Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Allegorically Saul was a type of Christ, and this by three analogies which Bede recounts, book 2 on Samuel chap. 3: “First,” he says, “because Saul descended from the tribe of Benjamin, that is, the son of the right hand: so the family of Christ the Lord, which is fed and ruled by him, is wholly of the right hand; for his charity is perfectly generated only in those who belong to the right side of the kingdom. Second, because Saul was higher than all the people, or was eminent above all the people; so Christ the Lord easily surpassed all by the glory of his holiness and power. For who among the sons of God shall be like to God?” And again: “He that cometh from heaven is above all. Third, because Saul, about to be anointed king, was hid at home; so also Christ the Lord, when they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, fled.” Nor is it without mystery that Saul is hidden at home: “Because Christ the Lord,” says Bede, “shows that he ought to be sought within, within he can be found, within is what he teaches; within he shows whither he leads.”
25. AND SAMUEL TOLD THE PEOPLE THE LAW OF THE KINGDOM,—that is, prescribed the laws to be observed both by the king toward the people, and by the people toward the king, namely what the king ought to render to the people, and in turn what the people to the king. Hence it is clear that the right of the king recounted by Samuel chap. 8, verse 11, is not legitimate, but unjustly usurped.
26. AND LAID IT UP BEFORE THE LORD,—namely before the ark of the Lord. Here, therefore, Samuel publicly before all the people pronounced Saul king by God’s command, and therefore publicly anointed him again, and adorned him with the diadem and the other royal insignia. So Abulensis, and it is sufficiently gathered from the renewal of the kingdom which is said to have been made in the following chapter, verse 14.
SAUL ALSO WENT TO HIS HOUSE IN GABAA.—Mystically St. Gregory: “The house of the king,” he says, “is said to be situated in Gabaa. For Gabaa is called lofty. The house of the king is therefore shown to be in Gabaa, because the elect Doctor strives not to dwell in lowly and earthly thoughts, but to meditate on high and heavenly things.”
27. BUT THE CHILDREN OF BELIAL (untamed, proud, froward, disobedient, rebellious men) SAID: SHALL THIS FELLOW BE ABLE TO SAVE US?—“This fellow,” namely vile, plebeian, ignoble, unknown, untried; what will this long fellow do? what will this fleshly tower furnish? “There is not a grain of salt in so great a body.” To what purpose is the haughty brow of so great a giant, unless to look down on our heads, and crush and beat them with his arms? This will be our Cacus, of whom Ovid:
Dire was the man’s look, strength proportioned to the body, a huge body: the father of this monster was Mulciber.
BUT HE DISSEMBLED AS IF HE HEARD NOT.—In Hebrew, he made himself deaf, he bore himself as though deaf: “For he was unwilling,” says Dionysius, “to begin his reign with disturbance, strife and blood. For if he had shown that he heard those words, and had not avenged them, he would seem pusillanimous; but if he avenged them, it would have been ascribed to ferocity and arrogance.” He rightly dissembled, therefore, and pretended not to hear, according to that of Ecclesiasticus 32:12 [?]: “In many things be as one ignorant.” Wisely St. Isidore, book 3 of the Sentences chap. 51: “Very often,” he says, “a just prince knows how even to dissemble the errors of the wicked, not that he consents to their iniquity, but that he awaits a fit time of correction, when he can amend their vices; for princes,” he says, “security is surer from mildness, because frequent vengeance represses the hatred of a few, but irritates that of all.” And a little below: “Clemency, therefore, renders them not only more honorable but safer; and it is the ornament of empires and at once the surest safety.” St. Bernard, to Pope Eugenius: “Chastise few things,” he says; “dissemble many.” Of the clemency of the Emperor Theodosius in injuries: “Thou hast already forgiven the injury; thou hast recalled the daughters of thy enemy, and given them to be brought up with a relative; to the mother of thy foe thou hast sent expenses from thy treasury.” And Augustine, book 5 On the City, chap. 26: “The sons of his enemies,” he says, “whom not his command but the rush of war had taken away, he loved with Christian charity; nor did he deprive them of their goods, but increased them with honors.”
St. Ambrose gives the reason, sermon 20: “For the more patient anyone is of injury, the more powerful he is established in the kingdom.” Wisely St. Ambrose, book 2 On the Interpellation of Job, chap. 2: “He ought to be silent,” he says, “who recognizes the charge brought, lest he exasperate the wound and the scar be torn open; to be silent also who does not recognize it; for he hears another’s crime, not his own; which if he repeats, he makes his own; if he is silent, he turns it back, and wounds the reviler.”
More wisely Tertullian, book On Patience, chap. 8, teaches that the ears are to be closed lest they hear injuries: “If I hear with too little equanimity some froward or wicked word spoken against me,” he says, “I must myself render a return of bitterness; or I shall be tortured by dumb impatience. But he who has stopped his ears to words of this kind will be rescued from both inconveniences; neither speaking will he curse, nor silent will he be afflicted. So David stopped his ears. But I, he says, as a deaf man heard not, and as a dumb man not opening his mouth; and I became as a man that heareth not, and hath no reproofs in his mouth.”
Tertullian adds the fruit of this patience:
“Every injury,” he says, “whether inflicted by tongue or by hand, when it has struck against patience, will be spent by the same blow by which a dart hurled against a rock of most constant hardness is blunted. For it will fall there as a vain and fruitless work, and sometimes, rebounding, will rage against him who sent it with a reciprocal force. Surely he injures thee that thou mayest grieve; the fruit of the injurer is in the grief of the injured. When therefore thou hast overturned his fruit by not grieving, he himself must grieve at the loss of his fruit.”
It is royal, therefore, nay divine, to despise injuries, to overlook and forgive them, and to overwhelm with benefits.
Naas king of Ammon wishes to put out the right eyes of the men of Jabes Galaad. Saul hears this, and gathers an army, with which he cuts down the camp of Naas to extermination. Wherefore, verse 12, the Hebrews applaud him, and confirm the kingdom to him in Galgal.
1. And it came to pass about a month after, that Naas the Ammonite came up, and began to fight against Jabes Galaad. And all the men of Jabes said to Naas: Make a league with us, and we will serve thee. 2. And Naas the Ammonite answered them: On this condition will I make a league with you, that I may pluck out all your right eyes, and lay you to be a reproach in all Israel. 3. And the ancients of Jabes said to him: Grant us seven days that we may send messengers to all the coasts of Israel: and if there be no man to defend us, we will come out to thee. 4. The messengers therefore came to Gabaa of Saul, and spoke these words in the hearing of the people: and all the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5. And behold Saul came, following the oxen out of the field, and said: What aileth the people that they weep? And they told him the words of the men of Jabes. 6. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, when he had heard these words, and his anger was exceedingly kindled. 7. And taking both the oxen, he cut them in pieces, and sent them into all the coasts of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying: Whosoever shall not come forth and follow Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell upon the people, and they went out as one man. 8. And he numbered them in Bezec: and there were of the children of Israel three hundred thousand, and of the men of Juda thirty thousand. 9. And they said to the messengers that came: Thus shall you say to the men that are in Jabes Galaad: Tomorrow you shall have relief, when the sun shall be hot. The messengers therefore came, and told it to the men of Jabes: and they were glad. 10. And they said: In the morning we will come out to you, and you shall do to us whatsoever shall please you. 11. And it was so, that when the next day was come, Saul put the people in three companies, and he entered into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and they smote the Ammonites till the heat of the day: and they that remained were scattered, so that there were not two of them left together. 12. And the people said to Samuel: Who is he that said: Shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men, and we will kill them. 13. And Saul said: No man shall be killed this day, because today the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel. 14. And Samuel said to the people: Come, and let us go to Galgal, and let us renew the kingdom there. 15. And all the people went to Galgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Galgal, and they sacrificed there victims of peace offerings before the Lord. And Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced exceedingly.