Context No. 3778 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

1 Samuel 14:34-40: in context

34Saul said, “Disperse yourselves among the people, and tell them, ‘Every man bring me here his ox, and every man his sheep, and kill them here, and eat; and don’t sin against the LORD in eating meat with the blood.’” All the people brought every man his ox with him that night, and killed them there. 35Saul built an altar to the LORD. This was the first altar that he built to the LORD. 36Saul said, “Let’s go down after the Philistines by night, and take plunder among them until the morning light. Let’s not leave a man of them.” They said, “Do whatever seems good to you.” Then the priest said, “Let’s draw near here to God.” 37Saul asked counsel of God: “Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you deliver them into the hand of Israel?” But he didn’t answer him that day. 38Saul said, “Draw near here, all you chiefs of the people, and know and see in whom this sin has been today. 39For as the LORD lives, who saves Israel, though it is in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.” But there was not a man among all the people who answered him. 40Then he said to all Israel, “You be on one side, and I and Jonathan my son will be on the other side.” The people said to Saul, “Do what seems good to you.”

This passage shows Saul's troubling pattern of rash and self-important religiosity. He builds an altar, seeks God's guidance, and when God does not answer, he swears a solemn oath that whoever has sinned must die, even if it is his own son Jonathan, who in fact had unknowingly broken Saul's earlier reckless command.

Saul is zealous for the outward forms, altars, oaths, seeking counsel, but his zeal is misdirected and harsh. He is quick to make binding vows and quick to condemn, ready even to put his own son to death to save his pride, while the real problem, God's silence, points back to Saul's own failures. There is a warning here about a religion that is fierce in its outward observances yet lacks wisdom and mercy. Saul's rash oath nearly cost an innocent life; his zeal for keeping face before the people mattered more to him than justice or his own son. Real devotion to God is marked not by harsh, self-serving vows but by wisdom, humility, and mercy.

Is my devotion marked by wisdom, humility, and mercy, or, like Saul's, by rash vows and harsh zeal that serve my own pride more than they honor God?

Sources

1 Samuel 14:39: "For as the LORD lives, who saves Israel, though it is in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die. But there was not a man among all the people who answered him."
1 Samuel 14:35: "Saul built an altar to the LORD. This was the first altar that he built to the LORD."
Matthew 12:7: "If you had known what this means, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless."