The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 108: Saul's Vanity (2023)

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Fr. Mike highlights Saul's brokenness and vanity as he makes an unlawful sacrifice and a rash oath in order to save Israel in the midst of war. Today's readings are 1 Samuel 13-14, and Psalm 58. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 108, and we are reading from 1 Samuel chapters 13 and 14. We're also praying Psalm 58. As always, the Bible translation that I am reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension.

If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. Also, if you'd like, you can subscribe to this podcast, and that way you'll get updates every single time we have a new episode. That would be phenomenal for you and for me as well. As I said, today, day 108, we're reading 1 Samuel chapter 13 and 14 and praying Psalm 58. 1 Samuel chapter 13, Saul's unlawful sacrifice. Saul was years old when he began to reign, and he reigned, and two years over Israel. Saul chose three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand were with Saul in Michmash, in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.

The rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent. Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines, which was at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear. And all Israel heard it, and said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become odious to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal. And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel thirty thousand chariots and six,000 horsemen and troops

like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash to the east of Beth-Avon. When the men of Israel saw that they were in straits for the people were hard-pressed, the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns or crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad in Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him, trembling. He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he

had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him and salute him. Samuel said, what have you done? And Saul said, when I saw that the people were scattering from me and that you did not come within the days appointed and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, now the Philistines will come down upon me at Gilgal, and I have not entreated the favor of the Lord. So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has appointed him to be prince over his people, because you have not

kept what the Lord commanded you. And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men. And Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin. But the Philistines encamped in Michmash. And raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned toward Ophrah to the land of Sheol. Another company turned toward Beth-haron. And another company turned toward the border that looks down upon the valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness. Preparations for battle. Now there was no smith to be found throughout all the land of Israel,

for the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears. But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle. And the charge was a pym for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel for the sharpening of axes and for setting the goads. So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan. But Saul and Jonathan, his son, had them. And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash. Chapter 14. Jonathan surprises the Philistines. One day Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who bore his armor, Come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on yonder side. But he did not tell his father.

Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah, under the pomegranate tree which is at Migron. The people who were with him were about six hundred men and Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone. In the pass by which Jonathan sought to go over to the Philistine garrison, there was a rocky crag on the one side and a rocky crag on the other side. The name of the one was Bozes and and the name of the other, Sennah. The one crag rose on the north in front of Michmash, and the other on the south in front of Geba. And Jonathan

said to the young man who bore his armor, Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. And his armor-bearer said to him, do all that your mind inclines to. Behold, I am with you as is your mind. So is mine. Then said Jonathan, behold, we will cross over to the men and we will show ourselves to them. If they say to us, wait until we come to you, then we will stand still in our place and we will not go up to them. But if they say, come up to us, then we will go up, for the Lord has given them into our hand, and this shall be the sign to us.

So both of them showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines, and the Philistines said, Look, Hebrews are coming out of their holes where they have hid themselves. And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor-bearer and said, Come up to us, and we will show you a thing. And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, Come up after me, for the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel. Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, and his armor-bearer after him. And they fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer killed them after him. And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armor-bearer made, was of about twenty men within, as it were, half a furrow's length in an acre of land. And there was a panic in the camp, in the field,

and among all the people, the garrison, and even the raiders trembled. The earth quaked, and it became a very great panic. And the watchman of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin looked, and behold, the multitude was surging here and there. Then Saul said to the people who were with him, Number, and see who has gone from us. to the people who were with him, number and see who has gone from us. And when they had numbered, behold, Jonathan and his armor bearer were not there. And Saul said to Ahijah, bring the ark of God here. For the ark of God went at that time with the sons of Israel. And while Saul was talking to the priest, the tumult in the camp of the Philistines increased more and more. And Saul said to the priest, withdraw your hand. Then Saul and all the people who were with him rallied and went into the battle.

And behold, every man's sword was against his fellow. And there was very great confusion. Now the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines before that time and who had gone up with them into the camp, even they also turned to be with the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan. Likewise, when all the men of Israel who had hid themselves in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they too followed hard after them in the battle. So the Lord delivered Israel that day, and the battle passed beyond Beth-Avon. Saul's rash oath. And the men of Israel were distressed that day, for Saul laid rash oath. But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath, so he put forth the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and dipped it in the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth,

and his eyes became bright. Then one of the people said, Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed be the man who eats food this day. And the people were faint. Then Jonathan said, My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey? How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies which they found, for now the slaughter among the Philistines has not been great. They struck down the Philistines that day from Michmash to Ajalon, and the people were very faint. The people flew upon the spoil and took sheep and oxen and calves and slew them on the ground, and the people ate them with the blood. Then they told Saul, Behold, the people are sinning against the Lord by eating with the blood. And he said,

You have dealt treacherously. Roll a great stone to me here. And Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people and say to them, Let every man bring his ox or his sheep and slay them here and eat. And do not sin against the Lord by eating with the blood. So every one of the people brought his ox with him that night and slew them there. And Saul built an altar to the Lord. It was the first altar that he built to the Lord. The people ransomed Jonathan. Then Saul said, let us go down after the Philistines by night and despoil them until the morning light. Let us not leave a man of them. And they said, do whatever seems good to you. But the priest said, let us draw near here to God. And Saul inquired of God,

shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel? But he did not answer him that day. And Saul said, come here, all you leaders of the people and know and see how this sin has arisen today. For as the Lord lives, who saves Israel, though it be in Jonathan, my son, he shall surely die. But there was not a man among all the people that answered him. Then he said to all Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die. But there was not a man among all the people that answered him. Then he said to all Israel, you shall be on one side, and I and Jonathan my son will be on the other side. And the people said to Saul, do whatever seems good to you. Therefore Saul said, O Lord, God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day?

If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O Lord, God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim. And Jonathan and Saul were taken, but the people escaped. Then Saul said, Cast the lot between me and my son Jonathan, and Jonathan was taken. Then Saul said to Jonathan, tell me what you have done. And Jonathan told him, I tasted a little honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand. Here I am. I will die. And Saul said, God do so to me and more also, you shall surely die, Jonathan. Then the people said to Saul, shall Jonathan die who has wrought this great victory

in Israel? Far from it, as the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground for he has wrought with God this day. So the people ransomed Jonathan that he did not die. Then Saul went up from pursuing the Philistines and the Philistines went to their own place. Saul's continuing wars. When Saul had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines. Wherever he turned, he put them to the worse. And he did valiantly and struck the Amalekites and delivered Israel out of the hands of those who plundered them.

Now the sons of Saul were Jonathan, Ishvi, and Melchishua. And the names of his two daughters were these. The name of his firstborn was Merab, and the name of his younger Michal. And the name of Saul's wife was Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz. And the name of the commander of his army was Abner, the son of Ner, Saul's uncle. Kish was the father of Saul, and Ner, the father of Abner, was the son of Abiel. There was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul. And when Saul saw any strong man or any valiant man, he attached him to himself.

Psalm 58. Prayer for Vengeance. To the choir master, according to Do Not Destroy, a mictum of David. Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the sons of men uprightly? No. In your hearts you devise wrongs. Your hands deal out violence on earth. The wicked go astray from the womb. They err from their birth, speaking lies. They have venom, like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter. O God, break the teeth in their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord. Let them vanish like water that runs away.

Like grass, let them be trodden down and wither. Let them be like the snail, which dissolves into slime, like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. Men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth. Father in heaven, you are good and you are just. You are a good and just judge. You are a good and just judge who

knows the secrets of our hearts. You know the decisions of our, our wills, you know, our actions that we make, and you know the secrets in our minds, in our hearts. You know, you know, what's hidden from everyone else, even from ourselves, Lord, you know us through and through. And we ask you to be a good and just judge. We also ask you to be a merciful, merciful judge. We know our own brokenness, and there's so much of our own selves that we don't even know, but you do, God. Nothing that we are, nothing that we do escapes you, and you still continue to choose us. You still continue to guide and guard us, and so this day, Lord God, please guide. And this day, Lord God, please guard. In Jesus' name we pray, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So a lot of stuff happening in 1 Samuel chapter 13 and 14. And when I say a lot, I don't just mean a lot of action. I mean really important things.

For example, in 1 Samuel chapter 13, we see the reason why Saul's kingdom comes to an end. It's just, we see the reason why he has no dynasty. He has no legacy. In fact, Saul is the only king, right? Jonathan does not become the king after him because Saul does what? Well, he's waiting for Samuel. And what do we see? There is this massive, massive army of the Philistines.

They have 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen, troops like sand on the seashore in multitude, and they're encamping against Israel. And Israel does not have a lot of people, does not have a lot of warriors. They're lacking when it comes to their military might. Samuel says, hey, wait for me. I'll be there in seven days. And he doesn't show up. And what happens is all the people are scattering. Remember Saul's Achilles heel. Saul's woundedness is his vanity. He is overly preoccupied with what other people think. And so as he sees them leaving, Saul says, oh God, take matters into my own hands and I will offer the sacrifice. Now Samuel had said, wait for me to offer the sacrifice. And Saul did not wait for Samuel to offer the sacrifice.

He offered it himself. As soon as Saul gets done offering the sacrifice, Samuel shows up, good timing, and basically gives Saul the prophecy, gives Saul the message. That message is because you didn't wait, because you disobeyed the Lord's command, your kingship will end with you. Someone else will be raised up to be the next king, and he will not be of your kin, will not be one of your family. Now, again, that's Saul's brokenness, right? He's inordinately preoccupied with what other people think that's called the sin of vanity. At the same time, he's not a fully broken person, right? In all of us, there's dark and light. In all of us, there's these wounds and there's these strengths. And so one of the strengths of Saul is that he doesn't give up there. He doesn't just quit right there. He continues to move forward and he

continues to fight against the Philistines on behalf of the people of Israel. Now he could have quit. We realize, remember, he's the guy who hid among the luggage. He didn't necessarily want to be a king, but he's still doing his task. And so it's worth, at least, I think it's worth to honor the fact that Saul doesn't just abandon the people. He doesn't just abandon the Lord, even though he's been given this message that he will not have a dynasty, that his kingship will end with him and someone else be raised up to take his place. In fact, the way that Samuel describes the kind of person who'll be raised up to take Saul's place is he will be a man after God's own heart.

And that's what happens when we meet a young David. He's described as a man after God's own heart. Now, moving forward, this preparation of a battle and also the chapter 14 in 1 Samuel tells us a number of things. At the end of chapter 13, we hear that there are no swords, there are no spears, that people are fighting with farming implements and they're sharpening them because the Philistines didn't let them have swords or spears. Yet there are two swords that people own and that sword is owned Saul, and that other person is Jonathan. This is going to be kind of important because we recognize that the people of Israel are fighting

with farming implements because they're that oppressed. And secondly, that there is a lack of weapons, and Jonathan has one of them. King Saul has the other. But what Jonathan does with that weapon is remarkable. Now, the Lord places this weapon into his hand because of his privileged state as being the son of the king. But then Jonathan does something in chapter 14 that just is so intense and reveals Jonathan's character. In a few days, maybe very soon, actually very soon, we're going to meet King David, young David, not King David yet, young David. And we're going to see David to go to fight Goliath. And we're going to see this young man who's willing to go up to a place no one else is willing to go up. He's willing to fight a battle that no one else is willing to fight.

And here we have Jonathan in chapter 14, who is of the same heart. He also is willing to go up where no one else is willing to go up. He's also willing to fight a battle that no one else is willing to fight. And so what you notice later on is we're going to have this friendship between Jonathan and David, and it makes so much sense. I remember for years, I thought, well, I don't wonder why Jonathan and David were such close friends, why scripture describes them as having such a close bond, a covenant with each other. And you recognize chapter 14 tells us a lot. It tells us that David and Jonathan had the same heart where other people around them were willing to cower.

They were hiding in holes. Literally, it said they're hiding in holes. And here's Jonathan and his armor bearer who say, let's go. Let's go fight against the enemies of Israel. Let's go fight against the enemies of the people of God. And they do it. And there's something remarkable about this. But then also, as usual, when it comes to Saul, that ends in tragedy.

Because what does Saul do? Saul makes every man, he makes an oath saying, if you've eaten anything this day until evening, you'll be cursed. You'll be killed yourself. We'll kill you ourselves. And Jonathan doesn't hear about that at all. And he makes, you know, so here's Saul makes a rash vow and Jonathan doesn't even hear this. So he does this accidentally, mistakenly gets identified as the one who does it. And so Saul says, yep, I got to kill you. Remember there was the character back in the book of Judges had the same rash vow in the, whoever comes out of my home, I'm going to kill them. Here we have Saul making another rash vow and the people of Israel stand up for Jonathan saying, basically, if Jonathan hadn't gone up and begun this whole fight,

if Jonathan hadn't been willing to move, if he hadn't been willing to fight when no one else was willing to fight, we would never be in this situation where we have victory right now. And so Saul relented. And as it says, the people ransomed, people ransomed Jonathan from his father killing him, which is a good thing. And he did not die. Saul continued to fight. And it says that whenever Saul saw any strong man or any valiant man, he attached him to himself. He's recruiting people who are fighters. And on one hand, we think that's smart. That's wise. He's got to, because why? He's waging a defensive war against these Philistines and Ammonites and Malachites and all these people who are fighting after them, fighting against them. But also you have that sense of, is he just collecting people? You have that question. Is he just collecting

people? Is he just collecting people around him? Because again, his own sense of, is he just collecting people? You have that question. Is he just collecting people? Is he just collecting people around him? Because again, his own sense of being inordinately driven by what other people think of him. Now there's a practical sense. Yep. Get those mighty warriors around you so they can do the most impact. But there's also that sense of, hmm, what is, is there a hidden motivation when it comes to this as well? As I said, Saul is a complex character, just like we are complex people. And so as we continue to journey with him, we see ourselves in him as well as seeing ourselves in the other characters as well. Hopefully we see ourselves also in Jonathan, who was brave and was willing to fight when no one else was willing to fight.

Hopefully we're not like Saul in the sense of being inordinately preoccupied with other people think or with making rash vows. But hopefully we can learn from these characters, Saul and Jonathan and Samuel and all these other people that we're going to be seeing in this holy book of the Bible. Let's pray for each other because this is a great journey, but it's a gift. It's a challenging journey. And so I am praying for you. Please pray for me.

My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.