Daily Thought

Although Samuel had passed on the Lord’s message that Saul was rejected and that He had already chosen a new king - a neighbour of Saul’s but not a relative - Samuel still mourned for Saul, even though he would never see him alive again, 1 Sam. 15. 35.

No doubt his thoughts were akin to those of Abraham who had said, ‘O that Ishmael might live before thee!’, Gen. 17. 18. However, now was the time for the Lord’s will to be put into action, and Samuel had to facilitate it. The Lord said to him, ‘I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons’, v. 1. Although he mourned for Saul, Samuel knew him so well that he was afraid that he would kill him if he found out what he was about to do, and so immediately he asked the Lord, ‘How can I go?’. The Lord provided Samuel with a way of visiting Jesse without arousing Saul’s suspicion.

Previously Samuel had found Saul ‘a choice young man, and a goodly from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people’, 9. 2, and had said to the people, ‘See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people?’, 10. 24. Now the Lord said about Eliab, candidate for kingship, ‘Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart’, 16. 7 (cp. 2 Sam. 14. 25; 1 Pet. 3. 4; John 7. 24; 2 Cor. 10. 7). In fact, when he found David, ‘he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he’, 16. 12. So ‘Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward’, v. 13; contrast v. 14.

For Samuel, doing God’s will was difficult because of his sentimental attachment to Saul; and dangerous because of Saul’s fierce temper; but in spite of his initial questioning, with divine help, he eventually did His will.