It’s healthy “heart” week on the blog – 1st Samuel 13 & 14, Part 1

In my family over the past few months, we’ve talked a lot about the heart.  Our granddaughter has had two open heart surgeries.  Here in Lancaster we have The Heart Group. The Heart Group website lists 55 practitioners who are all there to evaluate your heart.  My guess is that you have a medical practice near you that specializes in heart health. We get physicals to check out health, and our hearts are a central part of that.  Eat heart healthy!  Eat Cheerios.  How’s your heart?

This week on the blog we’re going to have a heart check-up of sorts. We begin with 1 Samuel 13. The brand new Kingdom of Israel is off to a smashing start.  We learned last week that Israel’s first king, Saul, filled with the Spirit, led the people to a decisive victory over the Ammonites.  Saul then gives credit to God.  When a controversy arises, Saul makes a wise ruling.  The prophet Samuel in his retirement speech helps the people repent of their sins and return to the Lord.  Things are going so well.

But chapter 12 concluded on a bit of a sour note.  Look at chapter 12 verse 25.  This is how Samuel concludes his retirement speech, with a dire warning: “Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will perish.”  Mic drop. Samuel leaves the stage and walks off.  Quite a dramatic finish.

Samuel, why are you raining on their parade?  Why so negative, right in the middle of a celebration.  Can’t you just let them enjoy the victory celebration?  Well, Samuel gives them a warning for good reason, as we will find out.  That brings us to chapter 13.

In chapter 13, verses 1 & 2, we learn that King Saul chose a standing army of 3000 men, of which 1000 were under the leadership of a man named Jonathan.  This is the first time we are meeting Jonathan.  We will learn more about his identity later in the passage. 

In verses 3-10 Jonathan attacks the Philistines.  The text tells us next to nothing about Jonathan at this point.  But we can infer that, whoever he is, Jonathan is willing to fight. 

But Jonathan’s attack makes King Saul nervous.  Saul fears that the Philistines will counterattack, and so King Saul summons men from all over Israel to join the army, and they gather at Gilgal.  Sure enough, the Philistines amass a huge army in response to Jonathan’s attack.  When the Israelites see the Philistine horde, the Israelites quake in fear, many fleeing into hiding. 

Saul waits at Gilgal for seven anxious days.  Why wait?  The prophet Samuel apparently had told Saul to wait, as Samuel would be arriving in 7 days.  If we scan back to 1 Samuel 10:8, we read there that Samuel asks Saul to wait for 7 days when Samuel will arrive and make sacrifices. That episode appears to be potentially years earlier, taking place during the selection of Saul as king. Might they somehow be referring to the same event? Possibly, but that speculation is highly doubtful in my mind.

It seems, instead, that the events of 1 Samuel 13 are different from the events of 1 Samuel 10. Yet the idea of Saul waiting for Samuel for 7 days to make sacrifices occurs in both. It is possible that Samuel, in 1 Samuel 10, is giving Saul a directive that should be applied to all future situations in which Saul would desire a sacrifice. In other words, Saul should not see himself as both king and priest. He was king, but when it came to inquiring of God, Saul should defer to a priest.

The reason for this is not selfish on Samuel’s part, as if he want to keep himself in a job, or in power. The Mosaic Law forbade anyone but a priest from the tribe of Levi to offer sacrifices. Saul was neither, as he was from the tribe of Benjamin. This, however, raises another issue, as 1st Samuel 1 that Samuel’s father was of the tribe of Ephraim. Even though Samuel was trained by the Levite Eli in the rituals of the tabernacle, Samuel is not a Levite. Or is he?

1st Chronicles 6:19-38 lists the Kothahite Levites, including Elkanah and his son, Samuel. So why does 1st Samuel 1 not mention this? We learn in Joshua 21:5 that Kothahite Levites settled in Ephraim. It is possible, then, that 1st Samuel 1 is emphasizing Samuel’s geographical home rather than his genealogical lineage. It seems, therefore, that we have strong evidence for Samuel being judge, prophet and priest, legitimizing his practice of offering sacrifices.

We still need to address the seven days request. While Samuel never specifically explains why he makes this request of Saul, it may be as simple as a geographic reality. Perhaps Samuel lived far enough away from Gilgal that it would require about seven days for Saul to contact him, request his presence, and for Samuel to arrive in Gilgal.

The implication is that Samuel, as prophet of the Lord, would sacrifice an offering to the Lord, thus inviting God to intervene in the battle.  With the Philistine force advancing, and with the Israelite army quaking in fear, will Saul be able to wait?

Seven days come and go, and Saul does wait.  But Samuel doesn’t show.  Saul is desperate at this point because his already fearful men are starting to go AWOL.  If Saul and his men have any chance against the Philistines, he needs to do someone fast before his army dwindles to nothing and the Philistines destroy them.  So Saul believes he needs to make the sacrifice, he can wait no longer.  Just as he is finishing the sacrifice, who shows up?  Samuel. 

This is one of those scenes that is so common in life.  You know the feeling when you get caught.  It’s a horrible feeling.  Such as when you’re in your office playing solitaire on your computer and someone quietly pops around the corner to say “Hi,” and they see you not working, but playing a game.  I might know something about that.

But in this case, even if Samuel didn’t show up right then, even if Saul completed the sacrifice and led his men to battle, even if Samuel showed up days later, Saul had to know that word was going to get back to Samuel that Saul didn’t wait for him.  So what was Saul thinking?  How is Saul’s heart? We’re about to find out…in the next post.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash