The Amalekites thought they had conquered God, and that He would not
carry into execution His threats against them.
They had murdered the Israelites in battle and out of battle, and had
left no outrage untried. For four hundred years this had been going on,
and they said: “God either dare not punish us, or He has forgotten to do
so.”
Let us see.
Samuel, God’s prophet, tells Saul to go down and slay all the Amalekites,
not leaving one of them alive; also to destroy all the beasts in their
possession--sheep, ox, camel and ass.
Hark! I hear the tread of two hundred and ten thousand men, with
monstrous Saul at their head, ablaze with armor, his shield dangling at
his side, holding in his hand a spear, at the waving of which the great
host marched or halted.
The sound of their feet, shaking the Earth, seems like the tread of the
great God, as, marching in vengeance, He tramples nations into the dust.
I see smoke curling against the sky. Now there is a thick cloud of it,
and now I see the whole city rising in a chariot of smoke, behind steeds
of fire.
Saul has set the city ablaze.
The Amalekites and Israelites meet; the trumpets of battle blow peal on
peal, and there is a death hush.
Then there is a signal waved; swords cut and hack; javelins ring on
shields; arms fall from trunks and heads roll into the dust. Gash after
gash, the frenzied yell, the gurgling of throttled throats, the cry of
pain, the laugh of revenge, the curse hissed between clenched teeth--an
army’s death groan. Stacks of dead on all sides, with eyes unshut and
mouths yet grinning vengeance.
Huzza for the Israelites! Two hundred and ten thousand men wave their
plumes and clap their shields, for the Lord God has given them the
victory.
Yet the victorious warriors of Israel are conquered by sheep and oxen.
God, through His prophet, Samuel, told Saul to slay all the Amalekites,
and to slay all the beasts in their possession; but Saul, thinking that
he knows more than God, spares Agag, the Amalekitish king, and five
droves of sheep and a herd of oxen that he can not bear to kill.
Saul drives the sheep and oxen down toward home. He has no idea that
Samuel, the prophet, will discover that he has saved these sheep and oxen
for himself.
But Samuel comes and asks Saul the news from the battle. Saul puts on
a solemn face--for there is no one who can look more solemn than your
genuine hypocrite--and he says: “I have fulfilled the commandment of the
Lord.”
Samuel listens, and he hears the drove of sheep a little way off. Saul
had no idea the prophet’s ear would be so acute.
Samuel says to Saul: “If you have done as God told you, and have slain
all the Amalekites and all the beasts in their possession, what meaneth
the bleating of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen, that I
hear?”
Ah! One would have thought that blushes would have consumed the cheeks
of Saul. No, no! He says the army--not himself, of course, but the
army--saved the sheep and oxen for sacrifice; and then they thought it
would be too bad, anyhow, to kill Agag, the Amalekitish king.
Samuel takes the sword, and he slashes King Agag to pieces; and then he
takes the skirt of his coat, in true Oriental style, and rends it in
twain--as much as to say:
“You, Saul, just like that, shall be torn away from your empire, and torn
away from your throne.”
In other words, let all the nations of Earth hear the story that Saul, by
disobeying God, won a flock of sheep but lost a kingdom.
A hypocrite is one who pretends to be what he is not, or to do what he
does not. Saul was only a type of a class. When the fox prays, look to
your chickens.
Do not be hypocritical in any thing; you are never safe if you are. At
the most inopportune moment, the sheep will bleat and the oxen will
bellow.