Obedience over Ritual

I Samuel 15:22b-23: “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.”

This familiar passage comes from the somewhat unfamiliar background of Israel’s first king. King Saul previously had been anointed king by God over all of Israel; however, Saul’s arrogance would lead to the loss of Divine blessing for his royal rule. In I Samuel 15, the prophet Samuel had instructed Saul to destroy the neighboring enemies, the Amalekites, who since the time of Moses had sought to destroy the Israelites and thus prohibit their entrance into the Promised Land. God had been specific; everything was to be destroyed so that no remnant would remain of these pagan people.

Despite this explicit command from the Lord, Saul decided that he would handle his victory over the Amalekites according to his own choosing. Saul decided to keep the choicest livestock and harvest for himself and encouraged his army to do likewise; Saul also decided to preserve the captured Amalekite king, Agag, as his tribute for victory.

God responded with grief at the recalcitrance of the Israelite king. He sent Samuel to find Saul; however, Saul was busy at Mt.Carmel setting up a monument in his own honor. When Samuel confronted Saul for his disobedience, Saul attempted to deflect the blame to his army, saying, “the soldiers brought the best from the Amalekites” (15:15). King Saul then attempted to challenge Samuel’s rebuke by saying that he had been obedient to the Lord’s command. Saul conveniently reworded the command of the Lord to be consistent with his defiant behavior. The Israelite King thought if he could re-phrase what the command was originally, then he may be exonerated for his rebellious spirit.

Samuel would have nothing to do with such lying and excuse making. He told King Saul that God had rejected him as the king, for Saul in effect worshipped himself over God through such acts of rebellion. Even after this divine edict, Saul confessed to Samuel that he had sinned, but this “act of repentance” was merely an attempt to avoid punishment, for again the king blamed the people for being so demanding of him to commit such sin.

As Samuel turned to leave the presence of the king, Saul caught the prophet’s robe to halt his exit. In his attempted restraint of Samuel, the prophet’s robe was torn; in response, Samuel decreed that Saul’s kingdom would be torn away from him and given to “one better.”

As the verse quoted above mentions, Saul’s rebellion was not unlike the practice of divination. From this word, “divination” one can see the word “divine.” In effect, Saul attempted to assert his own pursuit of divinity by renouncing the command of the Lord in favor of his own appetites. His attitude of arrogance clearly was demonstrated by his pursuit of his own victory monument; and his subsequent attempts to blame others and to distort the truth of God’s command was nothing more than a subversive move to justify his behavior.

We would do well to learn from the patterns of this once famous first king of Israel. Although King Saul went through the motions of religious ceremony; he was more interested in worshipping himself than the true God. This idolatry led to his untimely death as well as his loss of the kingdom for his descendants. The king was stellar in external action, but his heart revealed a sinister corruption and defiance that would be reckoned with by the Lord. We must remember that obedience to the Lord is of utmost importance; merely going through the motions of “religiosity” will never suffice.