1 Samuel 15:16

_AND SAMUEL SAID, WHAT MEANETH THEN THIS BLEATING OF THE SHEEP IN MINE EARS, AND THE LOWING OF THE OXEN WHICH I HEAR?_ No JFB commentary on these verses....

10-23 Repentance in God is not a change of mind, as it is in us, but a change of method. The change was in Saul; "He is turned back from following me." Hereby he made God his enemy. Samuel spent a whole night in pleading for Saul. The rejection of sinners is the grief of believers: God delights not in their death, nor should we. Saul boasts to Samuel of his obedience. Thus sinners think, by justifying themselves, to escape being judged of the Lord. The noise the cattle made, like the rust of the silver, James 5:3, witnessed against him. Many boast of obedience to the command of God; but what means then their indulgence of the flesh, their love of the world, their angry and unkind spirit, and their neglect of holy duties, which witness against them? See of what evil covetousness is the root; and see what is the sinfulness of sin, and notice that in it which above any thing else makes it...

Samuel now acquiesces in the wisdom and justice of the sentence which 1 Samuel 15:11 he had so strenuously resisted at first. What before was known only to the Searcher of hearts, had now been displayed to Samuel by Saul himself....

FINAL REJECTION OF SAUL (1 Samuel 15:1.) EXPOSITION DIVINE COMMAND TO PUNISH THE AMALEKITES, AND ITS EXECUTION BY SAUL (1 Samuel 15:1). 1 SAMUEL 15:1 SAMUEL ALSO SAID. Better literally, "And Samuel said." There is no note of time, but probably a considerable interval elapsed before this second trial of Saul was made. God does not finally reject a man until, after repeated opportunities for repentance,

THEN SAMUEL SAID UNTO SAUL, STAY,.... Stop a little, do not be in haste to be gone, as he might seem to be, fearing a reproof, and that something would be said to him not very agreeable; or "suffer" c me, that is, to speak, give me leave to say a few words; for Saul being a king, Samuel treats him as such, and asks audience of him, or leave of him to deliver what he had to say to him: AND I WILL TELL THEE WHAT THE LORD HATH SAID TO ME THIS NIGHT; and since it was not anything from himself, but from the Lord, he had to say, he might expect the rather to be heard, and especially since it was what had lately, even that very night, been told him: AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, SAY ON; he gave him leave, perhaps hoping he should hear something said in his praise, commending him for what he had done in destroying the nation of Amalek, see Luke 7:40. There is a double readin

8. WAR WITH AMALEK: SAUL'S DISOBEDIENCE AND REJECTION CHAPTER 15 _ 1. The commission to destroy Amalek (1 Samuel 15:1)_ 2. Saul's disobedience and rejection (1 Samuel 15:10) 3. Saul's confession (1 Samuel 15:24) 4. The doom of Agag (1 Samuel 15:32) From verse 48 in the previous chapter we learn that Saul smote the Amalekites. Samuel is sent by Jehovah with a new message to Saul telling him to smite Amalek again and to destroy utterly all that they have. It involves another task for Saul. He had been fully established as king and is therefore called upon to discharge his respo

XV. THE WAR AGAINST AMALEK; SAUL'S DISOBEDIENCE AND DEPOSITION (E). - A section of a secondary narrative; according to the scheme adopted here, the last section of this document was 1 Samuel 3:3 to 1 Samuel 4:1. 1 SAMUEL 15:1. Samuel bids Saul attack Amalek and subject it to the _herem_ (pp. 99, 114), or sacred ban, by which all living creatures were put to death in honour of Yahweh. (_Cf._ the cases of Jericho and Achan, Joshua 6 f.) Saul called a general levy to a rendezvous in the south of Judah the numbers are probably exaggerated and advanced against the city of Amalek, possibly a tribal sanctuary which served as the headquarters of this nomad tribe; and lay in ambush in a neighbouring valley. The

Saul's disobedience and its penalty 11. _It repenteth me_ "God's repentance is the change of His dispensation." In the language of the O. T. God is said to repent when a change in the character and conduct of those with whom He is dealing leads to a corresponding change in His plans and purposes towards them. Thus (_a_) upon man's penitence God repents and withdraws a threatened punishment (Exodus 32:14; 2 Samuel 24:16): (_b_) upon man's faithlessness and disobedience He cancels a promise or revokes a blessing which He had given. The opposite is also true, "God is not a man that he should repent" (1 Samuel 15:29). His repentance is not to be understood as though He who foreknows all things reg

DISCOURSE: 298 SAUL’S SELF-DECEIT 1 Samuel 15:13. _And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night._ IF the Holy Scriptures exhibit to us the most perfect patterns of righteousness, they also bring to our view men devoid of righteousness, and living characters of wickedness under all its diversified forms and operations. In truth, if we read them only as records of past events, without an a

_Samuel Delivers the Lord's Message of Condemnation. 1 Samuel 15:10-23_ 10 Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying. 11 It repenteth me that I have set up Saul _to be_ king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night. 12 And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. 13 And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed _be_ thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord. 14 And Samuel said, What _meaneth_ then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 15 And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the