May 14

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1 Samuel 15:1-16:23
(1)(2011) Taking the best for ourselves - Here Henry has provided me some convicting insight into Saul's problem. The passage reads:

Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves[b] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

Henry comments in a way that makes me think of how I reserve my time for myself and not for reading God's Word or praying or serving:

Many of the people, we may suppose, made their escape, and took their effects with them into other countries, and therefore we read of Amalekites after this; but that could not be helped. It was Saul's fault that he did not destroy such as came to his hands and were in his power. That which was now destroyed was in effect sacrificed to the justice of God, as the God to whom vengeance belongeth; and for Saul to think the torn and the sick, the lame and the lean, good enough for that, while he reserved for his own fields and his own table the firstlings and the fat, was really to honour himself more than God.

Nevertheless, I wonder how Henry takes Saul's own reckoning for "the bleating of sheep" which Samuel hears at their meeting someplace between Carmel & Gilgal:

“The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”

Furthermore, when Samuel is informed of Saul's whereabouts the report includes this self-aggrandizing commemoration:

“Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”

From this reading I take that Saul wasn't sparing the best for his own table & field but rather to display & impress upon others the merit due himself. If Saul returned from battle without the trophies of war & victory (as seems to me the ancient custom of warring kings & generals) he would be without honor. Is that the self-serving means I choose to gain honor for myself?

(2)(2011) Ancient numbering - Matthew Henry briefly cites this historical method of counting like lambs which I don't fully understand:

But now that he was to attack the Amalekites by express order from heaven, in which he was sure of victory, he had thousands at his call. But, whatever it was at other times, it was not now for the honour of Judah that their forces were numbered by themselves, for their quota was scandalously short (whatever was the reason), but a twentieth part of the whole, for they were by 10,000, when the other ten tribes (for I except Levi) brought into the field 200,000. The day of Judah's honour drew near, but had not yet come. Saul numbered them in Telaim, which signifies lambs. He numbered then like lambs (so the vulgar Latin), numbered them by the paschal lambs (so the Chaldee), allowing ten to a lamb, a way of numbering used by the Jews in the later times of their nation.

John 8:1-20
(1)(2011) The mercy of exposed sin. Matthew Henry offers this interesting perspective:

[2.] The proof of the crime was from the notorious evidence of the fact, an incontestable proof; she was taken in the act, so that there was no room left to plead not guilty. Had she not been taken in this act, she might have gone on to another, till her heart had been perfectly hardened; but sometimes it proves a mercy to sinners to have their sin brought to light, that they may do no more presumptuously. Better our sin should shame us than damn us, and be set in order before us for our conviction than for our condemnation.

Psalm 110:1-7
(1)(2011) Here is the post-millenialists' reference to Christ's return:

1 The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”

2 The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion;
you will rule in the midst of your enemies.

Proverbs 15:8-10

Years Read
2011