Weeks 3-4
6/15/2025-6/22/2025
Summer 2025
-
Central Passage: 1 Samuel 13-19
-
Check out the Middle School Sunday School Resources page for other books of the Bible resources. Note: the 1 Samuel-2 Kings handout will be available eventually.
Contents
1 Samuel 13 was a difficult passage for me when I was younger. It seems as though poor Saul wanted to do the right thing but did so in a misinformed way. Should he be punished so severely? In short, yes. Samuel had anointed Saul as prince/leader (1 Sam 9:16; 10:1) over Israel, a “trial” period before he had planned to anoint him as king. 1 Samuel 13 is one such trial in which Samuel likely waited to see whether Saul would remain obedient in Samuel’s delay.
There were times when kings were permitted to make offerings (cf. 2 Sam 24:25; 1 Kings 3:15), but Samuel’s direct instruction from God had prohibited Saul from making an offering. Additionally, Samuel had planned to make multiple burnt offerings and peace offerings (10:8), yet Saul seemingly offers only a singular burnt offering (13:9). Furthermore, Saul makes the same mistake that the Israelites who brought the ark into battle against the Philistines in 1 Sam 4 made: God cannot be coerced by empty rituals. As Ronald Youngblood put it, “animal sacrifice is not a prerequisite for entreating God” (cf. 1 Sam 15:23)
Both the trial in 1 Samuel 13 and the trial in 1 Samuel 15 depict a man unfit to be king, violating warfare commandments and performing holy rituals without the explicitly prescribed presence of God’s prophet (1 Sam 13:11-12; 15:3, 7-11, 17-19). If these trials seem unfair and the punishment harsh (the removal of both his kingship and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit), then reconsider that God rightly places high standards on those who seek to lead His people (cf. Ezek 3:17-21). God desires leaders/kings who understand Samuel’s words: “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” (1 Sam 15:22). Saul has shown Himself to be, through two trials,[1] a disobedient leader, who will not lead God’s people in holiness. He will not be a king of Torah (Deut 17:18-20).”
As a result, Samuel grieves, and God regrets making Saul king (1 Sam 15:11, 29, 35). God’s regret (or repentance) is a difficult concept to grasp in light of His divine immutability (His unchangeable nature, purposes, and will). God also regretted making man on the earth in Genesis 6:6-7. However, 1 Sam 15:29 informs us that this is no human conception of regret/repentance. Within His sovereign purposes, He often allows human actions, whether obedience or disobedience, to affect His immediate actions without changing the overall course of His plan (cf. Jonah 3:9-10). This word for regret can also have the broader semantic range (particularly in its verb stem used in 1 Samuel 15:11) of meaning to lament/grieve or to be sorry. God does not repent/grieve like we do. He regretted making Saul king, as Samuel was prepared to do in 1 Sam 15, in the sense that Saul’s disobedience had grieved God to the point of changing course to anoint the king whom He had already chosen: David.
God’s king would be a man after His own heart (1 Sam 13:14). This often-used but somewhat perplexing phrase could be more woodenly translated to “according to [God’s] heart/will/desire.” This does not mean David never sinned—we have direct evidence to the contrary, concerning Uriah and Bathsheba (cf. Psalm 51). Rather, it means that David had a penitent heart in pursuit of God’s heart and will. This phrase indicates that this is God’s chosen king, unlike Saul, who was merely the foolish Israelites’ chosen king.
Samuel anoints David, ascribing honor in the public presence of his brothers. Typically, the firstborn receives honor, but here God anoints David with honor, not by their customary expectations, but by discerning David’s internal constitution. God looks at people differently than people who had chosen the cowardly, disobedient Saul to lead them. Furthermore, anointing consecrates the recipient, i.e. sets him aside for specific (holy) use. The anointing oils ritualize the anointing presence of the Holy Spirit, who empowers God’s Old Covenant people for specific tasks and duties.
In this anointing within an honor/shame culture, God exalts the humbly obedient and dishonors (through shame) those who are disobedient. How appropriate that God, as the Shepherd to His Old Testament people thus far (Gen 48:15; 49:24), would anoint a shepherd to lead His people (1 Sam 16:11). This consistent shepherd motif finds its pinnacle in Jesus’ words in John 10:11-18 that He is the good shepherd who sacrificially leads His sheep, knowing them by name, caring for them, protecting them from wolves, and laying down His life for them. His sheep, even the ones of a different fold (Gentiles), will listen to His voice because they belong to Him. When Samuel anoints this shepherd after God’s own heart, it becomes the capstone to his prophetic ministry, for he no longer plays a significant role in most of the remaining narrative. However, Saul’s story continues.
Some translations indicate that God sends an evil spirit to Saul. Others, such as the ESV, say it was a harmful spirit (cf. Judges 9:23). The Hebrew word for evil/harm has a broad semantic range that can refer to ethical evil, but here it more generally refers to a malignant, distressing spirit for Saul. Thus, as the Holy Spirit departs from Saul, a harmful spirit enters. It is difficult to say whether this entailed demon possession similar to what the New Testament authors depict during Jesus’ and His Apostles’ ministries, but at the very least, God punitively sends torment to Saul. Not knowing the exact nature of the torment Saul endures, it is also difficult to say how David’s music can be the mechanism for healing. However, the Spirit had anointed David to soothe the tormented Saul’s condition with the beauty of skillful music and companionship.
Thus, Saul’s counselors told him that David’s music would soothe the tormenting spirit. They give a flattering description of David, portraying him as everything that Saul was thought to have been when the Israelites selected him (1 Sam 9:1-2; 1 Sam 10:22; 17:10-11; 16:18). Saul at first enjoyed David, both for his skill and company. Thus, God had begun to place David within reach of his future throne; however, He also placed him within reach of divine chastening through the danger of the murderous Saul. Thus, in 1 Samuel 19, the tormented Saul covetously and murderously pursues David. After failing to send Jonathan/servants/Michal/messengers to do his dirty work, he goes to find David himself. Once on location, the Holy Spirit comes upon Saul for the last time (1 Sam 19:23-24), but now the Spirit stops him and forces him to prophesy before Samuel with the other participating prophets.[2] Furthermore, in this Spirit-induced prophetic moment, Saul strips off his royal garments, further illustrating that God had stripped the kingship from him and given it to David.
The remainder of Saul’s role in David’s story is one of staunch, oppressive refusal to release the kingship to David. This was not gratuitous suffering for David. This chastening period, similar to Saul’s trials in 1 Samuel 13 and 15, would chasten David, both proving his inner constitution and preparing him to be God’s king. This chastening further establishes him as a man after God’s own heart, beginning a life of lamentation that persists through other circumstances during his kingship (cf. Psalm 3). This chastening acquainted him with lamentation and godly grief that seeks the LORD’s goodness and grace in the midst of great turmoil. Though readers may groan at Saul’s repeated attempts on David’s life, this was God’s orchestration for David, the skilled musician, so that he might be a king of tender reliance on God, in opposition to the disobedient cowardice of Saul. Likewise, as God chastens His people, He often permits chastening trials so that He might purify us by a refining fire (cf. Zech 13:7-9). But this suffering is never pointless, for all things conform us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29).
Richards, E. Randolph and Richard James. Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020.
Walton, John H., Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2000.
Youngblood, Ronald F. and Richard D. Patterson. 1 Samuel ~ 2 Kings. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. General Editors: Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.
[1] Not to mention how otherwise ill-equipped he is to be king. See the additional study for 1 Samuel 8-10 for more information.
[2] This prophesying likely consisted of receiving prophetic vision rather than speaking God’s word, according to Ronald Youngblood.
