Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 11-13.

I want to note that the Gibeah referred to here is the same Gibeah whose crimes led to the war against the tribe of Benjamin.  One thing I have trouble following is the seven days which Samuel told Saul to wait for him at Gilgal.  This is apparently a reference back to when Samuel first anointed Saul to be king and before he did so in front of all the people at Mizpah in  1 Samuel 10:7-8.  A lot transpired between then and the events where Saul fails to follow Samuel’s instructions, but I suppose they could be lumped together under “do whatever your hand finds to do.”  Having said that, I have long believed that most of the “historical” books of the Old Testament were compilations of accounts passed down orally separately from each other.  In this case, I believe that verse 8 of Chapter 10 had originally been associated with the story contained in Chapter 13, but when they were compiling the various accounts about the beginning of Saul’s kingship, they decided to place it with the account of Saul’s first encounter with Samuel.  In any case, it does not really matter when Samuel gave these instructions.  It is clear that Saul understood that when he gathered the Israelites in Gilgal to go to war, he was to wait seven days for Samuel to come, make offerings, and give him God’s instructions.  Saul’s judgement was that he could not wait any longer for God’s instructions and chose to act.  Let us not make Saul’s mistake, let us wait for God’s guidance before we act.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.