7 And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.

8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."

9 But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

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 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.

16 Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.

17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made

3 Or, fought.

the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?

18 And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until 'they be consumed.

19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?

20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.

22 And Samuel said, Hath 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 hearken than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is as the sin of 'witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may wor ship the LORD.

26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.

27 And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.

28 And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.

29 And also the "Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.

30 Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God.

4 Or, of the second sort. 7 Heb. divination.

Ecclus. 5. 1. Hos. 6. 6. Matth. 9. 13, and 12, 7.

8 Or, eternity, or, victory.

hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.

31 So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD.

32 Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.

33 And Samuel said, 'As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel

34 Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.

35 And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Verse 2. Amalek.'-This is the name of a grandson of Esau, from whom the Amalekites are supposed to have descended. This supposition is entirely founded on the fact that Esau's grandson was so named; for there is nothing in Scripture which points to, or even hints at, this commonly assigned origin of these bitter enemies of the Hebrew nation. Indeed, there are some rather strong considerations which seem to bear against it. These are: that Moses, in Gen. xiv., relates that in the time of Abraham, long before Amalek was born, Chedorlaomer and his confederates smote all the country of the Amalekites' about Kadesh: and that Balaam calls Amalek the first of the nations,' which, if understood of priority, could be by no means correct of a nation descended from the grandson of Esau. To these considerations, however, it may be answered, that Moses speaks, in the first instance, proleptically, of the country which the Amalekites afterwards occupied; and that, in the other, 'first' does not refer to priority of time, but to rank. But besides this, it is to be observed that Moses never reproaches the Amalekites with attacking the Israelites, their brethren; though it is not likely that he would have omitted to notice this aggravation of their offence, if it had existed. In the Pentateuch there is continual reference to the fraternal relation of the Hebrews and Edomites. But no term implying consanguinity is ever applied to the Amalekites; and instead of their name being connected with that of the Edomites, they seem always associated in name and action with the Canaanites and Philistines. It is also difficult to understand how the Amalekites could become so powerful a people as they were when the Israelites left Egypt, if their origin ascended no higher than the grandson of Esau. On these grounds Calmet concludes that they were descended from Canaan, and were, in fact, among the devoted nations -that devotement being the more strongly marked in their instance, on account of their early and persevering enmity to the Hebrews. This view does not materially differ from that of the Arabians, who make Amalek to be a son or descendant of Ham, who, according to them, became the founder of one of the original pure Arabian tribes, but which afterwards became mixed, by blending with the posterity of Joktan and Adnan. This Amalek had a famous son called Ad, who reigned in the south-east of Arabia (Hadramaut) in the time of Heber, the ancestor of Abraham, and whose age is the remote point of Arabian chronology and fable, so that, as old as king Ad' is a proverbial expression of extreme and obscure antiquity. This Adite branch of Amalekites, after having sustained a fearful destruction from the anger of Heaven at its impiety, was so weakened that the kings of Yemen were able to prevail over it, and, after great losses, obliged it to withdraw and disperse. These, and other Amalekite families, then spread in Arabia Petræa, in the peninsula of Sinai, and in the southern parts of Palestine. The Arabs believe these to have been the enemies of the Israelites, and entertain an opinion that some of them, being defeated by Joshua, went into Northern Africa and settled there. The tribes of Amalek and Ad they number with those that have, from very remote ages, been completely lost, unless

so far as they may have been incorporated with other tribes. There is nothing in this account adverse to the Scriptural intimations. Indeed, it would be easy to shew that the Amalekites, whether accounted as Arabians or not, were a people who, although they had some towns and hamlets, were of essentially Bedouin habits. In fact, we may, perhaps, best estimate the position they bore with respect to the Israelites, by regarding them as an unsettled, predatory people, who, from their situation on the immediate borders of the Hebrews, exhibited and experienced the full effect of that opposition of social principle which never fails to operate in similar circumstances. In the same countries, at this day, a settled or settling people, on the one hand, and the wild, aggressive, plundering Bedouins, on the other, exhibit the same feelings towards each other which the Hebrews and Amalekites respectively entertained. Independently of the first deep cause of offence, and the high command under which the Hebrews acted, there was an obvious social necessity that such dangerous neighbours as the Amalekites should be extirpated or driven from the frontiers. The transaction of this chapter was a fatal blow to the Amalekites. We indeed find that they still subsisted as a people, for David undertook an expedition against them while he was living in the country of the Philistines (chap. xxvii. 8; 2 Sam. i. 1). After that they cease to be historically noticed; but in the book of Esther we find Haman, an individual of that nation, high in the favour of the Persian king. See further on this subject in-Iperen, Hist. Crit. Edumæorum et Amalekitarum, 1768 Calmet, art. AMALEK; D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, arts. AD,' 'AMLAK;' and Michaelis's Commentaries, art. xxii.

4. ' Telaim.'—This is supposed to be the same as Telem, mentioned in Josh. xv. 24, among the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah towards the coast of Edom southward.'

-Two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.'-This is a very small proportion for so important and populous a tribe as that of Judah to supply: and the deficiency in its contributions is probably recorded on this as on a former occasion, in order to intimate that, since the sceptre had been of old promised to this tribe, it was not generally content to see a Benjamite upon the throne, and was less hearty than the other tribes in its obedience.

7. Havilah. This certainly was not the district mentioned in the description of the garden of Eden as the land of Havilah.' Some indeed suppose it so: and believing, with us, that the Havilah near Eden was about the head of the Persian Gulf, they think that Saul traversed all the wide distance between, in pursuit of the Amalekites. This is absolutely incredible, and is contrary to the text, which makes the pursuit be towards Egypt, whereas this would be exactly away from Egypt. The text evidently places this Havilah near the south of Judah. There are two explanations: one is, that the whole breadth of country forming the north of Arabia, from the Persian Gulf to the south frontiers of Palestine, was called Havilah, and that the statement in Gen. ii. refers to the

eastern part of this land, and the present account to the western: or else, that there was more than one Havilah,and this is exceedingly probable, when we recollect that the name is taken from Havilah the son of Cush, and who may, like his father, have left his name to different regions in which his descendants successively settled. Josephus very properly describes the Amalekites of this history as occupying the country between Pelusium in Egypt and the Red Sea.

9. Saul and the people spared Agag.'-Josephus says that they were won upon to spare him by the beauty and tallness of his person. It is remarkable, by the by, that the Arabians make the Amalekites to have been giants; and they believe that Goliath himself was an Amalekite.

12. Carmel.'-This must not be confounded with Mount Carmel. It is mentioned in Josh. xv. 55, among the southern cities of Judah, and its name occurs between those of Maon and Ziph. Nabal, who resided at Maon, had his possessions in Carmel (1 Sam. xxv. 2). The place is probably the same as the Carmelia,' which Jerome describes as being in his time a village, ten miles east of Hebron, where there was then a Roman garrison.

He set him up a place.'-This undoubtedly means that he set up a trophy or monument of his victory over the Amalekites. This we learn from 2 Sam. xviii. 18, where we read that Absalom set up a pillar and called it the monument (72, the same word here rendered 'place') of Absalom. It was usual in ancient times to erect some monument or other, in commemoration of a victory, generally on the spot where it had been obtained. This was

MONUMENTAL TROPHY.

probably the design of Saul's monument. It is difficult to say what it was. Perhaps it was a pillar or obelisk: Jerome makes it a triumphal arch; and he says it was usual to make an arch of myrtle, palm, and olive branches on such occasions. The trophies, however, with which ancient authors make us best acquainted, were originally a heap of the arms and spoils taken from the enemy. Such spoils were in later times hung in an orderly manner upon a column or decayed tree; and, in the end, representations of such trophies, in brass or marble, were substituted. They were consecrated to some divinity, with a suitable inscription; and the sanctity with which they were invested prevented people from disturbing or throwing them down; but when they fell down, or were destroyed by accident or time, they were never restored, under the impression that ancient enmities ought not to be perpetuated. In the eleventh book of the Eneid Virgil has fully described the process of forming the most usual trophy, that of arms fixed on a denuded or decayed tree.

The word 7 yad, applied to this monument and to Absalom's pillar, literally means a hand, and is so translated in the Septuagint; whence it has been supposed by some that the trophy in question was surmounted by the figure of a hand, which is, in Scripture, the general emblem of strength and power. In the note to Num. ii. 2, we have mentioned instances of standards surmounted by the figure of a hand: and the cut of Roman standards exhibits two of this description. To which we may add that, in the mosques of Persia, generally, the domes (for they have seldom minarets like the Turks) are surmounted by the figure of an outspread hand, in the place where the Turks would put a crescent, and we a cross or a vane.

26. The Lord hath rejected thee from being king.'-It would be wrong to consider Saul's transgression in the matter of the Amalekites as the sole act or occasion for which this rejection was incurred. It was but one of many acts by which he indicated an utter incapability of apprehending his true position, and in consequence manifested dispositions and conduct utterly at variance with the principles of government which the welfare of the state, and indeed the very objects of its foundation, made it most essential to maintain. Unless the attempts at absolute independence made by Saul were checked, or visited with some signal mark of the Divine displeasure, the precedents established by the first king were likely to become the rule to future sovereigns. And hence the necessity, now at the beginning, of peculiar strictness, or even of severity, for preventing the establishment of bad rules and precedents for future kings.

6

29. The Strength of Israel will not lie.'-The original is more emphatic- He who gives victory to Israel; an expression probably designed to convey a further rebuke to the perverse king for the triumphal monument which he had set up in Carmel, and whereby he had secured to himself that honour for the recent victory which, under the principles of the theocracy, was due to God alone.

32. Agag came unto him delicately.'- Cheerfully' would be a more intelligible rendering of the original (ni maadannoth) than delicately.' It seems that Agag thought he had nothing further to apprehend, now that he had obtained the protection of the king.

33. Samuel hewed Agag in pieces.'-It is not clear whether Samuel did this himself or commanded others to do it. The latter is certainly rendered possible by the frequent practice of describing a great personage as doing that which he commanded to be done. But, on the other hand, there is nothing in the act incompatible with Oriental usage, or with the position which Samuel occupied. Samuel was not a priest, but only a Levite; and the Levites seem to have held themselves bound to act for the Lord with their swords when required; as in the instance of the slaughter with which they punished their brethren for their sin in worshipping the golden calf: and, on a later occasion, even a priest-Phinehas, afterwards highpriest,-in the fervour of his zeal, took a javelin and slew therewith Zimri and Cosbi, as recorded in Num. xxv.

135

It

is not, and never was, in the East, unusual for persons in power to slay offenders with their own hands. În the preceding book, we have seen Gideon himself destroying the two captive kings of Midian; and in illustration of more modern usage there is an anecdote in Chardin, which illustrates not only this point, but the hewing in pieces, and also the idea concerning the connecting bond formed by the eating of another's salt, to which we have had previous occasions to refer. The circumstance occurred in Persia when Chardin was there. The king, rising in wrath against an officer who had attempted to deceive him, drew his sabre, fell upon him, and hewed him to pieces, at the feet of the grand vizier, who was standing; and looking fixedly upon him, and the other great lords who stood on each side of him, he said, with a tone of indignation, "I have then such ungrateful servants and traitors as these to eat my salt. Look on this sword, it shall cut off all these perfidious heads." Hewing in pieces is still sometimes resorted to as an arbitrary punishment in different eastern countries; but we believe it is nowhere sanctioned by law, which indeed seldom directs the mode by which death shall be inflicted. Bruce notices instances

of this form of death in Abyssinia; and it is mentioned among the atrocities of Djezzar, the notorious pacha of Acre, that he caused fifty or sixty officers of his seraglio, whom he suspected of fraud, to be hewed in pieces, each by the sword of two janissaries. It was not a Hebrew form of punishment, but appears to have been resorted to in the present instance in order to inflict on Agag the same kind of death which he had been accustomed to inflict on others: for the 'as,' with which Samuel's answer commences, implies analogy of action-that is, that his (Agag's) mother should be made childless, in the same manner as he had made women childless.

35. Samuel mourned for Saul. The prophet had much personal regard for a man who, with all his faults, had many fine natural qualities which would well have fitted him to rule with credit under a merely human monarchy; and who, moreover, was faithful, and even jealous of Jehovah as his God, however deficient in obedience to him as his king. He therefore continued to mourn greatly for him, and to bewail the doom which it had been his painful duty to declare.

CHAPTER XVI.

1 Samuel, sent by God under pretence of a sacrifice, cometh to Beth-lehem. 6 His human judgment is reproved. 13 He anointeth David. 19 Saul sendeth for David to quiet his evil spirit.

AND the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.

2 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the LORD said, Take an heifer 'with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the LORD.

3 And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.

4 And Samuel did that which the LORD spake, and came to Beth-lehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his 'coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?

5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.

6 ¶ And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD's anointed is before him.

7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man

1 Heb. in thine hand. 5 2 Sam. 7. 8.

:

looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the LORD chosen this.

9 Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the LORD chosen this.

10 Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The LORD hath not chosen these.

11 And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, 'Send and fetch him: for we will not sit 'down till he come hither.

12 And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the LORD said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.

13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, | and went to Ramah.

14 ¶ But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

15 And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.

16 Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall

41 Chiron. 28. 9. Psal. 7. 9. Jer. 11. 20, and 17 10, and 20. 12.
7 Heb. fair of eyes.
8 Or, terrified.

17 And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me.

18 Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him.

19 Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep.

20 And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul.

21 And David came to Saul, and stood before him and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer.

22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favour in my sight.

23 And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

Verse 12. He was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to.'-Rather, 'He was ruddy, with beautiful eyes, and a goodly appearance.' Calmet, with whom Dr. Hales concurs, makes David to have been fifteen years of age at this time. Josephus, indeed, says that he was but ten; but this is perhaps too young for him to have charge of the sheep; and twenty-five, the age given by Lightfoot, is too old for the context.

14. An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.'-The doom of exclusion had been pronounced upon Saul at a time when he was daily strengthening himself on the throne, and increasing in power, popularity, and fame; and when his eldest son, Jonathan, stood, and deserved to stand, so high in the favour of all the people, that no man could, according to human probabilities, look upon any one else as likely to succeed him in the throne. But when the excitement of war and victory had subsided, and the king had leisure to consider and brood over the solemn and declaredly irrevocable sentence which the prophet had pronounced, a very serious effect was gradually produced upon his mind and character; for he was no longer prospered and directed by God, but left a prey to his own gloomy mind. The consciousness that he had not met the requirements of the high vocation to which, when he was little in his own sight,' he had been called, together with the threatened loss of his dominion and the possible destruction of his house, made him jealous, sanguinary, and irritable, and occasionally threw him into fits of the most profound and morbid melancholy. This is what, in the language of Scripture, is called 'the evil spirit that troubled him. That it was not a case of demoniacal possession, as some have been led by this form of expression to suppose, is obvious from the effects to which we shall presently advert. Nor was it needful; for, as acting upon the character of man, earth contains not a more evil spirit than the guilty or troubled mind, abandoned to its own impulses. 21. David came to Saul!'-Thus, in the providence of God, an opening was made for David, whereby he might become acquainted with the manners of the court, the business of government, and the affairs and interests of the several tribes, and was put in the way of securing the equally important advantage of becoming extensively known to the people. These were training circumstances for the high destinies which awaited him. Saul himself, ignorant that in him he beheld the man worthier than himself' on whom the inheritance of his throne was to devolve, contributed to these preparations. He received the youthful minstrel with favour; and, won by his en

gaging dispositions, and by the beauties of his mind and person, not less than by the melody of his harp, became much attached to him. The personal bravery of David, also, did not long remain unnoticed by the veteran hero, who soon elevated him to the honourable and confidential station of his armour-bearer-having obtained Jesse's consent to allow his son to remain in attendance upon him. His presence was a great solace and relief to Saul: for whenever he fell into fits of melancholy, David played on his harp before him; and its soft soothing strains soon calmed his troubled spirit, and brought peace to his soul.

23. Saul was refreshed and was well.'-That the proposal of employing a skilful musician emanated from the courtiers of Saul, evinces that the Jews were of opinion that music had much power in soothing mental disorders; and from the instance of Elisha's preparing his mind by the notes of a minstrel for the prophetic inspiration (2 Kings iii. 15), we gather the opinion that was entertained of its influence over even sane minds. Every nation bears witness to the power of its ancient music; and if the accounts left to us are to be credited, the ruder art of ancient times had some mysterious access to the heart and mind, which the more artistical combinations of modern musical art do not in the same degree possess. It may be, however, that the power of the music lay more in the susceptibilities of the auditors than in the skill of the musicians. Dryden's fine Ode of Alexander's Feast is founded upon the notions of the power of music which the ancients enter tained, and is scarcely an exaggerated representation of the effects they ascribed to it. They even assigned to it marked effects not only upon the mind, but, by sympathetic influences, upon the body. Thus Aulus Gellius (Noctes Attica, ii. 13) says, 'It has been credited by many, and has been handed down to memory, that when the pains of sciatica are most severe, they will be assuaged by the soft notes of a flute-player. I have very lately read in a book of Theophrastus, that the melody of the flute, skilfully and delicately managed, has power to heal the bites of vipers. The same is related in a book of Democritus, which is entitled, "Of Plagues and Pestilential Disorders:" in this he says that the melody of flutes is a remedy for many human complaints. So great is the sympathy betwixt the bodies and the minds of men, and betwixt the maladies and remedies of mind and body.' Even the Chinese writers of every age, according to Grosier, affirm that their ancient music could call down superior spirits from the etherial regions, raise up the manes of departed beings, inspire men with a love of virtue, and lead them to the practice of their duty.