Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
The Hebrews in St. Jerome add that Samuel gave Saul the first place, as king, for honour’s sake; but Josephus says that he showed Saul honour only in this, that he did not forsake him.
You will ask, when did this wretched fall of Saul happen? Some think that it happened in the third year of Saul’s reign, because in chapter 13, verse 1, it is said that he reigned two years over Israel; which many understand thus, that he reigned innocently, justly and uprightly for two years, and consequently fell in the third year. But the more genuine sense of that place is otherwise, as I said there.
Others otherwise: the opinion of our Salian is probable, that Saul fell in the seventh year of his reign, so that in the eighth year of his reign David was anointed king by Samuel, as is said in the next chapter; and that Saul then reigned ten years more. For in all he reigned eighteen years, since Samuel before him judged Israel for 22 years. For thus the years of Saul and Samuel joined together make 40, which Paul assigns to him, Acts 13. Whence it follows that this fall of Saul happened in the 29th year from the death of Heli, and from the beginning of the rule of Samuel, who immediately succeeded Heli. For thus we shall fittingly apportion over these eighteen years the deeds of Saul, both those preceding and those following, though from Scripture nothing certain can be defined as to what was done in each year. Conjecture, therefore, is needed here.
KING,—that the one whom Saul would not kill, I may kill, and so fulfil the will of God in the vengeance and anathema of the Amalecites.
AND AGAG WAS PRESENTED TO HIM VERY FAT AND TREMBLING,—from fatness, as if to say: So fat that he walked with a trembling and tottering step. For the Hebrew is Agag maadanoth, which the Chaldee renders Agag delicate; Pagninus, Vatablus and others, Agag of delights, that is, Agag fed and fattened on delights, and therefore trembling. Less rightly, therefore, do some expound it as if he said: Agag was presented to Samuel with delights, that is, walking delicately, with royal and proud gait. Others: rejoicing in death, because he preferred death to servitude: or, as R. Kimchi, because he hoped for life from the kindly Samuel. Others render: with chains. So those who depart from the Vulgate go different ways.
…is taken, in the Hebrew manner, for Hiphil, that is, for “makes recede”; or, as our version has it, “separates.” The sense is therefore: Must I die by so bitter, wretched and violent a death? Must the soul be separated from the body, the senses from their delights, Agag from his kingdom? or as Serarius renders: “The bitterness of death hath turned aside to me,” as if to say: It is all over with my life, bitter and harsh death is upon me.
Tropologically St. Gregory: “Recent converts,” he says, “while they are separated from their accustomed pleasures, feel grief like death:” whence they are assailed by this temptation: Does bitter death of penance and holy life thus separate me from my delights? “Because in them,” he says, “carnality is scarcely killed without great tribulation. For as if the austerities to which it is to be subjected had been seen, sensuality says to the mind: Dost thou spurn joyful things for such sad ones?” Moreover Aman, the enemy of the Jews, who was hanged by Assuerus, Esther chap. 7, verse 10, is said to have been of the stock of Agag. Whence Josephus, book 11 of the Antiquities, chap. 6, the Hebrews, the Chaldee, Lyranus, Cajetan, Serarius and Rupert, book 8 On the Victories of the Word of God, chap. 4, think that he was sprung from this Agag king of Amalec. Hence also Aman, Esther chap. 3, is called Bugaean, as Benagagaean, or Bengogaean, that is, son of Agag or Gog. For the Septuagint, Numbers 24, 7, call Agag by aphaeresis Gog, or Bugaeus, as Gogaeus: for the letter B is often changed into G, Ezechiel 27, 9. The Elders of Gebal the Septuagint render Biblians, and the city itself is called Giblus and Beblus, as St. Jerome testifies, On Hebrew Places.
33. AND SAMUEL SAID: AS THY SWORD HATH MADE WOMEN CHILDLESS, SO SHALL THY MOTHER BE CHILDLESS AMONG WOMEN,—as if to say: I, by slaying thee, will make thy mother a widow without children, …
So also D is changed into B, since duellum became bellum, duellius bellius, says Cicero in the Orator. See Angelus Caninius in the Hellenisms. For even if Aman was a Macedonian, yet it could be that someone of Amalec and the stock of Agag migrated into Macedonia, from whom Aman was there born. But the father or grandfather of Aman could have been another Agag, different from Agag king of Amalec; whence nothing certain can be determined in this matter. It is probable, however, that this was the same, both because this one was famous, nor is another found by this name in Scripture; and because this one was proud, delicate and cruel, as Aman was, so that in him he seems to have transfused these manners of his with the seed. And this hints that Aman was of the stock of Agag.
AND AGAG SAID: DOTH BITTER DEATH SEPARATE IN THIS MANNER?—as if to say: O how bitter to me, delicate and nurtured in delights, is this impending death, and how unworthy of my royal state, abounding in wealth, honours and delights. For I hoped to end my life among the same things to which I had been accustomed. So Abulensis. This is what Ecclesiasticus says, chap. 41, verse 1: “O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions, to a quiet man, and whose ways are straight in all things!” See what is said there.
Less aptly, therefore, do Vatablus, Pagninus and others render, the bitterness of death is departed from me, as if Agag, with a generous and royal spirit despising death, had said this; or, having seen Samuel, had hoped for life from him. For sar, that is, has departed, in Kal.
because thou hast made many widows by cruelly killing their sons. Rightly shalt thou be slain, because thou hast unjustly slain others. For it is established by God’s eternal law that the homicide be slain. Note that the delicate, such as Agag was, are often cruel; because all the love they have they spend on themselves, and therefore bring forth only hatred against others; nay they defraud and despoil others, that they may have more wherewith to be delighted. For they desire all things for themselves, nothing for others.
They are fictions which Philo the Biblical writes, namely that God commanded Samuel to give king Agag a respite of life for the following night; in which Agag made his wife pregnant, and from this was born a son named Edab, who was that Amalecite who asserted to David that he had killed Saul, chap. 31 [sic], that Saul might be slain by the son of Agag in the just judgment of God; because he himself had not slain Agag, as God had commanded. For this is the punishment of retaliation.
AND SAMUEL CUT HIM IN PIECES (not by himself, as Serarius would have it, but through his men, says Josephus) BEFORE THE LORD,—sacrificing as it were the wicked man as a victim of anathema to divine justice; and that not from cruelty, but from zeal for just vengeance; such as Phinees had, slaying the prince who fornicated, Numbers chap. 25, and Elias slaying the priests of Baal, 3 Kings chap. 18.
Tropologically, when fighting with pride and the vices, we ought to cut them in pieces, and leave nothing of them which might raise a new war against us. So Bede.
35. AND SAMUEL SAW SAUL NO MORE,—that is, Samuel did not visit Saul further, did not go to him for honour as he had done before, did not converse with him, did not direct, admonish or rebuke him, as he was wont. That this is the sense is plain from the Hebrew: for otherwise afterwards Samuel saw Saul prophesying among the prophets, chap. 19, verse 24.
SAMUEL MOURNED FOR SAUL,—because he grieved that Saul, anointed by him, and Israel, were being deprived of so brave and fortunate a king; and he knew not who and of what sort should succeed him. Add, he feared that Saul was to be deprived not only of the kingdom but also of life and eternal salvation; for although here he is despoiled by God of the kingdom only, yet “hath rejected,” and in Hebrew “hath reprobated thee, God,” hints that he was forsaken by God, about to rush into greater crimes and die in them and be damned, as in fact seems to have happened. He mourned, however, and mourning prayed for Saul, that either he might be restored to the kingdom, or at least not fall into further evils. For he hoped that the decree of God about the rejection of Saul was not wholly absolute and irrevocable, but minatory, and could be bent and changed by prayers. Whence God, in the next chapter, verse 1, asserts that it is absolute; and forbids him to mourn Saul further, but to anoint David king in his place. Note here and imitate the mercy and charity of Samuel toward Saul, disobedient to himself and to God. Hear St. Gregory: “What is it that he mourns him whom he disdains to look upon, except that holy Doctors, together with the zeal of rectitude, have the affection of great charity; and the greatness of that charity itself is shown in that he is said to bewail the rejected king? With what affection, then, do they bewail the sins of the elect, their subjects, who have learned to bewail so affectionately the rejected reprobate? For the urgency of the mourning is shown by the words added: How long wilt thou mourn for Saul?”