Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND.—Josephus has less truly: forty thousand; the corrected Septuagint, four hundred thousand.
AND TEN THOUSAND MEN OF JUDA.—These are numbered apart, because they were stronger and more warlike, say Hugh, Abulensis and Dionysius.
6. AND SAUL SAID TO THE CINITE.—The Cinites were descendants of Jethro the father-in-law of Moses; and therefore friends of him and of the Hebrews; and they were religious and pious men: wherefore Saul calls them out from the Amalecites, lest they be involved with them in the common destruction of the nation. See what is said on Exodus 17.
FOR THOU HAST SHEWN MERCY TO ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, WHEN THEY CAME UP OUT OF EGYPT.—What mercy, when and where? Some answer, when Jethro received Moses fleeing from Egypt into Madian, and fed him, and betrothed his daughter Sephora to him as wife, Exodus 2, 20. So Rabanus, Hugh and the Author of the Traditions in St. Jerome. But this mercy was shown to Moses alone, not to all the children of Israel, since they were still living in Egypt, before their going out from it; whereas here it is said to be shown: “When (they) came up,” that is, went out “of Egypt.” Secondly, others say that reference is made here to Jahel the Cinite woman, who killed Sisara the enemy of the Jews, Judges chap. 4, verse 21. But this was done not in the “coming up,” that is, the going out of the Hebrews from Egypt, but long after their entrance into Chanaan.
Thirdly, then, and genuinely, it was done when Hobab, the son of Jethro, the Cinite, came to Moses and the Hebrews wandering in the desert, and directed them by his counsel, and helped them in all things. Whence Moses said to him, when he wished to return to his own in Madian: “Thou knowest in what places we should encamp in the desert, and thou shalt be our guide,” not to show us the way into Chanaan: for this the Angel showed, going before the camp in the pillar of cloud, and being the leader of the way; but to show us where in this desert there are fountains for drinking, pastures to feed our flocks, wood for the fire, and the like. For this desert was near Madian, from which Hobab was sprung. Whence he knew well this desert and its fountains, pastures and woods. So Abulensis, Hugh, Dionysius, Mendoza and others.
9. AND SAUL AND THE PEOPLE SPARED AGAG,—either out of pride, that he might triumph over him, says Serarius; or rather out of avarice, to extort from him a huge ransom and hidden treasures, says Lyranus: as the Spaniards a hundred years ago, from Atabaliba, king of America whom they had captured, extorted as ransom a chamber filled with gold; but when he could not furnish it filled so far as he had promised, he was killed by them; or finally from human compassion toward a king, says Abulensis. Whence Josephus says that Saul spared the life of king Agag, on account of his bodily excellence, and the likeness of his royal fortune; but preposterously: for God, verse 3, had commanded him to be killed with all his. Saul was therefore disobedient to God, who preferred his own cupidity or compassion to the judgment and command of God. Whence in him was fulfilled the prophecy of Balaam, Num. 24, 7: “For Agag his king (Saul) shall be taken away, and his kingdom shall be taken away.” See what is said there.
AND THE BEST OF THE FLOCKS OF SHEEP AND OF THE HERDS, AND THE GARMENTS, AND THE RAMS, AND ALL THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL (repeat: they spared), AND WOULD NOT DESTROY THEM: BUT EVERYTHING THAT WAS VILE AND GOOD FOR NOTHING, THAT THEY DESTROYED.—Behold here a new disobedience of Saul and the people, proceeding from cupidity and avarice, which blinded their judgment, so that they judged it better that these things be preserved for human uses than burned or destroyed; even though God had commanded it. Saul therefore preferred his own judgment to the judgment and decree of God; and therefore gravely offended Him, and stirred up His anger against himself, so that he was deprived of the kingdom and at last of life. For God had clearly commanded, verse 3, saying: “Utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his, but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” What could be said and commanded more expressly? There was therefore here no place for evasion or excuse; but mere cupidity and disobedience shine out. The cupidity, then, of spoils and of so rich a prey blinded Saul and the people, so that they slew the worse and reserved the better for themselves, as Cain offered the worse to God and claimed the better for himself, and therefore was rejected by God with his gifts, Genesis 4. For God willed the Amalecites to be made a cherem, that is, an anathema, and to be cut off utterly, as He had done to Jericho by Josue chap. 6, verse 17. Wherefore as Achan, stealing something from it, was sacrilegious, and was therefore himself made an anathema, so also Saul, unmindful of Achan himself, says Theodoret and Procopius. See here the wretched fall of Saul, which was the cause of his reprobation; because, namely, he had begun well, but did not persevere in what he had begun, and therefore perished, and lost all. Pathetically does St. Bernard, epistle 119, bewail and reprove a young man falling away from his good beginnings and fervent desires: “I grieve for thee, my son Geoffrey, I grieve for thee, and rightly. For who would not grieve that the flower of thy youth, which, to the rejoicing of the angels, thou hadst offered to God untarnished for an odour of sweetness, is now trampled on by demons, defiled with the filth of vices and the dirt of the world? How is it that thou, who wert called by God, followest the devil calling thee back; and he whom Christ had begun to draw after Him, thou hast suddenly drawn back thy foot from the very entrance of glory?”
AND THE GARMENTS.—In Hebrew misnim, which Pagninus renders “fat,” as if misnim by metathesis were the same as mismanim, that is, fat ones. R. Solomon renders, “of the doubled,” that is, those which are doubled with flesh and fat, that is, fat ones. Others render, “yearlings,” from shana, that is, year. Our version rightly renders, “of the double,” namely garments: for these were better and more beautiful.
11. IT REPENTETH ME THAT I HAVE MADE SAUL KING.—He speaks anthropopathically, or in the human manner: for properly in God, since He is immutable, most wise, conscious and foreknowing of all future things, and most blessed, no sorrow, no repentance falls. Whence, verse 29, it is said of Him: “But the Triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance: for he is not a man that he should repent.” God repents, then, when He changes His decrees on account of the guilt of men; when He withdraws His benefits, when He recalls His gifts from the ungrateful and unworthy, for example when He here despoils and deprives Saul of the kingdom which He had conferred on him, on account of his disobedience. So St. Gregory, Theodoret, Procopius and others. Whence St. Jerome on Ezechiel chap. 2: “The choice of Judas and the anointing of Saul,” he says, “do not argue that God is ignorant of future things, but show Him to be the Judge of present things.” So when God was about to avenge the sins of men by the flood, it is said of Him, Genesis 6, 6: “It repented him that he had made man on the earth. And being touched with sorrow of heart inwardly, I will destroy, said he, man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth.” See what is said there. Excellently St. Augustine, book 1 of the Confessions, chap. 4, addressing God: “Thou lovest, and art not inflamed; thou art jealous, and art secure; thou repentest, and grievest not; thou art angry, and art tranquil; thou changest thy works, and changest not thy counsel;” as a man changes who repents of what he has done. And Tertullian, teaching what and of what sort repentance is in God, book 2 Against Marcion, chap. 24: “Nothing else,” he says, “is understood than a simple change of a former sentence, which even without reproach to it may be admitted even in man, much less in God, whose every sentence is without fault. For in the Greek sound also the name of repentance is composed not of confession of a fault but of change of mind.” For this is what the Greek metanoia, that is, repentance, signifies.
AND SAMUEL WAS STRUCK WITH SADNESS, AND HE CRIED TO THE LORD ALL NIGHT,—to obtain pardon for Saul, but in vain; both because Saul remained obstinate in his crime, and was impenitent, nay excused and defended it, as is plain from verse 20 and following; and because even if Saul had truly repented of his crime, God would indeed have restored to him His grace, but not the kingdom. For already, on account of his second disobedience, so clear, He had decreed wholly and irrevocably to deprive him of the kingdom, and to transfer it to David. That God answered Samuel this in the night, Samuel himself relates, verse 16 and following.