Samuel listens, and he hears the drove of sheep a little way off. Saul had no idea the prophet’s ear would be so acute.
Samuel says to Saul: “If you have done as God told you, and have slain all the Amalekites and all the beasts in their possession, what meaneth the bleating of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen, that I hear?”
Ah! One would have thought that blushes would have consumed the cheeks of Saul. No, no! He says the army--not himself, of course, but the army--saved the sheep and oxen for sacrifice; and then they thought it would be too bad, anyhow, to kill Agag, the Amalekitish king.
Samuel takes the sword, and he slashes King Agag to pieces; and then he takes the skirt of his coat, in true Oriental style, and rends it in twain--as much as to say:
“You, Saul, just like that, shall be torn away from your empire, and torn away from your throne.”
In other words, let all the nations of Earth hear the story that Saul, by disobeying God, won a flock of sheep but lost a kingdom.
A hypocrite is one who pretends to be what he is not, or to do what he does not. Saul was only a type of a class. When the fox prays, look to your chickens.
Do not be hypocritical in any thing; you are never safe if you are. At the most inopportune moment, the sheep will bleat and the oxen will bellow.
What is that building out yonder, glittering in the sunshine? Have you not heard?
It is the House of the Forest of Lebanon. King Solomon has just taken to it his bride, the princess of Egypt. You see the pillars of the portico and a great tower, adorned with a thousand shields of gold, hung on the outside of the tower. Five hundred of the shields of gold were manufactured at Solomon’s order, and five hundred were captured by David, his father, in battle. See how they blaze in the noonday sun!
Solomon goes up to the ivory stairs of his throne between twelve lions in statuary, and sits down on the back of the golden bull, the head of the bronze beast turned toward the people.
The family and attendants of the king are so many that the caterers of the place have to provide every day one hundred sheep and thirteen oxen, besides the birds and the venison. I hear the stamping and pawing of four thousand horses in the royal stables.