1 Samuel 14:33

14:24-35 Saul's severe order was very unwise; if it gained time, it lost strength for the pursuit. Such is the nature of our bodies, that daily work cannot be done without daily bread, which therefore our Father in heaven graciously gives. Saul was turning aside from God, and now he begins to build altars, being then most zealous, as many are, for the form of godliness when he was denying the power of it.

Then they told Saul,.... Some that were more conscientious and religious, were more circumspect, and strictly attended to the laws forbidding the eating of blood, and were concerned at the indecent behaviour of others, and therefore thought fit to acquaint Saul with it, to restrain it: behold, the people sin against the Lord, in that they eat with the blood; by breaking the laws of God respecting the eating of blood in Genesis 9:4, especially in Leviticus 19:26. and he said, ye have transgressed; the above laws of God; that is, Saul said to some persons who were accused of the breach of them, and were ordered to come before him, and did come: roll a great stone unto me this day; pointing, perhaps, at one which lay at some distance from him, and which he ordered to be rolled to him; this was done, that the creatures might be slain on it, and their blood drawn out from them, or to offer sacrifice upon, and indeed for both.

1 Samuel 14:33-34 . Ye have transgressed — He sees their fault, but not his own, in giving the occasion of it. Disperse yourselves among the people — Saul sends out his officers to charge the people that, when any more beasts were to be killed by or for any of them, they should bring them to a particular place, where he had fixed a stone for the purpose, and slay them under the inspection of proper officers.

Verses 33, 34. - Ye have transgressed. Better as in the margin, "dealt treacherously," i.e. faithlessly, to the covenant between Israel and Jehovah. Roll a great stone unto me this day. Or, as we should say, this minute ; but the Hebrew uses "this day" for anything to be done at once (see on ch. 2:16). The purpose of this stone was to raise up the caresses of the slaughtered animals from the ground, so that the blood might drain away from them. On tidings of this arrangement being dispersed throughout the army, the people obey Saul with the same unquestioning devotion as they had shown to his command to abstain from food. 1 Samuel 14:33

(33) Roll a great stone unto me this day. —The object of this was that the people should kill their beasts upon the stone, and the blood could run off upon the ground. It was a rough expedient, but it showed the wild soldiers that their king and general determined that the Law of Moses should be kept and honoured, even under circumstances of the direst necessity. This scrupulous care for the “Law of the Lord” at such a time as the evening of the battle of Michmash shows us what a strange complex character was Saul’s: now superstitiously watchful lest the letter of the Law should be broken; now recklessly careless whether or not the most solemn commands of God were executed.

He sees their fault, but not his own, in giving the occasion to it. Roll a great stone unto me; that the cattle might be all killed in one place, under the inspection of Saul, or some other appointed by him for that work; and upon the stone, that the blood may sooner and better flow out.

31-34. the people were very faint. And the people flew upon the spoil—at evening, when the time fixed by Saul had expired. Faint and famishing, the pursuers fell voraciously upon the cattle they had taken, and threw them on the ground to cut off their flesh and eat them raw, so that the army, by Saul's rashness, were defiled by eating blood, or living animals; probably, as the Abyssinians do, who cut a part of the animal's rump, but close the hide upon it, and nothing mortal follows from that wound. They were painfully conscientious in keeping the king's order for fear of the curse, but had no scruple in transgressing God's command. To prevent this violation of the law, Saul ordered a large stone to be rolled, and those that slaughtered the oxen to cut their throats on that stone. By laying the animal's head on the high stone, the blood oozed out on the ground, and sufficient evidence was afforded that the ox or sheep was dead before it was attempted to eat it.

When this was told to Saul, he said, "Ye act faithlessly towards Jehovah" by transgressing the laws of the covenant; "roll me now (lit. this day) a large stone. Scatter yourselves among the people, and say to them, Let every one bring his ox and his sheep to me, and slay here" (upon the stone that has been rolled up), viz., so that the blood could run off properly upon the ground, and the flesh be separated from the blood. This the people also did.

The family of Ner. Ner begat Kish, and Kish Saul. According to 1 Samuel 9:1 and 1 Samuel 14:51 , Kish was a son of Abiel. this statement, on account of which Bertheau proposes to make alterations in the text, may be reconciled with that in our verses, by the simple supposition that in our verse intermediate names mentioned in 1 Samuel 9:1 , and probably others besides, are passed over, and Ner the son of Abi-Gibeon is named only because he was the progenitor of the line by which Saul was descended from him. Saul (שׁאוּל) is King Saul. Only three of his four sons, 1 Samuel 14:49 , are mentioned-those, namely, who fell with him in the battle against the Philistines, 1 Samuel 31:2 . The second is called, in 1 Samuel 14:49 , Ishui, but in 1 Samuel 31:2 Abinadab, as in our register, whence we gather that Ishui is another name for Abinadab. The fourth, Eshbaal, is the same who is called in 2 Samuel 2:8 , and elsewhere, Ishbosheth, who was set up as king in opposition to David by Abner (see on 2 Samuel 2:8 ).