May the mumbling commence!
All that the Chronicler gives us about Saul is his fall –
Saul’s fall from grace. It can be found
in First Chronicles chapter ten. Read
the entire chapter below:
Now the Philistines attacked Israel, forcing the
Israelites to flee. Many were slaughtered on the slopes of Mount Gilboa. The Philistines closed in on Saul and his
sons, and they killed three of his sons – Jonathan, Abinadab, and
Malkishua. The fighting grew very fierce
around Saul, and the Philistine archers caught up with him and wounded him
severely. Saul groaned to his armor bearer,
"Take your sword and run me through before these pagan Philistines come
and humiliate me." But his armor bearer was afraid and would not do it.
So Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When his armor bearer realized that Saul was
dead, he fell on his own sword and died. So Saul and his three sons died there
together, bringing his dynasty to an end.
When the Israelites in the Jezreel Valley saw that their
army had been routed and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their
towns and fled. So the Philistines moved in and occupied their towns.
The next day when
the Philistines went out to strip the dead, they found the bodies of Saul and
his sons on Mount Gilboa. So they
stripped off Saul's armor and cut off his head. Then they proclaimed the news
of Saul's death before their idols and to the people throughout the land of
Philistia. They placed his armor in the
temple of their gods, and they fastened his head to the wall in the temple of
Dagon.
But when the
people of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, their
warriors went out and brought the bodies of Saul and his three sons back to
Jabesh. Then they buried their remains
beneath the oak tree at Jabesh, and they fasted for seven days.
So Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord. He failed to obey the Lord's command, and he even consulted a
medium instead of asking the Lord
for guidance. So the Lord killed
him and turned his kingdom over to David son of Jesse.
Yes, we see only Saul’s fall from grace. It is one of the few recorded suicides in the
entire Bible. The others are the armor
bearer in this same passage (and in the parallel passage – First Samuel chapter
31) and Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:1ff.).
But, in this brief retelling, we do not get to see the reluctant
leader who hid among the baggage. Only
later did power corrupt him. Only later
did he disobey the command of the Lord.
Only later did he consult a medium instead of the Lord. It is a tragedy robbed of its peak in the beginning. Just as David is seen through rose-colored
glasses, Saul is seen only as an unfaithful figure.
The deeper meaning beneath the death from suicide is
missing if we only look at this passage.
There is nearly always a deeper meaning when a spiritual ancestor of
ours falls so low.
Indeed there are
personalities that are driven away from the structure of Law. Knowing the Law actually paves the way to
disobedience. Saul was that way. And, in our worst moments, we are no
different. Read from Romans chapter
seven:
Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is evil?
Of course not! The
law is not sinful, but it was the law that showed me my sin. I would
never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "Do not
covet." But sin took advantage of
this law and aroused all kinds of forbidden desires within me! If there were no
law, sin would not have that power.
I felt fine when I did not understand what the law
demanded. But when I learned the truth, I realized I had broken the law and was
a sinner, doomed to die. So the good
law, which was supposed to show me the way of life, instead gave me the death
penalty. Sin
took advantage of the law and fooled me; it took the good law and used it to
make me guilty of death. But
still, the law itself is holy and right and
good.
But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my
doom? Of course not! Sin used what
was good to bring about my condemnation. So we can see how terrible sin really
is. It uses God's good commandment for its own evil purposes.
(Verses 7-13)
Sin hijacks the Law.
It takes us where we do not want to go.
It leads us in doing things that we know to be wrong.
Indeed, we are helpless without the grace and
peace and love that Jesus Christ extends to each of us. Will we accept that gift? Or will we be content to be hijacked by
sin?
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
No comments:
Post a Comment