1 Samuel 10:25

SAMUEL'S INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THE KINGSHIP

"Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship; and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home. Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts the Lord had touched. But some worthless fellows said, "How can this man save us"? And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace."

"And he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord" (1 Samuel 10:25). "As Moses had written the Law for the community of Israel, so Samuel now wrote the constitution of the theocratic kingdom."[20]

One cannot help wondering why that book on the rights and duties of the king was not preserved. Did some of the reprobate kings of Israel destroy it? That occurs to us as the most likely fate of it.

"Saul went to his home at Gibeah" (1 Samuel 10:26). This town had been destroyed in the war against Benjamin (Judges 19:20), but archaeologists have uncovered, "A little fortress there which probably served as Saul's headquarters during the Philistine wars ... It was a square, two-storied building, apparently with a tower at each corner, only one of which has been excavated."[21]

"Worthless fellows ... despised him. They brought him no present" (1 Samuel 10:27). This means that even after Saul's being anointed, and after his public proclamation as king following the casting of lots, the whole people of Israel had not received him as king. He went, not to a throne, but he went home. This indicates why phase three of his elevation was yet required.

It was an exceedingly difficult thing which God did in raising up a king for Israel. The tribes were not at all unified. Only recently there had been a savage war against Benjamin; and, in the days of Jephthah, the trans-Jordanic tribes fought the tribe of Ephraim with over forty thousand casualties of the Ephraimites.

Nevertheless, God would elevate Saul to the kingship; and that third phase of his so doing is next recorded in 1 Samuel 11.

The extreme humility and modesty of the young Saul as indicated in 1 Samuel 9:21 and also in his hiding in the baggage on this occasion contrast starkly with the pride and arrogance of the man later on in his history. Our feeling is that these original indications of Saul's humility were genuine; but a contrary opinion by Bennett is of interest. "These early expressions from Saul were merely according to the formula of Oriental etiquette, no more to be taken literally, than `Your obedient servant,' at the end of a letter."[22]