Disguised. Self-will rarely looks ugly. The worst disobedience wears a cloak of pretended piety and zeal for the Lord.
- Detected. Behind Saul-like talk of sacrifice hides an Agag — some selfish aim with more hold on the heart than God has.
- Declined. Sacrifice without obedience is no better than idol worship. God weighs the spirit it springs from, not its size.
- Deposed. Saul rejected God's word, so God rejected him as king. The blame he spread onto the people landed on him alone.