oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God: | and the rest we have utterly destroyed.

16 Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.

17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?

18 And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.

19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?

20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me,

$lleh.they consume them.

and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.

22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is as the sin of "witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

Ecclus. 5. 1. Hos, 6.6. Matth. 9. 13, and 12.7.

25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon | again with me, that I may worship the LORD my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD.

26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over

Israel.

27 And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.

28 And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.

29 And also the 'Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.

30 Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn

8 Or, eternity, or, victory.

thy God.

31 So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD.

32 Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.

33 And Samuel said, 'As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.

34 ¶ Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul.

35 And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.

9 Exod. 17. 11. Num. 14. 45.

Verse 2. "Amalek."-This is the name of a grandson of Esau, from whom the Amalekites are supposed to have descended. This supposition is entirely founded on the fact that Esau's grandson was so named; for there is nothing in Scripture which points to, or even hints at, this commonly assigned origin of these bitter enemies of the Hebrew nation. Indeed, there are some rather strong considerations which seem to bear against it. These are: that Moses, in Gen. xiv. relates that in the time of Abraham, long before Amalek was born, Chedorlaomer and his confederates "smote all the country of the Amalekites," about Kadesh: and that Balaam calls Amalek "the first of the nations," which, if understood of priority, could be by no means correct of a nation descended from the grandson of Esau. To these considerations, however, it may be answered, that Moses speaks, in the first instance, proleptically, of the country which the Amalekites afterwards occupied; and that, in the other, "first" does not refer to priority of time, but to rank. But besides this, it is to be observed, that Moses never reproaches the Amalekites with attacking the Israelites, their brethren; though it is not likely that he would have omitted to notice this aggravation of their offence, if it had existed. In the Pentateuch there is continual reference to the fraternal relation of the Hebrews and Edomites. But no term implying consanguinity is ever applied to the Amalekites; and instead of their name being connected with that of the Edomites, they seem always associated in name and action with the Canaanites and Philistines. It is also difficult to understand how the Amalekites could become so powerful a people as they were when the Israelites left Egypt, if their origin ascended no higher than the grandson of Esau. On these grounds Calmet concludes that they were descended from Canaan, and were, in fact, among the devoted nations-that devotement being the more strongly marked in their instance, on account of their early and persevering enmity to the Hebrews. This view does not materially differ from that of the Arabians, who make Amalek to be a son or descendant of Ham, and became the founder of one of the original pure Arabian tribes, but which afterwards became mixed, by blending with the posterity of Joktan and Adnan. This Amalek had a famous son called Ad, who reigned in the south-east of Arabia (Hadramaut) in the time of Heber, the ancestor of Abraham, and whose age is the remote point of Arabian chronology and fable, so that "as old as king Ad," is a proverbial expression of extreme and obscure antiquity. This Adite branch of Amalekites, after having sustained a fearful destruction from the anger of Heaven at its impiety, was so weakened, that the kings of Yemen were able to prevail over it, and, after great losses, obliged it to withdraw and disperse. These, and other Amalekite families, then spread in Arabia Petræa, in the peninsula of Sinai, and in the southern parts of Palestine. The Arabs believe these to have been the enemies of the Israelites, and entertain an opinion that some of them, being defeated by Joshua, went into Northern Africa and settled there. The tribes of Amalek and Ad they number with those that have, from very remote ages, been completely lost, unless so far as they may have been incorporated with other tribes. There is nothing in this account adverse to the Scriptural intimations. Indeed, it would be easy to show that the Amalekites, whether accounted as Arabians or not, were a people who, although they had some towns and hamlets, were of essential Bedouin habits. In fact, we may perhaps best estimate the position they bore with respect to the Israelites, by regarding them as an unsettled, predatory people, who, from their situation on the immediate borders of the Hebrews, exhibited and experienced the full effect of that opposition of social principle which never fails to operate in similar circumstances. In the same countries, at this day, a settled or settling people, on the one hand, and the wild, aggressive, plundering Bedouins, on the other, exhibit the same feelings towards each other which the Hebrews and Amalekites respectively entertained. Independently of the first deep cause of offence, and the high command under which the Hebrews acted, there was an obvious social necessity that such dangerous neighbours as the Amalekites should be extirpated or driven from the frontiers. The transaction of this chapter was a fatal blow to the Amalekites. We indeed find that they still subsisted as a people, for David undertook an expedition against them while he was living in the country of the Philistines (chap. xxvii. 8; 2 Sam. i. 1). After that they cease to be historically noticed; but in the book of Esther we find Haman, an individual of that nation, high in the favour of the Persian king. (See further on this subject in Calmet, art. Amalek ; D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale,' arts. Ad, Amlak ; and Michaelis's 'Commentaries,' art. xxii.)

4. "Telaim."-This is supposed to be the same as Telem, mentioned in Josh, xv. 24, among the "uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah towards the coast of Edom southward.”

7. “Havilah.”—This certainly was not the district mentioned in the description of the garden of Eden as "the land of Havilah." Some indeed suppose so: and believing, with us, that the Havilah near Eden was near the head of the Persian Gulf, think that Saul traversed all the wide distance between, in pursuit of the Amalekites. This is absolutely incredible, and is contrary to the text, which makes the pursuit be towards Egypt, whereas this would be exactly from Egypt. The text evidently places this Havilah near the south of Judah. There are two explanations: one is, that the whole breadth of country forming the north of Arabia, from the Persian Gulf to the south frontiers of Palestine, was called Havilah, and that the statement in Gen. ii. refers to the eastern part of this land, and the present account to the western: or else, that there was more than one Havilah,-and this is exceedingly probable, when we recollect that the name is taken from Havilah the son of Cush, and who may, like his father, have given name to different regions in which his descendants successively settled. Josephus very properly describes the Amalekites of this history, as occupying the country between Pelusium in Egypt and the Red Sea.

9. "Saul and the people spared Agag."-Josephus says that they were won upon to spare him by the beauty and tallness of his person. It is remarkable, by the by, that the Arabians make the Amalekites to have been giants; and they believe that Goliath himself was an Amalekite.

12. "Carmel."-This must not be confounded with Mount Carmel. It is mentioned in Josh. xv. 55, among the southern cities of Judah, and its name occurs between those of Maon and Ziph. Nabal, who resided at Maon, had his possessions in Carmel (1 Sam. xxv. 2). The place is probably the same as the "Carmelia," which Jerome describes as Leing in his time a village, ten miles east of Hebron, where there was then a Roman garrison.

"He set him up a place."-This undoubtedly means that he set up a trophy or monument of his victory over the Amalekites. This we learn from 2 Sam. xviii. 18, where we read that Absalom set up a pillar and called it the moment (, the same word here rendered "place") of Absalom. It was usual in ancient times to erect some monurent or other, in commemoration of a victory, generally on the spot where it had been obtained. This was probably the design of Saul's monument. It is difficult to say what it was. Perhaps it was a pillar or obelisk: Jerome makes it a tramphal arch; and he says it was usual to make an arch of myrtle, palm, and olive branches on such occasions. The trophies, however, with which ancient authors make us best acquainted, were originally a heap of the arms and spoils taken from the enemy. Such spoils were in later times hung in an orderly manner upon a column or decayed tree; and in the end representations of such trophies, in brass or marble, were substituted. They were consecrated to some divizity, with a suitable inscription; and the sanctity with which they were invested, prevented people from disturbing er throwing them down; but when they fell, or were destroyed by accident or time, they were never restored, under the mpression that ancient enmities ought not to be perpetuated. Virgil has fully described the process of forming the most usual trophy-that of arms fixed on a denuded or decayed tree.

"The pious chief, whom double cares attend
For his unbury'd soldiers, and his friend,
Yet first to Heav'n perform'd a victor's vows:
He bar'd an ancient oak of all her boughs;
Then on a rising ground the trunk he plac'd,
Which with the spoils of his dead foe he grac'd.
The coat of arms by proud Mezentius worn,
Now on a naked snag in triumph borne,

Was hung on high, and glitter'd from afar,
A trophy sacred to the god of war.
Above his arms, fix'd on the leafless wood,
Appear'd his plumy crest, besmear'd with blood.'
His brazen buckler on the left was seen:
Truncheons of shiver'd lances hung between;
And on the right was placed his cors'let bor'd;
And to the neck was tied his unavailing sword."
Eneis, B. xi. DRYDEN.

The word, yad, applied to this monument and to Absalom's pillar, literally means "a hand;" and is so translated in the Septuagint; whence it has been supposed, by some, that the trophy in question was surmounted by the figure of a hand, which is, in Scripture, the general emblem of strength and power. In the note to Num. ii. 2, we have mentioned instances of standards surmounted by the figure of a hand; and the cut of Roman standards exhibits two of this description. To which we may add, that in the mosques of Persia, generally, the domes (for they have seldom minarets like the Turks) are surmounted by the figure of an outspread hand, in the place where the Turks would put a crescent, and we a cross or a vane.

32. “Agag came unto him delicately.”—“ Cheerfully" would be a more intelligible rendering of the original ( madamoth) than "delicately." It seems that Agag thought he had nothing further to apprehend, now that he had obtained the protection of the king.

33. “ Samuel hewed Agag in pieces.”—It is not clear whether he did it himself or commanded others to do it. The latter is certainly rendered possible by the frequent practice of describing a great personage as doing that which he commanded to be done. But, on the other hand, there is nothing in the act incompatible with Oriental usage, or with the position which Samuel occupied. Samuel was not a priest, but only a Levite; and the Levites seem to have held themselves bound to act for the Lord with their swords when required, as in the instance of the slaughter with which they punished their brethren for their sin in worshipping the golden calf; and, on a later occasion, even a priest-Phibebas, afterwards high-priest,-in the fervour of his zeal, took a javelin and slew therewith Zimri and Cosbi, as recorded in Nam. xxv. It is not, and never was in the East, unusual for persons in power to slay offenders with their own hands. In the preceding book, we have seen Gideon himself destroying the two captive kings of Midian; and in ilus ration of more modern usage there is an anecdote in Chardin, which illustrates not only this point, but the hewing ia pieces, and also the idea concerning the connecting bond formed by the eating of another's salt, to which we have had previous occasions to refer. The circumstance occurred in Persia when Chardin was there. The king, "rising in wrath against an officer who had attempted to deceive him, drew his sabre, fell upon him, and hewed him to pieces, at the feet of the grand vizier, who was standing (and whose favour the poor wretch courted by this deception), and looking fixedly upon him, and the other great lords who stood on each side of him, he said with a tone of indignation, I have then such ungrateful servants and traitors as these to eat my salt. Look on this sword, it shall cut off all these perfidious heads."" Hewing in pieces is still sometimes resorted to as an arbitrary punishment in different eastern countries; but we believe it is no where sanctioned by law, which indeed seldom directs the mode by which death shall be inflicted. Bruce notices instances of this form of death in Abyssinia; and it is mentioned among the atrocities of Djezzar, the notorious pasha of Acre, that he caused fifty or sixty officers of his seraglio, whom he suspected of fraud, to be hewed in pieces, each by the sword of two janissaries. It was not a Hebrew form of punishment, but appears to have been resorted to in the present instance in order to inflict on Agag the same kind of death which he had been accustomed to inflict on others: for the "as," with which Samuel's answer commences, implies analogy of action—that is, that his (Agag's) mother should be made childless, in the same manner as he had made women childless.

11 And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he

41 Chron. 28. 9. Psal. 7.9. Jer. 11. 20, and 17. 10, and 20. 12.