1 Samuel 15:22-23

The rebuke of Samuel contains one of those pregnant sayings which mark the high moral tone of the teaching of the prophets, and soon became a fundamental principle with them. To obey is better than sacrifice is a dictum reproduced by Hosea ( Hosea 6:6 ), the most ancient of those prophets of Israel whose lessons have been preserved in writing; it is referred to in still earlier psalms (see Psalms 1:1-6 :8-14; Psalms 51:16 , Psalms 51:17 ); by other prophets ( Isaiah 1:11 ; Jeremiah 6:20 ; Micah 6:6 , Micah 6:8 ); and finally received our Lord's special approbation ( Matthew 9:13 ; Matthew 12:7 ). It asserts in the clearest terms the superiority of moral to ritual worship, and that God can only be really served with the heart. Witchcraft is in the Hebrew divination, a sin always strongly condemned in the Old Testament. Iniquity literally means nothingness, and so is constantly used for "an idol;" and this must be its signification here, as the word coupled with it, and rendered idolatry , is really teraphim. These were the Hebrew household gods, answering to the Roman Lares, and were supposed to bring good luck. Their worship, we see from this place, was strictly forbidden. The verse, therefore, means, "For rebellion is the sin of divination ( i.e. is equal to it in wickedness), and obstinacy ( i.e. intractableness) is an idol and teraphim." Samuel thus accuses Saul of resistance to Jehovah's will, and of the determination at all hazards to be his own master. With this temper of mind he could be no fit representative of Jehovah, and therefore Samuel dethrones him. Henceforward he reigns only as a temporal, and no longer as the theocratic, king.

SAUL 'S PROFESSION OF REPENTANCE AND FINAL REJECTION (verses 24-35).