Theological Commentary: Click Here
Rebellion is
an interesting thing, isn’t it? We know
that rebellion is bad. Those of us who
fear God know that the punishment for rebellion is even worse. We don’t want to know the rejection of
God. Yet, sin is tempting. While we logically know that we shouldn’t go
against God’s ways and that sin is bad for us in the long-term, rebellion is so
tempting in the moment.
That’s what
happens here to Saul today. God tells
Saul to go up and defeat the Amalekites.
He does. God tells Saul to devote
the things of the Amalekites to destruction.
He almost does. Saul has no
trouble destroying the common things.
But Saul falls into temptation when it comes to the king’s goods, the
king’s herds, and the king himself.
Saul allows
the people to convince him to take the really good plunder and not destroy it. Even worse, when Samuel comes to Saul he
claims that he obeyed God. Even when
Samuel questions Saul, he sticks to the lie.
Only when Samuel really presses in does Saul tell the truth. For his effort, the kingdom is torn from
Saul. His offspring will not be kings of
the Hebrew people.
We can only
speculate what would have happened had Saul obeyed. Or, what if Saul had confessed the sin when
Samuel came and confronted him. After
all, the Bible is full of plenty of stories of less than perfect leaders who
choose sin, repent of their sin when confronted, and find forgiveness. But this doesn’t happen. Saul sins, hides the sin, lies about the sin,
and thinks he can fool God. This is why
Saul is rejected and the kingship will ultimately fall to another man and his
offspring.
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