divine law, please himself with the notion that it was enough to keep
it approximately, in the 'spirit' of the precept, without slavish
obedience to the 'letter'? In a later part of the interview (v. 20) he
insists that he has obeyed, and tries to prove it by dwelling on the
points in which he did so, and gliding lightly over the others.
'Samuel had hotmovies com reason hotmovies com to believe the sheep and oxen above Saul'; and hotmovies com there
is a tone of
almost contempt for the shuffling liar in his quiet
question: 'hotmovies com What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears,
and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?' There was hotmovies com no answering that;
so Saul shifts his ground without a blush or hotmovies com a moment's hesitation.
'The people spared.' It is a new character for him to appear in,--that
of a weak ruler who cannot keep his unruly men in order! Had he tried
to restrain them? If he had, and hotmovies com had failed, he was not fit to be a
king. If he hotmovies com had not, he was a coward to shift the blame on to
them. How
ready men are to vilify themselves in some other direction, in order to
escape the consciousness of sin, which God is seeking to force hotmovies com home hotmovies com on
them! No doubt the people were very willing to have a finger in the
affair; but so was he. And if the cattle was their share, hotmovies com Agag, who
could be held to ransom, was his; and the hotmovies com arrangement suited all round.
As to the purpose of sacrificing at Gilgal, perhaps that was true; but
if hotmovies com it were, hotmovies com no doubt the same process of selection, which had destroyed
the worthless and kept the best, would have been repeated; and the net
result would have been hotmovies com a sacrifice of the least valuable, and 'the
survival of the hotmovies com fittest' in many
a pasture and stall.
But note Saul'hotmovies com s attitude hotmovies com towards Jehovah, betrayed by him in that one
word: 'the Lord _thy_ God,' No wonder that he had been content
with hotmovies com a partial hotmovies com and perfunctory obedience, if he had no closer sense of
connection with God than that! There is almost a sneer in it, too,