SAUL PROCLAIMED KING.
1 Samuel 10:17-24.
Saul and his servant had set out from their home with no greater commission than to find his father’s lost donkeys (cf. 1 Samuel 9:3). As a last resort, the servant suggested that they seek out the prophet Samuel: ‘peradventure he can shew us our way that we should go’ (cf.1 Samuel 9:6). When Samuel saw Saul, the LORD said to him, ‘This same shall reign over my people Israel’ (cf. 1 Samuel 9:17). Before Samuel sent Saul home the next day, he privately anointed him ‘captain’ over the LORD’s ‘inheritance’ (cf. 1 Samuel 10:1).
The reason for the ‘private’ anointing (as I called it) was twofold. First, it had to be clear that Samuel was not imposing his choice of king upon the people. Then, secondly, it was not Samuel’s idea that the people should have ‘a king to judge us like all the nations’ at all. The very idea displeased him, and was a rejection of the LORD’s kingship: but the LORD allowed it (cf. 1 Samuel 8:5-7).
Although both Samuel and Saul knew what was going to be the outcome, it only remained for the representatives of the people to draw lots in order to discern the LORD’s choice of a king (cf. Deuteronomy 17:14-15). So Samuel called the people together “unto the LORD” to Mizpeh (1 SAMUEL 10:17).
“Thus saith the LORD God of Israel,” Samuel prophesied (1 SAMUEL 10:18-19). The seer spoke first of how the LORD had “brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms that oppressed you.” Then he reminded them that by asking for a king they were rejecting their God, “who saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations” – a thing which they now expected a mortal king to accomplish for them!
The LORD was sovereign over all the circumstances of Saul’s calling and anointing. Now he would prove Himself sovereign over the people’s approval of Saul. The drawing of lots was used sparingly in ancient Israel: on the one hand to resolve contentions (cf. Proverbs 18:18); on the other to choose leaders (cf. Acts 1:26). In either case, it was not a game of ‘chance,’ but a discerning of what the will of the LORD is (cf. Proverbs 16:33).
So the lots were drawn, and the choice fell upon Saul, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin. But Saul was nowhere to be found (1 SAMUEL 10:20-21).
Despite his recent charismatic experience (cf. 1 Samuel 10:10-12), Saul temporarily shrunk from the task, and “hid himself among the luggage.” It was only after they had made further enquiry of the LORD that somebody “ran and fetched him” (1 SAMUEL 10:22-23).
For the second time in the narrative, attention is drawn to Saul’s height (1 SAMUEL 10:23; cf. 1 Samuel 9:2). This was the kind of king they had envisaged and wanted to ‘fight our battles’ (cf. 1 Samuel 8:20). However, it is not the LORD who is influenced by mere outward appearances (cf. 1 Samuel 16:7)!
The whole irony of this passage is that, in wanting a king at all, Israel was rejecting the LORD’s kingship: but in allowing them to have a king, the LORD put in place the structure wherein He might place David, the ‘man after His own heart’ (cf. 1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). ‘Of this man’s seed,’ Paul told the synagogue of Antioch-in-Pisidia, ‘hath God according to His promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus’ (cf. Acts 13:23).
