1 Samuel 11:15

And all the people went to Gilgal,.... Agreed to the motion, and marched along with Saul and Samuel thither: and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal; that is, they declared him to be

And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the LORD; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

They made Saul king, i.e. they recognized him, or owned and accepted him for their king by consent; for, to speak properly, Saul was not made or constituted king by the people, but by the Lord’ s immediate act: see 10:1. Before the Lord; who was there present in a special manner; both because the people of the Lord were there assembled, and because there was an altar, as the following sacrifices show. The same phrase is used 14:18. They sacrificed sacrifices of peace-offerings; partly to praise God for so glorious a victory, and for the firm settlement of the distracted kingdom; and partly to implore the presence and assistance of God to the king and kingdom, in all their affairs and exigencies.

1 Samuel 11:15 And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the LORD; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.Ver. 15. And there they made Saul king.] Serrarius saith these were the ceremonies used at such a time: (1.) They set the king in his throne; (2.) They crowned him; (3.) They anoined him; (4.) They put the book of the law into his hand: They took an oath of him to observe it; (6.) They offered sacrifices of all sorts; (7.) They showed various signs and testimonies of public joy.

(15) And there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal.—We must not understand with the LXX. Version that Saul was anointed afresh at Gilgal. The Greek Version reads, “and Samuel anointed Saul king there.” The Gilgal convention was nothing more than a solemn national confirmation of the popular election at Mizpeh. The words “before the Lord,” imply the presence of the Ark, or of the high priest with the mystic Urim and Thummim. Bishop Wordsworth understands the words “they made Saul king” to signify that after this “the people would not allow him any longer to lead a private life, but they made him to assume the royal state and authority to which he had been appointed by God.”

Verse 15. There they made Saul king] It is likely, from these words, that Saul was anointed a second time; he was now publicly acknowledged, and there was no gainsayer. Thus far Saul acted well, and the kingdom seemed to be confirmed in his hand; but soon through imprudence he lost it. ON the custom referred to in 1 Samuel 11:7 I am favoured with the following observations by a learned correspondent: - "It is considered that the authenticity of records respecting a peculiar people cannot be better illustrated, or the fidelity of the historian more clearly ascertained, than by proving that the manners and customs recorded are in unison with, or bear a resemblance to, the manners and customs of other nations of the same antiquity; or, what may be more correct, in a similar state of improvement; and the records of such rites and customs may possibly acquire an additional mark of authenticity, when the similarity is not so exact as to admit a presumption that the customs of one nation were merely copied from the other. "Sir Walter Scott, in the third canto of the Lady of the Lake, describes the rites, incantations, and imprecations, used prior to the fiery cross being circulated, to summon the rough warriors of ancient times to the service of their chief; and in the first note of this canto he alludes to this ancient custom which, in comparatively modern times, has been used in Scotland, and proves that a similar punishment of death or destruction of the houses for disobeying the summons was inflicted by the ancient Scandinavians, as recorded by Olaus Magnus, in his history of the Goths. A custom still more in point than the one cited may be found to have existed in a more ancient nation, whose history is supposed the most, if not the only authentic narrative of deeds of ancient times, and which also records the sanguinary manners of uncultivated nations; see the preceding chapter, first eight verses. 1 Samuel 10:1-8 The similarity of the custom is to be found in the seventh verse; with the Highlanders a goat was slain; with the Israelites, an ox. The exhibition of a cross stained with the blood of the sacrificed animal was the summons of the former, while part of the animal was the mandate of the latter. Disobedience in the one nation was punished with the death of the parties, and burning of their dwellings; in the other, the punishment was more simple, and more allusive to the sacrificed emblem, the forfeiture or destruction of their oxen. It is not difficult to judge whether the comparison be correct.

15. there they made Saul king] The choice of Saul as king, privately made by God through Samuel, and publicly confirmed by the election at Mizpah, had received an unmistakable ratification in his victory over Nahash. His detractors were silenced, and the unanimous consent of the people accepted him. The assembly now held after the general levy for the war was probably larger and more representative of the whole nation than the previous one at Mizpah. The Sept. has, “and Samuel anointed Saul there to be king,” which may possibly be the original reading. A public anointing would be natural, for that recorded in ch. 1 Samuel 10:1 was strictly private, and the use of the title “the Lord’s anointed” in ch. 1 Samuel 12:3 gains point if the ceremony had just been performed. That it might be repeated we know from the case of David, who was thrice anointed. sacrifices of peace-offerings] Thank-offerings to Jehovah for the deliverance he had wrought, and for the establishment of the kingdom.

Made Saul king - The Septuagint has another reading, “and Samuel anointed Saul king there.” The example of David, who, besides his original anointing by Samuel 1 Samuel 16:12-13, was twice anointed,

15. There they made Saul king before the Lord — Whether Samuel anointed him again on this occasion we are not told, but it is certain that by some formal ceremony he was set apart and recognised as king.