'Saul formed an army. The Hebrew text says 10,000 men of Judah and 200,000 foot soldiers of the other tribes. The Greek says 400,000 men of one and 30,000 of the other. The Alexandrian manuscript says only 10,000 of each, which is the most probable. Why these contradictions? Why these absurdities? For it is absurd to collect 200,000 men to take by surprise a small tribe of Bedouins. Saul departs and surprises the Amalekites in the desert; he kills all those who fall into his hands; takes their king alive; guards him together with the beasts and other booty. Returning triumphant to Mount Carmel, he descends to the valley where there is an altar, and prepares, says the text, to offer a sacrifice to God of the best among the spoil, according to the rites of the Greeks and Romans. Samuel arrives; but, says the historian, God had spoken to the seer (during the night) and had said, "I repent of having made Saul king, for he has turned from me and does not obey my orders." This, it is said, frightened Samuel, who cried to the Lord all night. Here again is a vision, a conference, a repentance from God! Could our negroes and savages hear such fables without laughing? The Jews believe all; they do not ask any proof of Samuel; he however is the only evidence; he only could have written such details. He is here author, actor, judge, and party. Who would be a Jew to believe upon his word? Yet it is a proverb, "as unbelieving as a Jew."
'Samuel arrives and advances to Saul. "What means," says he, "this noise of cattle that I hear?" Saul answers, "The people have spared the best of the effects of Amalek to offer to the Lord our God; we have destroyed the rest." "Allow me (replies Samuel) to relate what God said to me last night." "Speak," says Saul. "When you was little in your own eyes (says the Lord) did not I make you king of Israel, and now have I not sent you against Amalek directing you to exterminate him; why have you not fulfilled my commandment? Why have you sinned and kept the spoils?" "I have obeyed (replied Saul); I marched, I destroyed Amalek, and brought away the king alive, but the people have kept back these spoils and these victims of beasts to offer on the altar of God at Galgala." Samuel answers, "Does God demand these offerings and victims rather than obedience to his orders? You endeavour to ascertain good fortune by a victim, by inspecting the fat of rams; but know that the sin of divination is rebellion, a falsehood, an idolatry; but since you reject the commands of God he rejects your kingdom."
'Saul, feeble and superstitious, confesses himself culpable; he supplicates the ambassador of God to pray for the removal of his sin; the priest rejects his prayer, reiterates his deposition, and turns to leave him. Saul seizes the skirt of his coat or cloak to retain him; the priest, implacable, makes an effort by which the part is torn. "God (he repeats) has torn from you the kingdom of Israel, and has delivered it to a better; he has so decreed; is he man to repent?" Saul insists, "I have sinned, do not dishonour me before my people and before their chiefs; return to me, and I will humble myself before thy God." (These words seem remarkable; there were, then, among the Hebrews, other acknowledged Gods who lived on an equality with Jehovah.) And Samuel returned, and Saul humbled himself before Jehovah. Samuel then said, "Bring me Agag, king of Amalek;" and Agag being come, Samuel said to him, "What you have done to the children of our mothers that shall be done to yours;" and Samuel cut him in pieces [it seems with an axe]. Having performed this exploit, Samuel returned to Ramatah, and during his life did not visit Saul.
'What a barbarous scene! horrible it must be confessed; but I know some more horrible still pass before eyes in our day. Suppose that Samuel had brought Agag to Ramatah; that there he had confined him in a dungeon at the bottom of a cistern; that he had come every day with an attendant to make him undergo various tortures, to burn his feet—his hands, to stretch him upon a wooden horse, to dislocate him, etc. etc.; all this with honied terms, saying that it was all for his good; would not the lot of the victim have been a thousand times more dreadful? Ah! much better the open cruelty of the Hebrew priest, compared with the charity of the priests and monks which bless Rome! Yet the European Governments authorise and suffer such abominations! But did Samuel commit such an act without motive—without a projected object? That would not be in conformity to his deep and calculating character. We will examine these motives.
'For ten or twelve years Saul, by his victories, did not cease to flourish and strengthen his credit in the minds of all the nation. Samuel, finding himself eclipsed, took occasion to flatter the vindictive passion of the Hebrews against the Amalekites. The victory of Saul, and taking king Agag in disobedience to the command of God, who had ordered the extermination of the Amalekites, furnished Samuel with a pretence for striking the audacious blow of anointing a substitute to rival Saul. He thought it necessary to strike terror into their minds by a preliminary imposing step, which would make Saul dread the falling upon him of some new celestial anathema. It is certain that this manoeuvre of Samuel succeeded, since Saul did not dare to use any act of violence against him.
'In considering the action of Samuel in a general point of view, political and moral, it presents an astonishing union of pride, audacity, cruelty, and hypocrisy; a little orphan upstart, to decree from his caprice the extermination of a whole nation, even to the last living being! to insult—to abuse a king covered with laurels, become legitimate by his victories, and by the assent of the nation grateful for the peace and respect which he had procured for them! a priest to trouble this whole nation by a change of the prince, by the intrusion of a new elect of his choice. Here is found the first germ of that political division of the Hebrews which, suppressed under David and Solomon, broke out under the imprudent Rheoboam, and prepared the fall of the nation by rending it into two kingdoms.
'We see here the fruits of that divine or visionary power imprudently allowed by a people, stupified by superstition, to a king, otherwise worthy of esteem, but feeble-minded. We see an impostor, who dared to call himself the sent of God, the representative of God, finally, God himself (for such is the transition of ideas which will not fail to occur when the first is tolerated), turning all this to his profit. The plain historian achieves, without knowing it, the tracing of the portrait and character of Samuel, in saying, "Samuel did not see Saul any more; but lamented his misfortune that God had rejected him."'
Chapter xvi., v. 2. Here the Lord directs Samuel to tell a lie, yet in Proverbs, chap, xii., v. 22, we are told that lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.
Verse 4. Our version says the elders 'trembled,' the Douay says they 'wondered,' and the Breeches Bible says they were 'astonished.'
Verse 7. The choice of Saul, whose height was so great (vide chap, x., v. 23), being an unfortunate one, this time the selection is made on totally different principles.