Read Time: 9 minutes1 Samuel 13
The unravelling of Saul begins here, and it begins at the altar. Pressed by a Philistine host “as the sand which is on the sea shore for multitude,” with his own men trembling and slipping away into caves and pits, Saul waits seven days for Samuel as commanded — and when Samuel does not come at the moment Saul thinks fit, he forces the matter: “I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.” The king takes the priest’s office into his own hands. It is the first great failure of the man chosen by the eye: under pressure he will not wait, and he reaches for the sacrifice that was not his to make. The seven days are no accident — seven is the covenant-number, and Saul breaks faith on the very day the covenant testing comes to its full term. Natural Israel’s king cannot hold steady through the testing seven days; he must act, must be seen to act, must manage the crisis himself. In this Saul is natural Israel in one man — chosen by sight, impressive, and unable to keep covenant when the testing comes.
The contrast with the true King is exact, and it is the whole point of the scene. Where Saul forced himself and seized the offering, the King after God’s own heart — and beyond him the One that King foreshadows — is the obedient one who waits, who will not grasp, who keeps the appointed order even when the host gathers like sand and the people scatter. Saul’s sin is not gross immorality; it is presumption, doing the religious thing in the wrong spirit and out of his own impatience. “To obey is better than sacrifice” will be said outright two chapters on; here it is shown.
Samuel’s verdict is swift and final in principle: “Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of Yahweh thy God now thy kingdom shall not continue. Yahweh hath sought him a man after his own heart.” The kingdom is forfeit at the first real test. And the reason given names the whole difference between the two kings: Saul kept his own counsel; the coming man is sought after Yahweh’s own heart. The king who embodies natural Israel is set aside almost before he has begun, because the throne of Israel was never meant for a man who would seize the holy things — it was always reaching toward the One who would keep them perfectly.
The chapter ends on a picture of a disarmed and helpless people, and the detail is pointed. “There was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel” — the Philistines had seen to it, so that Israel had to go down to their enemies even to sharpen a plough or an axe, and on the day of battle only Saul and Jonathan had sword or spear at all. Israel under its chosen king is a people without weapons, dependent on its oppressors for the very edge of its tools. The king like the nations has not delivered them; he has left them defenseless, which is what natural Israel’s own strength always does for those who trust it.
Natural Israel’s king forces himself and seizes the offering he was never given; to obey is better than sacrifice. Wait for the appointed order, and do not grasp the holy thing out of your own impatience — the kingdom is kept by the man after Yahweh’s own heart.
Isaiah 56–57
These chapters open the last movement of Isaiah, and they open by throwing the gates wider than Israel ever imagined. “Blessed is the man… that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it.” And then the two figures the old order shut out are explicitly drawn in: the son of the stranger and the eunuch. The foreigner who has joined himself to Yahweh is not to say “Yahweh hath utterly separated me,” and the eunuch — barred by the law from the congregation, and childless, cut off from the future — is given something better than sons and daughters: “unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters… an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.” The one who can leave no seed is given an everlasting name; the outsider is brought inside. The house of Yahweh is to be “an house of prayer for all people” — the verse the Lord Jesus took on his lips when he cleansed the temple, claiming the Gentile-gathering purpose against those who had made it a den of thieves.
But the welcome to the humble stands against a sharp word to the faithless shepherds. “His watchmen are blind… they are greedy dogs which can never have enough… they all look to their own way, every one for his gain.” The leaders who should have kept the flock are blind, silent, drunken, self-serving — the same failure as Eli’s sons and Saul’s self-will, the shepherds who feed themselves. And against their false security the chapter sets the death of the righteous, unnoticed by a careless generation: “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart… none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.” The righteous one dies and the world does not notice, but the dying is mercy — he shall enter into peace, he rests in his bed, taken away from the evil that is coming. The saints who sleep are gathered from the evil, kept until the waking.
Chapter 57 then exposes the idolatry of the unfaithful in the plainest terms — inflaming themselves with idols under every green tree, sending their messengers far off, debasing themselves even unto the grave — the spiritual whoredom that is the inward reality of Israel’s apostasy. Yet the chapter does not end in condemnation. It turns, as Isaiah always turns, to the One who is “high and lofty, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy,” and who nonetheless dwells “with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” The High and Holy One makes his home not only in the high and holy place but in the broken heart. He will not contend for ever, lest the spirit fail before him; he heals the one he has smitten.
And the chapters end with the line that has run through all of Isaiah’s second half: “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith Yahweh; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest… There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” The same word that closed chapters 48 and 51 closes here — peace to the contrite far and near, no peace to the wicked. The gates are open to the stranger and the eunuch and the broken; they are shut against the proud who will not be still.
The eunuch is given a name better than sons; the stranger is brought into the house of prayer for all people. The High and Holy One dwells with the contrite — peace to him that is far off and him that is near, but the wicked are a sea that cannot rest.
Revelation 21–22
The whole canon comes home in these two chapters. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” The troubled sea of the wicked, the sea out of which the beast rose, the sea that divided — gone. And the New Jerusalem comes down from God out of heaven, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and the great voice declares the thing the whole of Scripture has been straining toward: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them… and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” This is God-manifestation completed — the Deity dwelling with men, the Edenic breach healed, death itself abolished. “Behold, I make all things new.”
The bride-city is measured and described as a perfect cube of gold and jewels — “the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal” — the holy of holies made the dwelling of the whole redeemed community, for the most holy place in the tabernacle was itself a cube. Her measures are all built on twelve: twelve thousand furlongs each way, and a wall of “an hundred and forty and four cubits” — twelve squared, the same redeemed-number as the 144,000, never a literal count but the symbol of the complete Israel of God, the twelve tribes multiplied by the twelve apostles, all the redeemed of both covenants gathered into one. Her twelve gates bear the names of the twelve tribes, her twelve foundations the names of the twelve apostles: all Israel and all the ecclesia built into one city. And there is no temple in it, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” No created sun or moon either, “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” — the political and religious heavens of the old order are not merely confounded now but gone, replaced by the unmediated light of the Deity. The nations walk in that light and the kings bring their glory into it.
Chapter 22 returns to Eden and finds it restored and surpassed. “A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and the tree of life on either side, “and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The river and the tree that were shut behind the flaming sword in Genesis 3 are open again, the curse reversed: “there shall be no more curse.” The servants see his face, his name is in their foreheads — the seal that stood against the mark of the beast now the abiding mark of the redeemed — and “they shall reign for ever and ever.” The acorn of Genesis has become the oak; every seed planted in the garden returns mature in the city.
The book — and the canon — closes with the bride’s longing and the promise that answers it. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come… take the water of life freely.” It is the same free invitation as Isaiah 55, come, buy without money, set now at the very end. And three times the King says, “Behold, I come quickly,” and the answer of the bride is the last prayer of Scripture: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” The whole long story of the barren made fruitful, the exile brought home, the marred Servant who saw his seed, the harlot fallen and the bride adorned — all of it ends here, with the bride awake and thirsting and the Bridegroom on the way.
The tabernacle of God is with men; the curse is reversed, the tree of life open, death abolished. The Spirit and the bride say Come — take the water of life freely — and the King answers, Behold, I come quickly.
Synthesis and Exhortation
Today the readings end two great roads at once — Isaiah and Revelation both close — and they end them in the same place: the dwelling of God with the humble and the gathering of the outsiders home. Isaiah throws open the house of prayer to the stranger and the eunuch and gives the High and Holy One a second home in the contrite heart; Revelation brings the tabernacle of God down to men, wipes away every tear, and reverses the curse of Eden. The whole movement from a closed womb and a forsaken city to a married bride and an open river of life lands here. What began in a garden lost ends in a city gained, and the God who seemed far off through all the prophets is at last with men.
Against this glory stands the small, sad figure of Saul, and the contrast is the day’s sharpest exhortation. Saul forces himself, seizes the offering, will not wait the appointed seven days — and the kingdom is taken from him and given to a man after Yahweh’s own heart. The king who is natural Israel embodied — grasping the holy thing in his own impatience — is the very opposite of the contrite spirit with whom the High and Holy One dwells, and the opposite of the bride who waits and thirsts and says Come. Natural Israel’s king cannot keep the commandment; the people under him are left without even a sword. The lesson runs straight to the heart: the kingdom is not seized by the strong hand but kept by the waiting, humble, obedient one — and is finally inherited by those whose names are written in the bride-city’s foundations.
The hope is held, as ever, future and certain and free. Isaiah’s righteous one enters into peace and rests in his bed, taken from the evil to come — he sleeps, kept, until the waking. Revelation’s promise is I come quickly, still ahead, still longed for; the bride is adorned but the marriage-supper and the descending city are not yet. The eunuch’s everlasting name, the stranger’s place in the house, the servants reigning for ever and ever — all of it is sworn and sure and not yet possessed. The saint stands where the gates are open and the invitation is sounding, thirsting for the water of life, waiting for the King who says he comes quickly.
So the exhortation gathers the close of two prophets into one charge: do not be Saul, grasping the holy thing in your own strength and forfeiting the kingdom; be the contrite spirit and the thirsting bride. Wait the appointed days; obey rather than sacrifice; keep the heart humble, for that is where the High and Holy One has chosen to dwell. Come in from the outside if you are the stranger; receive the everlasting name if you are the one who can leave no seed. Drink the water of life freely, for it is offered without money to all who are athirst. The curse will be reversed, the tree of life opened, the tabernacle of God set among men — and the last word is the bride’s: Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Be not Saul who forced himself, but the contrite heart where the High and Holy One dwells. The gates are open, the river flows free, the curse is reversed — drink, wait, and say with the bride, Come, Lord Jesus.