a. Eben is the word for "stone."

b. Ezar is the verb, "to help."

When the people came into the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us take to ourselves from Shiloh the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies."

And she called the boy Ichabod, saying, "The glory has departed from Israel," because the ark of God was taken and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; 5 and they said to him, "Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations." (1 Samuel 8:4-5).

Saul comes on the scene, not seeking a kingdom or a throne, but looking for some lost donkeys. As they are about to give up on their quest, Saul’s servant suggests that they go and inquire from the local Seer about the missing donkeys.

They discuss this plan. Saul is reluctant because they have no gift to give to the Seer. But the servant has a quarter of a shekel of silver. This was not a coin, for coinage would not be invented until the 7th century B.C. This was a weight.

Meanwhile, the Lord had revealed to Samuel that a man was coming from the tribe of Benjamin who would be anointed as the deliverer of the Israelites. Thus, when Saul arrives at the gate of the city, he is met by Samuel who informs him that the donkeys have been found and then proceeds to invite him as the guest of honor to a special dinner.

There is a touch of irony here. When we first saw Saul, he was being sent to look for missing donkeys. Now it is Saul who is missing and the people go looking for him. They find him hiding by the baggage.

What happened after Saul had been proclaimed the first king of Israel? Did he move into the royal palace? He did not. There was no royal palace into which he could move.

When the celebration was over, there was nothing else for him to do but to return home. When next we see him, he will be at the south end of a northbound team of oxen.

Israel at this time was nothing more than a scattered and disunited collection of tribes. This was not a unified nation. You couldn’t even get them to agree on what to eat for lunch. And they also did not agree that Saul should be their new king, no matter what Samuel had told them. But this changed dramatically when Saul led the Israelites to victory in battle.

There was bad blood between the Ammonites and the Israelites. The Ammonites were descendants of Lot through his incestuous relationship with one of his daughters (the name Ammon means "my father"). They occupied the territory north of the Arnon River and east of the Dead Sea.

Now they were back. The city which they were now attacking was Jabesh-gilead. By strange coincidence, this is the same city which had been destroyed by the Israelites for not joining in the punitive attack against the tribe of Benjamin following the incident at Gibeah in which a Levite’s concubine was raped and then dismembered (Judges 19-21).

The city had since been rebuilt and re-inhabited. It is now being attacked, not by Israel, but by Ammon. And because of her past history, it seems doubtful that anyone will come to her aid. Except for a man from the tribe of Benjamin - Saul’s tribe. And specifically, a man of Gibeah - Saul’s city.

Gilgal was located on the western bank of the Jordan River. It was here that Joshua and the Israelites first camped after crossing the Jordan River. They had built a monument here of 12 memorial stones. And it was here that the Israelites had renewed the covenant, circumcising all of the men in the camp.

This was a place of...

Gilgal will be the scene both of Saul’s coronation, his rebuke and his ultimate rejection as king.

Saul is the story of a great beginning. But the spiritual life is not limited to beginnings. It is not a sprint. It is, instead, a marathon. Saul had made an excellent beginning. This young man who had come on the scene looking for lost donkeys had instead found himself as the redeemer of Israel and her first king. The tragedy of his story is told in chapters 13-15.

Shunem is located in the Valley of Jezreel at the southern foot of Mount Moreh, nine miles east-northeast of Megiddo. Mount Gilboa is 10 miles to the south on the southeastern edge of the Valley of Jezreel.

Instead of coming up the narrow mountain passes as they had in the past, the Philistines now moved across the wide open plains of Jezreel. Here they could maneuver their chariot corps to full effect. If this military operation was successful, it would result in splitting the land in two.

Saul had every reason to fear. The Philistines were big and they had the best in military weaponry and there were a lot of them.

The Hebrew word for Medium is ‘Ob. This is a Hittite loan-word. It originally was used to describe a pit and spoke of the place of departed spirits. It came to be used both of the spirits of the dead as well as of those who were supposedly able to contact those spirits.

The Mosaic Law strictly forbade God’s people from consulting mediums. The penalty for such actions was death.

In accordance with God’s law, Saul had ordered that mediums and spiritists be driven from the land. And yet, he now seeks to consult with one. He is directed by his servants to the town of En-dor, located on the northern slope of Little Hermon.

To arrive at Endor from Mount Gilboa would have involved a long 8-mile detour around the Philistine forces. Saul took this route under the cover of night, perhaps for several reasons.

The woman of Endor at first refuses to participate. It is not until Saul takes a solemn oath invoking the name of the Lord that she agrees to participate.

This is perhaps supported by the Septuagint which uses a term in this passage which is also used of ventriloquists.

The reason for the varied interpretations is because people do not care for the implications of what happened - that a seance was actually able to bring back Samuel from the dead. However, this need not be considered as normative. Just because Samuel actually appeared to the medium in this instance does not give credibility to all such mediums.

Indeed, if there is a lesson here, it is that God’s people ought to trust in the Lord rather than in other types of spiritual phenomenon. We ought not to delve into horoscopes or fortune telling or Ouija boards, for such activity is following in the footsteps of Saul.

Evidently, only the woman saw the form of Samuel, for Saul asked in verse 14, "What is his form?" and did not realize that it was Samuel until she had given a description of the prophet.

Notice what it was about the description which identified the visionary arrival as Samuel. It was the fact that he was an old man who was "wrapped with a robe" (28:14).

Saul remembered that robe. He could not help but remember how Samuel had predicted the loss of the kingdom and had turned to go and how he, Saul, had grabbed the robe of Samuel and had torn it. He had been told that in just such a manner the kingdom would be torn from his grasp.

While in the past the Lord had delivered Israel FROM the Philistine threat on more than one occasion, now Israel would be delivered by God INTO the hands of the Philistines (verse 19). The words of the prophecy are fulfilled in the battle of the following day.

Solomon kept the unity of his kingdom in a state of peace. He did this by entering into alliances with the surrounding kingdoms. These alliances were traditionally sealed by marriage. The problem is that the wives brought with them their foreign gods and it was not long before idolatry had entered the land. Because of this, the Lord sent a prophet with a message. The message was that ten of the twelve tribes would be taken from the descendants of Solomon and given to Jeroboam.

This action was reminiscent of the time that Saul had pleaded with Samuel and inadvertently ripped his cloak. Samuel had told him that in a similar way the kingdom would be ripped from his grasp and given to David. Now we see that the kingdom was to be ripped from the descendants of Solomon and given to another.

One of the more notable kings of Israel was Omri (885-874 B.C.) who seems to have had both the military expertise as well as the support of the army it taking the throne from the preceding dynasty.

Samaria was to become the new capital city of Israel. It was located on a large oval hilltop, 300 feet above the surrounding plain. From the top of the hill the Mediterranean Sea is visible to the west. It lay 6½ miles northwest of Shechem and along the major north-south highway.

The summit of the hill was leveled and enclosed with a double wall with towers and bastions. In later years, the city would spread downward from the summit. The city held large cisterns of water since there was no natural spring of water on the site.

The Assyrians had always been a threat to the region and they laid siege to the capital city of Samaria and, after a siege of three years, took it in 721 B.C. The city was burned to the ground and the surviving population was deported.

The area that had once been the Northern Kingdom of Israel was eventually resettled with refugees from other Assyrian conquests. These refugees intermarried with the few remaining Hebrew survivors. The resulting half-breeds became known as Samaritans.

The author of the book of Kings summarizes the reason for the fall of the Northern Kingdom.

Israel had turned away from God. This seems surprising when we consider that she had seen great miracles. Time and time again, the Lord had miraculously intervened in history to save His people from destruction. If any nation on earth could testify to the power of God, it was Israel.

Nor was she without warnings. Prophets continually warned of the coming judgment if Israel did not turn from her evil ways.

But all to no avail.

The people of Israel had hardened their hearts to the teachings of God. Warnings which might have pierced their hearts now bounced off their callused souls.

This is a warning to believers today. We must never allow the teachings of the Bible to pass through our minds without allowing them to change our lives. Otherwise, if we permit these teachings to hit against our hearts but not to change our lives, we develop spiritual calluses.

This time, Hezekiah turned to the Lord for help and was promised deliverance. In a single night, the Assyrian army was overthrown.

The palace of Sennacherib was discovered in 1847 by the English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard at Kuyunjik. A total of 71 rooms were uncovered. Many of the walls were lined with sculptured slabs. One of Sennacherib’s campaigns is described on the Taylor Prism, a clay octagonal cylinder which today resides in the British Museum (an even better copy is on a prism at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago). It contains the following:

It is interesting to note Sennacherib’s description of this campaign. He brags about how he had besieged the city of Jerusalem, closing up Hezekiah as a bird in a cage, but makes no mention of the outcome of the battle.

When Pharaoh Echo, the king of Egypt, began to march through Palestine toward Carchemish, Josiah tried to intercept him at Megiddo.

In spite of the warning of Necho that he had been sent by God, Josiah met him in battle in the Valley of Megiddo. In the heat of the battle, Josiah was shot by a stray arrow and he ultimately died from his injury.