Saul's Rejection as the king over Israel
1 Samuel 15:16-23 - Monday, January 15, 2024, 2nd Week in Ordinary Time
Today we are dealing with one of those disturbing Old Testament stories that causes contemporary readers of the Bible to flinch. The story is part of a longer narrative about the reason why Saul was rejected as the leader of Israel. The narrative begins with Samuel telling Saul to commit a "genocide" on the Amalekites: "Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses!" (1 Sam 15:3). The so-called "ban", destruction of the enemy including all living things, was one of the cruellest practice of ancient Near East. But Saul spared Agag, the king of Amalekites, the best of animals, "and all else that was of value" as an offering for the Lord (1 Sam 15:9). Samuel, however, did not accept Saul's explanation and issued a powerful inditement that placed obedience to God's will over sacrifices: "Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the LORD? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams" (1 Sam 15:22). Then, later he killed Agag, the king of Amalekites to prove his point.
From the very beginning of its movement, the Christians struggled with such disturbing biblical stories. One of the first known Christian heresies dating to the second century was Marcionism which rejected the Old Testament. Its founder could not accept an image of a god of vengeance and wrath. The one that came to the rescue was Origen, 3rd-century Christian scholar, ascetic and theologian from Alexandria, who developed a spiritual way of understanding the Old Testament. In this way, Agag and everything under his rule would symbolise the devil and his associates, the archenemy of God's people.
I leave it to the experts to explain this and similar such uncomfortable texts and turn to the story of a man who lived around one thousand years later after the rejected king of Israel. Surprisingly, his name was also Saul, he was also from the tribe of Benjamin, and extremely zeals for God's law. Perhaps, he wanted to make up for the disobedience of his failed ancestor. But, when he embarked on a mission to destroy a Jewish movement that believed in certain Jesus of Nazareth to be the long-awaited Jewish messiah, he had a conversion experience.
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt 5:44), said Jesus and the former Pharisee Saul who became Saint Paul wrote, "Repay no one evil for evil", "never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God", and "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom 12:17, 19, 21).
The history of humanity has been plagued by violence that is often justified by the reason of state or religion. And time has come to change it. We have reached a realisation expressed by the famous statement of Pope Francis in Iraq that "violence and hate are incompatible with religion".