The acts recorded as darkening the fair dawn of Saul's reign may seem
too trivial to deserve the stern retribution that followed them, but
small acts may be great sins. The first of them was his offering
sacrifices without authority, an act which Samuel stigmatised as
wanton, deliberate disobedience to 'the commandment of the Lord thy
God.' Next came his rash and absurd laying of a curse on any soldier
who should eat food before evening, and his consequent mad
determination to kill Jonathan, for 'taking a little honey' on the end
of his rod. Next came his flagrant disobedience to the divine command
transmitted to him through Samuel, to 'smite Amalek, and utterly
destroy all that they have, and spare them not,' We shudder at such
ferocious extermination, but we are to remember that Saul was moved by
no pity, but by mere lust for loot, and tried to deceive God, in the
person of His representative Samuel, by the lie that the people had
coerced him, and that the motive for preserving the best of the cattle
was to sacrifice them to the Lord. Samuel's blaze of indignation gave
the world the great word: 'Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.'
Putting all these acts together, we have the sad picture of a character
steadily deteriorating. He is growing daily more self-willed and
impatient of the restraint of God's commanding will. He is chafing at
his position as a viceroy, not an absolute sovereign. He is becoming
tyrannical, careless of his subjects' lives, intolerant of opposition,
remonstrance, or advice. The tragedy of his decadence is summed up in
Samuel's stern word: 'Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord,
He hath also rejected thee from being king.'
Trivial acts may show great and deep-seated evil. A small swelling
under the arm-pit is the sign of the plague and the precursor of swift
death.
The master-sin is disobedience, self-willed departure from God. That
disobedience may be as virulently active in a trifle as in a deed that
men call great. Self-will is the tap root of all sin, however
labyrinthine the outgrowth from it.
Disobedience honeycombs a soul. The attractive early traits in Saul's
character slowly perhaps but steadily, disappeared. The fair morning
sky was heavy with thunder-clouds by midday, and they all began with a
light fleecy film that none noticed at first.